From jlsperanza at aol.com Fri Jan 1 19:11:47 2010 From: jlsperanza at aol.com (jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Fri, 1 Jan 2010 19:11:47 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Incompatibilities of Colour (Was: Synthetic Necessary Truth Message-ID: <58fb.70db58c3.386fe943@aol.com> In a message dated 1/1/2010 12:29:51 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, Baynesr at comcast.net writes: PRELIMINARY REMARKS ON THE ?TWO COLOR PROBLEM? A. One problem with Putnam's approach is that because in order to "prove" his case that the nothing can be red and blue all over he introduces the right postulates to get what he wants. And since he CAN ----- Thanks for this, Steve. For the record, on revising the recently deceased D. F. Pears, I see -- and I add this as an addendum to my previous note re Grice's consideration in asking children: 'can a sweater be green and red all over? No stripes allowed' (reported in S. Chapman, _Grice_) -- the Pears quote being Pears, D. F, "Incompatibilities of Colour"in Flew, (tutee of Grice, as it happens), ed. Language and Logic. And this is vintage 1953, Oddly, the anon. obituarist for Pears in The Times uses the example as a typical philosophese: "[Pears's] first papers were on philosophic conundrums, such as the Incongruity of Counterparts -- why exactly a left-hand glove will not fit a right hand; why are right and left but not top and bottom reversed in a mirror; and the like -- Colour Incompatibility -- what is the nature of the impossibility for a thing to be red and green all over -- and the like. ---- Some googling retrieves hits by Radford on "Incompatibilites of Colours" and Sanford's comment on Radford, "Green, Red, and Absolute Determinacy", and Hilton, Red and green all over again, in Analysis. The Pears festschrift notes that Pears's "Incompatibilites of Colours" in Flew was an expanded version of his previous Mind article, "Synthetic Necessary Truth" (1950). Cheers, J. L. Speranza From jlsperanza at aol.com Sat Jan 2 09:58:39 2010 From: jlsperanza at aol.com (jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Sat, 02 Jan 2010 09:58:39 -0500 Subject: [hist-analytic] =?utf-8?q?I_Shall=2C_But_I_Won=C2=B4t?= In-Reply-To: <8CC59D2F0AED57E-3F1C-2E70F@webmail-m086.sysops.aol.com> References: <8CC59D2F0AED57E-3F1C-2E70F@webmail-m086.sysops.aol.com> Message-ID: <8CC59D3341136D6-3F1C-2E75C@webmail-m086.sysops.aol.com> I was marvelled to learn that Bayne included in his fascinating papers found online in his fascinating site a publication by B. Aune, a rev. version of his essay in _Theory and Decision_, vol. 20 -- where he refers amongst many other interesting things to what I call, I have to call it somehow, the Pears quadruple: I shall but I won?t I will but I shan?t I shan?t but I will I won?t but I shall etc. -- Call it a duplex if you think the latter two and the former two are identical in truth-conditions, as I think they are. Aune refers to ?stilted? English. I don?t use ?stilted?. I mean I do use stiled English, all the time -- call it ?my mother?s influence? -- and my nanny?s, who was always reprimanding me unless I ?went?, ?Shall I?" (or on occasions, ?Shall we dance?? or shorter, ?Shall we?". Aune prefers "I will" as an expression of intention in his standard formulation, which is very fine, for as Grice says, "If you can?t put it in symbols, it?s not worth saying" (obit of Strawson, The Times). Oh, I forgot to say I like stilted cheese, if that helps. Anyway, Aune refers to Follett. Follett wrote on "American English" to which Aune refers for the shall/will distinction, as discussed by Grice, Intention and Uncertainty ("not all English speakers are as careful as they should be; I know I?m not", or words to that perlocutionary effect), the wiki entry for ?future tense? and Pears, I hope, in Predicting and Deciding. This is a rushed note, since I have to take care of the Swimming Pool Library, but will come back to this. I recommend all listers to have a good look at Aune?s fascinating paper then. Till then, Cheers, J. L. Speranza for the Grice Club, etc. From Baynesr at comcast.net Fri Jan 1 12:14:58 2010 From: Baynesr at comcast.net (Baynesr at comcast.net) Date: Fri, 1 Jan 2010 17:14:58 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [hist-analytic] The Two Color Problem:Putnam/Aune Message-ID: <1224685124.6561731262366098889.JavaMail.root@sz0010a.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net> ? ? PRELIMINARY REMARKS ON THE ?TWO COLOR PROBLEM? A. One problem with Putnam's approach is that because in order to "prove" his case that the nothing can be red and blue all over he introduces the right postulates to get what he wants. And since he CAN get those postulates, he argues that it follows that we can regard the proposition just as analytic as 'All ba chelors are unmarried." ? One aspect of this is that he must use postulates to get one of the RST properties of the equivalence relation, transitivity, and he uses something like exact resemblance to get the other properties, viz. reflexivity and symmetry. So the postulate has to be stuck in there and then the other superadded and voila (!) he gets the relation "right." Just consider how a relation can under one set of circumstances be transitive but under another not. Take the relation 'has exactly the same hammer as'. Ok, now since it is possible that even though x has the same hammer as y and y has the same hammer as z, nevertheless x does not have the same hammer as z. In other words x and z may have different hammers. The relation, then, is not transitive. But now suppose that there is only one hammer; then if x has the same hammer as y and y as z then x has the same hammer as z, so the relation IS transitive. The relation 'has the same hammer as' is nontransitive. But nontransitivity will not afford Putnam what he wants, an equivalence relation. ? B. Suppose a thing were allowed to be both red and blue all over. Would it be blue? Partly blue? Partly blue all over? Clearly, we are faced with more than logical or ontological problems, problems I don?t think can be met by stipulating a meaning postulate or ?constructing a system of postulates with an objective in mind of ruling out some things and other things in. ? C. Putnam has simply made up a ?word? meaning ?exactly the same Color as? then endowed it by fiat with a meaning ?that rules out the offending synthetic a priori. ? D. I do not discover that this is the same color as that the way I discover that Hesperus is Phosphorus. There is much here I cannot digress to examine. If I know both colors I know they are not the same; but this is not the case with Hesperus and Phosphorus. ? E. An object can?t have two surfaces; what does this have to do with being two colors ?all over.? The argument against synthetic a priori with respect to colors may depend on admitting it in the case of surfaces. ? F. I will address Bruce?s argument; the one he sent to the ?list separately. I don?t think it does the job, but it does deserve careful attention. More soon. ? G. Sometimes it seems to me that Bruce thinks you can solve certain problems, the ones under discussion having ?to do with defining, etc. ?determinate colors? by simply going to the paint store and asking to view a color wheel. This sounds cynical, but it sure looks that way to me. I invite Bruce to reflect on a couple of quotes from Wittgenstein which I would introduce in opposition to his view as I see it. ? ?Let us imagine that someone were to paint something from nature and in its natural colors. Every bit of the surface of such a painting has a different color. What color? How do I determine its name? Should we, e.g. use the name under which ?the pigment applied to it is sold? But mightn?t such a pigment look completely different in its special surrounding than on the palette? (Remarks on Colour, para 68) ? ?People might have the concept of intermediate colours or mixed colours even if they never produced colours by mixing (in whatever sense). Their language-games might only have to do with looking for or selecting already existing intermediary or blended colours.? (op. cit. para 8). ? ?If I say a piece of paper is white and then place snow next to ?it and it then appears grey, in normal surroundings and for ordinary purposes I would call it white and not light grey. I could be that I?d use a different and, in a certain sense, more refined concept of white in, say, the laboratory, (where I sometimes also use a more refined concept of ?precise? determination of time.? ( op. cit. para 160) ? ?Couldn?t there be people who understand our way of speaking when we say that orange is reddish-yellow and who were inclined ?to say this in cases in which orange occurs in an actual transition from red to yellow? And for such people there might very well be a reddish green. ? Therefore, they couldn?t ?analyse blends of colours? nor could they learn our use of X-ish.? (op. cit. para 129). ? These quotes are pertinent to my disagreement with Bruce. I hope to elaborate, but for now I just want to post this stuff in such a way that will get the ba ll rolling again. ? THE SIGNFICANCE OF THE ?TWO COLOR PROBLEM? ? By the ?two color problem? I mean the problem of determining the status of the proposition: ?No two things can be the same color all over at the same time.? If we take the proposition synthetic, then we will either regard it as contingent or synthetic ?a priori. Why shouldn?t we regard it as synthetic a posteriori? What is the argument that it is not. Now it would appear that this ?is an issue for neither Aune nor Putnam, since both are prepared ?to regard the above proposition as in some sense a priori. We ?won?t discuss what sense, but we should take note that Putnam will speak of propositions which ?feel? analytic. (p. 74). I think there ?is something to this, but if there is we have to contend with a number of issues not discussed. ? One such issue is whether such ?feelings? make a difference; perhaps not, but when we reflect on the above proposition it is ?difficult to maintain that if there are such feelings, then while ?A ? ba chelor is an unmarried man? may ?feel? analytic, it sure doesn?t ?sound as if ?Nothing can be red and green all over at the same ?time? ?feels? analytic in the same way. This is not a trivial point, ?especially given the emphasis some philosophers have placed ?on the idea of ?epistemic counterparts? in dealing with the ?feeling ? or ?appearance? of contingency with respect to propositions ?that seem to be necessary, such as ?Phosphorous is Hesperus?. ?Without such ?feelings? philosophy pro ba bly doesn?t come ?into play; the rest may just be word games about common ?sense discourse, games that resolve no puzzles, in particular puzzles that such ?feelings? engender. So I think this is important. ? THE TWO COLOR PROBLEM AS ILLUSTRATING METHODS OF ANALYSIS ? A number of philosophers have said that the problem of the synthetic a priori may not be very important. Sometimes these philosophers, then, go about the task of discussing the matter at great length. Is there a justification for this? Yes, ?I think so. The ?two color problem? brings this issue into play and how we deal with it tells a lot about our methods of analysis. There are at least four approaches to the two color problem. ? 1. The method of formal language where constructing the ?language is ba sed on an intuitive or scientific understanding of some pre-existing nature of the subject under examination. ? 2. The method of formal language where constructing the ?language is ba sed on pure construction; that is, where the ?world is not understood as preexisting the construction but, ?rather, is itself a notion to be constructed. ? 3. The informal method dispensing with formal language all together. ? 4. A mixed approach involving (1) and (3) or (2) and (3). ? There are other approaches but for the problem at hand these will suffice. ? Putnam adopts the first approach; it would appear that Aune subscribes to (4). Nelson Goodman is, perhaps, the best example of an advocate of (2). Of Goodman?s approach, Putnam once said this: ? ?This brings me to perhaps my most important remark about Goodman?s philosophical methods and attitudes?by rejecting ?the most fashionable problems of philosophy, he is totally free ?of the ?now philosophy is over? mood that haunts much of twentieth century philosophy. If there isn?t a ready made world, then let?s construct worlds, says Goodman. If there aren?t ?objective standards, then let?s construct standards! Nothing ?i s ready made, but everything is to be made.? (Forward to ?_Fact, Fiction and Forecast_. Harvard, 1983, p. xv) ? Of particular interest is Putnam?s remark about the ?now philosophy is over mood.? He doesn?t tell us what he means ?but there is room for speculation. ? EPISTEMOLOGY vs. ONTOLOGY ? One thing that makes the ?two color problem? important as well as interesting is not only that different methodologies are tested, but there has been a contest going on for some ?time between epistemology and ontology, one that is clarified by attention to this issue. On the view I take, the ?now philosophy is over? crowd to be mainly epistemologists who eschew metaphysics as it is both traditionally conceived as revealing the nature of the world, and as identifiable with ontology. I now offer a partisan comment on this conflict. ? During the 1920s the idea was still around that metaphysics ?could provide some understanding of the logical structure ?of the world and experience. The ascent of Tarskian semantics let to the overthrow of this point of view, at least in large measure. Epistemology felt the effect. No longer did epistemology trade in sense data; and no longer was the unity of consciousness, the nature of mental acts and questions related to the idealist tradition more generally the focus of ?concern. Instead, there was a move towards ?meta-epistemology?; ?defining ?knowledge?; induction, pro ba bility theory, confirmation theory, etc. These issues unrelated to traditional metaphysics supplanted the old regime. Philosophy was seen more in terms of mathematical considerations on pro ba bility, Bayesian analysis, and such notions as ?reliable belief producing mechanism began to make it appear that science and mathematics not metaphysics was central. What had begun with the logical positivists as a critic of metaphysics became a critic of ?philosophy? as traditionally understood. Epistemology was no longer, in other words, the ?ontology of the knowing situation? as it had been for people ?like Broad and the early Russell, to take two prominent examples. ? Some of this was good, but not all. It is now made to appear, at least for some of us in the metaphysics camp ?that if you want to know whether there are physical objects, ?then ?open your eyes stupid? is to be a significant part of ?the new ?epistemology.? And if you want to know what a ?color is, just go to the paint store and they will be happy to show you a color chart; if you want to know the structure ?of the world ask a physicist; as for essences, you can refute ?them too; just find a three legged lion and you are all set! If ?there is anything left we?ll just sweep in under the rug of ?common sense.? Philosophy, then, has gone ?casual,? ?a occupation free from labor, a form of relaxation for the well to do with an inordinate sense of their own self importance. Now this is, admittedly, a very bias characterization. ? I bring it up because the ?two color problem? on the ?view I take is a metaphysical problem possessing many dimensions, each one a sort of handle one might take hold of in order in searching for the best grip. One reason ?this is a metaphysical issue is the nature of color is very ?much at issue, if I?m right. Putnam sees this, but it doesn?t appear to be very important to Aune; let me briefly elaborate one concern. ? COLORS, OBJECTS AND IDENTITY ? A great deal of the ?two color problem? depends on ? what we take colors to be, ontologically. If we take colors to be particulars we will get one solution (and it will be quick); if we take colors as objects, like physical objects, then the nature of identity statements is something ?different from what it would be were we to regard colors as universals or mental entities. Let me supply a contrast that may be sufficiently illuminating to obviate any need for protracted discussion. Let us consider the identity ? Hesperus = Phosphorus ? How many times have we been told this was a significant discovery? Quite a few. We are told that it was significant ?at least in part because it was truly informative. Why was it truly informative? Well, in the morning people would see one star and as the sun rose it disappeared and later they ?saw another star. Later it was discovered that these two stars are identical. What happened was that two terms were *discovered* to be co-referential. This is what made the ?identity ?significant.? But not all contingent identities are ?similarly significant, color providing a case in point. ?Suppose that instead of pointing to a star in the morning and ?one in the evening and later finding out that they are the same I point to a color in one room; then I go into the other room and point to a color and say that ? This color is exactly the same color as that ? Now what I would argue is that there is a sense in which this is no discovery at all. As long as I am talking about the color(s) and not the object which have the color(s) then one plausible ?view is that the identity is contingent and a posteriori. ?Alternatively, if we take this as a true identity it must be ?a necessary truth. The first option is, itself, ambiguous. ?If colors are tropes then if the identity holds it is necessary; ?if colors are universals, then we are faced with problems of individuation of properties etc. Now we have three options ?and if we add Putnam?s relevant sentence ? ?x is exactly the same color as y? ? where ?x? and ?y? refer to objects, then we have ?four possibilities where much depends on how ??exactly the same? and ?being identical? are related. ?If you are unconvinced of this sort of variation among identity sentences, that is whether there are different conditions for identity depending on the objects asserted to be identical, consider another problem, one which I think can be related to the ?two color problem.? ? Suppose someone claims the following to be the case. ? No object can have two surfaces at the same time. ? Is this true? I think it is. Is it analytic? I don?t think so but, to use Putnam?s expression, it ?feels? more analytic than ? No object can be red and green all over. ? Is there any justification for this intuition? Two objects may have the same color (unless they are tropes) but they cannot have the same surface. It seems to be the case that the very concept of a physical object precludes having more than one ?surface, whereas it does not seem to me to be the case that ?it is part of the very concept of a physical object that it can have both the color of that thing over there and this thing ?here at the same time all over, which is a Putnamian way ?of saying that nothing can have the same color all over at the same time. If an object can have two surfaces at the same time, then it is not absurd to suppose that an object can have two surfaces each with a different color. So, maybe, nothing?s being the same color all over at the same time depends on no object having more than one surface at the same time. But now what of ? No surface can have two shapes at the same time? ? Now it would almost seem that this is false for reasons we may touch on later; but for now the point is simply this: how we solve the two color problem, or address it, will tell us something about our ontology; if the claim that no object ?can be red and green all over is analytic, like ?all ba chelors ?are unmarried? then there is nothing informative in the assertion beyond the way we use our words. Both Aune and Putnam hold this to be an analytic and so just as trivial as ? Hesperus is Hesperus. ? I think this is a reduction of their position, precisely because I think it is informative in a way that such sentences as these are not. ? Now I don?t think Putnam shares Goodman?s form of ?constructivism.? Putnam is ?modeling? the world, so to speak in the medium of formal ?l anguage; Goodman is creating worlds. If he admits to understanding what Putnam is saying, then he?ll pro ba bly have some view on the subject as to the sense in which he does or does not align himself ?with this trend. The point of bringing this up is that it raises the important question of whether the two color problem has a solution; that ?is, whether it is a problem or a mere figment of a problem; what ?Schlick first called a ?pseudo-problem.? (1920). ? Putnam maintains that to such questions that lead to such problems ?there is never a final answer.? (Sumner and Woods p. 77) One can see the reasoning here in Goodman?s case. We create worlds; there is no ?final world? so there can never be a final answer to any ?questions that go beyond any one constructed world. For Putnam, ?the case is less clear. However, here is what I think Putnam is suggesting: while there are no final answers, some answers are ?better than others; that is, we may construct any one of a number of answers, but no answer is ?right.? What he may mean is that there is a cost associated with any one of a number of answers and we have to decide what price to pay. Since philosophers vary on what is valuable etc. the price to pay varies; there being no ?natural? price; we are in the realm of ?exchange value? so to speak. So we have it that there may be a number of answers but no right answer. What is Aune?s view on this? ? Aune will sometimes rely on informal methods as central to solving a problem. Other times he seems to rely on formal ?methods, such as introducing ?meaning postulates,? something we will discuss shortly. Given this ?mixed? approach ? that is, ?mixed? in a way that Putnam?s is not ? with respect at least to the problem under investigation ?there is not deciding whether for Aune there are in fact solutions to ANY philosophical problems. Clearly, he wouldn?t ?propose them if he didn?t believe they were indeed solutions, but this does not exclude the possibility of other, equally good, solutions. It would be interesting to know his feelings on this matter. ? ? We have been talking about the a priori in the context of Bruce?s formulation of an empiricist theory of knowledge. I think it is important to see where we may disagree on the ?importance of what I?ve been calling the ?two color problem? ?in arriving at some conclusion as to the viability of empiricism. ?Some such views are more radical than others. ? Although we have been discussion judgments and ?whether or not Kant has been refuted it is important t o ?keep in mind that for Kant there is more to the issue ?than judgments. For Kant not only are some judgments ?a priori some concepts are a priori as well. The empiricist, traditionally, has held that there are no a priori concepts, but ?there may be a priori judgments. This is possible as long as the judgments that are a priori are analytic. The reason ?for this is that the empiricist wants to rule out knowledge of ?necessary connection between worldly objects. He can have an a priori but only if it is analytic, that is, as long as its ?truth (the judgment, that is) does not describe the world. ? In the case of the judgment that no thing can be two ?colors all over at the same time, we have an interesting case. It is interesting because it seems to say something ?about the world and yet it appears necessary. This is ?just the sort of thing that will cause most empiricists to ?recoil. So the empiricist must analyze the nature of ?color etc. in such a way the judgment becomes analytic. ?Putnam points out just as we might analyze ?All ba chelors are unmarried? in such a way as to make it analytic, similarly ?we want to analyze ?No object can be two colors at the same time all over? in such a way that it, too, comes out analytic. It is not important whether two colors cannot be had by one object at the same time all over. What is important is the status of this judgment. The empiricist may argue that it is analytic that this is analytic ? or, alternatively, that is merely contingently true. Bruce and Putnam arrive at similar arguments, but there are crucial differences. Let?s begin with Putnam and ?then go to Aune. ? PUTNAM?S PROGRESS ? We begin with the idea that logical truths, such as ?Ba v ~Ba?, are analytic. But such truths are not the only ones considered to be analytic. Recall how it is, typically, shown that ?All ba chelors are unmarried? is analytic, although it is not a logical truth. What we do is show that it can be converted to a logical truth by way of definitions. We may consider what is required as definitions or as ?meaning postulates.? There is a difference but let?s give the illustration and go from there. We begin with: ? 1. All ba chelors are unmarried. ? We, then, introduce the meaning postulate or definition: ? 2. ? ba chelor? means ?unmarried man?.? ? From this the following logical truth is derived by substitution: ? 3. All unmarried men are unmarried. ? Now something very similar is afoot in attempting to ?argue that the sentence ?Nothing is red all over and green all over at the same time?. What we need to do i n order to show this analytic is to derive a logical truth ?from it along with definitions. In attempting to demonstrate ?the analyticity of ?Nothing is red all over and green all over ?at the same time?, Putnam will engage the task of showing ?that ?Nothing is the same color as A and the same color as ?B at the same time where A and B are not exactly the same ?color. Mimicking the approach to the analyticity of (1) he will ?introduce a couple of properties of the relation ?exactly the same color as?. One property is that it is a stronger relation than ?indistinguishable from? since it entails this relation without being entailed by it. Later he will provide a definition (Sumner and Woods p. 79) which depends on this weaker relation. The other property which goes into defining ?exactly the same color as? is transitivity. So the claim will be that that original sentence, ?Nothing can be red all over and green all over?, can be shown to be analytic by being shown to be a logical truth once these ?definitions are added to the language. ? ? There are three claims essential to Putnam?s paper that I want to focus our attention on. They are: ? ? ? 9) (x)(~Ex[A, B] -> . Ex[x, A] -> ~Ex[x, A} -> ~Ex[x, B]) ? 10) (x)(~Ex[x, B] & (x)(~Ex[x, B]) ? 11) ~Ex(A, B) ? Where ?(x)(~Ex[x, y]? reads ?x is exactly the same color as y.? In connection with this relation Putnam lays down the first two of a number of postulates he will, eventually, require to make his point. These are: ? 1. ??? It is an equivalence relation 2. ??? ?Ex? implies ?indistinguishable from?, not vice versa. (Summer and Woods p. 75) ? Logically, his point will be that from (9) the equivalence of (10) ?and (11) follows. So it will turn out that, given, (9), if two things ?have different colors (i.e., not exactly the same colors), then no thing has them both. But this will not give us what he wants, namely, analyticity of ?Nothing can be two colors all over? ?(hereafter ?S?). How, then, we do we get the analyticity and, thereby deny the rationalist factual necessities, such ?as S? What he does is point out that (9) is equivalent to (12): ? 12. (x)(Ex[x, A] ->. Ex[x, B] -> Ex[A, B]) ? He points out that (12) ?expresses the transitivity? of ?EX??, ?keeping in mind that transitivity is guaranteed by the postulates. In this way, he arrives, eventually, at the conclusion that S is ?analytic. A couple of formal observations are in order. ? It it is important to notice that he can derive (10), but he can?t do it from (9) alone; he needs (11). (11) is not analytic. So (10) may not be analytic after all, IF you mean by ?analytic?, in part at least, that analytical statements do not depend, essentially, on contingent facts. Suppose there is a way around this. There ?is something I think is more interesting. Although (10) may be inferred from (9) and (11), as a matter of fact (9) follows ?f rom (10)! If so, then, given (11), (9) and (10) are equivalent; and, since (9) is equivalent to a postulate, (10), and so S, will have (11), alone, as the single premise upon which the argument depends. (We don?t include postulates among the premises). So now the burden is, largely, on the transitivity of ?exactly the ?same color as y?. I reject the transitivity and, therefore, reject the idea that ?Ex? is transitive. If I can sustain this claim, ?Putnam is refuted. But can I? ? Bruce Aune?s approach will, critically, depend on the ?notion of being a ?determinate color?; Putnam?s approach will not. The reason, I think, is this: Putnam believes, as do ?I, that there are no determinate colors. Putnam remarks ?that ? ?when we think of the color concepts, the most striking fact we observe is that they form a continuum.? (op. cit. p. 78). This will prove very important to Putnam?s ?case. He will introduce a lot of postulates to accommodate ?this fact. So many that I am inclined to include him among ?the ?American Postulate Theorists?! But setting this aside, consider why he might do this and, at one point, even admit ?that people may suspect him of ?smuggling? in some stuff. ?One of the cleverest of his many clever proposals is related to this and brings into the picture views, originally, expressed by Henri Poincare. Poincare was a Kantian. He was loathe to admit to actual infinities. He was, therefore, adverse to the idea of a ?continuum? in the sense of being a real structure. We construct it. The mathematical continuum on his view is derived from what he called the ?physical continuum.? The ?idea is both ingenious and believable, even if it is wrong. I?m not sure that it is. Here is what he said: ? ?It has, for instance, been observed that a weight A of 10 ?grammes and a weight B of 11 grammes produced identical sensations, that the weight B could no longer be distinguished ?from a weight C of 12 grammes, but that the weight A was ?readily distinguished from the weight C. Thus the rough results of the experiments may be expressed bythe following relations: A=B, B=C, A From Baynesr at comcast.net Sat Jan 2 11:57:01 2010 From: Baynesr at comcast.net (Baynesr at comcast.net) Date: Sat, 2 Jan 2010 16:57:01 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [hist-analytic] David Lewis, Grice and Rawlsian Contracts Message-ID: <253359425.6766761262451421694.JavaMail.root@sz0010a.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net> I haven't been able to reply to Speranza on a couple of occasions. This post goes part way to explaining why, aside from getting the final touches on the Anscombe book. As a result of an interesting and provocative discussion, I turned my attention, recently, to Rawls . In particular to a comparison of Rawlsian contract theory and that of Hobbes. I've decided to do an extended work on Rawls , Popper and Ronald Dworkin . My aim is, among other things, to state my case against Rawls on contract. Now an interesting development, one that may particularly interest JL , is that there is an extended discussion of Grice on "Meaning" in David Lewis's stimulating work _Convention : A Philosophical Study_ . Now I haven't looked at this closely, because I'm still thinking about Lewis's views on conventions vs. contracts. It occurred to me that there is a connection here to Dworkin's criticisms of H. L. Hart on the nature of law. What I'm fiddling with is the difference between normative and nonnormative conventions in connection with this distinction between ?laws and contracts. I will probably end up rejecting contract theory as well as utilitarianism. My predilection is for "perfectionist" views in ethics but the material on this is sparse and obscure. What I'm doing is tackling Rawls on contract on economic doctrine. My own position , generally, is that of Joseph Schumpeter with some "upgrading" based on the economist, Baumol , and others. Rawls is deliciously vulnerable, but more deliciously insightful on these matters. Dworkin (Ronald), I keep reading and every new look contains a new insight. The matter of the "hard case" in law really has some nice aspects amenable to recent work on mind. We'll see. Anyway, JL might be looking at some postings on Lewis and Grice . I might begin with an attack on Lewis based on a nonsequitur? related to reciprocity which I think occurs in his book on convention, reciprocity it may recalled is an essential element in Rawlsian contract theory. Regards Steve -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jlsperanza at aol.com Sat Jan 2 15:46:37 2010 From: jlsperanza at aol.com (jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Sat, 2 Jan 2010 15:46:37 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] How to Grice a Russell Message-ID: Just a historical note vis a vis: G. R. Grice, etc. Indeed, Grice wrote an essay -- that Bealer cites, entitled, "Definite Descriptions in Russell and the Vernacular". So I think Russell Grice, the UEA philosopher, has the most charming of names. JLS -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jlsperanza at aol.com Sat Jan 2 15:44:24 2010 From: jlsperanza at aol.com (jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Sat, 2 Jan 2010 15:44:24 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Grice and Grice: Quasi-Contracts and Pacts Message-ID: Grice and Pseudo-Grice: Quasi-Contracts and Pseudo-Pacts Thanks to S. R. Bayne, as always, for his provocative posts. That's a delightful line of research you are onto: Rawls, Dworkin, Hart, and Austin! (By Austin, I mean John Austin, but more on this below). When I was doing search (I never say 're-search'; it sounds slightly over-important) on Grice in the Philosopher's Index data bank, I recall being delighted at some secondary bibliography on Grice and contract (i.e. essays keyworded as "Grice" and "contract"). It turned out, of course, hence the title of this post, that it was the _wrong_ Grice, as it were: G. Russell Grice, of the Philosophy Department of University of East Anglia, Norwich, England. Anyway, this man (G. Russell Grice, or Russell Grice, for short, has a fascinating, -- which I don't agree with one jot, though -- account of a contractualist model of morality. And he is an interesting Brit philosopher enough to have merited secondary bibliography of the confusing type I'm referring to: e.g. essays in philosophical journals on "Grice's contracts", etc. --- In any case, when I delivered a paper at, of all places, Salta -- which was published by Maria Julia Palacios in her "Temas Actuales de Filosofia", available via interlibrary loan, if you can believe that --, I focused, seriously, on Grice's very own 'contractual', or 'semi-contractual'. More on this below. Indeed, D. K. Lewis, the late one, who should be the honoured one of a Lewis Appreciation Society, had his PhD from Harvard on "Conventions of Language". His thesis director or advisor (I never can tell the difference) was Quine, and I LOVE to think that Lewis sat at Emerson Hall when Grice delivered his 1967 William James Memorial Lectures -- bi-annual, one year philosophy, one year psychology, them were the days. Indeed, there are immense crisscrosses Lewis/Grice. In fact, I wedded to Lewis's notion of convention. I am NOT a conventionalist, and Grice has a few manifestos against convention, too. My favourite one in WoW, Way of Words, googlebooks, "I don't believe meaning is essentially tied to convention". But some less subtle philosophers -- not to mention non-philosophers -- are always READY to drop the word 'convention' from their lips, which irritates me. So Lewis's book I found good, in his Schelling-based, von-Mises-based co-ordination problem. That was old stuff, indeed popularised by Schiffer in his _Meaning_. But what Lewis got it right, against, I think, Searle -- who abused Rawls's distinction between 'constitutive rules' and (my favourite redundancy to avoid) 'regulative rules' --. And what Lewis got it right, contra Searle, is the notion of 'arbitrariness'. I'm never sure what 'liber arbitrium' is; I think it's a delightful phrase used by William James, and which _is_ linked to 'volition' and 'conation', so one has to be VERY careful with a possibly misuse or loose use of this expression, 'arbitrary', by Lewis, of all people. I recall that Lewis helped me understand Searle. Searle is saying that 'regulative rules' are _goal-oriented_ etc. If I understood him alright. To use the right hand to hold the knife is _not_ goal-oriented, in a way; it's, rather, arbitrary, or conventional. I don't know, but I follow him. Same with driving on the right (as the Brits do) or the wrong side (as the rest of the world does) of the streeet. It's, er, _arbitrary_, and _then_ conventional. For, in Lewis's magisterial sufficient/necessary conditioned analysis of 'is a convention iff', 'is arbitrary' features largely. Anyway, that's why, I guess, Grice _hated_ 'convention', and 'arbitrary', and 'artificial' (e.g. why he prefers non-natural to talk of 'artificial' signs). And when it comes to the operations of language he could be more forceful, because he was never an Utilitarian (as Warner comments in "The philosophy of H. P. Grice", session of APA, in reply to Stalnaker, who wants to see Grice as one). For Grice, consider, 'honesty is the best strategy, says I' For Grice, that is _obscene_. If you are not honest, you are not BREAKING a contractual law. Rather, and I _love_ Grice for saying things like these, "you are letting down yourself, good chap" I quote from the WoW, since in my Salta paper which I entitled, "The feast of (conversational) reason: or the Conversational Immanuel: three steps in the critique of conversational reason" -- (mouthful, but well-meant), I seriously take Grice's three steps in answering what he calls the 'fundamental' question in terms of guidelines like those, "be honest". The first step is an empiricist one; this includes an utitarian, even semi-contractualist substep; the second step is 'rationalist' without tears; the third step is _reasonableness_ without tears. Grice writes -- and this is on p. 29 (an early one, page, that is) from his WoW google books, Way of Words: "But while some such _QUASI-CONTRACTUAL_ basis [emphasis mine. JLS] as this may apply to some cases [of talk], there are too many types of exchange, like quarrelling [chicanery, Grice will also say in "Valedictory Essay] and letter writing, that it fails to fit comfortably." And here is the key passage: "In ANY CASE, one feels taht the talker who is irrelevant or obscure has PRIMARILY let down not his AUDIENCE but _himself_." Or hisself, as I prefer. But it was earlier on that very same page, that Grice explains his former self. (As Chapman notes in her bio of Grice, Grice's philosophy is an attempt to understand hisself). Grice writes: "For a time, I was attracted to the idea that observance of the Co-operative Principle [capitals, jocularly, Grice's. Surely it's a principle of cooperation, rather. JLS] and the [conversational] maxims, in a talk exchange, could be thought of as A QUASI-CONTRACTUAL MATTER, with parallels outside the realm of discourse." -- and he goes on to provide analogues for each of the four conversational categories (Quantitas, Qualitas, Relatio, Modus) -- soon to find that "some such quasi-contractual basis" "fails to fit comfortably" borderline or not so borderline cases like 'letter writing, and 'quarreling'. A student of logic of mine defined, famously, 'to argue', as "to quarrel, with words". So I guess if 'quarreling' is the apex of rationality -- epagogically, if not diagogically -- I am with Grice any day! ---- Etc. Incidentally, the term 'pact' I learned from Locke, who was _so_ into "the way of words" (his phrase indeed). He was the most important 'contractualist', or 'pact-theorist', compared to which Rawls is, well, a minor figure, to use Grice's sobriquet (as Grice applied to Wittgenstein, Bosanquet, and Wollaston). As a PhD in philosophy, from the University of Buenos Aires, you HAVE to pass a seminar on Philosophical Ideas in Argentina. My tutor was Oscar Moran, and, yes, there is at least ONE philosophical idea. He spent the whole year (for in Buenos Aires they never heard of 'terms') talking about Moreno. Moreno was killed in 1811, as I recalled, because his views were found to be too Jacobine for the pro-British port-dwellers of Buenos Aires. But I got hold of his tr. of Rousseau, "Social Contract", and found a delightful argument in Moreno. I wrote my end-of-year paper on this which I still keep. For Moreno, there is a contract between Spaniards (including Argentines circa 1809) and the King of Spain. But then The King of Spain got jailed. Moreno argued: This surely _breaks_ the contract; for how are we stupidly think that we can still be under a contract with someone who is in jail? Therefore, Revolution! ---- I found out that Grice's brother in law, James Steven Watson, lectured at Harvard on his specialty, "The reign of George III". In the case of the Tea Party at Boston, the argument was similarly made, I hope, that if not 'jailed' he (Geo III) was, well, 'insane', as he possibly was, even if he wasn't. Cheers, J. L. Speranza for the Grice Club, etc. In a message dated 1/2/2010 12:00:26 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, Baynesr at comcast.net writes in "David Lewis, Grice and Rawlsian Contracts": I haven't been able to reply to Speranza on a couple of occasions. This post goes part way to explaining why, aside from getting the final touches on the Anscombe book. As a result of an interesting and provocative discussion, I turned my attention, recently, to Rawls. In particular to a comparison of Rawlsian contract theory and that of Hobbes. I've decided to do an extended work on Rawls, Popper and Ronald Dworkin. My aim is, among other things, to state my case against Rawls on contract. Now an interesting development, one that may particularly interest JL, is that there is an extended discussion of Grice on "Meaning" in David Lewis's stimulating work _Convention: A Philosophical Study_. Now I haven't looked at this closely, because I'm still thinking about Lewis's views on conventions vs. contracts. It occurred to me that there is a connection here to Dworkin's criticisms of H. L. Hart on the nature of law. What I'm fiddling with is the difference between normative and nonnormative conventions in connection with this distinction between laws and contracts. I will probably end up rejecting contract theory as well as utilitarianism. My predilection is for "perfectionist" views in ethics but the material on this is sparse and obscure. What I'm doing is tackling Rawls on contract on economic doctrine. My own position, generally, is that of Joseph Schumpeter with some "upgrading" based on the economist, Baumol, and others. Rawls is deliciously vulnerable, but more deliciously insightful on these matters. Dworkin (Ronald), I keep reading and every new look contains a new insight. The matter of the "hard case" in law really has some nice aspects amenable to recent work on mind. We'll see. Anyway, JL might be looking at some postings on Lewis and Grice. I might begin with an attack on Lewis based on a nonsequitur related to reciprocity which I think occurs in his book on convention, reciprocity it may recalled is an essential element in Rawlsian contract theory. Regards Steve From jlsperanza at aol.com Sat Jan 2 15:51:59 2010 From: jlsperanza at aol.com (jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Sat, 2 Jan 2010 15:51:59 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Austin, How To Do Things With Externalism Message-ID: ps. re contracts and Hart. S. R. Bayne quotes Hart, and I mentioned Austin (in my "Grice and Grice") meaning John Austin, not J. L. Austin. The limerick I was thinking is pretty rude, but I asterisked the wrong word, and it's (c) Donal McEvoy, a friend of mine who lives in London and writes limericks for a living (not his): --- There once was a philosopher Hart Who considered John Austin a f*rt "Well suggesting, of course, That law's just commands backed by force Gives all Nazis a massive headstart." --- When I was discussing these things in Buenos Aires, with a student of Bulygin (R. Aranovich) we were able to discuss at length Hart (an Anglo-Jewish, in fact) and his distinction between internal vs. external readings of things, like "This woman should be driving on the left side of the street". I think Hart's target was John Austin, who indeed thought that 'the law' (which is an ASS) "is "just commands backed by force". And making 'force' sublter as 'illocutionary' force via (J. L. Austin) is no help! Cheers, J. L. Speranza From jlsperanza at aol.com Sat Jan 2 17:03:15 2010 From: jlsperanza at aol.com (jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Sat, 2 Jan 2010 17:03:15 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] David Lewis, Grice and Rawlsian Contracts Message-ID: A closer commentary to Bayne's recent: In a message dated 1/2/2010 12:00:26 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, Baynesr at comcast.net writes: "I haven't been able to reply to Speranza on a couple of occasions. This post goes part way to explaining why, aside from getting the final touches on the Anscombe book.As a result of an interesting and provocative discussion, I turned my attention, recently, to Rawls. In particular to a comparison of Rawlsian contract theory and that of Hobbes." You are doing very well. I did mention in my "Grice and Grice", Locke -- for both Grices, H. P. and G. R. -- seem Lockean in that respect, but of course the source of it all is Hobbes. The contract theory seems indeed mediaeval. When I was discussing the ideas of this Argentine jacobine, Mariano Moreno, it was the whole thing of "scholastic law": the fact that there is a pact, etc. Monarchs, for example, rely on some kind of pact towards their subjects. How Rousseau got the thing popular in the colonies must be a South American thing. I wouldn't think Rousseau was ever too popular in the USA, so it must have been via Hobbes and Locke that Rawls got the idea from. Bayne: "I've decided to do an extended work on Rawls, Popper and Ronald Dworkin. My aim is, among other things, to state my case against Rawls on contract. Now an interesting development, one that may particularly interest JL, is that there is an extended discussion of Grice on "Meaning" in David Lewis's stimulating work _Convention: A Philosophical Study_." Right. And it's interesting you are mentioning the rather parochial "Meaning". For, Griceans at large had rather relied on Lewis for an account of what has come to be called, clumsily, expression meaning. In Gricean jargon: what an utterer U means what x (expression token) means what X (expression type, e.g. word, such as "pluie", to use an example in Wharton, "Pragmatics and Nonverbal Communication", meaning 'rain') means Only for "expression" do Griceans really _need_ a convention. Note that in Grice's general account of _utterer's_ meaning, rather, WoW, Way of Words, v, googlebooks), the 'mode of correspondence' or 'correlation', which Grice, in his typical American pseudoformalism, has as "c" can be: a. iconic b. conventional c. other. Utterer's meaning can exist without convention. Expression meaning is more doubtful. In "Meaning Revisited", where Grice has this beautiful caveat, "I don't believe meaning is essentially tied to convention", which I cited in my "On the way of conversation", in a symposium I shared with Searle --, Grice would rathe use the notion of optimality (and thus value) to have things like the word 'pluie' means, in French, 'rain'. Bayne: "Now I haven't looked at this closely, because I'm still thinking about Lewis's views on conventions vs. contracts." Well, his 'convention' seems to be arbitrary. I'm not sure about contract. But he is a fascinating writer on this, and a pity he doesn't seem to have developed this other than in THAT book, or founded a school for that matter. One wonders if there's secondary bibliography on Lewis on conventions vs. contracts, etc. Beautiful distinctions for linguistic botanising alla Austin and Grice. Bayne: "It occurred to me that there is a connection here to Dworkin's criticisms of H. L. Hart on the nature of law." Well, and I was referring to Hart's apparent criticisms to John Austin's utilitarianism. From what I recall, Dworkin succeeded Hare as White's prof. of Moral philosophy so he was bound to find criticisms in the work of his co-chair, of Jurisprudence, Hart. Or was Dworkin prof. of jurisprudence? I stopped keeping tracks with all those Americans exiling in once so English Oxford -- just joking! --- "What I'm fiddling with is the difference between normative and nonnormative conventions in connection with this distinction between laws and contracts." That's a good one. Of course, "Norma" (Latin for "norm") has nothing to do with this! I never understood "Norma", nor her younger daughter, "Ab-Normal"! Statisticians use 'normal' so badly that I don't like that word anymore! And nonnormative does not fare any better. You might just as well call them anormative. Recall Durkheim on 'anomie'. I once got into a fight with a neurolinguist. She (and in Buenos Aires, too) was using 'anomia' to mean, absence of names, which she found in some of her favourite bipolar patients. I said, "Look darling, be careful with your wording: 'anomia' is lack of law for Durkheim". She wasn't impressed, but in English there _is_ a lexical distinction here. Bayne: "I will probably end up rejecting contract theory as well as utilitarianism." And you'll be very right. You should also end up rejecting Hare. I used to love R. M. Hare but when in his later writings he cannot fight against Utilitarianism enough he bores me. O. T. O. H., Grice was never an utilitarianism and it showed! (Even if his thesis in "Meaning", B. J. Harrison has it in his "Intro to the Philo of Lang., Macmillan), "shares with Utilitarianism the greatest number of counterexamples" or words to that perlocutionary effect). "My predilection is for "perfectionist" views in ethics but the material on this is sparse and obscure." As it should be, for who cares for 'perfection' in the world as we find it now! It has gone, literally, to the dogs. "What I'm doing is tackling Rawls on contract on economic doctrine. My own position, generally, is that of Joseph Schumpeter with some "upgrading" based on the economist, Baumol, and others. Rawls is deliciously vulnerable, but more deliciously insightful on these matters." I keep being a delicious Keynesian on this. I cannot understand economic theory, nor does my wallet. "Dworkin (Ronald), I keep reading and every new look contains a new insight. The matter of the "hard case" in law really has some nice aspects amenable to recent work on mind." Does it. I hope it's none of your Anscombian 'brute' versus 'institutionalised'. Just joking! "We'll see. Anyway, JL might be looking at some postings on Lewis and Grice." Yes. Lewis wrote his PhD on "Conventions of language". It was possibly a good idea that he dropped the "of language" and the pluralisation, 'conventions', when he had his book published by Harvard. There are a few further crisscrossing Lewis/Grice. When I attended, in Buenos Aires, of all places, a seminar given by D. Edginton on "Conditionals", she was heavy on Lewis. Lewis and Jackson have taken with some degree of seriousness Grice's ideas of 'if': The idea that the 'conversational' implicature is linked to a probability-account. Jackson (a colleague of Lewis Down Under) makes distinctions between 'conventional' and 'conversational' implicatures on that. I recall I was slightly disappointed when I found that, at the Society for Philosophical Analysis, where Edginton was lecturing, that she was not aware of Strawson, "If and -->". Or at least not aware that the thing (which had been doing the rounds since 1968) had been published by Grandy/Warner, PGRICE. I think she liked that. Her Spanish was not that good. My logic tutor, Alberto Moretti, was in attendance. When discussing Grice's views, Edginton kept referring to them as being ridiculoso i.e what she thought meant 'ridiculous'. But the correct Spanish is 'ridiculo', not ridiculoso. Anyway, I treasure a contribution by my tutor, then, Moretti. He said to Edginton: "I object to your view, but I'm sure you'll find my objection to 'ridiculoso' to be true". Of course she never found out that we, the Argentine audience, were having a big laugh at her cheek of wanting to give us a lecture in _Spanish_ -- which in her case sounded as if she had picked her up in her holidays in Valencia! But I love her! Of course the most important Lewis/Grice interface is Grice's rejection of 'possible worlds'. "I have enough troubles with _this_ world and issues of truth-functional sequiturs to start wondering about others", he would utter words to that perlocutionary effect (cfr. his "Valedictory Essay" on 'non-truth functional utterances' as a problem for neo-traditionalism and modernism and his own tenets) Bayne: "I might begin with an attack on Lewis based on a nonsequitur related to reciprocity which I think occurs in his book on convention," This is lovely. It resembles Grice's Conversational Immanuel and the 'impersonality' of the maxims. No proper names allowed, etc. Bayne: "reciprocity it may recalled is an essential element in Rawlsian contract theory." Indeed. Grice takes Hare's universalisability things with some earnest in "Method in philosophical psychology" which I sumarised, the three of them in this essay in the Palacios book. For Grice there are three types of generality associated with issues of universalisability. His "Method" essay repr. by J. Baker in Grice's Conception of Value, googlebooks --: These three types are: applicational conceptual formal Applicational means that norms should apply to all of us or none of us. Formal that they should be essentially vacuous. We cannot have guidelines for _each_ little thing that bothers. J. K. Jerome, Three men on a bummell and their problems with the law-abiding Germans is a delight here. conceptual: the terms in which norms should be couched are psychological. Loar has been useful to me on this. And here the connection with the philosophy of mind (which Grice despised unless called "philosophical psycholoogy) is obvious. For Loar, things like Grice's maxims should be understood, nonnormatively, as 'generalisations over functional states'. But not all of us, even if I am, are Loarian here. What a genius B. F. Loar is. Incidentally, I spent YEARS studying Rawls, to no real avail, other than finding that in one of his essays in "Public Affairs" he cares to quote from Grice, "Personal Identity", Grice's very first 'publication' in _Mind_, 1941. He (Rawls) possibly learned about it from Perry, and in any case, it made Grice's essay popular enough to be quoted by Parfit in Reasons and Persons and have a pretty good Oxford comeback. (These were the years where you had to be quoted by an American -- call it Dworkin, Rawls, Davidson, or what have you -- to be treated seriously back in Oxford! Even Grice had to ceased to belong to Oxford to become the John Locke Lecturer (You cannot lecture the John Locke Lecturers as an Oxford lecturer. It's for visitors, only, and if overseas, the better!) Cheers, J. L. Speranza For the Grice Club, etc. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From baynesrb at yahoo.com Sat Jan 2 17:24:51 2010 From: baynesrb at yahoo.com (steve bayne) Date: Sat, 2 Jan 2010 14:24:51 -0800 (PST) Subject: [hist-analytic] David Lewis, Grice and Rawlsian Contracts In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <403825.46745.qm@web36507.mail.mud.yahoo.com> "Well, his 'convention' seems to be arbitrary" ? I don't see this. How so? ? Regards ? Steve --- On Sat, 1/2/10, jlsperanza at aol.com wrote: From: jlsperanza at aol.com Subject: Re: David Lewis, Grice and Rawlsian Contracts To: hist-analytic at simplelists.co.uk Date: Saturday, January 2, 2010, 5:03 PM A closer commentary to Bayne's recent: In a message dated 1/2/2010 12:00:26 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,? Baynesr at comcast.net writes: "I haven't been able to reply to Speranza on a couple of occasions. This? post goes part way to explaining why, aside from getting the final touches on the Anscombe book.As a result of an interesting and provocative discussion, I? turned my attention, recently, to Rawls. In particular to a comparison of? Rawlsian contract theory and that of Hobbes." You are doing very well. I did mention in my "Grice and Grice", Locke --? for both Grices, H. P. and G. R. -- seem Lockean in that respect, but of course? the source of it all is Hobbes. The contract theory seems indeed mediaeval. When I was discussing the ideas of this Argentine jacobine, Mariano Moreno, it was the whole thing of? "scholastic law": the fact that there is a pact, etc. Monarchs, for example,? rely on some kind of pact towards their subjects. How Rousseau got the thing? popular in the colonies must be a South American thing. I wouldn't think? Rousseau was ever too popular in the USA, so it must have been via Hobbes and Locke that Rawls got the idea from. Bayne: "I've decided to do an extended work on Rawls, Popper and Ronald? Dworkin. My aim is, among other things, to state my case against Rawls on? contract. Now an interesting development, one that may particularly interest JL,? is that there is an extended discussion of Grice on "Meaning" in David Lewis's? stimulating work _Convention: A Philosophical Study_." Right. And it's interesting you are mentioning the rather parochial? "Meaning". For, Griceans at large had rather relied on Lewis for an account of? what has come to be called, clumsily, ? ?? expression meaning. In Gricean jargon: what an utterer U means what x (expression token) means what X (expression type, e.g. word, such as "pluie", to use an example in? Wharton, "Pragmatics and Nonverbal Communication", meaning 'rain') means Only for "expression" do Griceans really _need_ a convention. Note that in? Grice's general account of _utterer's_ meaning, rather, WoW, Way of Words, v,? googlebooks), the 'mode of correspondence' or 'correlation', which Grice, in his? typical American pseudoformalism, has as "c" can be: ? ? ?? a. iconic ? ? ?? b. conventional ? ? ?? c. other. Utterer's meaning can exist without convention. Expression meaning is more? doubtful. In "Meaning Revisited", where Grice has this beautiful caveat, "I don't believe meaning is essentially tied to convention", which I cited in my? "On the way of conversation", in a symposium I shared with Searle --, Grice? would rathe use the notion of optimality (and thus value) to have things? like ? ? the word 'pluie' means, in French, 'rain'. Bayne: "Now I haven't looked at this closely, because I'm still? thinking about Lewis's views on conventions vs. contracts." Well, his 'convention' seems to be arbitrary. I'm not sure about contract.? But he is a fascinating writer on this, and a pity he doesn't seem to have? developed this other than in THAT book, or founded a school for that matter. One? wonders if there's secondary bibliography on Lewis on conventions vs. contracts,? etc. Beautiful distinctions for linguistic botanising alla Austin and? Grice. Bayne: "It occurred to me that there is a connection here to Dworkin's? criticisms of H. L. Hart on the nature of law." Well, and I was referring to Hart's apparent criticisms to John Austin's? utilitarianism. From what I recall, Dworkin succeeded Hare as White's prof. of? Moral philosophy so he was bound to find criticisms in the work of his co-chair,? of Jurisprudence, Hart. Or was Dworkin prof. of jurisprudence? I stopped keeping? tracks with all those Americans exiling in once so English Oxford -- just? joking! --- "What I'm fiddling with is the difference between normative? and nonnormative conventions in connection with this distinction? between laws and contracts." That's a good one. Of course, "Norma" (Latin for "norm") has nothing to do? with this! I never understood "Norma", nor her younger daughter, "Ab-Normal"! Statisticians use 'normal' so badly that I don't like that word anymore!? And nonnormative does not fare any better. You might just as well call them? anormative. Recall Durkheim on 'anomie'. I once got into a fight with a neurolinguist. She (and in Buenos Aires,? too) was using 'anomia' to mean, absence of names, which she found in some of? her favourite bipolar patients. I said, "Look darling, be careful with your wording: 'anomia' is lack of law for Durkheim". She wasn't impressed, but in? English there _is_ a lexical distinction here. Bayne: "I will probably end up rejecting contract theory as well? as utilitarianism." And you'll be very right. You should also end up rejecting Hare. I used to? love R. M. Hare but when in his later writings he cannot fight against? Utilitarianism enough he bores me. O. T. O. H., Grice was never an? utilitarianism and it showed! (Even if his thesis in "Meaning", B. J. Harrison? has it in his "Intro to the Philo of Lang., Macmillan), "shares with? Utilitarianism the greatest number of counterexamples" or words to that? perlocutionary effect). "My predilection is for "perfectionist" views in ethics but the material on this is sparse and obscure." As it should be, for who cares for 'perfection' in the world as we find it? now! It has gone, literally, to the dogs. "What I'm doing is tackling? Rawls on contract on economic doctrine. My own position, generally, is that of? Joseph Schumpeter with some "upgrading" based on the economist, Baumol, and? others. Rawls is deliciously vulnerable, but more deliciously insightful on? these matters." I keep being a delicious Keynesian on this. I cannot understand economic? theory, nor does my wallet. "Dworkin (Ronald), I keep reading and every new look contains a new? insight. The matter of the "hard case" in law really has some nice aspects? amenable to recent work on mind." Does it. I hope it's none of your Anscombian 'brute' versus? 'institutionalised'. Just joking! "We'll see. Anyway, JL might be looking at some postings on Lewis and? Grice." Yes. Lewis wrote his PhD on "Conventions of language". It was possibly a? good idea that he dropped the "of language" and the pluralisation,? 'conventions', when he had his book published by Harvard. There are a few further crisscrossing Lewis/Grice. When I attended, in? Buenos Aires, of all places, a seminar given by D. Edginton on "Conditionals",? she was heavy on Lewis. Lewis and Jackson have taken with some degree of? seriousness Grice's ideas of 'if': The idea that the 'conversational' implicature is linked to a? probability-account. Jackson (a colleague of Lewis Down Under) makes? distinctions between 'conventional' and 'conversational' implicatures on that. I? recall I was slightly disappointed when I found that, at the Society for? Philosophical Analysis, where Edginton was lecturing, that she was not aware of? Strawson, "If and -->". Or at least not aware that the thing (which had been? doing the rounds since 1968) had been published by Grandy/Warner, PGRICE. I? think she liked that. Her Spanish was not that good. My logic tutor, Alberto Moretti, was in? attendance. When discussing Grice's views, Edginton kept referring to them as? being ? ? ? ? ridiculoso i.e what she thought meant 'ridiculous'. But the correct Spanish is? 'ridiculo', not ridiculoso. Anyway, I treasure a contribution by my tutor, then,? Moretti. He said to Edginton: ? ? "I object to your view, but I'm sure you'll find ? ?? my objection to 'ridiculoso' to be true". Of course she never found out that we, the Argentine audience, were having? a big laugh at her cheek of wanting to give us a lecture in _Spanish_ -- which? in her case sounded as if she had picked her up in her holidays in? Valencia! But I love her! Of course the most important Lewis/Grice interface is Grice's rejection of? 'possible worlds'. "I have enough troubles with _this_ world and issues of? truth-functional sequiturs to start wondering about others", he would utter words to that perlocutionary effect (cfr. his "Valedictory Essay" on 'non-truth? functional utterances' as a problem for neo-traditionalism and modernism and his? own tenets) Bayne: "I might begin with an attack on Lewis based on a nonsequitur? related? to reciprocity which I think occurs in his book on convention," This is lovely. It resembles Grice's Conversational Immanuel and the? 'impersonality' of the maxims. No proper names allowed, etc. Bayne: "reciprocity it may recalled is an essential element in? Rawlsian contract theory." Indeed. Grice takes Hare's universalisability things with some earnest in? "Method in philosophical psychology" which I sumarised, the three of them in this essay in the Palacios book. For Grice there are three types of generality? associated with issues of universalisability. His "Method" essay repr. by J.? Baker in Grice's Conception of Value, googlebooks --: These three types? are: applicational conceptual formal Applicational means that norms should apply to all of us or none of? us. Formal that they should be essentially vacuous. We cannot have guidelines? for _each_ little thing that bothers. J. K. Jerome, Three men on a bummell and? their problems with the law-abiding Germans is a delight here. conceptual: the terms in which norms should be couched are? psychological From aune at philos.umass.edu Wed Jan 6 08:29:16 2010 From: aune at philos.umass.edu (Bruce Aune) Date: Wed, 6 Jan 2010 08:29:16 -0500 Subject: [hist-analytic] Response to Steve's Latest Message-ID: <5CDFC134-70B1-43FB-A1F1-751550F913BD@philos.umass.edu> Steve obviously spent a lot of time writing up his ?Preliminary Remarks on the ?Two Color Problem?,? and because many of his remarks are directed specifically to me, I have a strong inclination to say something about it. But I have a contrary inclination as well. Steve takes up many things in his document that I have already addressed at length in previous contributions to our ongoing exchanges, and since Steve appears simply to disregard much of what I have said, I wonder if there is any point in saying more. Our interchanges have been a lot like a conversation with a person who listens politely to what you say but then goes on speaking as if you haven?t said anything yourself. What you do say seems to go in one ear of your interlocutor and out the other. Well, I have a free afternoon. I?ll say a few things in the hope that Steve will actually consider them, though he doesn?t have to respond. Our ?discussion? of the color-issue has probably gone on long enough. 1. My first remarks concern what Steve says at the beginning of his paper about Putnam and meaning postulates. Intending to expose an error he thinks Putnam makes in introducing meaning postulates for a solution to the red/green color problem, Steve asks us to consider ?how a relation can under one set of circumstances be transitive but under another not.? I am not sure what error Steve thinks Putnam made (he doesn?t clearly identify it), but Steve makes a gross error in setting forth his example. If there is a single case in which, for a relation R, there are individuals a, b, and c such that aRb, bRc, and not-aRc, then the relation R is simply not transitive. To be transitive, R must be such that for all x, y, and z, if xRy and yRz, then xRz. Steve also errs in specifying the details of his example. If his relation is that of having the same hammer, then if x does have the same hammer as y and y does have the same hammer as z, then x and z would have to have the same hammer. If the relation is otherwise?if, say, it is that of being a co-owner of a (=some) hammer?it need not be transitive, but Steve would have to say just what the relation is. As I explain in my ch 3, meaning postulates (the label is Carnap?s) are supposed to be specifications of meaning for descriptive expressions, either partial or complete, in the context of a sentence. (They are complete or partial contextual definitions.) For reasons that I explain, Carnap regarded such specifications as essentially stipulative rather than descriptive. If I stipulate that I am using ?R? to represent a reflexive relation, then if my stipulation is properly introduced (as I put it in my appendix 4), no empirical considerations could possibly falsify it. E.g. if I stipulate that I am using ?R*? to represent a symmetrical relation, then anyone having evidence that not-(bR*a) (in the intended sense of ?xR*y? ) can only conclude that ?aR*b? is false). It is possible, of course, that no pair of objects may stand in the relation R*, but this would not invalidate my stipulation either. Quine, in his original ?Two Dogmas?,? made the unfortunate claim that the progress of quantum mechanics might induce us to ?revise? the law of excluded middle; his claim was unfortunate because too many of his readers read him as meaning that quantum-mechanical facts might falsify the law. This would not be possible, because the law holds only for statements satisfying bi-valence, and no such statement, no matter what its subject matter or truth-value, could undermine the law. (Truth tables show this.) Revising the law would amount to amending the meaning of the truth-functional ?or.? This of course could be done; there is no a priori objection to that. Putnam, in attempting to show by reference to certain meaning postulates that certain vernacular statements are analytically true (or true solely by virtue of their meaning) no doubt thought of the ones he gave as descriptive for informed discourse about colors. Since philosophers of most stripes agree that the same part of a thing?s surface could not possibly possess two different color-shades at the same time, it is not unreasonable to suppose that this incompatibility may have a basis in the meaning they attach to color words. This supposition could, of course, be false, but that is something Steve would have to show. If the postulates Putnam introduced do represent meaning connections implicit in his or others? talk, his claim that the assertions of incompatibility he is concerned are analytically true deserves to be accepted as holding true for those language-users. As I explained in an earlier post, I don?t think of analyticity as Putnam did, or does, and I would not accept his version of the ?two color? problem. I do believe, as I said in my book, that conceptually sophisticated speakers of English, the speakers Wittgenstein commonly referred to as ?we,? do generally conceive of specific visible colors as being identical just when they are appropriately indiscernible (not when they can?t be distinguished under special conditions, e.g., the sort of conditions that Danny described in his controversy with me). Because they generally conceive of colors this way, they generally use their determinate color predicates to represent properties having this identity condition. The fact that they do use color words this way is not crucial to my position on analyticity, however. People need not speak the way I do or in the way I recommend. As I explain in my book (see pp. 101-105), the notion of analytic truth should ideally be relativized to particular language- users or thinkers in specified contexts of speech or thought. 2. I have things to say about almost every paragraph of Steve?s discussion, but I must restrict myself to the most significant ones. In his section G he includes some quotations from Wittgenstein, which he thinks are contrary to my views. But he is simply wrong about this. None of W?s claims is problematic for me. Steve seems to have forgotten my story about Tom, Mary, and Harry (see ch 2, pp. 64ff and ch 3, pp. 102f). Here we have three people who classify an unusual color in three different ways and whose concepts of green and yellow partly diverge, though they overlap for most other cases. My claim, remember, is that there is actually no metaphysical or conceptual compatibility between red and green or any other generic color qualities. Specific shades of color (determinate color qualities) are conceptually incompatible, but shades disjoint on the color wheel could conceivably be classifiable together under a common generic color. And of course we can always speak of colored things with varying degrees of strictness. In his section G Steve also says, ?Sometimes it seems to me that Bruce thinks you can solve certain problems, the ones under discussion having to do with defining, etc. ?determinate colors? by simply going to the paint store and asking to view a color wheel.? It should not seem this way to him if he remembers why I spoke of going to a paint store. I was making an objection to a bad argument he introduced to show that there are no determinate (or discrete, a word he also used) colors. As I said in my response to his Nov. 10 post, ?Steve, holding fast to the continuity idea ?, thinks that the existence of humanly imperceptible color differences (which he accepts) shows that there are no ?discrete colors?. As he puts it, ?if it is always the case that between any two colors there is a third, and if the discrimination of individuals is limited, then there will be no discrete colors for these individuals.? But if discrete colors are recognizable colors, this contention is absurd; it involves the logical howler I accused him of [in an earlier post]. From the fact (if it is a fact) that there are differences between shades of red that I cannot recognize, it hardly follows that I cannot distinguish any shades of red at all-- dark shades from a light shades, or a shades of red from a shade of green. The analogy I drew [in the earlier post] between real numbers ordered by SMALLER THAN and shades of color ordered by the supposedly dense relation Steve seems to have in mind is, in fact, sound. In both cases we have a conditional assertion, ?(x)(y)(xRy ? there is a z such that xRz & zRy),? and to infer from this that some minimal term z? possesses a special minimal vale, we need a premise of the form ?aRb? that we can know to be true. For this premise, the value of ?a? and ?b? need not [in fact, can?t] be minimal at all.? In an earlier post concerned with the same argument I mentioned going into a paint store. Here is what I said: ?I think Steve has gone around the bend talking about color being a continuum. Suppose I go to a paint store and buy a can of Forest Green paint. I use it to plaint a lawn chair. (I have actually done this many times.) Isn?t the chair I painted now Forest Green in color? And isn?t that a definite color? (It is in fact another example of what I call a determinate color.) Where is the color that is continuous with the color of this chair? If you can find it for me, show me the color that is between the two?and so on and so on and so on?. What reason is there for believing that the colors we see belong to a color continuum, a continuum of visible (seeable) colors? I certainly can?t make infinite discriminations. My computer monitor is capable of displaying ?millions of colors,? but not infinitely many of them. Am I supposed to be capable of discriminating more colors than my computer can display?? 3. Steve has some odd things to say about identity. He says he doesn?t believe that the identity relation applicable to objects of visual awareness is transitive. He supports his belief this way: ?Suppose two things are the same color (I am looking at them). But there is a third thing that is identical in color to the second but not the first. Then it would appear that I have at least three colors, although only two are distinguishable.? Why do we have three colors? If the first two are identical in color, there is one color that they both have. If the third thing is not identical in color to the second thing, then we have two colors, not three. But how is this supposed to be possible? Let the three things be A, B, and C, and let ?C(X)? mean ?the color of X.? If C(A) = C(B), how can C(B) possibly = C(D) but C(D) not = C(A)? If identity is not transitive, what is? Steve can?t cast doubt on the transitivity of identity merely by supposing that transitivity fails for the colors of three particular objects. 4. In spite of all I have said in response to Steve?s worries about determinate colors, he is fundamentally confused about it. I have said (nearly a dozen times) that I use ?determinate? as a contrast to ?generic? or (to use W.E. Johnson?s favored term) ?determinable.? I was never unclear about this, and I have never understood what Steve?s problem is. Isn?t the distinction between the generic and the specific (or determinate) elementary? Could a thing be a mammal without being a dog or a cat or a snake or some other kind of mammal? Obviously not. And could it be a mammal of a certain kind without being a particular instance of that kind? Obviously not. Well, could something be colored without being red or blue or green or some other generic color? Obviously not. And could it be red without being some shade of red?vermillion, scarlet, red madder? Of course not. If scarlet is not itself generic?if it is not exemplified by things different shades of scarlet?it is determinate; if it is generic, things possess it only by virtue of possessing specific color-features appropriate to that genus. 5. Steve extracts from Putnam an interesting example that brings out an important fact about indistinguishability as a criterion for sameness of determinate colors, a fact that I have not yet commented on: Groups of colored objects can be so similar to one another in color that if they are compared in a certain order, their color- differences will be pairwise indiscernible. As an example, consider objects A, B, and D. If A is compared with B, even the keenest human viewers will be unable to discern a color-difference between them. The same is true of B and D. But if A is compared with D, a color difference will be apparent. Does this show that the principle I defended, ?C(x)= C(y) iff IND[C(x), C(y)],? is false? I think not. What it does show is that the discernibility of color differences may be direct as well as indirect. I say this because in the case I described, we discover the difference between C(A) and C(D) by their distinguishability. This difference, together with the principle of transitivity for color-identity, permits us to infer that either C(A) does not = C(B )or C(B) does not = C(D). So we know that one of the pairs we cannot directly see to be different in color is different nevertheless. We know this indirectly?by inference from a difference we know directly. The criterion for color-sameness that I have defended should therefore be understood to be indistinguishability both direct and indirect. If a difference cannot be discerned either directly or indirectly, the relevant colors are the same. 6. In his section ?On The Significance of the ?Two color Problem?,? Steve considers what we should say if ?we take? the two-color proposition to be synthetic. What we should say should depend, I think, on what we regard as true. The proposition contains a modal auxiliary, ?can,? together with ?no,? which adds up to the idea of impossibility. What kind of possibility is this supposed to be? In my book I mentioned that, owing to the structure of our eyes, it appears to be physically impossible for anything to be seen as both red and green. So if the relevant ?cannot? is understood as connoting physical impossibility, the two-color proposition may well be synthetic and true. But philosophers who think it is true do not base their assessment on scientific evidence; they think of the relevant ?cannot? as representing a kind of possibility that can be known a priori. Steve himself views it this way; he thinks of the proposition so understood as representing an item of a priori knowledge. Empiricists would not agree with this opinion; they do not believe that this kind of knowledge is possible (to use Kant?s language). Kant?s Critique of Pure Reason was explicitly concerned to show how such knowledge is possible (in the three areas where Kant thought we had such knowledge), but Kant?s efforts were pretty clearly a failure. (I have taught the Critique at least twenty times, and I have no doubt about this matter.) I also devoted the second chapter of my book to criticizing contemporary attempts to defend the existence of such knowledge. So I am convinced that it is not ?possible.? But I did think I could show that the two-color proposition, qualified to apply to specific rather than generic colors, can reasonably be regarded as analytic. That, I believe, is an important result; it solves a problem that has been around for a very long time. 7. A final point. In his section ?EPISTEMOLOGY vs. ONTOLOGY? Steve comments on the relative priority of epistemology and ontology. For me the issue is clear: epistemology is the fundamental part of philosophy. Why do I say this? Because I think philosophy (at least if it is a worthwhile subject) is a critical subject: its tenets are not matters of faith, like some religion, but conclusions resting on evidence. Epistemology, as see it, is primarily concerned with the nature of knowledge and evidence. For that reason alone, it is the fundamental part of philosophy. I might add that I have written a long book on metaphysics, so my views on ontology are well considered rather than impressionistic. I might also say, since Steve speaks of certain crowds in philosophy, that I have never aspired to be a member in good standing of some philosophical crowd. When one of my students or another philosopher begins to speak about what ?we? believe in philosophy, I always get nervous. I don?t want to be a fellow believer in some philosophical creed. Bruce Aune January 6, 2010 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From aune at philos.umass.edu Wed Jan 6 09:58:15 2010 From: aune at philos.umass.edu (Bruce Aune) Date: Wed, 6 Jan 2010 09:58:15 -0500 Subject: [hist-analytic] Oops Message-ID: <02E4000B-54C1-4F6D-8865-4919B5E0607C@philos.umass.edu> The (R) in the following formula should obviously be an arrow: ?(x)(y)(xRy ? there is a z such that xRz & zRy).? Bruce -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jlsperanza at aol.com Wed Jan 6 17:45:49 2010 From: jlsperanza at aol.com (jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Wed, 6 Jan 2010 17:45:49 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Red And Green All Over Again Message-ID: <8b4c.5724defa.38766c9d@aol.com> Just a biblio note of possibly hist-analytic interest re: B. Aune's important points below. Checking for the very source of Grice's example cited by Chapman -- below -- I add this charmingly titled (I find) series of articles in Analysis Hilton, J. "Red and green all over again". Analysis, vol. 22 Putnam, H. "Red and green all over again". PR, vol. 66 -- Incidentally, this connects with D. F. Pears' earliest publications, notably his "Necessary Synthetic" article in Mind which B. Williams in his foreword to the Pears festschrift thinks a presequel to Pears' "Incompatibility of Colours". As for Grice, the proposition, (1) Nothing can be red and green all over _exercised_ him a good deal, Chapman notes (_Grice_) and would go and test its status with his children's playmates. His serious note, though, is in an unpublication, where Grice appeals to 'philosophical wisdom', if there is such a thing -- I am with B. Aune that it's possibly yet another dogma of empiricism, if I understand him aright. Grice writes of (1), "is a supposed [by who? Kant the earliest source? JLS] candidate for statement that is both synthetic and _a priori_." (Chapman's wording, but relating to Grice's "own notes" on the topic. The reference being to: Grice, H. P. "The Way of Words", Studies in: Notes, Offprints and Draft Material. H. P. Grice Papers. BANC MSS 90/135c, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley. Cheers, J. L. Speranza ---- In a message dated 1/6/2010 9:28:33 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, aune at philos.umass.edu writes: In his section ?On The Significance of the ?Two color Problem?,? Steve considers what we should say if ?we take? the two-color proposition to be synthetic. What we should say should depend, I think, on what we regard as true. The proposition contains a modal auxiliary, ?can,? together with ? no,? which adds up to the idea of impossibility. What kind of possibility is this supposed to be? In my book I mentioned that, owing to the structure of our eyes, it appears to be physically impossible for anything to be seen as both red and green. So if the relevant ?cannot? is understood as connoting physical impossibility, the two-color proposition may well be synthetic and true. But philosophers who think it is true do not base their assessment on scientific evidence; they think of the relevant ?cannot? as representing a kind of possibility that can be known a priori. Steve himself views it this way; he thinks of the proposition so understood as representing an item of a priori knowledge. Empiricists would not agree with this opinion; they do not believe that this kind of knowledge is possible (to use Kant? s language). Kant?s Critique of Pure Reason was explicitly concerned to show how such knowledge is possible (in the three areas where Kant thought we had such knowledge), but Kant?s efforts were pretty clearly a failure. (I have taught the Critique at least twenty times, and I have no doubt about this matter.) I also devoted the second chapter of my book to criticizing contemporary attempts to defend the existence of such knowledge. So I am convinced that it is not ?possible.? But I did think I could show that the two-color proposition, qualified to apply to specific rather than generic colors, can reasonably be regarded as analytic. That, I believe, is an important result; it solves a problem that has been around for a very long time. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Jlsperanza at aol.com Wed Jan 6 21:42:42 2010 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Wed, 6 Jan 2010 21:42:42 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Proving Message-ID: I should revise the bibliography on this, but I am still interested, sort of, into the 'logic' (as ordinary language philosophers would have it) of 'prove' _qua_ (alla Kiparskys) 'factive'. It seems that Grice was onto something (good or bad) when he emphasised how much of our ordinary talk is about 'deeming' this to be x or y (his idea of sublunary 'knowledge', e.g. in "Meaning Revisited", now in WoW). Ditto his emphasis on _implicit_ reasoning, as exegisised (?) by Warner in his intro to Grice's Aspects of Reason. The idea indeed that, say, if you want to _prove_ A from A (say), to use an example, alla R. B. Jones, of, technically, a 'formal proof', we have a two step proof. 1. A (Ass) 2. Therefore A (Concl). There are, of course, longer proofs for other things, but the logic of 'proving' (or the _grammar_ of 'proving' as other language philosophers would have it) would remain the same. Grice makes various points on this. On the one hand, there is what the OED2 has as "woman's reason" (I like it because I like it). This Grice relabels (in a way, since he does not use "woman's reason), 'trivial' reasoning, or (sometimes) 'irrelevant' reasoning. For who would like to prove "A" out of "A"? (other than an OED2 'woman' that is). If 'factive' is taking seriously, though, unless the complete steps of a 'formal proof' are made explicit, perhaps we wouldn't like to say that an agent (say) has "proved" that p. Popper, alas, though he did write a book on "Proofs and Refutations" would, as D. Frederick would, have cared less, or would _not_ have cared less, about the ordinary logic or grammar of 'proving'. Indeed, if I understand Popper or D. Frederick aright, there's a lot of 'deeming' going on, since, well, each alleged 'proof' is just that until _refuted_. As a historian of analytic philosophy of sorts, I am forever interested in the historical sources of this. And should start with the Philosopher's Index with essays featuring 'proving' in the title (for there's something of an abstract-noun quality which Toulmin calls a 'non-logical goat' in his Uses of Argument) that keeps me slightly apart from grandiose talk of 'proof' as such. Cheers, J. L. Speranza for the Grice Club, etc. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danny.frederick at btinternet.com Thu Jan 7 07:37:38 2010 From: danny.frederick at btinternet.com (Danny Frederick) Date: Thu, 7 Jan 2010 12:37:38 -0000 Subject: [hist-analytic] Proving In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <9CD08AF4B637494C8B663C70AA623FDD@DFLVQC1J> Hi JL, 'Proof' is sometimes distinguished from 'derivation.' A derivation of q from p shows how q follows from p. But since p may be false, the derivation of q from p does not amount to a proof of q. For a proof of q we also need a demonstration that p is true. Obviously, if 'demonstration' is taken to mean derivation, we get an infinite regress. So if we are to have a proof, then demonstration must cover also the mere showing or exhibiting of the truth of a proposition. For this to be possible there must be propositions that are in some way self-evident to us, that is, axioms that can be known to be true without being derived. But, since we lack the power to know any proposition self-evidently, there is no such thing as proof - at least, not for fallible creatures like us. When people talk of 'proof' they normally mean 'derivation;' if they don't, they are just mistaken. When the complete steps of a formal proof are made explicit, what has happened is that a valid argument (one such that it is necessary that if its premises are true then so is its conclusion) has been turned into a formally valid argument, that is, one that can be mechanised. When mathematicians provide 'proofs' they offer (if they are successful) valid arguments from accepted premises; but these will rarely be formally valid arguments (to produce such would in most circumstances be a pointless waste of time - what matters is that it can be done). Incidentally, 'Proofs and Refutations' was written by Lakatos, not Popper, though it did apply Popper's theory of scientific knowledge to mathematical knowledge. I have not forgotten that I owe Roger a reply on a related topic. I will get around to it eventually! Best wishes, Danny -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jlsperanza at aol.com Thu Jan 7 14:48:08 2010 From: jlsperanza at aol.com (jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Thu, 07 Jan 2010 14:48:08 -0500 Subject: [hist-analytic] Proving In-Reply-To: <9CD08AF4B637494C8B663C70AA623FDD@DFLVQC1J> References: <9CD08AF4B637494C8B663C70AA623FDD@DFLVQC1J> Message-ID: <8CC5DE9789EB46F-402C-3CDB@webmail-m055.sysops.aol.com> D. Frederick: "When people talk of ?proof? they normally mean ?derivation;? ifthey don?t, they are just mistaken." I think you are very right on a couple of points. 1) I do like your distinguishing ?deriving? from "proving". Indeed, Christopher Columbus only derived that the Earth was round. (Recall I?m only interested in proving-that, rather than proving-how). 2) Husserl was possibly wrong when he thought he could derive from Aristotle and beyond that there is such a thing as a ?presuppositionless philosophy". We do need a datum, or data, and these are called "Ass." by B. Mates (in his Elementary Logic) and Grice (in Vacuous Names, in the Quine Festschrift). 3) I suppose the old mathematicians -- but R. B. Jones should know better -- were pretty confused about things. And I _include_ Euclid. (I do own the two-volume Thomas edited Greek Mathematics in the Loeb Series so should be able to check this out). When the scholastics (to think that ?schole? for the Greeks was "otium" is a joke seeing that monks were and really _are_ into ?converting? people) talked of Q. E. D. -- i.e. quod erat demonstrandum, this is possibly empty flatus vocis, for what we need is a phrase like ?quod erat probandum". I should revise the Latin for this. And also the Greek for "proving". 4) Interestingly, the proof of the pudding is, indeed, in the derivation (of the pudding) or should at least refer to the derivation. Without derivation, no proof. 5) I suppose we could speak (but I won?t) of ?conditional proof?, i.e. assuming the premises are true, then the derivation is an assumed proof. 6) I like your idea of a "idle waste of time" in providing step-by-step in MATHEMATICAL (which is only analytic anyway) formal proof. "Only that it CAN be done is what matters" as you write. This relates to B. Aune?s recent considerations on the ?CAN? (and ?CANNOT?) of things like ?Nothing CAN be red and green all over". I would think Popper -- in his Conjectures and Refutations -- but mostly his ?disciple? Lakatos in the Popper-inspired (and applied to mathematics), ?Proofs and Refutations" -- were possibly right in that while "proving" tends to assume "loose" usages (e.g. Peter proved me wrong), "disproving" seems a better choice of a verb. Wouldn?t Popper say that only when "p" has been falsified (disproved) that we can witness some sort of growth in our objective knowledge of things? 7) Etc. Cheers, J. L. Speranza From jlsperanza at aol.com Thu Jan 7 14:33:46 2010 From: jlsperanza at aol.com (jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Thu, 07 Jan 2010 14:33:46 -0500 Subject: [hist-analytic] Proving In-Reply-To: <9CD08AF4B637494C8B663C70AA623FDD@DFLVQC1J> References: <9CD08AF4B637494C8B663C70AA623FDD@DFLVQC1J> Message-ID: <8CC5DE776AC740F-402C-3997@webmail-m055.sysops.aol.com> D. F.: "Incidentally, ?Proofs and Refutations?was written by Lakatos" which does emphasise the "of sorts" in my self-label of "historian of analytic philosophy, of sorts", with a vengeance! Indeed, what Popper wrote was "Conjectures" "... and Refutations" -- I should have realised that Popperian ?proof? is an oxymoron! Will get back to D. F.?s other interesting points, e.g. on the weaker, non factive, ?deriving", as I digest things. Thanks, J. L. Speranza From danny.frederick at btinternet.com Thu Jan 7 16:19:46 2010 From: danny.frederick at btinternet.com (Danny Frederick) Date: Thu, 7 Jan 2010 21:19:46 -0000 Subject: [hist-analytic] Proving In-Reply-To: <8CC5DE9789EB46F-402C-3CDB@webmail-m055.sysops.aol.com> References: <9CD08AF4B637494C8B663C70AA623FDD@DFLVQC1J> <8CC5DE9789EB46F-402C-3CDB@webmail-m055.sysops.aol.com> Message-ID: Hi JL, Yes, in times of old, mathematicians and others used to think that things could be proved and not merely derived (in fact, some still do). And Euclid was the model (though Euclidean proofs were informal and Russell thought them scandalous). Russell himself was originally in the Euclidean mould: the idea behind his logicism was to establish maths on firm foundations. But the discovery of the paradox put paid to that idea. He then claimed that mathematical axioms were hypotheses supported ('inductively') by the theorems that could be derived from them. Then came Hilbert's formalism and the revival of Euclideanism. Then Godel's theorems put paid to that. With the advent of logical positivism, the idea of self-evident axioms was ostensibly dropped in favour of conventions (though this probably goes back to Poincare if not before). But this was hopeless. For one thing, it still relies on self-evidence since it assumes that we can simply see that the conventions do not involve a latent contradiction that someone like Russell might turn up. For another thing, the theory is inconsistent, as Quine showed in 'Truth by Convention' and 'Carnap on Logical Truth' (both in his 'Ways of Paradox'). It is not quite right to say that, according to Popper, it is only when "p" has been falsified that we achieve growth in our objective knowledge of things. It is the ATTEMPT to falsify that yields knowledge, whatever the outcome. Cheers. Danny From Jlsperanza at aol.com Thu Jan 7 18:20:09 2010 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Thu, 7 Jan 2010 18:20:09 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Proving Message-ID: In a message dated 1/7/2010 5:28:26 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, danny.frederick at btinternet.com writes: It is not quite right to say that, according to Popper, it is only when "p" has been falsified that we achieve growth in our objective knowledge of things. It is the ATTEMPT to falsify that yields knowledge, whatever the outcome. ---- Thank you. Indeed, a weaker claim. I think I like that. But then, we know that 'knowledge' for Popper is hardly a factive. Grice never acknowledged (then why would he? the reference is so obscure!) the Kiparskys on 'factive', and I haven't checked the OED2 or OED3 to check the earlier uses of 'factive'. I would think it a fact that the Kiparskys did not coin anything. Grice refers to 'factives' twice in WoW: regarding 'mean' in "Meaning Revisited". If the black cloud means rains, then rain. (or words to that effect. More formally -- cfr. "If you can't put it in symbols it's not worth saying" -- ascribed to Grice in Strawson's obit in The Times -- obit of Strawson, I mean: if p means q, q ---- Of course, his beloved utterer's occasion-meaning is not factive in this 'sense' and that troubled Grice slightly: By uttering, "There's a dark cloud up there", the utterer means that it is about to rain. -- Makes little sense. We would need to prove that nobody can speak BUT the truth, which in the case of future contingents would be otiose if not dumb/dull. --- The other occasion where he uses 'factive' is in his earlier, "Presupposition and conversational implicature", which he wrote, he says, in 1970, and revised in 1987. If the 1970 transcript keeps or already has the ref. to 'factive', this is a good place to remember the Kiparsky reference, for it shows the "American formalist Grice" at his best, keeping a track on 'recent advances in linguistics and logic" which he presents as the official excuse for leaving Oxford. (Call me ultra-Gricean, but I CAN'T find an excuse to leave Oxford!) Kiparsky, Paul, & Carol Kiparsky. "Fact" in "Recent Advances in Linguistics", 1968, ed. Bierwisch and Heidolph. Mouton [Kiparskys are into predicate logic of the generative semantic school along with L. Horn, etc. -- crucial for anyone interested in the history of linguistics -- American school]. The passage by Grice is as follows, and I would like to Play Popper (and Lakatos and his paradigm research programme) with these examples or other, even with Popper 'try to refute' Grice: "There is in fact, an enormous range of cases in which the questions about presuppositions arise, not least in connection with psychological verbs" --- as "proving" is. Or "deriving" is. Forget momentarily, D. Frederick, your good emphasis on 'mechanical' derivations and the old mathematicians' use of 'provable' and 'unprovable' re: Fermat or Goedel). Grice continues: "One can distinguish, perhaps, a number of such cases in connection with psychological verbs." ... "Supposing, however, I take the verb 'discover'. [cfr. Speranza, proving. JLS] "and I say, (2) Somebody discovered that the roof was leaking. --- [cfr. (3) The technician proved that there was something wrong with my television set. JLS] "Here, it is not LOGICALLY POSSIBLE my emphasis. JLS] to discover that one's roof is leaking unless one's roof is leaking." Grice refers to this as "logical implication" -- cfr. D. S. M. Wilson, "Implication and Implicature". Grice goes on: For some reason, he did not take 'discover' as a factive, as I or the Kiparskys would. Instead Grice writes: "Then there is a[nother] case, which perhaps is exemplified by the word 'know'," [but cfr. Popper's idiolect on 'objective knowledge', and yes, cfr 'proving', which acts like 'know' in this, _pace_ D. Frederick, at least in some idiolects. JLS] "... in which to say that somebody did know that so-and-so was the case and to say that he did not know that so-and-so was the case BOTH imply that it was the case. This is a specimen, I THINK [emphasis mine. JLS] of the kind of verb that has been called _factive_ [emphasis Grice's]" (WoW, p. 279) I disagree in that in my idiolect, "Jack did not know that Jill was pregnant because she wasn't. Cf. Harnish: Jack: I didn't know you were pregnant. Jill: You still don't. [cfr. Grice on Jack and Jill in "Aspects of Reason"] Grice continues to consider various other cases. I love him when he says he is going 'idle', alla linguistic botanising, when he considers (4) He thought he regretted his father's death, but it afterwards turned out that he didn't. "As far as (4) makes sense, (4) would, I think, still imply the committal to his father's death. But I am not sure [about this] and perhaps [this should] not matter very much". The cheek! Of course it matters. It's what philosophy is made for! And made of! --- So now for 'proving': IDIOLECT: for Popper -- I have to rush now, sorry -- Swimming Pool Library calls! --: "Popper proved that p" "p" "Poppper disproved that p" "not-p" "Lakatos proved that p" "The research paradigm in which Lakatos is immersed disproves that p" "non-p" and some such. In a blog, N. Allott thinks that Grice is referring to "Hamsphire" when he writes "Shropshire" (in Aspects of Reason) as providing a 'proof' of the immortality of the soul, but I don't think he did mean Hampshire. But anyway, to think that philosophers freely used proof like that is enough to want to justify the Americans when they mistranslated Rowlings' "Harry Potter and the philosopher's stone" into "Harry Potter's and the wizard's stone". Later, J. L. Speranza for the Grice Club From rbj at rbjones.com Fri Jan 8 03:38:49 2010 From: rbj at rbjones.com (Roger Bishop Jones) Date: Fri, 8 Jan 2010 08:38:49 +0000 Subject: [hist-analytic] Proving In-Reply-To: <8CC5DE9789EB46F-402C-3CDB@webmail-m055.sysops.aol.com> References: <9CD08AF4B637494C8B663C70AA623FDD@DFLVQC1J> <8CC5DE9789EB46F-402C-3CDB@webmail-m055.sysops.aol.com> Message-ID: <201001080838.50171.rbj@rbjones.com> On Thursday 07 January 2010 19:48:08 jlsperanza at aol.com wrote: > D. Frederick: > > "When people talk of ?proof? they normally mean ?derivation;? ifthey > don?t, they are just mistaken." > > I think you are very right on a couple of points. If not on that one! The usage which Danny is here speaking of is not standard. His imputation of error to those mathematician who speak of something as proven when we have convincing grounds for belief that there exists a proof of it in ZFC is yet another attempt by Danny to impose his own standards on others. Yet another attempt to render useless a part of our normal vocabulary. > 3) I suppose the old mathematicians -- but R. B. Jones should know > better -- were pretty confused about things. And I _include_ Euclid. (I > do own the two-volume Thomas edited Greek Mathematics in the Loeb > Series so should be able to check this out). When the scholastics (to > think that ?schole? for the Greeks was "otium" is a joke seeing that > monks were and really _are_ into ?converting? people) talked of > > Q. E. D. > > -- i.e. quod erat demonstrandum, this is possibly empty flatus vocis, > for what we need is a phrase like ?quod erat probandum". I should > revise the Latin for this. And also the Greek for "proving". You may find that the distinction which Danny is trying to make (putting aside his terminological totalitarianism), is not so very far removed from that made by Aristotle between demonstrative proof and the other kind. Not sure now what he called the other kind, was it dialectical? Anyway, in the former one reasons only from necessary premises, and in the latter from premises which might not be necessary, and might not be true. Admittedly its not the same, for Danny's conception of mere proof requires that the premises be "self-evident" which term he interprets so strongly as to be a species of "vacuous name". Whatever its relationship to Danny's position, this (demonstrative) probably is a reasonably close ancient predecessor to the usage of proof by modern mathematicians (though probably not the usage mathematical logicians, which is more definitely divergent from Danny's usage). A crucial difference here being that the requirement that the premises be necessarily true is weaker than the requirement that they be self-evident, and one may be satisfied of this is one is willing to accept the axioms of ZFC as "implicit definitions" of its domain of discourse. Danny's extreme is of course also discoverable in ancient Greece, if not in Euclid or Aristotle. The classic exponents were the Pyrrhoneans. Roger Jones From Jlsperanza at aol.com Thu Jan 7 22:08:00 2010 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Thu, 7 Jan 2010 22:08:00 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Proving Message-ID: Some further points, as I google 'proof' and 'disproof' as titles in advanced search for amazon. 1. There's that delightful, and originally, I expect, legalese (cfr. Dickens, the law's an ass) "onus probandi", which I never really understood. 2. There are a few books on "idiot-proof" (as used by R. Carston in her "Thoughts and Utterances"). Cfr. fool-proof. This may relate to a point that sort of interests me. There seems to be this idea, by Grice et alii, that the shortest proof is the best. This must be a corollary of Ockham, Do not multiply steps in a proof beyond necessity. And it may relate to Euclid's (and wasn't he based on Aristotle) on axiomata as, per definition, 'unprovable'. As Zeleny has noted elsewhere, the idea that an ass does not need to _prove_ that the straight line is the shortest distance between two points. 3. Books on "Goedel's proof", so called. This book in the Oxford Test Series (on proof and disproof in formal logic) seems to be very good: it has a chapter on Goedel 'blowing up the stadium', after Russell hits Frege in the knee -- with the Greeks inventing the game and Frege wickedly changing the rules for it! 4. As the "Oxford Texts" book, there is J. Barwise, _Proof_ book, which seems to have been popular as a Logic course in American universities (but they keep changing textbooks every term, for commercial reasons). 5. I found a book by Berg on the "Disproof of the existence of God". I thought about it, and came to the conclusion that as a healthy sceptic, I'm not convinced. To me, a disproof of the existence of God seems as unrealistic as a proof of the existence of God. (And I need not agree with Bayne that a world with a God is more interesting than a God without one). 6. "Disproof in Formal Logic" (Oxford Texts) --. This seems like a very good book. Contents available online. I could follow most of the Table of Contents in any case. Very neat and tidy: starting with 'negation', 'conjunction', disjunction, material implication, turning to predicate logic, good chapter on the empty class. It even has a section on 'proof' in science (title of another google book -- and cfr. proof in mathematics as used by Lakatos). Apparently, the author takes 'proof' as 'go by the rules' and 'disproof' by 'counterexample'. 7. Revising the online Latin Dictionary (Lewis/Short, Oxford) I note the use of 'probare', to mean something like 'show': "my paternal fear shows that I am your father" ("et patrio pater esse metu probor", Ovid. Metamorphosis, 2, 91. Which is of course a loose use of 'proof', for the fear may be due to the utterer's _false_ belief that he is the addressee's father, of course. I'm not even DNA testing, which Ovid could not have dreamed of, proves anything of that sort, either. 8. There are a couple of hits for 'prove' and B-raising verbs ("I will prove it that Mary is the culprit" as ill-formed) and Kiparsky and Kiparsky. Also on the asymmetry of proof and disproof for Popper and Lakatos. Apparently, in Chinese, Lakatos, Proofs and refutations" comes out as "Proofs and disproofs" which has a nice ring to it. A google hit notes that 'prove' is _NOT_ a factive, but possibly a 'veridical'. 9. It should be pointed out the similarities between "Meaning" (1948) by Grice and "Proving". While 'factive' (with 'counterfactive' of disproof, and nonfactive) is a new invention, Hart was already citing Grice (1948) -- in "Words and Signs" (Philosophical Quarterly, 1952) on the 'entailment' bit re: the 'natural' use of "mean" -- and indeed the Oxford Texts book has a section on "No smoke without fire?" which may relate. 10. Grice mentions 'epagogic' vs. 'diagogic' sort of 'proofs' (Reply to Richards), and he seems to have viewed 'proof' as a value-oriented concept (like 'reasoning' and 'sentence'). I.e. while 'sentence' entails, possibly, 'good, well-formed sentence', ditto for 'proof'. Another google hit mentions that 'prove' possibly entails the sequencing of steps. Etc. Cheers, J. L. Speranza ---- Appendix. From the Short/Lewis, Latin Dictionary, under 'probo', and should find for the Greek 'cognate', Gk. for 'demonstratio' I assume (syllogismos?). under probare: B. In partic., to make a thing credible, to show, prove [very helpful, this. :). JLS], demonstrate: ?crimen,? Cic. Fl. 37, 93: ?his ego judicibus non probabo, C. Verrem contra leges pecunias cepisse?? Cic. Verr. 2, 1, 4, ? 10: ?causam paucis verbis,? id. Balb. 21, 49: ?se memorem probare,? grateful, id. Fam. 10, 24, 1: ?perfacile factu esse illis probat, conata perficere,? Caes. B. G. 1, 3: ?hoc difficile est probatu,? Cic. Tusc. 5, 1, 1: ? et patrio pater esse metu probor,? my paternal fear shows that I am your father, Ov. M. 2, 91: ?sicut Thrasvmachi probat exitus,? Juv. 7, 204.?With se: malo praesens observanti?, indulgenti?, assiduitate memorem me tibi probare, Planc. ap. Cic. Fam. 10, 24, 1.? From jlsperanza at aol.com Fri Jan 8 11:01:35 2010 From: jlsperanza at aol.com (jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Fri, 08 Jan 2010 11:01:35 -0500 Subject: [hist-analytic] Proving In-Reply-To: <8CC5E917C11150C-67EC-318B@webmail-m032.sysops.aol.com> References: <8CC5E917C11150C-67EC-318B@webmail-m032.sysops.aol.com> Message-ID: <8CC5E92FCFB8E40-67EC-350F@webmail-m032.sysops.aol.com> R. B. Jones in post of Fri, Jan 8, 2010 12:55 pm: "A crucial difference here being that the requirement that the premises be necessarily true is weaker than the requirement that they be self-evident, and one may be satisfied of this is one s willing to accept the axioms of ZFC..." Very good, and thanks for the other comments which I will elaborate on time. I was impressed by this little (well, this is innuendo) book on ?Proof and Disproof in formal logic": the subtitle reads, "An introduction for programmers", which I didn?t know I _was_, for I found it to be "my cup of tea" and much more readable than books I only narrowed myself to read, e.g. Strawson (Intro Logical Theory) or Sainsbury (Logical Form) in what they self-label, like Grice, ?philosophical logic". I will try and find out what the other term other than ?demonstrative proof? for Aristotle was. Yes, problematic or dialectical sound just right. Your mention of ?necessary true? is an interesting claim as it being weaker than ?self-evident?. Indeed, I never understood ?self-evident?. Self-evidently true, I presume. But how can an axiom have a _self_? I assume "self" there translates "auto-", which is a very confusing prefix anyway (cfr. "if driving fast automobiles you like, if old hymns you like..."). I think it is pretty plausible to accept ZFC. Incidentally, when I said, trying to take up D. Frederick?s new usage: Christopher Columbus derived that the Earth was round. or Copernican derived that the Earth gyrates around the sun, thus underiving Ptolemy. I have to concentrate on the ?psychological? reading of ?prove?. For it may well be that Columbus landing in Santo Domingo did prove that the earth is round, which would not entail that he himself proved that. Grice thinks that "to reason" works like "to prove", although perhaps "to prove" is more general. He attempts a nec/suff analysis of "reason" which is always FROM premise TO conclusion: 1. Agent thinks P 2. Agent thinks C 3. Agent thinks that there is a proof from P to C, or derivation. 4. 1 is cause of 2. Of course Grice was no Phyrronean, and would allow for ?proof? to be of various types, not unlike Toulmin and his field- or territorial-dependent validities (with _equi_-vocation, though, in Grice?s parlance) Phyrroneans, as I believe, just were, like Danny, and me on Tuesdays, so demanding with terms that they would not allow people to use things like "proof" or "know" gratuitously at all. Etc. J. L. Speranza for the Grice Club -- this sobriquet to note that I?m not trying to refute or disprove Grice. From rbj at rbjones.com Fri Jan 8 16:48:52 2010 From: rbj at rbjones.com (Roger Bishop Jones) Date: Fri, 8 Jan 2010 21:48:52 +0000 Subject: [hist-analytic] Proving In-Reply-To: <8CC5E92FCFB8E40-67EC-350F@webmail-m032.sysops.aol.com> References: <8CC5E917C11150C-67EC-318B@webmail-m032.sysops.aol.com> <8CC5E92FCFB8E40-67EC-350F@webmail-m032.sysops.aol.com> Message-ID: <201001082148.52520.rbj@rbjones.com> On Friday 08 January 2010 16:01:35 jlsperanza at aol.com wrote: > I will try and find out what the other term other than ?demonstrative > proof? for Aristotle was. Yes, problematic or dialectical sound just > right. It is definitely dialectical. I don't know where he introduces the term, but he uses it in the sense we are considering right at the beginning of the prior analytic: http://texts.rbjones.com/rbjpub/philos/classics/aristotl/o3101c.htm > Incidentally, when I said, trying to take up D. Frederick?s new usage: > > Christopher Columbus derived that the Earth was round. > > or > > Copernican derived that the Earth gyrates around the sun, > thus underiving Ptolemy. > > I have to concentrate on the ?psychological? reading of ?prove?. For it > may well be that Columbus landing in Santo Domingo did prove that the > earth is round, which would not entail that he himself proved that. ... > Phyrroneans, as I believe, just were, like Danny, and me on Tuesdays, > so demanding with terms that they would not allow people to use things > like "proof" or "know" gratuitously at all. I might add on this topic that in modern logic the distinction which Danny attempts to draw between proof and derivation is not sustainable. It rests too heavily on the distinction between an axiom and a rule, and exactly the same deductive system (i.e. having the same theorems) can be presented entirely without rules, or entirely without axioms or with a mixture of the two. For example, it is not unusual for axioms to be treated as inference rules which require no premises. Furthermore, from a sceptical point of view, there is no better reason in general to trust an inference rule than an axiom, and so no basis for accepting derivations but denying that there can be proofs. Roger Jones From Jlsperanza at aol.com Fri Jan 8 17:31:23 2010 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Fri, 8 Jan 2010 17:31:23 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Proving Message-ID: In a message dated 1/8/2010 6:55:33 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, rbj at rbjones.com writes: yet another attempt by [Frederick] to impose his own standards on others. Yet another attempt to render useless a part of our normal vocabulary. ---- Mmm. I see [what you mean]. Oddly, I was reading 'proof' in wiki and they say Thales proved a few (theorems). It's odd that this is not what made him a philosopher, anyways (sic)! Anyway, I read the article, and also bits from this Oxford Series texts ("Proof and disproof in formal theory") -- which perhaps is too much on the comical side, "Who wants to be formal?" the author wonders. This reminds me of Grice when he confesses that it was "of all People, Putnam, who said I was _too_ formal". In any case, I started to search for 'psychology of proof' and got the reference of this Lips author whose book came out in 1994, "Psychology of Proof" and manages to quote from Grice, "Aspects of Reason", as they still unpublished were. I find the online relevant bit of "Reply to Richards" as a googlebook, -- it's page 81. He refers to a 'revised version' of the "Aspects of reason" lectures, which alas, he never found the time to complete. So perhaps the "Reply to Richards" _is_ the last word by Grice on this. Paraphrasing him a bit, he seems to be saying (I use double quotes when it's his exact wording): Prover P "intends that there should be some valid supplementation" of the explicitly present material "which would justify the 'conclusion'" (of the proof) "together perhaps with a further intention that the first intention should be causally efficacious in the generation of the [prover]'s belief in the afore-mentioned conclusion". Must say I love that, however, psychologically implausible -- I recall sharing the quote with S. Stich, the Pope of Cognitive Psychology for Philosophers, and he said, 'preposterous!' -- but he is a slightly rude man, Stich is. In any case, the idea by Grice of referring to the prover's intentions seems very good, and of course we are accustomed to the sort of cross-textuality of the intentions from his work on 'meaning'. The idea of the 'causal' role seems appropriate. Apparently, Lakatos is into something similar in his "Proofs and Disproofs" as I prefer to title his book. He has students considering Euler's proofs and "failed proofs". Lakatos notes that a counterexample to a proof should be distinguished from the less local, more global, counterexample to a conjecture. These are important points that would have appealed Grice. The author of this "introduction for programmers" seems to minimise proofs by saying it's all computers can do. But they don't have intentions, so Grice's analysis would seem futile -- and I wouldn't think he would object. He treasured the reply by Bergman on being invited to one of Austin's kindergartens (so-called because they all had to be, by axiomata, Austin's juniors), "And waste my time with the English futilitarians? No way!" Still looking for Good Greek vocabulary on this. "Syllogismos", no doubt, for proof. Latin 'demonstratio', based on 'monstratio' is an interesting concept too. "monstrare" is to show. This incidentally has a funny linguistic consequence. Consider Kuhn's obsession with the Copernican Revolution: 1. Copernicus discovered that the earth turns around the sun, rather than, as Ptolemy had previously believed, the other way round. Now, 'discover' has this negative particle (which I wonder how Grice, in his considerations of 'know' as factive, can -- as per my previous quote from WoW, Presupposition and Conversational Implicature) even colloquially think it has no maximal scope), 'dis'. So a disproof is a proof that not-p. Etc. Now, 'discover' then is cover that non-p. For surely Ptolemy was _covering_ things, only to have Copernicus DIScovering them for posterity. And to cover and discover are thus factive. For if Joan Rivers covers that she is seventy-three years old, she is that age -- as a paparazzo should discover. Etc. What R. B. Jones or D. Frederick may have to say about Grice's idea of providing some sort of analysis in terms of sufficient and necessary conditions remains to be seen... What I don't like about much of the psychology of proof, unless practiced by a first-rate philosophical psychologist as Grice was, is that it becomes so mentalistic it _hurts_... (e.g. Johnson-Laird mental models, Wason, Lipps, and the rest of them!). Cheers, J. L. Speranza for the Grice Circle From jlsperanza at aol.com Sat Jan 9 09:13:59 2010 From: jlsperanza at aol.com (jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Sat, 9 Jan 2010 09:13:59 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Proving Message-ID: For the neo-Aristotelians, and Ariskantians around us, the ref. to Manetti, "Theories of the Sign in Classical Antiquity" availble googlebooks, ch. 5 especially on Aristotle, which should do to re-read and compare to our current discussions on 'epideixis': Manetti starts the discussion of Aristotle on ch. 5 of his book with the 'semiotic triangle'. Discusses "affections". And the distinction, 'semantic' and 'apophantic'. Discusses 'enthymeme' (5. 2. 2) which became a central issue in Grice's account of 'reasoning'. He discusses etymologies of 'probable' ('eikos', what is likely, cfr. eikon), etc. His section 5. 2. 3. is titled "inference from the consequent" Manetti then considers the "tekmerion" as sign in the first figure of the syllogism" and the "semeion" in the second and third figures". Manetti ends his discussion of Aristotle with a section on 'deduction versus abduction'. Now the next thing would be to provide some linguistic botanising on 'epideixis' and the word it derives from "to show", as it relates to Aristotle's demonstration and deduction, and the model of Euclidean axiomatic treatments of formal logic which were all the rage before Gentzen. The overlap Peirce and Grice seems to be evident in all this emphasis on proving and proofs. Cheers, J. L. Speranza for the Grice Circle -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jlsperanza at aol.com Sat Jan 9 08:58:59 2010 From: jlsperanza at aol.com (jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Sat, 9 Jan 2010 08:58:59 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Proving Message-ID: The Oxford Texts, "Proof and Disproof in Formal Logic" has what I do have as "yields" (after Kleene, Metamathematics), i.e. Frege's assertion sign, to read "proves", which is an interesting paradoxical one. For null set proves a theorem, etc. Another interesting feature of this is that as Grice uses the assertion operator (cfr. Grandy on quessertions), what we say is only theorematic, which sounds good with me. More on the Greek apres Jones: He is indeed right about 'dialectic'. An online site on rhetoric has the following "In Aristotle, dialectic is very similar, though for him, it represents something other than a path to Truth with a capital "T." Dialectic for Aristotle uses cogent logic to reason from widely held or authoritative opinions. Its conclusions are necessary even if its premises are not." A good one is: "enthymeme. (From Greek enthum?ma, "thought," "reasoning," "argument.") In Aristotle, an enthymeme is a syllogism of a particular type, namely, one whose premises are probable as opposed to obvious, self-evident, or empirically confirmable. Thus it combines logic with to eikos, proof by probability. For Aristotle, enthymemes are the basis of rhetorical logic. Because rhetorical (rather than dialectical), they produce probable, not necessary, conclusions." which relates to Grice's implicit reasoning. Why he failed to use enthymema for that -- knowing how he worshipped Greek escapes me) The crucial one is: "epideixis. Plural epideixeis, Greek for "demonstration," "proof" (epideiknunai, "to show")." and here we may consult Mainetti, Theories of the Sign in Antiquity. He is a disciple of Eco, and he knows what he's writing about. Good chapters on Aristotle on this, as it relates to things like Grice's factive 'mean', and 'show', etc. ---- For the assertion sign it's interesting that one meaning of 'logos' is indeed 'argument', as per online site referred to above: logos. (Plur. logoi.) Account, story, speech, an individual speech; an argument. Also calculation, reason, rational thought, reasoned discourse, true story (versus myth), etc. --- cfr. pisteis. The "proofs" section of a speech: where a speaker proves his case. --- this is an alphabetical site, hence my ordering. This pistis correlates with the 'valid supplementation' referred to by Grice in his account of what a prover does as he proves. Oddly, like "meaning", 'proving' is best used in the past: Prover P has proved that p, iff P intended, ... and intended that ... and the ... caused ... etc. ---- With 'provability' and 'probability' are cognate in English and Latin, that was not the case for Greek, according to this online site: Probability (to eikos), argument from. Considered a specialty of sophists like Gorgias, it seems to have been a fixture in the courtroom speeches of ancient Athens, due partly, perhaps, to the relative unavailability and unreliability of physical evidence. Perhaps the most famous / notorious use of argument from probability was by the sophist-professional speech-writer-oligarch Antiphon. Accused of plotting the overthrow of democracy in 411 BCE, he pleaded that a professional speech-writer like him (a logographer) could hardly be expected to support oligarchy, a regime considered unfriendly to his line of work. Thucydides, evidently, admired the speech highly. The jury, however, didn't buy it: Antiphon was put to death. Does 'reasoning' translate 'syllogism': syllogism. A logical formula of Aristotle's devising, where two facts assumed to be true bear a relation to each other such that they imply a third fact necessarily true. Any given syllogism consists of a major premise, a minor premise, and a conclusion, for instance: MAJOR PREMISE. All human beings have souls. MINOR PREMISE. Socrates is a human being. CONCLUSION. Socrates has a soul. If 1 and 2 above are true, then perforce so is 3. Syllogisms figure in enthymemes, for Aristotle, the basis of most persuasive speech. --- My friend Graziella Chichi has dedicated her life to Aristotle's Topics. She would always try to convince me of the importance of this. Now from this online site I see what she meant: topos. Or koinos topos, "common place" (plural koinoi topoi). Your Aristotle Rhetoric text translates the word as "topic." In Aristotle, it refers to a widely applicable mode or scheme of argument, a logical "template" from which many different arguments, enthymemes, can be constructed. Given a particular thesis one seeks to prove or disprove, one will select a proper topos to structure the right sort of proof or disproof. Underlying Aristotle's understanding of the word seems to be its earlier use by sophists, for whom it perhaps meant commonly available, "prefabricated" or "ready-to-wear" verbal formulations (arguments, sentiments, topics, conceits etc.) that could be "plugged-in" to a discourse as needed. In that sense (one commonly used by critics today), a topos is like a clich?, only its appeal and effectiveness actually lie in its familiarity: it expresses a speaker's solidarity with attitudes endorsed by his/her audience. That understanding of topos is not unrelated to Aristotle's use, as topoi in the Rhetoric clearly derive their plausibility in large part from the commonly accepted notions they deploy as arguments. Put differently, speakers/writers use topoi to "push" this or that audience-response "button," depending on need. Compare the topoi of funeral eulogies nowadays: "He was a good husband and a good father "He rose high but never forgot where he came from" "He demanded much of his employees, but never more than he did of himself" Topoi of ancient coutroom oratory: "My friends are your [the audience's] friends; my enemies, your enemies" "My opponent tells you he 'loves' you, but his actions speak otherwise" "Excuse my lack of polish. This is my first time before a court" (I.e., "Unlike my opponent, I'm just a regular Athenian who minds his own business") Topoi of political oratory: "Others will tell you want you want to hear, will resort to flattery [etc.]; I will tell you what you need to hear" "Whose interests will you advance in your voting: those of your enemies abroad and of their lackeys here in the city, or your own?" Cheers, J. L. Speranza for the Grice Circle From Baynesr at comcast.net Sat Jan 9 10:02:15 2010 From: Baynesr at comcast.net (Baynesr at comcast.net) Date: Sat, 9 Jan 2010 15:02:15 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [hist-analytic] New Moves Message-ID: <941067257.9307031263049335725.JavaMail.root@sz0010a.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net> As most of you know, I am academically unaffiliated. My assets are not a function of private sector interest. Recently,? it has been suggested that were I to write an analytical critique of Rawls, before 2011, I would stand to benefit over and above the return from book sales. I have accepted the suggestion. I will, therefore, be limiting most of my posts to issues related to the topic of the social contract. The focus will be on fiscal policy in view of remarks made, in particular, by Rawls in _Political Liberalism_. Columbia, 1993. This will not be narrowly partisan, but it will be written from the standpoint of reconciliation between the Austrian school of economics and the views of Schumpeter and Baumol et al. This will be an aggressive attack on Rawls and related views. I will be examining Hobbes, Rousseau, and Hegel on contracts and a number of issues related to Ron Dworkin's _Taking Rights Seriously_. I will begiin with a critique of Lewis on contract and convention, though I may withhold posting this for a bit. I will let stand Bruce's criticism and return, time permitting, to the objectives of that exchange. I will say only that he fails to understand the point raised by my reference to Poincare and generally oversimplifies the positions he opposes. In this regard intuition is a case in point, where he seems to criticize intuition that are bad as if they are the best intuitions the intuitionist can come up with, etc. I hope to return to this, but financial and other reasons make it, almost, imperative that I engage the topics of Rawls, Amartya Sen, Arrow, James Buchanan etc. in a more or less Hobbesian framework, strange as that may sound. By the way, Hegel on The Philosophy of Right is astonishinlgy good! More later. None of this should discourage ongoing or new discussion of issues strictly related to the history of analytical philosophy. Most of my remarks will be historically based. Best wishes to all. Steve Bayne -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jlsperanza at aol.com Sat Jan 9 12:48:10 2010 From: jlsperanza at aol.com (jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Sat, 09 Jan 2010 12:48:10 -0500 Subject: [hist-analytic] Hobbesian In-Reply-To: <941067257.9307031263049335725.JavaMail.root@sz0010a.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net> References: <941067257.9307031263049335725.JavaMail.root@sz0010a.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net> Message-ID: <8CC5F6B0B238B98-4058-12417@webmail-d081.sysops.aol.com> -----Original Message----- From: Baynesr at comcast.net To: hist-analytic Sent: Sat, Jan 9, 2010 12:02 pm Subject: New Moves "I will be examining Hobbes..." "I engage the topics ... in a more or less Hobbesian framework, strange as that may sound." ---- That is excellent, and all good wishes to you. When I was doing Grice, I was fascinated by a discussion of him in Judy Baker (Grice?s collaborator)?s husband, I. M. Hacking, the Canada-born philosopher. In his "Why does language matter to philosophy," he cares to take Hobbes more or less seriously into consideration. Matter of fact, he calls Hobbes a proto- (or as I prefer, paleo-) Gricean. Mainly in terms of intentions to display an "artificial" sign. If I recall aright, Hacking?s example of Hobbes is "Stone!" The obvious point: by uttering, "Stone!? the utterer U means that his or her addressee should form the belief that the utterer is entertaining the content, "stone". No mediate naive views there. So, I just thought that Bayne?s point about turning Hobbesian contra Rawls sounds very good. Cheers, J. L. Speranza for the Grice Circle From jlsperanza at aol.com Sat Jan 9 12:55:51 2010 From: jlsperanza at aol.com (jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Sat, 09 Jan 2010 12:55:51 -0500 Subject: [hist-analytic] The arbitrariness of convention: revisited Message-ID: <8CC5F6C1D9BCA26-4058-12585@webmail-d081.sysops.aol.com> steve bayne baynesrb at yahoo.com Sat Jan 2 17:24:51 EST 2010 Previous message: [hist-analytic] David Lewis, Grice and Rawlsian Contracts Next message: [hist-analytic] Response to Steve's Latest Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ] ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------- "Well, his 'convention' seems to be arbitrary" I don't see this. How so? Regards Steve ===== Well, I was referring to the condition, in Lewis?s analysis in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions for ?x is a convention iff" that x should be "arbitrary". My knowledge of Lewis is mainly second-hand, but I seem to recall this issue discussed somehow at length by Gricean authors. Grice would possibly criticise the word "arbitrary" here. In Latin it just means, "under one?s control". I suppose Lewis meant something different. It is the nature of a convention that there is nothing "natural" as it were about it; for the point being, if there were, why bother to call it a ?convention?, rather than a mere rational development from a natural-based procedure? Incidentally, my mentor in this matters was my PhD advisor, E. A. Rabossi, who defined hisself as a naturalist about rights, and right he was too! Cheers, J. L. Speranza for the Grice Circle. From Baynesr at comcast.net Sat Jan 9 13:27:29 2010 From: Baynesr at comcast.net (Baynesr at comcast.net) Date: Sat, 9 Jan 2010 18:27:29 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [hist-analytic] Hobbesian In-Reply-To: <8CC5F6B0B238B98-4058-12417@webmail-d081.sysops.aol.com> Message-ID: <1215857324.9363321263061649106.JavaMail.root@sz0010a.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net> Baker and Hacking are superb philosophers. Grice is discussed at length by David Lewis. I hope to get to that. As you know, I accept much of what Grice says on meaning, and his use of intention and expectation in the context of explicating the notion is a remarkably original and insightful move. Consider what Rawls says about Hobbes: "...in my own view and that of many others Hobbes's _Leviathan_ is the greatest single work of political thought in the English language." (Lectures on the History of Political Philosophy, Harvard, 2007, p. 23) I'm going to have to revise the "rules of engagement" on the list. One thing is that I'm not going to allow posts on foreign policy or on other list members. In addition, flaming will strictly prohibited. Also, no mention of particular nations will be allowed. Few political philosophers have felt the need for this and of late I've been exposed to rather stupid people incapable of getting beyond the commonplace know-nothing partisan discussion. None of that will here be tolerated. Moreover, any comments on list policy should be directed to me, otherwise they will not be posted. This having been said, I think we can have some really very interesting discussion on the nature of justice and the evolution of the modern theory of the social contract. H. L. Hart's _The Concept of Law_ is exemplary of the sort of thing relevant to the analytical approach to social and political philosophy. Best wishes Steve ----- Original Message ----- From: jlsperanza at aol.com To: hist-analytic at simplelists.co.uk Sent: Saturday, January 9, 2010 12:48:10 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: Hobbesian -----Original Message----- From: Baynesr at comcast.net To: hist-analytic Sent: Sat, Jan 9, 2010 12:02 pm Subject: New Moves "I will be examining Hobbes..." "I engage the topics ... in a more or less Hobbesian framework, strange as that may sound." ---- That is excellent, and all good wishes to you. When I was doing Grice, I was fascinated by a discussion of him in Judy Baker (Grice?s collaborator)?s husband, I. M. Hacking, the Canada-born philosopher. In his "Why does language matter to philosophy," he cares to take Hobbes more or less seriously into consideration. Matter of fact, he calls Hobbes a proto- (or as I prefer, paleo-) Gricean. Mainly in terms of intentions to display an "artificial" sign. If I recall aright, Hacking?s example of Hobbes is "Stone!" The obvious point: by uttering, "Stone!? the utterer U means that his or her addressee should form the belief that the utterer is entertaining the content, "stone". No mediate naive views there. So, I just thought that Bayne?s point about turning Hobbesian contra Rawls sounds very good. Cheers, J. L. Speranza for the Grice Circle From baynesrb at yahoo.com Sat Jan 9 13:45:34 2010 From: baynesrb at yahoo.com (steve bayne) Date: Sat, 9 Jan 2010 10:45:34 -0800 (PST) Subject: [hist-analytic] The arbitrariness of convention: revisited In-Reply-To: <8CC5F6C1D9BCA26-4058-12585@webmail-d081.sysops.aol.com> Message-ID: <546639.68640.qm@web36508.mail.mud.yahoo.com> JL, ? Yes, you are absolutely right. I was unclear on what you meant exactly but your point is well taken. ? It may be a non-arbitrary decision whether to have traffic rules, or conventions, but it is arbitrary as to _which_ conventions to adopt. This is the fundamental difference between convention for Lewis and contract. In social contract there are no alternatives; that is, there is only the state of nature or the social contract, unlike the case of traffic laws. Take a look at Lewis _Convention_ p. 96 for the point your raise. ? Regards ? Steve --- On Sat, 1/9/10, jlsperanza at aol.com wrote: From: jlsperanza at aol.com Subject: The arbitrariness of convention: revisited To: hist-analytic at simplelists.co.uk Date: Saturday, January 9, 2010, 12:55 PM steve bayne baynesrb at yahoo.com Sat Jan 2 17:24:51 EST 2010 Previous message: [hist-analytic] David Lewis, Grice and Rawlsian Contracts Next message: [hist-analytic] Response to Steve's Latest Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ] ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------- "Well, his 'convention' seems to be arbitrary" I don't see this. How so? Regards Steve ===== Well, I was referring to the condition, in Lewis?s analysis in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions for ?x is a convention iff" that x should be "arbitrary". My knowledge of Lewis is mainly second-hand, but I seem to recall this issue discussed somehow at length by Gricean authors. Grice would possibly criticise the word "arbitrary" here. In Latin it just means, "under one?s control". I suppose Lewis meant something different. It is the nature of a convention that there is nothing "natural" as it were about it; for the point being, if there were, why bother to call it a ?convention?, rather than a mere rational development from a natural-based procedure? Incidentally, my mentor in this matters was my PhD advisor, E. A. Rabossi, who defined hisself as a naturalist about rights, and right he was too! Cheers, J. L. Speranza ? for the Grice Circle. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Jlsperanza at aol.com Sat Jan 9 16:43:55 2010 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Sat, 9 Jan 2010 16:43:55 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Hobbesian Message-ID: In a message dated 1/9/2010 1:33:27 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, Baynesr at comcast.net writes: Baker and Hacking are superb philosophers. Grice is discussed at length by David Lewis. I hope to get to that. As you know, I accept much of what Grice says on meaning, and his use of intention and expectation in the context of explicating the notion is a remarkably original and insightful move. Consider what Rawls says about Hobbes: "...in my own view and that of many others Hobbes's _Leviathan_ is the greatest single work of political thought in the English language." (Lectures on the History of Political Philosophy, Harvard, 2007, p. 23) ==== Oops. The mention of not mentioning countries sort of scares me. For wasn't Hobbes only concerned about the political situation in England with the Charles I and the Charles II? -- Anyway, Hobbes is indeed great, and so are, as you say, both Hacking and Baker, and a few of other list-members too -- even if I should not go on mentioning them! --- Oddly, Hobbes's view reported by Hacking rests on his "Computatio sive logica", rather than his "Leviathan", I think. I used to consult Molesworth's edition of the English works of Hobbes, but much of what he said he did say in Latin. I recall having to study "History of Philosophy in England" technically and getting a bit upset by Sorley (the author of such a book, a Scot) in strictly starting the thing with the _English_ language, when much of the earlier modern philosophy, in political philosophy, or other, was conducted in Latin! --- I found J. F. Bennett -- another superb philosopher -- helping me understand (as Hacking did vis a vis Hobbes) the Gricean basis in Locke. I never saw a detailed commentary of the interlocking of intentions in the work of Locke other than in Bennett's exegesis on this admirable empiricist philosopher who possibly cannot be understood without Hobbes, either. Cheers, J. L. Speranza for the Grice Club From Jlsperanza at aol.com Sat Jan 9 16:36:21 2010 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Sat, 9 Jan 2010 16:36:21 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Proving Message-ID: In a message dated 1/8/2010 6:57:50 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, rbj at rbjones.com writes: It is definitely dialectical. I don't know where he introduces the term, but he uses it in the sense we are considering right at the beginning of the prior analytic: _http://texts.rbjones.com/rbjpub/philos/classics/aristotl/o3101c.htm_ (http://texts.rbjones.com/rbjpub/philos/classics/aristotl/o3101c.htm) ---- Thanks for the excellent references, as always. It's good to have a good Aristotelian just a click away, and you may be interested to know that this online rhetoric thing does have a thing about the 'dialectic' -- it's an alphabetic list, a bit of a mixed bag (I cannot paste the html with this mailer I'm using, though) -- but I excerpted: The online site goes: "In Aristotle, dialectic is very similar," -- to Plato -- for recall Whitehead, all philosophy, metaphysics or what have you, is but footnotes to Plato! "though for him, it represents something other than a path to Truth with a capital "T." Dialectic for Aristotle uses cogent logic to reason from widely held or authoritative opinions. Its conclusions are necessary even if its premises are not." I was thinking that there is such a slight distinction between Greek for 'proof', epideiktikos, as it were (epideixis being the noun) and apodeiktic, which Kant uses versus problematic and a third term, that it hurts! --- Jones adds: "I might add on this topic that in modern logic the distinction which Danny attempts to draw between proof and derivation is not sustainable. It rests too heavily on the distinction between an axiom and a rule, and exactly the same deductive system (i.e. having the same theorems) can be presented entirely without rules, or entirely without axioms or with a mixture of the two. For example, it is not unusual for axioms to be treated as inference rules which require no premises." Yes, this is a good point. I'm slightly irritated by this author of "Proof and Disproof in Formal Logic" when he writes -- recall it's an Introduction for Programmers rather than, pedants! -- "Rain!" is not a claim, hence not provable. --- A 'rule' is like a non-claim, then. And it is true that Gentzen seems to be having his cake and eating it too when he has the good old 'axiomata' of Aristotle (for whom, as for Grice, axios, means 'valuable') turned into 'rules' of the game, which would then not be provable. While I'm not Kantian enough to think that there is 'proof' in 'practical argument', I am Gricean enough to think that something like a notion of 'consequentia' holds for both 'alethic' and 'practica' arguments, to use Grice's jargon. But the point you make is incredibly right. Jones: "Furthermore, from a sceptical point of view, there is no better reason in general to trust an inference rule than an axiom, and so no basis for accepting derivations but denying that there can be proofs." I see. On the other hand, I think I do understand D. Frederick's reluctance with 'proving' (versus 'deriving'). I think Grice would probably agree with D. Frederick. He has "Shropshire" proving the immortality of the soul, recall -- googlebooks, Aspects of Reason. Since it is so ridiculous to even think that the soul is immortal (to me), I have to take Grice jocularly. As if saying that Shropshire (and N. Allott, online, says that's a counterpart of Hampshire -- recall Grice, "I don't remember this fellow's name. All I remember is that his surname was the name of an English county") did prove that the soul is immortal. Based on his equally silly premises -- e.g. that a chicken -- or chick as I prefer, since I use chicken only for the plural -- walks post-mortem, etc. More later, I hope Cheers, J. L. Speranza for the Grice Club. From Jlsperanza at aol.com Sat Jan 9 16:56:56 2010 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Sat, 9 Jan 2010 16:56:56 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Deutero-Esperanto Message-ID: In a message dated 1/9/2010 1:47:15 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, baynesrb at yahoo.com writes in "Re: The arbitrariness of convention: revisited" JL, Yes, you are absolutely right. I was unclear on what you meant exactly but your point is well taken. It may be a non-arbitrary decision whether to have traffic rules, or conventions, but it is arbitrary as to _which_ conventions to adopt. This is the fundamental difference between convention for Lewis and contract. In social contract there are no alternatives; that is, there is only the state of nature or the social contract, unlike the case of traffic laws. Take a look at Lewis _Convention_ p. 96 for the point your raise. ---- Thanks. I do think too it's a good feature, 'arbitrariness'. After posting my post, though, I thought that the way I got to understood it was via Searle's use of Rawls on brute/institutional and regulative/constitutive. Distinctions we need not buy. But I think it is an example by Searle, in his Speech Acts. Consider fishing To fish is to take fish out of water. Any procedure that gets to that point would NOT be conventional. You have the goal: to take fish out of water, and any means to achieve the goal are procedures of the most primitive, underived type. Perhaps 'procedure' (I'm thinking in terms of Lewis's 'regularities' here) may involve a reference to a habitual practice. I wouldn't think I have a 'procedure' to achieve Goal g, by exercising means M if I only do it _once_ -- but cfr. Blackburn on Grice on one-off meaning in _Spreading the word_ --. And this distinction of procedure is really not needed by Grice until he gets to be troubled by 'expression' rather than 'utterer's' meaning. Now, if the fishing pole is painted _red_ in Korea, say, one may say that is a conventional thing. For why not paint it _blue_. The fact that official fishing poles in say, country C, for fishing tournement, need to be painted the specific colour C', seems _conventional_. Another example would be, to hold the fork with the left hand and the knife with the right hand seems _arbitrary_ and thus conventional. But there are important issues, here as they concern your reference to the 'state of nature'. For for a naturalist, _all_ is natural, even conventions -- So there's no way we can draw a definite line: up to here is 'phusei' as the Greeks wanted, and from now on it is 'thesei', convention. And in introspection, what regularities we engage in are _truly_ arbitrary or conventional in this sense? I happen to adhere to the bow-wow theory of the origin of language, so do think that names were basically onomatopoetic in nature, alla Plato's Kratyl. So, to think that 'pluie' means, arbitrarily, or conventionally, 'rain', in French, is quite a stretch. But more on this later, I hope. I title the thing as I do, since this is a coinage by Grice to add, "I do not believe that meaning is essentially tied to convention; I can invent a language, call it "Deutero-Esperanto"; that makes me the master". Or words to that perlocutionary effect (WoW Meaning Revisited, googlebooks). Must say I loved that claim! Note too that more technically, Grice can do without conventions (at least as it pertains to 'meaning') when -- perhaps contra Lewis -- he allows the mode-of-correlation (his variable 'c' in his full-blown definition of utterer's meaning occupying a whole page of his WoW, Googlebooks, Utterer's meaning and intentions) to be: either other or iconic or conventional But back to the state of nature, I forgot to mention, perhaps that this E. A. Rabossi was so into the naturalism of rights that it hurt me. He always tried to oppose the views of one C. S. Nino who had his DPhil Oxon under Hart -- while Rabossi was more of a Gricean one. Cheers, J. L. Speranza for the Grice Club From jlsperanza at aol.com Sat Jan 9 17:33:33 2010 From: jlsperanza at aol.com (jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Sat, 09 Jan 2010 17:33:33 -0500 Subject: [hist-analytic] =?utf-8?q?Grice=C2=B4s_Highway_Code?= In-Reply-To: <546639.68640.qm@web36508.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <546639.68640.qm@web36508.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <8CC5F92E9024465-38D4-15222@webmail-d080.sysops.aol.com> -----Original Message----- From: steve bayne To: hist-analytic at simplelists.co.uk Sent: Sat, Jan 9, 2010 3:45 pm Subject: Re: The arbitrariness of convention: revisited JL, Yes, you are absolutely right. I was unclear on what you meant exactly but your point is well taken. It may be a non-arbitrary decision whether to have traffic rules, or conventions, but it is arbitrary as to _which_ conventions to adopt. This is the fundamental difference between convention for Lewis and contract. In social contract there are no alternatives; that is, there is only the state of nature or the social contract, unlike the case of traffic laws. Take a look at Lewis _Convention_ p. 96 for the point your raise. ? --- Thanks for the reference. A note on my Deutero-Esperanto, too. I title this Grice?s Highway Code, since I?m taking very seriously your ref., which I missed on first reading your post, to the traffic rules, and my fishing. If a native of this land where the fishing poles _have_ to be ?red? tells us that there is a ?reason? for it, I think we would feel uncomfortable to find this ?conventional? then. It wouldn?t be arbitrary enough. Grice considers, funnily, himself laying in his bathtub and composing a new Highway Code -- in Deutero-Esperanto, I would imagine. This in WoW, lecture 6 -- I think ALL of Grice?s output originated as lecture. Odd that, but a nice colloquial ring to all he writes --. He is considering ?procedures? and finds it otiose to refer to actual (vs. potential) regularities. So he has himself inventing the new highway code (cfr. Bayne?s ref. to traffic rules above) as involving a procedure or set of procedures that a would-be agent would abide by. I found that very funny always. I learned to drive, and got my license, too, while in the USA. I THINK the driving instructor told me that ?red? -- we spent so much time together that he became a Gricean of sorts -- is not ARBITRARILY the sign for ?stop?-It naturally means, to echo Grice, ?danger?. I?m less sure about yellow. In fact, L. J. Kramer, who lives in NY, told me that originally yellow was not even there. I think what you say is very true. I don?t know about the times of Hobbes -- horse-driven carriages I assume -- and before that, the state of nature -- but once you have automobiles, some rules or agreed-on ?code?or what you may call it, seems, pace the Italians -- hey I?m one! -- sort of necessary! I recall discussing this, oddly, with T. Wharton -- he credits me in his "Pragmatics and Non-Verbal Communication?, fresh from CUP -- and his offense at the word ?code?. But there was Grice calling his thing a ?new Highway Code?. So perhaps ?code? is a good word, after all, for this kind of agreed-on procedures. Of course a highway code is not _moral_ so we may assume that it may include a rule (so-called) that applies only to the monarch, the sovereign individual, or an ambulance. When we get to contracts that matter, I?m not sure about your ?no choice? about the ?state of nature?. There seems to be an essentialism involved, if I understood your exegesis aright, that man is a ?social? animal (zoon politikon of Aristotle). So that a man who does not engage in some kind of ?political?involvement is not yet human enough. But Guariglia, my teacher in ethics, always got irritated by Aristotle on slavery on this -- and he even has some nasty things to say about illegal Greeks, living in Athens! But in any case, one would need to consider the Robinson-Crusoe scenarios familar with philosophers. The man who does not renew his ?social contract? and finds that it?s thanks God it?s Friday! Are there good philosophical essays on Robinson-Crusoe. I think DeFoe was a genius that invented him! (I mean, other than private-language arguments I?ve seen). I forget who the editor for the Oxford Readings in Philosophy?s volume for Political Philosophy is. But what a great subject that is, and what a long, even Oxonian, philosophical tradition, about it! Sometimes I wish Grice would have been more involved in that, rather than his cursory ref. to Oxonian ?pinko politics?! (or his reference to Wilson and Heath in WoW, iv -- vide Chapman for Grice?s updating the names of the candidates for prime-ministers, _Grice_, Macmillan, for this). Cheers, J. L. Speranza for the Grice Club From jlsperanza at aol.com Sat Jan 9 19:19:26 2010 From: jlsperanza at aol.com (jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Sat, 09 Jan 2010 19:19:26 -0500 Subject: [hist-analytic] How Pirots Karulize Elatically In-Reply-To: <941067257.9307031263049335725.JavaMail.root@sz0010a.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net> References: <941067257.9307031263049335725.JavaMail.root@sz0010a.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net> Message-ID: <8CC5FA1B3A0CF8D-1368-15E7E@webmail-d069.sysops.aol.com> Some simpler ways. -----Original Message----- From: Baynesr at comcast.net To: hist-analytic Sent: Sat, Jan 9, 2010 12:02 pm Subject: New Moves ... I will, therefore, be limiting most of my posts to issues related to the topic of the social contract. The focus will be on fiscal policy in view of remarks made, in particular, by Rawls in _Political Liberalism_. Columbia, 1993. This will not be narrowly partisan, but it will be written from the standpoint of reconciliation between the Austrian school of economics and the views of Schumpeter and Baumol et al. This will be an aggressive attack on Rawls and related views. I will be examining Hobbes, Rousseau, and Hegel on contracts and a number of issues related to Ron Dworkin's _Taking Rights Seriously_. I will begin with a critique of Lewis on contract and convention, though I may withhold posting this for a bit. ? --- Allow me to post this then. Elsewhere I have been revising Grice?s thoughts on ?how pirots karulize elatically?. This has various uses for Grice, but as a list-member from County Mayo elsewhere pointed out, it?s best to deal with it _ethically_! How pirots karulize elatically. Unless they start doing things seriously they may stop karulising completely! --- First a view on Grice as a Kantian. It would be odd or unhistorical to regard Kant or Grice (see his views on the highway code) as _abstract_ or theoretical or unrelated to our moral realities. I don?t think Grice would show _one_ interest in moral or political theory unless rooted in our practices. Ditto for Kant. I think it?s best to consider Grice?s moral views -- and political views -- or political philosophical that is -- as an advancement on so-called _ideal observer_ theories. How this relate to contractualism I leave to Bayne to find out! (Just joking). The Oxford scene on moral-political theory was, I would think, pretty dry for Grice to engage in: Hare, Hart, etc. While he shows an important interest in Mackie (Inventing right and wrong) and Foot (her contribution to her own Oxford University Readings), Grice examines this in his "Method in philosophical psychology". In that presidential adress (to the APA, Pacific Division) he briefly considers the application of his genitorial programme of pirots, as he calls it, to ethics. Why would pirots want to engage in social contracts and such? First, no pirot is an island as it were. Grice was manifestly interested in Dawkins?s Selfish Gene theories, and so he showed an interest in questions of ethics as survival questions. He thus conceived an Immanuel, of moral commandments, as it were, that pirots compose for theirselves. These rules are reciprocal (i.e. they have formal generality), they have applicational generality, that is, but they also show two other features which Grice finds in connection with discussions of universalisability (for what is Rawls?s Justice but a reply to Hegel and Kant on this?). Grice?s method has been reprinted by J. Baker in Grice?s Conception of Value and may be available online. In his third book, "Aspects of Reason", Grice adds considerations of ?be happy?. A hypothetical imperative becomes categorical, alla Kant, if considered an apodosis of a protasis, "if you want to be happy, do this!". So I would assume that whatever Geoffrey Russell Grice thought about pacts and contracts, what H. P. Grice did was an understanding of morality, pretty much alla Warnock, in The Object of Morality, and further, political stability, in terms of a mutual agreement as it were for the mutual promotion of mutual happiness. Yet, he thought he was not just or not an utilitarian at all! In my PhD on pragmatics I had to narrow my focus to language and such, but my last chapter is oddly entitled, and in the vernacular too, The Cunning of Reason, for I think the big answer that rationalists like Ariskant and Grice owe us, is how to make their universalist views compatible with, well, local rather than mere global flourishings and such! Cheers, JL Speranza for the Grice Circle From Baynesr at comcast.net Sat Jan 9 19:31:02 2010 From: Baynesr at comcast.net (Baynesr at comcast.net) Date: Sun, 10 Jan 2010 00:31:02 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [hist-analytic] =?utf-8?q?Grice=C2=B4s_Highway_Code?= In-Reply-To: <8CC5F92E9024465-38D4-15222@webmail-d080.sysops.aol.com> Message-ID: <1197546254.9448781263083462233.JavaMail.root@sz0010a.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net> JL "forget who the editor for the Oxford Readings in Philosophy?s volume for Political Philosophy" That would be Sir Anthony Quinton. Isn't he librarian, or was, at Bodelian? In any case, this is a perticularly good anthology. I read a number of essays a long while ago, but I'm going to be returning to this. Carritt's "Liberty and Equality" will be among the first on my list, since it's implications for Rawls (the second principle qualifies the first as equality may qualify liberty) is crucial. Also, the essays by Benn on "Sovereignty" etc.?? I'll attempt to soothe your concern over essentialism with an account of Lewis's take on the difference between conventions and the social contract. He's really very intersting. If there have been good criticisms, someone let me know on or offlist. Also, Grice is defensible on "code." I'll try getting back; but right now I'm taking a closer look at reciprocity; oddly (?) it seems rooted in Biblical texts, at least insofar as it has influenced the west. The nature of reciprocity is, of course, clear in Kant. Alan Donagan supplies a basis I think for making a connection. Regards Steve --- On Sat, 1/9/10, jlsperanza at aol.com wrote: From: jlsperanza at aol.com Subject: Grice?s Highway Code To: hist-analytic at simplelists.co.uk Date: Saturday, January 9, 2010, 5:33 PM -----Original Message----- From: steve bayne < baynesrb at yahoo.com > To: hist-analytic at simplelists.co.uk Sent: Sat, Jan 9, 2010 3:45 pm Subject: Re: The arbitrariness of convention: revisited JL, Yes, you are absolutely right. I was unclear on what you meant exactly but your point is well taken. It may be a non-arbitrary decision whether to have traffic rules, or conventions, but it is arbitrary as to _which_ conventions to adopt. This is the fundamental difference between convention for Lewis and contract. In social contract there are no alternatives; that is, there is only the state of nature or the social contract, unlike the case of traffic laws. Take a look at Lewis _Convention_ p. 96 for the point your raise. ? --- Thanks for the reference. A note on my Deutero-Esperanto, too. I title this Grice?s Highway Code, since I?m taking very seriously your ref., which I missed on first reading your post, to the traffic rules, and my fishing. If a native of this land where the fishing poles _have_ to be ?red? tells us that there is a ?reason? for it, I think we would feel uncomfortable to find this ?conventional? then. It wouldn?t be arbitrary enough. Grice considers, funnily, himself laying in his bathtub and composing a new Highway Code -- in Deutero-Esperanto, I would imagine. This in WoW, lecture 6 -- I think ALL of Grice?s output originated as lecture. Odd that, but a nice colloquial ring to all he writes --. He is considering ?procedures? and finds it otiose to refer to actual (vs. potential) regularities. So he has himself inventing the new highway code (cfr. Bayne?s ref. to traffic rules above) as involving a procedure or set of procedures that a would-be agent would abide by. I found that very funny always. I learned to drive, and got my license, too, while in the USA. I THINK the driving instructor told me that ?red? -- we spent so much time together that he became a Gricean of sorts -- is not ARBITRARILY the sign for ?stop?-It naturally means, to echo Grice, ?danger?. I?m less sure about yellow. In fact, L. J. Kramer, who lives in NY, told me that originally yellow was not even there. I think what you say is very true. I don?t know about the times of Hobbes -- horse-driven carriages I assume -- and before that, the state of nature -- but once you have automobiles, some rules or agreed-on ?code?or what you may call it, seems, pace the Italians -- hey I?m one! -- sort of necessary! I recall discussing this, oddly, with T. Wharton -- he credits me in his "Pragmatics and Non-Verbal Communication?, fresh from CUP -- and his offense at the word ?code?. But there was Grice calling his thing a ?new Highway Code?. So perhaps ?code? is a good word, after all, for this kind of agreed-on procedures. Of course a highway code is not _moral_ so we may assume that it may include a rule (so-called) that applies only to the monarch, the sovereign individual, or an ambulance. When we get to contracts that matter, I?m not sure about your ?no choice? about the ?state of nature?. There seems to be an essentialism involved, if I understood your exegesis aright, that man is a ?social? animal (zoon politikon of Aristotle). So that a man who does not engage in some kind of ?political?involvement is not yet human enough. But Guariglia, my teacher in ethics, always got irritated by Aristotle on slavery on this -- and he even has some nasty things to say about illegal Greeks, living in Athens! But in any case, one would need to consider the Robinson-Crusoe scenarios familar with philosophers. The man who does not renew his ?social contract? and finds that it?s thanks God it?s Friday! Are there good philosophical essays on Robinson-Crusoe. I think DeFoe was a genius that invented him! (I mean, other than private-language arguments I?ve seen). I forget who the editor for the Oxford Readings in Philosophy?s volume for Political Philosophy is. But what a great subject that is, and what a long, even Oxonian, philosophical tradition, about it! Sometimes I wish Grice would have been more involved in that, rather than his cursory ref. to Oxonian ?pinko politics?! (or his reference to Wilson and Heath in WoW, iv -- vide Chapman for Grice?s updating the names of the candidates for prime-ministers, _Grice_, Macmillan, for this). Cheers, J. L. Speranza ???for the Grice Club ----- Original Message ----- From: jlsperanza at aol.com To: hist-analytic at simplelists.co.uk Sent: Saturday, January 9, 2010 5:33:33 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: Grice?s Highway Code -----Original Message----- From: steve bayne To: hist-analytic at simplelists.co.uk Sent: Sat, Jan 9, 2010 3:45 pm Subject: Re: The arbitrariness of convention: revisited JL, Yes, you are absolutely right. I was unclear on what you meant exactly but your point is well taken. It may be a non-arbitrary decision whether to have traffic rules, or conventions, but it is arbitrary as to _which_ conventions to adopt. This is the fundamental difference between convention for Lewis and contract. In social contract there are no alternatives; that is, there is only the state of nature or the social contract, unlike the case of traffic laws. Take a look at Lewis _Convention_ p. 96 for the point your raise. ? --- Thanks for the reference. A note on my Deutero-Esperanto, too. I title this Grice?s Highway Code, since I?m taking very seriously your ref., which I missed on first reading your post, to the traffic rules, and my fishing. If a native of this land where the fishing poles _have_ to be ?red? tells us that there is a ?reason? for it, I think we would feel uncomfortable to find this ?conventional? then. It wouldn?t be arbitrary enough. Grice considers, funnily, himself laying in his bathtub and composing a new Highway Code -- in Deutero-Esperanto, I would imagine. This in WoW, lecture 6 -- I think ALL of Grice?s output originated as lecture. Odd that, but a nice colloquial ring to all he writes --. He is considering ?procedures? and finds it otiose to refer to actual (vs. potential) regularities. So he has himself inventing the new highway code (cfr. Bayne?s ref. to traffic rules above) as involving a procedure or set of procedures that a would-be agent would abide by. I found that very funny always. I learned to drive, and got my license, too, while in the USA. I THINK the driving instructor told me that ?red? -- we spent so much time together that he became a Gricean of sorts -- is not ARBITRARILY the sign for ?stop?-It naturally means, to echo Grice, ?danger?. I?m less sure about yellow. In fact, L. J. Kramer, who lives in NY, told me that originally yellow was not even there. I think what you say is very true. I don?t know about the times of Hobbes -- horse-driven carriages I assume -- and before that, the state of nature -- but once you have automobiles, some rules or agreed-on ?code?or what you may call it, seems, pace the Italians -- hey I?m one! -- sort of necessary! I recall discussing this, oddly, with T. Wharton -- he credits me in his "Pragmatics and Non-Verbal Communication?, fresh from CUP -- and his offense at the word ?code?. But there was Grice calling his thing a ?new Highway Code?. So perhaps ?code? is a good word, after all, for this kind of agreed-on procedures. Of course a highway code is not _moral_ so we may assume that it may include a rule (so-called) that applies only to the monarch, the sovereign individual, or an ambulance. When we get to contracts that matter, I?m not sure about your ?no choice? about the ?state of nature?. There seems to be an essentialism involved, if I understood your exegesis aright, that man is a ?social? animal (zoon politikon of Aristotle). So that a man who does not engage in some kind of ?political?involvement is not yet human enough. But Guariglia, my teacher in ethics, always got irritated by Aristotle on slavery on this -- and he even has some nasty things to say about illegal Greeks, living in Athens! But in any case, one would need to consider the Robinson-Crusoe scenarios familar with philosophers. The man who does not renew his ?social contract? and finds that it?s thanks God it?s Friday! Are there good philosophical essays on Robinson-Crusoe. I think DeFoe was a genius that invented him! (I mean, other than private-language arguments I?ve seen). I forget who the editor for the Oxford Readings in Philosophy?s volume for Political Philosophy is. But what a great subject that is, and what a long, even Oxonian, philosophical tradition, about it! Sometimes I wish Grice would have been more involved in that, rather than his cursory ref. to Oxonian ?pinko politics?! (or his reference to Wilson and Heath in WoW, iv -- vide Chapman for Grice?s updating the names of the candidates for prime-ministers, _Grice_, Macmillan, for this). Cheers, J. L. Speranza ?? ?for the Grice Club From jlsperanza at aol.com Sun Jan 10 08:37:46 2010 From: jlsperanza at aol.com (jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Sun, 10 Jan 2010 08:37:46 -0500 Subject: [hist-analytic] The Immanuel In-Reply-To: <1197546254.9448781263083462233.JavaMail.root@sz0010a.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net> References: <1197546254.9448781263083462233.JavaMail.root@sz0010a.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net> Message-ID: <8CC60113A6A35F1-3BCC-11661@webmail-d074.sysops.aol.com> Reciprocal -----Original Message----- From: Baynesr at comcast.net To: hist-analytic at simplelists.co.uk Sent: Sat, Jan 9, 2010 9:31 pm Subject: Re: Grice?s Highway Code right now I'm taking a closer look at reciprocity; oddly (?) it seems rooted in Biblical texts, at least insofar as it has influenced the west. The nature of reciprocity is, of course, clear in Kant. Alan Donagan supplies a basis I think for making a connection. ---- That would be the Golden Rule, right? I think I?ve read things about that in, of all journals, Philosophy. This journal was edited or still is by the Royal Society of Philosophy, or Royal Association, I forget. The old-fashioned shaped volumes always appealed me: and found that most of the articles published therein were particularly _English_, rather than aimed at a international audience like those in _Mind_ were. I _think_ what Ayers calls the Lesbian Rule is a bit like the Golden rule, but I would have to revise that. If the Golden Rule, yes, indeed, I would think it has a base in the Old Testament (Don?t say ?Biblical? unless you mean the whole thing! Just kidding). But on second thoughts, I think this thing is _New_ Testament stuff. St Matthew on do not do to others what you do not want to be done on you, or King James words to that perlocutionary effect. I recall I was once exposing Grice?s "conversational maxims" regarding honesty or trustworthiness on this at a seminar with O. N. Guariglia -- he had my ?German Grice? published in his journal, and cited by Habermas in his MIT collection --. And Guariglia would minimise my exposition by saying: That?s St. Matthew. Surely we need a stronger foundation than that. Recall Grice (WoW) on not abiding by ?be trustful?. The one you are not letting down is yourself, not your reciprocal partner! On the other hand, ?generality? of application of a procedure, as Grice dubs it in "Method", _seems_ important. Recall that his pirots are really a Carnapian expression for persons and that his ?karulize elatically? may be translated as act rationally -- So Grice is looking for a code, as it were, or "immanuel" as he charmingly calls it -- in a reference that is both Biblical and Kantian, as Chapman notes -- her _Grice_) where reciprocity somehow holds. Now why would it? This may relate to his second out of three concerns: generality of psychological predicates involved in these procedures. We do not want a moral or political (?) ?code? to involve predicates which are specific to an office. So, for any pirot, we are discussing things that any pirot should expect any other pirot (including itself) would abide by. Thus, "be trustful", once justifiable by these constraints can become a maxim or commandment (as I would prefer) of this immanuel. My Palacios paper I entitled, "The Conversational Immanuel", since I was interested in a moral -- or political -- grounding of the ten conversational maxims. I would also use the expression "decalogue", to mark the Biblical reference. Oddly, when reading Chapman?s bio of Grice I was amused by this reference to Chapman to a note that Grice wrote on his bank statement of account. It read: "We may imagine that Moses brought something more than the 10 comms (sic) as he descended from Mt. Sinai", or words to that perlocutionary effect. "Reciprocity" should be easy enough to formulate. It should involve "transitive" actions as it were with at least two arguments for at least two pirots. "X: Do not betray your friendship with Y". In Oxford, the polemic always was -- particularly I read about it in the online obit of S. N. Hampshire -- that one should rather not betray one?s friend than the Kantian, ?say the truth?. Grice pokes fun on this aspect of Kantian rigidity that he found difficult to digest, and as having itself attracted some criticism from Oxford quarters other than his own. So it would be interesting how post-Kantian takes on reciprocity relate. You say it?s "clear in Kant". One thing that is not clear with me and Kant is his "apperceptual subject". In the case of the theoretical or alethic or pure as he prefers, reason, it?s always the "I think" of apperception. This is the Kantian "Subjekt" par excellence. In the case of his practical reason, I would think something ditto can be claimed for. In this case, the first step for a reciprocity constraint would be to extend the "I" of the Subjekt of apperception to something like a second person, the Thou. This is possibly done by Buber, but I?m not sure a Kantian would swallow such phenomenological load! Etc. Cheers, J. L. Speranza for the Grice Circle From jlsperanza at aol.com Sun Jan 10 09:19:17 2010 From: jlsperanza at aol.com (jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Sun, 10 Jan 2010 09:19:17 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Grice's Myth Message-ID: <1a27a.639f924a.387b3be5@aol.com> Political Philosophy: The Oxford Tradition In a message dated 1/9/2010 7:32:40 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, Baynesr at comcast.net writes: That would be Sir Anthony Quinton. Isn't he librarian, or was, at Bodelian? In any case, this is a perticularly good anthology. I read a number of essays a long while ago, but I'm going to be returning to this. Carritt's "Liberty and Equality" will be among the first on my list, since it's implications for Rawls (the second principle qualifies the first as equality may qualify liberty) is crucial. Also, the essays by Benn on "Sovereignty" etc. ---- That's very good. Indeed, Anthony, Viscount Quinton -- I am told his title was a New Year's celebration from the Queen after Quinton's work on educational policies. I first saw Quinton on a photo. And that's B. Magee, "Men of Ideas", the BBC book based on the BBC lectures. You see Quinton sitting I think at Trinity, his college, and talking about, I think, the spell of linguistic philosophy. Hampshire, who I corresponded on the matter of what Hampshire and I called the 'old play group' -- the Tuesday evening meetings at All Souls -- told me that Quinton possibly got influenced by Grice on matters of the causal theory of perception. I would have to revise the correspondence. I tend to remember that Hampshire told me that he (Hampshire) and Quinton attended Grice's seminars on perception. Those were the days when colleagues of such statute would just 'sit' like that for hours! ---- I think Carritt too has Oxonian associations, and so does Benn, and so does Donagan, so your reading list looks amazingly amazing! Now, for a time PPEs were looked down at Oxford. You had to be a Lit.Hum. to count. Strawson, for example, was a PPE -- I forget what it stands for, but one P is for Politics. I am unaware how the teaching of political philosophy is organised. Hart taught Jurisprudence (the [...] Chair of Jurisprudence]. I don't think there is a chair of political philosophy, which is just as well -- do not multiply chairs beyond necessity, my Oxonian motto. And I'm very pleased that the three chairs that matter start with a W: White, Waynflete and Wykeham. It simplifies things so. Incidentally, I think you should distinguish between: -- Meinongian contracts -- other. Meinongian contracts are no contracts. They are irreal things. E.g. Rawls and the veil of ignorance. Surely such a thing is a myth of not the best Platonic kind. (Grice uses 'myth' but with other goals in mind -- vide Wharton, last chapter in his "Pragmatics" books). Meinongian contracts are metaphorically so, but on the other hand they attain non-metaphorical validity status. You are supposed to be bound by a contract that their appealers accept was never signed or anything! We should also distinguish between: levels of pacting or compacting or contracting. Lawyers and accountants use the word 'contract' so freely that they give 'contractualism' a bad name. The scholastics took the word seriously. First there was the Jewish, as you say, or Biblical, alliance with God, which we need not go over. But when it comes to authors of contractualism proper, we need to distinguish between the 'social' contract per se (that which contracts 'pirots' who can abide by this sort of contract -- e.g. non-rational pirots cannot really engage in contracts), and the 'political' contract. When Moreno used the 'contract' theory to justify the Argentine revolution against Spain, he was criticised for lumping when you can split. Surely the Argentines were still _human_ when they rebelled against the King of Spain (the holder of the other side of the contract as it were). So the social contract was never broken or breached. It was the political contract, rather. Whatever the complexities that follow from this are! I title this Grice's Myth, because the word is so used by Wharton in his book for this policy by Grice of appealing to myths of this or that type (his example is one for the origin of language) as having explanatory power. I would like thus to compare Grice's use of myth with other uses of myths, say, in political philosophy, as they involve contracts per se. Cheers, J. L. Speranza for the Grice Circle From Baynesr at comcast.net Sun Jan 10 10:30:36 2010 From: Baynesr at comcast.net (Baynesr at comcast.net) Date: Sun, 10 Jan 2010 15:30:36 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [hist-analytic] The Logic of Reciprocity: David Lewis etc. In-Reply-To: <1055102025.9538431263136198027.JavaMail.root@sz0010a.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net> Message-ID: <219057154.9542221263137436581.JavaMail.root@sz0010a.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net> "Reciprocity" should be easy enough to formulate." It's like the weather: we should be able to do something about it (but what?). Reciprocity is fraught with difficulties at all levels. To take one example: Bill loves Mary and Mary loves Bill. At first it is easy to believe that they love each other. That seems clear enough, so reciprocity may be reduced to a form of conjunction. This is not so obvious. In my idiolect Mary can love Bill and Bill Mary but this is insufficient to make the claim that they are "in love" precisely because there is a missing sense of reciprocity, even in the binary case. ?It is what is superadded to the conjunctive analysis that conceals the sense of ''reciprocity'; relevant to the political discussion. The notion, also, eludes David Lewis. For example, he says that 2) A indicates to both of us that you and I have reason to believe that A holds applied to 4). A indicates to both of us that each of us has reason to believe that you will return implies 5) A indicates to both of us that each of us has reaobs to believe that the other has reason to berlieve that you will return. Not only do I not see this, I think it's wrong. Later, he gives one example where he may have the connection right (op cit p. 55); but in this instance I see no warrant for believing that this is equivalent to A gives reason to believe of each other that he believes A will return. ? or Each has reason to believe of the other that he believes that A will return. These last two are authentic reciprocals, not (5). This is just a logical or grammatical observation; it is debatable but recirocity is tied essentiall to "each other" and this eludes Lewis. He picks up on this without realizing it is a problem. By the way, in ol' style government and binding theory reciprocals have an instructive lesson for political theorist interested in distinguishing convention and a contracts. In 'They love each other" you have reciprocity that yields obligation. I don' think this is the case with the merely conjunctive interpretation of binary reciprocity. 1. Each of them loves the other 2. They love each other 3. Each of them?loves the others The think to notice is that in a world of two individuals (1) and (2) are synonomous. But notice that in a world of ten individuals (2) and (3) are not equivalent: (2) doesn't imply all possible pairwise hittings. In (3) all possible pariwise hittings are fulfilled. Compare here H.. Lasnik's terrific but a little dated paper "The Logical Structure of Reciprocal Sentences in English" in Essays on Anaphora, Klewer, 1989, p. 38. Now don't this all too seriously in the political context BUT note that insofar as reciprocity is obligation creating we cannot derive reciprocity like (3) from (1); we would expect this on a simple conjunctive analysis. I don't care to expand much more at this point, except to say reciprocity is a very deep notion and the grammatical features suffuse our understanding of the case where obligation is at issue. Regards Steve Bayne ----- Original Message ----- From: jlsperanza at aol.com To: hist-analytic at simplelists.co.uk Sent: Sunday, January 10, 2010 8:37:46 AM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: The Immanuel Reciprocal -----Original Message----- From: Baynesr at comcast.net To: hist-analytic at simplelists.co.uk Sent: Sat, Jan 9, 2010 9:31 pm Subject: Re: Grice?s Highway Code right now I'm taking a closer look at reciprocity; oddly (?) it seems rooted in Biblical texts, at least insofar as it has influenced the west. The nature of reciprocity is, of course, clear in Kant. Alan Donagan supplies a basis I think for making a connection. ---- That would be the Golden Rule, right? I think I?ve read things about that in, of all journals, Philosophy. This journal was edited or still is by the Royal Society of Philosophy, or Royal Association, I forget. The old-fashioned shaped volumes always appealed me: and found that most of the articles published therein were particularly _English_, rather than aimed at a international audience like those in _Mind_ were. I _think_ what Ayers calls the Lesbian Rule is a bit like the Golden rule, but I would have to revise that. If the Golden Rule, yes, indeed, I would think it has a base in the Old Testament (Don?t say ?Biblical? unless you mean the whole thing! Just kidding). But on second thoughts, I think this thing is _New_ Testament stuff. St Matthew on do not do to others what you do not want to be done on you, or King James words to that perlocutionary effect. I recall I was once exposing Grice?s "conversational maxims" regarding honesty or trustworthiness on this at a seminar with O. N. Guariglia -- he had my ?German Grice? published in his journal, and cited by Habermas in his MIT collection --. And Guariglia would minimise my exposition by saying: That?s St. Matthew. Surely we need a stronger foundation than that. Recall Grice (WoW) on not abiding by ?be trustful?. The one you are not letting down is yourself, not your reciprocal partner! On the other hand, ?generality? of application of a procedure, as Grice dubs it in "Method", _seems_ important. Recall that his pirots are really a Carnapian expression for ?? ? ? ? persons and that his ?karulize elatically? may be translated as ?? ? ? ?act rationally -- So Grice is looking for a code, as it were, or "immanuel" as he charmingly calls it -- in a reference that is both Biblical and Kantian, as Chapman notes -- her _Grice_) where reciprocity somehow holds. Now why would it? This may relate to his second out of three concerns: generality of psychological predicates involved in these procedures. We do not want a moral or political (?) ?code? to involve predicates which are specific to an office. So, for any pirot, we are discussing things that any pirot should expect any other pirot (including itself) would abide by. Thus, "be trustful", once justifiable by these constraints can become a maxim or commandment (as I would prefer) of this immanuel. My Palacios paper I entitled, "The Conversational Immanuel", since I was interested in a moral -- or political -- grounding of the ten conversational maxims. I would also use the expression "decalogue", to mark the Biblical reference. Oddly, when reading Chapman?s bio of Grice I was amused by this reference to Chapman to a note that Grice wrote on his bank statement of account. It read: "We may imagine that Moses brought something more than the 10 comms (sic) as he descended from Mt. Sinai", or words to that perlocutionary effect. "Reciprocity" should be easy enough to formulate. It should involve "transitive" actions as it were with at least two arguments for at least two pirots. "X: Do not betray your friendship with Y". In Oxford, the polemic always was -- particularly I read about it in the online obit of S. N. Hampshire -- that one should rather not betray one?s friend than the Kantian, ?say the truth?. Grice pokes fun on this aspect of Kantian rigidity that he found difficult to digest, and as having itself attracted some criticism from Oxford quarters other than his own. So it would be interesting how post-Kantian takes on reciprocity relate. You say it?s "clear in Kant". One thing that is not clear with me and Kant is his "apperceptual subject". In the case of the theoretical or alethic or pure as he prefers, reason, it?s always the "I think" of apperception. This is the Kantian "Subjekt" par excellence. In the case of his practical reason, I would think something ditto can be claimed for. In this case, the first step for a reciprocity constraint would be to extend the "I" of the Subjekt of apperception to something like a second person, the Thou. This is possibly done by Buber, but I?m not sure a Kantian would swallow such phenomenological load! Etc. Cheers, J. L. Speranza ?? for the Grice Circle -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rh1 at york.ac.uk Sun Jan 10 13:36:11 2010 From: rh1 at york.ac.uk (rh1 at york.ac.uk) Date: 10 Jan 2010 18:36:11 +0000 Subject: [hist-analytic] Hobbesian In-Reply-To: <1215857324.9363321263061649106.JavaMail.root@sz0010a.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net> References: <8CC5F6B0B238B98-4058-12417@webmail-d081.sysops.aol.com> <1215857324.9363321263061649106.JavaMail.root@sz0010a.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net> Message-ID: What excellent restrictions! It would be good if you were to suggest something like this to Ken Blackwell. And good luck with your project. Best, Roland Hall From jlsperanza at aol.com Sun Jan 10 13:33:19 2010 From: jlsperanza at aol.com (jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Sun, 10 Jan 2010 13:33:19 -0500 Subject: [hist-analytic] =?utf-8?q?Two=C2=B4s_Company?= In-Reply-To: <219057154.9542221263137436581.JavaMail.root@sz0010a.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net> References: <219057154.9542221263137436581.JavaMail.root@sz0010a.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net> Message-ID: <8CC603A843A97E0-56DC-1CE57@webmail-d004.sysops.aol.com> -----Original Message----- From: Baynesr at comcast.net To: hist-analytic at simplelists.co.uk Sent: Sun, Jan 10, 2010 12:30 pm Subject: The Logic of Reciprocity: David Lewis etc. S. R. Bayne quotes my: >"Reciprocity" should be easy enough to formulate." ? and comments, wittily: >It's like the weather: we should be able to do something about >it (but what?). ? Exactly. Recall that the first five things any student of logic (that endures long enough in the semester to be instilled the rudiments of Russell?s logic of relations) learns about symmetry, transitivity, commutativity, and reciprocity, and reflexivity. >Reciprocity is fraught with difficulties at all levels. Indeed. By which we should restrict, perhaps on a first shot, to "syntactic", "semantic", and "pragmatic", to echo Morris (on "semiosis"). >To take one >example: Bill loves Mary and Mary loves Bill. In symbols A(a, b) & A(b, a) >At first it is easy >to believe that they love each other. Indeed. I think "marry" is just as tricky. As in the title of a song cited by Horn, as I recall, in his "History of Negation". ?We were happily married (but not to each other)". >That seems clear enough, >so reciprocity may be reduced to a form of conjunction. Indeed, the "&" of the formula above. And note that when I wrote, as you quoted me, "formulate", I meant, "formalise", but I see you saw what I meant. >This That ?conjunction? is sufficient >is >not so obvious. Indeed, I wouldn?t think it?s obvious in the first place! ? >In my idiolect Mary can love Bill and Bill Mary but this is insufficient >to make the claim that they are "in love" precisely because there >is a missing sense of reciprocity, even in the binary case. Exactly. What we need here is a notion of "requited love". Horn once shared with me a piece from the New Yorker, I think, where this journalist or writer uses all the odd expressions involving negatives ("she?s not my cup of tea") in the affirmative versions, bringing odd pragmatic results: every sung hero needs requited love, and some such. I think the title of the piece is "How I met my wife", which may relate to reciprocal love. >It is what is superadded to the conjunctive analysis that conceals the >sense of ''reciprocity'; relevant to the political discussion. ? I see. And amatory discussion, too, I hope. I love Ovid, and his Ars Amatoria. He was very much a Gricean or paleo-Gricean, as Scruton has revealed to us, or disvealed to us, to use the Rawlsian idiom. For much of what happens in sexual relationships, I learn from Grice?s tutee, Thomas Nagel, in his "Sexual perversions", in Journal of Philosophy, is this lack of reciprocity. One cannot love (in the sexual sense) a minor (or underconsent human) because they are not able to hold reciprocal relations. Only adults can do that. Sex which involves non-adults, in the Gricean sense (meaning ?rational?) is perverted. Scruton examines, for example, Parsiphae?s love for a _bull_! in Greek mythology. The mather of this monster, the Minotaur. A bull cannot hold sexual feelings for a human as a human may hold sexual feelings for a bull. So zoophilia is doomed to fail, Griceanly. Scruton also considers sexual implements (like vulgarly called ?dill-does?). These are objectifications of sex. I believe one list-member here thinks talk of objectification is silly, but let them speak! In sum, we need, reciprocal actions or intentions which involve something like a ?speculatory? effect, alla Daellenbach. I called this the effect of facing mirrors. And it?s the level usually discussed in terms of mutuality. Recal that Grice was invited to deliver this lecture at a symposium on "Mutual Knowledge", ed. by N. Smith for Academic Press. When everybody was waiting that Grice would have his say on such overmentalistic psychologically unreal notions, he gave us a myth, rather! (his Meaning Revisited). He manages to poke fun at "pseudo-Schifferian" regresses, as he calls them, alluding to Strawson?s tutee at Oxford, S. R. Schiffer. >The notion, also, eludes David (Kellog), I love that middle name. >Lewis. For example, he says that >2) A indicates to both of us that you and I have reason to believe that >A holds >applied to >4). A indicates to both of us that each of us has reason to believe that you will return >implies >5) A indicates to both of us that each of us has reason to believe that the >other has reason to berlieve that you will return. Indeed. Oddly misapplication of all that?s good about Grice! This sort of Strawson-type counterexamples to Gricean intentional analyses of things were first presented indeed by Strawson in his 1964 Theoria article (I think Theoria, or JP), "Intention and Convention in Speech Acts", repr. in his Logico-Linguistic Papers, Methuen, 1971. Kemmerling warns us in his P.G.R.I.C.E. contribution: do not disgrice (or strawson) if you can grice. Indeed, R. Grandy (in, if I recall aright, his review of Schiffer in JP or elsewhere) adopts something which I did adopt in my PhD: and which is inspired by Grice?s manoeuver in WoW. What Grice later called the anti-sneaky, or anti-deception clause. For Lewis is saying that there is a regressus ad infinitum in the clause involving this mutuality of perspectives. What Grice and Grandy and I show is that a self-reflexive clause: (p) Let all claims be open, including this one. I.e. overtly known by participants. ---- In the case of your example from Lewis: (p) and let Bill and Mary know that they love each other and that p. By having (p) Bill and Mary know they love each other and they both also know that p. you get rid of the regressus ad infinitum. True, you get a self-referential, paradoxical alla Liar claim, but hey, I?m honest enough not be seduced by liars! Bayne continues: >Not only do I not see this, I think it's wrong. Correct. First, there?s no way to stop. Rachel Kempson, who I have corresponded with, in his "Presupposition" book for CUP has it stop at level 4, but there?s no rationale for that. It could go on and on for ever, and that gives Grice a headache with pseudo-Schifferian regresses. Second, you stop the regress by not having it gotten started in the first place, by disallowing "covert" intentions. If Bill loves Mary but there IS an intention on the part of Bill regarding his love for Mary that HE intends to be hidden from Mary (e.g. that she is the heir to this stately home in Finland) I cannot think I can say that they mutually love each other, or that Mary, sweet Mary?s, love is requited. I would go as far as to say that Bill is a _cad_ -- or as Grice would prefer, a ?sneak?, a ?cheat?. >Later, he gives one example >where he may have the connection right (op cit p. 55); but in this instance >I see no warrant for believing that this is equivalent to >A gives reason to believe of each other that he believes A will return. >or >Each has reason to believe of the other that he believes that A will return. ?>These last two are authentic reciprocals, not (5). ? I see what you mean. Will revise Lewis?s analysis in context and get back to you, hopefully. I think then the context is whether A and B can be said to mutually know (if you excuse me the split infinitive) that, say, Jesus will return. (I love my variables fixed!). First, ?mutual? knowledge should be distinguished from "common knowledge". I am Gricean enough to go as far as to allow talk of "common ground". If it is common ground that Jesus will return, we may safely assume that each relevant agent knows that the other knows it. This is what comes out in discussions of topicality: if it?s common ground (Queen Anne is dead) don?t even bother (to introduce it as a topic of conversation). It?s given, or a given. We want new. Second, terms like ?knowledge? are confusing here, since it?s assumptions, mainly. Even perceptions. Schiffer?s example in "Meaning" is that the candle standing between us is lit. But you are also very right when you add "reciprocals" as an excellent grammatical (i.e. syntactic, or morphosyntactic), or "semantico-syntactic", alla predicate logic, category. The oddity of things like "each other" appeals a few. Think of the convoluted ways in _Spanish_ to say things like "We love each other" (I can think of "Nos amamos a nosotros mismos", which is triply ambiguous: it may mean that each of us loves each of us, but not mutually: the narcissistic paradise!). Bayne: >This is just a logical or grammatical observation; it is debatable but >recirocity is tied essentiall to "each other" and this eludes Lewis. Very good. Oddly, Grice is pretty much or remains pretty much a "telementional" Cartesian solipsist (in the words of McGinn, who didn?t know him but he has the bad taste to report that "he had only one tooth" -- Memoirs of a Philosopher). (This in McGinn?s contribution to Andrew Woodfield, Thought and Object, Oxford) Grice on "Meaning" remains pretty solipsistic and it?s only in his foundation of things like the "conversational maxims" that he takes this "social" (or ?benevolent? as he would prefer) level into account. The each-otherness indeed. Bayne: >He (Lewis) >picks up on this without realizing it is a problem. Indeed. The blame may be Quine. Recall this is a PhD, Conventions on Language, supervised by Quine. And you cannot write a PhD about _everything_!? Bayne: >By the way, in ol' style government and binding theory reciprocals >have an instructive lesson for political theorist interested in >distinguishing convention and a contracts. In 'They love each other" >you have reciprocity that yields obligation. Exactly. As in the title of this country song, then, "We were happily married -- but not to each other", as cited by Horn. I should have the full lyrics for that. It seems my kind of defeasibility conversational implicature song, for the pragmatic analysis of contradictory negation in Russell & Whitehead, Principia. Bayne: >I don' think this is the >case with the merely conjunctive interpretation of binary reciprocity. You are right. But one has to be VERY careful when cashing in "obligation", or deontic operators, as it were. Judith Baker recalls how Grice would speak, alla Prichard (edited by Urmson, for Oxford, Morality and Interest), of obligation or morality cashing in in desire. For Baker is playing (in her contribution to PGRICE, Do one?s motives have to be PURE?) on Grice?s analysis of "obligation" or morality or duty, exactly, out of interest or motivation: Agent wills that p Agent wills that he wills that p Agent wills that he wills that he wills that p. and so on eis apeiron. If there is no blockage for this sort of iteration, the content of "p" may be thought to have been morally justified. It becomes a duty for Agent A, or at least, not a crime if he does pursue actions towards the fulfilment of p. Bayne: ? >1. Each of them loves the other >2. They love each other >3. Each of them?loves the others >The thing to notice is that in a world of two individuals (1) and >(2) are synonomous. Very good. Two same-level pirots, as I prefer. For pirots come in different levels. To use Baker?s example (in her intro to Grice, Conception of Value). A sheepdog is a pirot for a shepherd. It?s a pirot to which the shepherd has instilled value. He is obliged to the dog, and the dog holds some obligations towards his owner. He must keep an eye on the shepherd?s sheep, then. So this is a world with two individuals, too. In truth, I think that conversational maxims for Grice just work for a world of TWO individuals, at the same level of pirotic evolution or adaptation. He playfully refers that his account is meant to accomodate things like one writing an entry in one?s journal (a world of two individuals?). Also recall that his reason for not being too appealed to quasi-contractualism is that many communicative exchanges do not fit the mould that his intentional framework can be adapted to serve: letter writing, entries in one?s journal, etc. Let?s also recall that Grice also found the notion of "Personal Identity" difficult enough to dedicate to it a full-length article in Mind in 1941, and he comes out with a mnemic account of personality that Rawls cites in his essay in "Public Affairs". The idea of personal identities, thus in plural, recalls quite some extra material -- are we talking of criss-crossed mnemonic experiences here? Bayne: >But notice that in a world of ten individuals >(2) and (3) are not equivalent: (2) doesn't imply all possible >pairwise hittings. In (3) all possible pariwise hittings are >fulfilled. Compare here H.. Lasnik's terrific but a little dated >paper "The Logical Structure of Reciprocal Sentences in >English" in Essays on Anaphora, Klewer, 1989, p. 38. Excellent reference, and one that Grice would have loved as he was into "formal linguistics" of the generative semanticist school. Bayne: ? >Now don't take this all too seriously in the political context BUT >note that insofar as reciprocity is obligation creating we cannot >derive reciprocity like (3) from (1); we would expect this >on a simple conjunctive analysis. I don't care to expand much >more at this point, except to say reciprocity is a very deep >notion and the grammatical features suffuse our understanding >of the case where obligation is at issue. ? Exactly, and thanks for your good thoughts. I would like to expand on how obligation is created by reciprocals, though. It seems that SOME reciprocals are, or seem, to involve, not level of obligation. Consider gaze in a bar, or something. Mutual gaze. There is another field where obligation does not seem to play a role but it is NECESSARY for "dry-martini" sort of counterexamples. "The man drinking the martini is my father". "Let?s go to the cinema to see that movie. It seems extraordinarily interesting". In Joshi et al, "Elements of Discourse Understanding", I think the Clarks (Herb and Eve) expand on how much of reciprocity is necessary to even _fix_ the referent for this sort of cases. "That movie" refers to what the utterer thinks that the addressee thinks that the utterer thinks that the addressee thinks is the movie being played. Their scenario consists of changes to that context, where they both miss the point of the remark. In the case of obligation, I think it?s because the predicate, rather than "gaze" or "refer", mentions a "moral" action, involving the well-being of the other. And indeed, it should be neutral or general enough to allow for an indefinite range of individuals: and not for a simplified universe of discourse of just two, for which we may get a pretty good semantics or modelling which proves totally false, as you note, when extended to "more than one". But two is a good number, too. Recall Humpty Dumpty: Alice: I would stop growing if I could. But one can?t. Humpty: One can?t, but two may. Plus, isn?t binary or two-ness involved in "each other"? I don?t think so, but it may in Greek. Apparently, the Greeks did have this dual number, which is evident when Homer says, "The horses were running", meaning just two of them. "Both" is necessarily dual. "We both love each other". "Both went to the party". "Both Russell and Whitehead wrote the Principia". The Spanish, "ambos", derives strictly from the Latin of "ambi-" as in "ambiguity". So while the two-ness may be suffused by the grammar, it may not be two irrelevant, either. In the effect of opposing mirrors, indeed, it?s just two: the I and the Thou of Buber, creating the We, dual. We both. To add a third person seems to be Suzanne Sommer?s doom: two?s company, three?s a ... Cheers, J. L. Speranza for the Grice Circle From heintz at ucalgary.ca Mon Jan 11 05:00:10 2010 From: heintz at ucalgary.ca (John W. Heintz) Date: Mon, 11 Jan 2010 02:00:10 -0800 Subject: [hist-analytic] PPE, Quinton In-Reply-To: <1a27a.639f924a.387b3be5@aol.com> References: <1a27a.639f924a.387b3be5@aol.com> Message-ID: <5FEF3F3B-91B2-48F0-BCC1-AAA52C9DD4A4@ucalgary.ca> Anthony Quinton was President of Trinity College Oxford in 1980. PPE is Politics, Philosophy, and Economics jh On 10-Jan-10, at 6:19 AM, jlsperanza at aol.com wrote: > > > Political Philosophy: The Oxford Tradition > > In a message dated 1/9/2010 7:32:40 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, > Baynesr at comcast.net writes: > That would be Sir Anthony Quinton. Isn't he librarian, or was, at > Bodelian? > In any case, this is a perticularly good anthology. I read a number > of > essays > a long while ago, but I'm going to be returning to this. Carritt's > "Liberty > and Equality" will be among the first on my list, since it's > implications > for Rawls (the second principle qualifies the first as equality may > qualify liberty) is crucial. Also, the essays by Benn on > "Sovereignty" > etc. > > ---- > > That's very good. Indeed, Anthony, Viscount Quinton -- I am told his > title > was a New Year's celebration from the Queen after Quinton's work on > educational policies. I first saw Quinton on a photo. And that's B. > Magee, "Men of > Ideas", the BBC book based on the BBC lectures. You see Quinton > sitting I > think at Trinity, his college, and talking about, I think, the > spell of > linguistic philosophy. > > Hampshire, who I corresponded on the matter of what Hampshire and I > called > the 'old play group' -- the Tuesday evening meetings at All Souls -- > told > me that Quinton possibly got influenced by Grice on matters of the > causal > theory of perception. I would have to revise the correspondence. I > tend to > remember that Hampshire told me that he (Hampshire) and Quinton > attended > Grice's seminars on perception. Those were the days when colleagues > of such > statute would just 'sit' like that for hours! > > ---- I think Carritt too has Oxonian associations, and so does Benn, > and so > does Donagan, so your reading list looks amazingly amazing! > > Now, for a time PPEs were looked down at Oxford. You had to be a > Lit.Hum. > to count. Strawson, for example, was a PPE -- I forget what it > stands for, > but one P is for Politics. I am unaware how the teaching of political > philosophy is organised. Hart taught Jurisprudence (the [...] Chair > of > Jurisprudence]. I don't think there is a chair of political > philosophy, which is just > as well -- do not multiply chairs beyond necessity, my Oxonian > motto. And > I'm very pleased that the three chairs that matter start with a W: > White, > Waynflete and Wykeham. It simplifies things so. > > Incidentally, I think you should distinguish between: > > -- Meinongian contracts > > -- other. > > Meinongian contracts are no contracts. They are irreal things. E.g. > Rawls > and the veil of ignorance. Surely such a thing is a myth of not the > best > Platonic kind. (Grice uses 'myth' but with other goals in mind -- vide > Wharton, last chapter in his "Pragmatics" books). Meinongian > contracts are > metaphorically so, but on the other hand they attain non- > metaphorical validity > status. You are supposed to be bound by a contract that their > appealers accept > was never signed or anything! > > We should also distinguish between: levels of pacting or compacting or > contracting. Lawyers and accountants use the word 'contract' so > freely that > they give 'contractualism' a bad name. The scholastics took the word > seriously. First there was the Jewish, as you say, or Biblical, > alliance with God, > which we need not go over. > > But when it comes to authors of contractualism proper, we need to > distinguish between the 'social' contract per se (that which > contracts 'pirots' who > can abide by this sort of contract -- e.g. non-rational pirots cannot > really engage in contracts), and the 'political' contract. > > When Moreno used the 'contract' theory to justify the Argentine > revolution > against Spain, he was criticised for lumping when you can split. > Surely the > Argentines were still _human_ when they rebelled against the King of > Spain > (the holder of the other side of the contract as it were). So the > social > contract was never broken or breached. It was the political > contract, rather. > > Whatever the complexities that follow from this are! > > I title this Grice's Myth, because the word is so used by Wharton in > his > book for this policy by Grice of appealing to myths of this or that > type (his > example is one for the origin of language) as having explanatory > power. I > would like thus to compare Grice's use of myth with other uses of > myths, > say, in political philosophy, as they involve contracts per se. > > Cheers, > > J. L. Speranza > for the Grice Circle > > From jlsperanza at aol.com Mon Jan 11 09:09:26 2010 From: jlsperanza at aol.com (jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Mon, 11 Jan 2010 09:09:26 -0500 Subject: [hist-analytic] =?utf-8?q?Lindsay=C2=B4s_Choice?= Message-ID: <8CC60DED1A7CCBE-2A14-2625A@webmail-m047.sysops.aol.com> Well, there?s Hobson?s Choice -- and I propose Lindsay?s choice. This master of Balliol thought it appropriate, as J. Heintz reminds us (well, not that but what PPE stands for), to open the PPE in Balliol. wiki has a list of PPE graduates which include: Isaiah Berlin. Born Russia. -- founder of the old play group at Oxford, the birth of linguistic philosophy, as they met Tuesday evenings at Berlin?s rooms at All Souls. --- Michael Dummett, a non-member of the new Play Group. Grice wrote a paper that Chapman unburies in her _Grice_. It lists three non-members: Dummett, Anscombe, and Murdoch. Dummett has been appreciative, though, of Grice, and refers to the concoction of the implicature in a number of places. Indeed Grice credits Dummett in WoW iv. --- Susan Haack. She cites Grice in her Philosophy of Logics, and I actually focused one of my seminars on this textbook. She offers of course Grice as the classic proponent of a defender of classical logic, with his conversational manoeuver to account for any divergence between the logical formal devices and their vulgar counterparts as "implicatural"?. She later became more "deviant", logically speaking. ---- Odd that they fail to mention Strawson, that wiki article does. So, by the time Grice got to Oxford, the option of the PPE was there, but he would never opt for it, having come as a "Scholarship" boy fresh from Clifton, headboy, too, and with special recommendations in PPE?s enemy, the Greats -- as opposed to PPE itself, known as Mods, or Modern Greats. The wiki under PPE mentions some criticism by some conservative quarters on the institution of the PPE (originally intended for would be civil servants who would not require a knowledge of Greek philosophy) as the cause of the decline of the study of the classics at Oxford. Chapman pours scorn slightly on this when she refers to Grice as still dreaming of Oxford as the "Oxonian dialectic" versus the former "Athenian dialectic", with a continuity direct from the Greek philosophers to the members of the Play Group. (It could be argued that back in Athens, the studium generale of philosophy was more alla PPE than Lit. Hum. -- for Greek was NOT an Ancient Language for the Ancient Greeks, and they were so sophistically political that they hurt). I would think that other than Strawson, all other members of Austin?s Play Group were Lit. Hum. J J Thomson perhaps not, though. Apparently, you don?t need to specify it. Grice would be "MA Lit Hum Oxon 1938", while Strawson would be "MA PPE Oxon 1943" or some such. Etc. Cheers, J. L. Speranza for the Grice Circle. From jlsperanza at aol.com Mon Jan 11 15:50:05 2010 From: jlsperanza at aol.com (jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Mon, 11 Jan 2010 15:50:05 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Two's Company Message-ID: In a message dated 1/10/2010 10:35:35 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, Baynesr at comcast.net writes: 1. Each of them loves the other 2. They love each other 3. Each of them loves the others The think to notice is that in a world of two individuals (1) and (2) are synonomous. But notice that in a world of ten individuals (2) and (3) are not equivalent... ---- I've been thinking about this, and take Bayne's point splendidly. It is a good exercise in model interpretation to start with dyadic relations, which are symmetrical, and consider all the combinatory, as it were. On the other hand, I still think there are good pragmatic things to consider. The first is what I call, between the Boor [?] and the Otiose. A: We are brothers. implicating, 'to each other'. It would be odd, but possible, that both are brothers, but not to each other. In fact, the Western Brothers, so called, were cousins. B: We are married to each other. on the other hand, seems otiose. I.e. unless a good excuse to the contrary, "We are a married couple" should suffice. All these phenomena I take as pragmatic, and wonder if Lesnik considers them. The second would be: "I opened the door and there they were the three stooges, sucking each others' fingers." Suppose to simplify the scenario, that in this world, a stooge has only one finger. But still, I cannot easily picture the scenario with 'each other' as it applies to a contradiction to the well known principle in Argentina: the four Ts. T T T T takes two to tango -- implicating, the French are generally wrong! Cheers, J. L. Speranza for the Grice Circle From Baynesr at comcast.net Mon Jan 11 19:13:23 2010 From: Baynesr at comcast.net (Baynesr at comcast.net) Date: Tue, 12 Jan 2010 00:13:23 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [hist-analytic] Reciprocity: Rousseau vs. Rawls: Re: Hobbesian In-Reply-To: <1640330846.10040141263250784978.JavaMail.root@sz0010a.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net> Message-ID: <1915885322.10069191263255203841.JavaMail.root@sz0010a.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net> First, I'd like to thank J. L. for his energetic examination of this issue. I regret not being able to discuss his positions at some length; but I am responding at places to issues he raises. Thanks to Roland Hall for his kind remarks; it is to Roland that I dedicate these wind eggs born of an idle mind. According to Rousseau, the social virtues arise from the natural virtue of pity. According to Hobbes, the social contract arises from a natural state of war. The contrast could not be more stark. Underlying those differences that provoke this reaction are certain, more or less, logical and linguistic facts about the role of reciprocity. Rawls's theory of justice depends on the notion of reciprocity; this is because his concept of justice is political and not based on moral conceptions that might qualify as comprehensive views of moral fact or value. There is a "methodological avoidance" of the very idea of a "comprehensive view" or moral fact. This is because Rawls seeks to defend a political concept of justice and not one which otherwise might be regarded as metaphysical. The basis of the political conception is reciprocity. I will compare Rousseau and Hobbes with respect to the most elementary components of their respective theories of the social contract. I will argue that Rousseau cannot provide us with a theory of government that is based on reciprocity, whereas Hobbes can. However, Hobbes is faced with something of a dilemma. Hobbes's theory depends on what I shall call "self love." I mean here that love of self brings about a desire to flee the state of nature for fear of loss of self, i.e., death. From self love no concept of reciprocity is derivable. Nor does reciprocity, alone, imply obligation. I would like to clarify a point in view of JL ( Speranza ) 's mention of my introducing the "amorous" relation entailed by being "in love." While being in love certainly carries this implication, this is not my reason for introducing it. Let me clarify this somewhat. John may love Mary and Mary may love John, even though they are not "in love." They are in this circumstance of reciprocity under no obligation to one another. But it appears to me to be the case that once they are "in love" they at once are subject to a mutual or reciprocal obligation; there is something they "owe" each other which they did not under those circumstances where the only thing that could be said was that John loves Mary and Mary loves John. So what is it that transforms this sort of reciprocity into a state of being in love. It is this, that the lover know that he is loved by the beloved. Once this is a fact, then there exists the reciprocity that characterizes being in love over and above the bare conjunctive reciprocity mentioned. My contention at this point is that obligation arises from reciprocity; and the sort of reciprocity is epistemic, viz. that one KNOW that the beloved indeed love me; so the beloved is known to love me and because I know I love the beloved, there is this reciprocity: x knows y loves x and x knows x loves y, so 'knows x loves y' and 'knows y loves x' entails that x knows they love *each other*. Thus the reciprocity is epistemic! But there is more to this epistemic relation than one might think. The obligation of the beloved to the beloved is reciprocal; that obligation arises from such a state as being in love. This reciprocity in turn is epistemic; and so I claim that the obligation arises ultimately from an epistemic relation, not a moral fact. I might go so far as to say that the "ought" is not to be derived from the "is" but from the "known to be." I think this might be a new slant on an old problem. If anyone who knows the literature better than I (and they are legion) let me know if anyone else has proposed it. But I am ahead of myself inasmuch as I am still developing my approach to Rawls . Let's return briefly to the difference between Rousseau and Hobbes; relate this to the notion of reciprocity; and then the social contract. Here is an illuminating passage from the Second Discourse (assume from now on I'm using Roger and Judith Masters's edition of St. Martins, 1964 - hereafter "Second Discourse"). As you read this quote keep in mind that when he says "it inspires all men" he is talking about pity, a "natural virtue." "Instead of that sublime maxim Do onto others as you would have them do onto you," it inspires all men with this other maxim of natural goodness, much less perfect but perhaps more useful than the preceding one: "Do what is good for you with the least possible harm to others." (Second Discourse p. 133). Let's extract the two principles at issue " A. "Do onto others as you would have them do onto you" and B. "Do what is good for you with the least possible harm to others." A logical description of these two will reveal that only one involves a reciprocal, essentially. Here is my translation of (A): A' ) Each do onto the other as each would have the other do onto himself. for (B) B' ) Each must do for himself with the least harm to the other Momentarily ignore the difference between ( B' ) and B'' ) Each must do for himself with the least harm to the others. The salient comparison is between ( A' ) and ( B' ). Let's look at them syntactically, but from an elementary point of view. Linguists have comment on the special relation between 'each' and 'other' in constructions like 'each .... other__' and in such constructions as 'each other___' This isn't quite right but think of it this way: 'each' from a remote position joins with 'other' to form 'each other' at another position, but the rule,say, "Move Alpha" (following Chomsky in the early nineties). Notice that this would allow us to "generate" ( A'' ) from ( A' ) A'' ) Do onto each other as each would have the other do onto himself Here we have a genuine reciprocal: 'each other' from Move Alpha, semantics and grammaticality intact. But now look at ( B''' ) B''' ) Each must do for himself with the least harm to other. Notice that no genuine reciprocal can be found at LF ("logical form") in the case of ( B''' ) but there is one in ( A'' ). Why is this? Syntactically, the reason is in the placement of 'himself' . Observe that 'himself' occurs in *between* 'each' and 'other' in ( B''' ). It suggests a "barrier"; that barrier is related to what "we" used to call a "governing category." One technical point and then back to philosophy. 'Himself' is a reflexive; 'each other' a reciprocal. On earlier theories of syntax the binding principles governing the relation of reflexives and reciprocals were treated as much alike (Both must be bound in their "governing category"). In ( B''' ) 'himself' needs binding in its category and it gets it from 'Each' . So 'Each' cannot "move" to 'other' without violating transivity of identity (forget the distinction for now between coreference and coindexation etc). Because there is this "barrier" namely 'himself' the reciprocal is impossible. Now back to the philosophy. What does this entail? What this entails is that a social contract based on pity as Rousseau describes it is not suffient to entail reciprocity among those covered by the "contract." Moreover, pity is not a political virtue; it is a natural virtue. However, for Rawls a political conception of justice entails reciprocity: whence the clash between Rousseau and Rawls on reciprocity. Regards Steve Bayne -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jlsperanza at aol.com Mon Jan 11 22:16:03 2010 From: jlsperanza at aol.com (jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Mon, 11 Jan 2010 22:16:03 -0500 Subject: [hist-analytic] Reciprocity: Rousseau vs. Rawls: Re: Hobbesian In-Reply-To: <1915885322.10069191263255203841.JavaMail.root@sz0010a.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net> References: <1915885322.10069191263255203841.JavaMail.root@sz0010a.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net> Message-ID: <8CC614CB513C715-1CFC-A57E@webmail-m034.sysops.aol.com> -----Original Message----- From: Baynesr at comcast.net To: hist-analytic Sent: Mon, Jan 11, 2010 9:13 pm Subject: Reciprocity: Rousseau vs. Rawls: Re: Hobbesian Now back to the philosophy. What does this entail? What this entails is that a social contract based on pity as Rousseau describes it is not suffient to entail reciprocity among those covered by the "contract." Moreover, pity is not a political virtue; it is a natural virtue. However, for Rawls a political conception of justice entails reciprocity: whence the clash between Rousseau and Rawls on reciprocity. ---- Some excellent thoughts in that post, Steve. Congrats. I will get back to the formal aspects as time goes by, as they say. I?m glad you took the "amorous" thing seriously, and I enjoyed your epistemic (I would prefer, "doxastic", since they seem to imply ?doxa? or belief, rather than episteme proper) considerations. I am still thinking about these issues, and I?m glad you found my thinking energetic. I was wondering about the somewhat odious use, by philosophers, of "objectivity" and the fact that they think that "inter-subjectivity" is all one may aim at. (I?m thinking of social philosophers of sorts). It would seem that this "inter-", in the inter-subjectivity refers back to my idea of "two?s company", i.e. that MUTUAL reciprocity is indeed dyadic, as it were. But when you speak of the Golden Rule, etc, I would not think that moralists or political philosophers who discussed issues of Hobbesian state of nature did consider, as you say, and I agree with you, this "inter-subjectivity" and went directly to some "collective" ?sense? of the "social", rather than intersubjective, contract. My thoughts of a Gricean nature have changed slightly after reading Chapman?s bio, which appeared only in 2006. She was able to uncover the original "Logic and Conversation" lectures that Grice kept in Berkeley, although they were handwritten (and tenuously so, if that?s the word) by Grice while in Oxford and lecturing on this -- as University Lecturer for the whole uni of Oxford -- back in 1966. In these 1966, "Logic and Conversation", predating by a year his official William James Lectures with the same title of 1967, Grice is not yet clear about the Maxims of Conversation and the Four Conversational Categories, which he draws from Kant. Instead, he seems to have been more charmingly confused. There were ?desiderata?, Chapman claims, and notable mentions of a Principle of Benevolence, versus a Principle of Self-Love. I will get back with the good quotes on this, since in any case, Self-Love has such a Hobbesian ring to it, that I find irrepressibly charming. (Recall that Grice was tutoring Strawson in his P. P. E. programme, Philosophy, Politics and Economics, back in the early 40s, so he, Grice, would be aware of much of the political philosophy expected from someone engaged in the provision of such a programme). When I was studying "Philosophical Anthropology" -- there is such a thing, as taught by my mentor Mainetti, he edited his own views on what he called ?Homo infirmus?, and we studied Hobbes?s homo hominis lupus quite a bit, so one cannot be wrong about the self-love thing. I also enjoyed your thoughts about survival, as it were, where the individuals are merely struggling for continued operancy, as Grice calls it. (A non-operant one being a dead one). I will revise your thoughts about reciprocity, as they involve the "erotic" relationship -- is "mutual" necessarily involving, two? I would think so -- cfr. Smith, Mutual Knowledge, Academic Press, containing Grice, Meaning Revisited. I have written quite a bit about this after a seminar I had to endure on a topic. In some postmodern quarters it?s all about reciprocal intersubjectivity of the mutual gaze of erotic desire, and some such big words. Again, I would assume that when you speak of Bill and Mary KNOWING this or that, you would be happy with a weaker "assuming" or "believing" this or that, but you may require the factivity of ?know? for your subsequent analyses. I will have to check that. In any case, wouldn?t a good contract involve more than reciprocal actions? It seems that few of our social actions are ?reciprocal? in the strict ?sense?-- i.e. only sense -- of the term. I love the word "altruism", but one has to remember that "alter" is the other, and the alter ego is for Aristotle the friend. One friend too many, would be Aristotle?s word for a man who alleges to have more than ONE friend. Odd that. Apparently Judith Baker was fascinated by this, and Grice, WoW, credits her in his Eschatology essay, on her exegesis of alter ego in Aristotle. Of course, the otherness of alterity can be extended to a plurarity of others, but for some reason, the postmoderns prefer to stick to The Other, rather than the others. Odd that. --- I will reconsider your views on obligation, and I enjoyed your mentioning of OWING something. Indeed, I was fascinated to discover, some time ago, that "OUGHT", that Hare worshipped so, is indeed the mere past form preterite of OWE. So, owing seems to be the kernel notion that should be sufficient for what we are considering here. I enjoy your criticism of Rawls. I don?t know much about his motivations for his "Justice". I am NOT familiar with the Harvard scene and how Rawls fit. I recall that his polemic with Nozick seems to have been a good one, and for some reason, I found Nozick fun to read the arguments of. Rousseau was possibly confused. Indeed, pity seems to be a good one. And again, I don?t think he cared to distinguish between various levels of contracting or pacting -- social, political, or what have you -- even moral, or legal. Grice on types of priority may be of use here. When Rawls speaks of political, I read, "legalistic", and when he opposes it to "moral" I think of Grice on "legal" versus "moral". Grice allows that while the legal ought may be epistemically prior to the moral ought, this should not entail that it is also ontologically prior. There are types of priority. Rawls?s concerns with metaphysical excrescences, as Grice would put it, seems to be a feature of much of the American pragmatist scene to which Rawls may have belonged. Even in Oxford, Grice would love to recall, "metaphysics" was a term of disrespect -- and D. F. Pears had to gather a few Oxonians to prove otherwise to the audience of the Third Programme (?The nature of metaphysics", 1957, containing Grice on metaphysics). But metaphysics is of course what you make of it. And I cannot read any of Rawls (his emblematic veil of ignorance, for example) without trying to go further than his "Methodological" restrictions and well into metaphysics proper. The difference between Rousseau and Hobbes, too, seems to be one of analytic minds. The French tradition seems to have been less interested in sufficient-necessary conditional analysis of concepts. (Is there a French analytic philosophical tradition, one wonders?). And let?s recall in any case that Rousseau was a Swiss rather than French. Oddly, the Romans cannot think of Hobbes, homo hominis lupus. They love a lupus, or rather a lupa, as the founder of their civilisation is called. Some say, though, that lupa is in Old Roman a euphemism for ?prostitute? for that is the woman who nurtured Romulus and Remus back in the day (of Aeneas). Lupi (wolves) can show a lot of pity, too -- in spite of Hobbes! The Judaeo-Christian basis of Hobbes is obvious in his choice of "Leviathan" as title? I forget. I wish that book had been more influential where I come from than good ole Rousseau, I say! Cheers, J. L. Speranza for the Grice Circle, etc. = From jlsperanza at aol.com Tue Jan 12 08:50:30 2010 From: jlsperanza at aol.com (jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Tue, 12 Jan 2010 08:50:30 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Grice on Conversation: Between Self-Love and Benevolence Message-ID: <2f17.3f346b1d.387dd826@aol.com> Grice's Oxford "Conversation" Lectures, 1966 Grice: Between Self-Love and Benevolence As I was saying (somewhere), Grice uses "self-love", charmingly qualified with capitals, as "Conversatinal Self-Love", and, less charmingly, "Conversational Benevolence", in lectures advertised at Oxford, as "Logic and Conversation" that he gave, not at Harvard, but at Oxford in 1966 as "University Lecturer in Philosophy". The notes he kept and are now deposited in The H. P. Grice Papers at the Bancroft Library in UC/Berkeley. Chapman I'll quote from: "A number of the lectures (by Grice) include discussion of the types of behaviour people in general exhibit, and therefore the types of expectations" cfr. Bayne on owings "they might bring to a venture such as a conversation". "Grice suggests that people in general both exhibit and EXPECT a certain degree of helpfulness" -- alla Rosenschein, epistemic/boulemaic: If A cognizes that B wills p, then A wills p. "from OTHERS" -- reciprocal vs. reflexive, etc. "usually on the understanding that such helpfulness does NOT get in the way of particular goals" "and does not involve undue effort" --- cfr. Hobbes on, as Bayne stresses, self-love. "It two people, even complete strangers, are going through a gate, the expectation is taht the FIRST ONE through will hold the gate open, or at least leave it open, for the second. The expectation is such that to do OTHERWISE without particular reason would be interpreted as RUDE." "The type of helpfulness exhibited and expected in conversation is more specific because of a particular, although not a unique feature of conversation." "It is a COLLABORATIVE venture between the participants". "There is a SHARED aim" Grice wonders. His words, Does "helpfulness in something WE ARE DOING TOGETHER" equate to 'cooperation'? "He seems to have decided that it does: by the later lectures in the series, 'the principle of conversational helpfulness' has been rebranded the expectation of 'cooperation'". "During the Oxford lectures, Grice develops his\ account of the precise nature of this cooperation. It can be seen as governed by certain regularities, or principles, detailing expected behaviour. The term 'maxim' to describe these regularities appears relatively late in the lectures." "Grice's INITIAL choices of terms are 'objectives' and 'desiderata'." He was particularly fond of the latter. "He was interested in detailing the desirable forms of behaviour for the purpose of achieving a joint goal of the conversation." "Initially, Grice posits TWO such desiderata. Those relating to candour on the one hand and clarity on the other." "The desideratum of candour contains his general principle of making the strongest possible statement and, as a limiting factor on this, the suggestion that speakers should try not to mislead" cfr. our "We are brothers" -- but not mutual. "We are married to each other". "You _are_ a boor". ---- "The desideratum of clarity concerns the manner of expression" His later reference to Modus as Used by Kant as one of the four categories. "for any conversational contribution." "It includes the IMPORTANT expectations of relevance to understanding and also insists that the main import of an utterance be clear an explicit." "These two factors are constantly to be WEIGHED against two FUNDAMENTAL and SOMETIMES COMPETING demands". "Contributions to a conversation are aimed towards the agreed current purposes by the PRINCIPLE of Conversational Benevolence." "The principle of CONVERSATIONAL SELF-LOVE ensures the assumption on the part of both participants that neither will go to unnecessary trouble in framing their contribution". This has been a topic of interest to Noh end. In my "Conversational Immanuel" I tried different ways of making sense -- it is very easy to do so -- of Grice's distinctions that go over the head of some linguists I know! Reasonable versus rational for example. A Rawlsian distinction of sorts. Rational is too weak. We need 'reasonable'. So, what sort of reasonableness is that which results from this harmonious, we hope, clash of self-love and benevolence? Grice tried, wittily, to extend the purposes of conversation to involve MUTUALLY INFLUENCING EACH OTHER -- a reciprocal. (WoW, ii). And there's a mythical reconstruction of this in his "Meaning Revisited" which he contributed to this symposium organised by N. Smith on Mutual knowledge. But issues remains, we hope. Cheers, J. L. Speranza -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jlsperanza at aol.com Tue Jan 12 08:04:52 2010 From: jlsperanza at aol.com (jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Tue, 12 Jan 2010 08:04:52 -0500 Subject: [hist-analytic] Reciprocity: Rousseau vs. Rawls: Re: Hobbesian In-Reply-To: <1915885322.10069191263255203841.JavaMail.root@sz0010a.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net> References: <1915885322.10069191263255203841.JavaMail.root@sz0010a.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net> Message-ID: <8CC619EF6CB00C5-2B54-9E44@webmail-d031.sysops.aol.com> -----Original Message----- From: Baynesr at comcast.net To: hist-analytic Sent: Mon, Jan 11, 2010 9:13 pm Subject: Reciprocity: Rousseau vs. Rawls: Re: Hobbesian From self love no concept of reciprocity is derivable. Nor does reciprocity, alone, imply obligation. I would like to clarify a point in view of JL (Speranza)'s mention of my introducing the "amorous" relation entailed by being "in love." While being in love certainly carries this implication, this is not my reason for introducing it. Let me clarify this somewhat. >John may love Mary > >and > >Mary may love John, >even though they are not "in love." Good point. Relying on Grice?s informativeness, basically his "Maxims of Quantity", or pertaining to the Category of Quantity, as he humourously calls it "echoing Kant", I would think (1) Mary and John are in love. _implicates_ (2) Mary and John are in love with each other. But as you say, I may be wrong -- this would seem to depend on idiolect meaning, or as I prefer, idiosyncratic, as Grice says, meaning. I don?t use the nominal, "in love" much, since I?m a verb person. In particular, I?m having in mind this, "odd, but possible" context, as Grice would have it, that Mary is in love with Peter, and John is in love with Judith. So they are, literally, both Mary and John in love. I would prefer to use Jack and Jill for this, as it?s the example used by Grice. Otherwise, it starts to sound like a cheap film, "Mary and Carol, and Ed and Pete" or something. ---- Bayne continues: "They are in this circumstance of reciprocity under no obligation to one another." i.e. in the scenario (3) Jack loves Jill and Jill loves Jack. Bayne: "But it appears to me to be the case that once they are "in love"" i.e. (4) Jack and Jill are in love WITH EACH OTHER. "they at once are subject to a mutual or reciprocal obligation;" I see you do use "mutual" and it would be good to revise the etymology for this. I do suspect that binary is entailed or logically implied. "there is something they "owe" each other which they did not under those circumstances where the only thing that could be said was that John loves Mary and Mary loves John. So what is it that transforms this sort of reciprocity into a state of being in love." Good point. "It is this, that the lover know that he is loved by the beloved." And I was wondering if "believes" may do. I?m having in mind Ovid, Ars Amatoria. First, there are cases of self-deception, magisterially analysed by D. F. Pears in his Questions in the philosophy of mind and beyond (Motivated irrationality). Jack may not KNOW that he loves Jill. In fact, it happens with otherwise rational agents, a lot. Why, Jack may not even know he loves hisself, as I prefer. Some self-love! For, is ?love?a psychological predicate we are talking about? I hope so. If so, there?s issues of incorrigibility and privileged access, both discussed by Grice in his "Method in philosophical psychology". Etc. Bayne: "Once this is a fact, then there exists the reciprocity that characterizes being in love over and above the bare conjunctive reciprocity mentioned. My contention at this point is that obligation arises from reciprocity; and the sort of reciprocity is epistemic, viz. that one KNOW that the beloved indeed love me; so the beloved is known to love me and because I know I love the beloved, there is this reciprocity:" Very good. And to qualm those who object to long Gricean clauses in their analysis, Bayne properly goes symbolic: "x knows y loves x and x knows x loves y, so 'knows x loves y' and 'knows y loves x'? entails that x knows they love *each other*." Or 1. Jack loves Jill. 2. Jill loves Jack 3. Jack assumes that Jill loves Jack. I.e. Jack assumes (2) 4. Jill assumes (1) "(Jack) knows (Jill) loves (him) and (Jill) knows (Jack) loves (Jill), so (she) 'knows (Jack) loves (Jill)' and (he) 'knows (she) loves (him)' entails that (he) knows they love *each other*." Isn?t what is entailed merely that he knows, or assumes, that he loves her, and he further assumes that his love is requited by Jill? They both seem to mutually know or assume this -- but the "each other", as you say, is merely about their assumptions, not about the content of their love. To have a mutual love, they would need, say, a pet. So, Jack and Jill mutually love their sheepdog, Jake. -- recall the odd ending, with Jack breaking his crown and all that. I always found this rhyme so macabre. "Thus the reciprocity is epistemic! But there is more to this epistemic relation than one might think. The obligation of the beloved to the beloved is reciprocal; that obligation arises from such a state as being in love." It _is_ odd, isn?t it. For there is no (x) such that both Jill and Jack love. Perhaps it?s their mutual welfare. In the case of sexual survival, it may well be an antecedent for Jack wanting Jill to perpetuate his genes and viceversa. But then, one pale of water ... "This reciprocity in turn is epistemic; and so I claim that the obligation arises ultimately from an epistemic relation, not a moral fact." Good. Assumptions. But recall they seem to be assumptions about moral facts, or feelings. And as Grice says, sometimes are assumptions ARE true. (What?s the good, Grice wonders, in Meaning Revisited, WoW, of having all our assumptions wrong? It doesn?t even follow; it?s intranscendentally unkantian, as he?d say). Bayne: "I might go so far as to say that the "ought" is not to be derived from the "is" but from the "known to be."" It is in contexts like this I fear my "assume" won?t do, for you seem to require the factivity of "know" -- alla Gettier, A knows that p, if p is true" -- to get to a, however derived, moral "fact", alla Blackburn?s quasi-moral quasi-realism of attitudes. Bayne then considers St. Matthew: I?ll start the numbering from 1 again (1) Do onto others as you would have them do onto you. (2) Do what is good for you with the least possible harm to others. Bayne comments: >only (1) involves >a reciprocal. as per (1?) EACH do onto the other as EACH would have the other do onto ???? himself. (2?) EACH must do for himself with the least harm to the other Bayne adds a good point about the "singularity" constraint on the other. Warnock was appealed to this in his rendering of (Ex) as "some", too. "Logic and Metaphysics"). >Momentarily ignore the difference between (2?) and (2??') EACH must do for himself with the least harm to the OTHERS. Bayne: Both in (1) and (2) "'each' from a remote position joins with 'other' to form 'each other' at another position. Allowing (1) to become (1?) Do onto EACH OTHER as EACH would have the other do onto himself Eureka: >Here we have a ... reciprocal. On the other hand (2) yields (2??) EACH must do for himself with the least harm to OTHER. Non-Eureka: "no genuine reciprocal can be found at (the) logical form of (2") -- How about (2' ' ' ') Each must do for himself with the least harm to each other ? You are right there seems to be a difference. I take the other here as the 10 comm. thing, love thy neighbour. Where it is not specified who the neighbour is. And this allows some humble Samaritans to say that one has to love one?s neighbour not like you love yourself, but MORE than you love yourself, and paradoxes like that. In fact, there is a church I never visit in Buenos Aires: Santisimo Sacramento. It was built by a ladida lady who wanted to show how much she loved her neighbour by building such an overornamented church it hurts. "If I live in a palace, shouldn?t God live in one, too?", her odious motto. But I can imagine God rephrasing the above using the "each other" Perhaps in the vocative: "Each of ye, do for thyself, with the least harm for each other" ? -- Just exploring. Not offering as counterexamples or anything. "in the case of (B''') but there is one in (A''). Why is this? Syntactically, the reason is in the placement of 'himself'. Observe that 'himself' occurs in *between* 'each' and 'other' in (B'''). It suggests a "barrier"; that barrier is related to what "we" used to call a "governing category." 'Himself' is a reflexive; --- And wouldn?t it be possible to avoid the reflexive nature of the FORMULATION of the practice by having, clumsily, things like Jack loves Jack. Etc. It seems reflexiveness is an accident, of coreference, etc. "'each other' a reciprocal. On earlier theories of syntax the binding principles governing the relation of reflexives and reciprocals were treated as much alike (Both must be bound in their "governing category"). In (B''') 'himself' needs binding in its category and it gets it from 'Each'. So 'Each' cannot "move" to 'other' without violating transivity of identity (forget the distinction for now between coreference and coindexation etc). Because there is this "barrier" namely 'himself' the reciprocal is impossible." Thanks. I?ll reconsider and get back to you. I see what you mean splendidly and would try to be looking perhaps more closely at the logical form, and how the surface form of both reflexives and reciprocals can be thought of as derivable defined operators, ... or something. Cheers, J. L. Speranza From jlsperanza at aol.com Tue Jan 12 14:58:46 2010 From: jlsperanza at aol.com (jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Tue, 12 Jan 2010 14:58:46 -0500 Subject: [hist-analytic] Gricean Love In-Reply-To: <1915885322.10069191263255203841.JavaMail.root@sz0010a.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net> References: <1915885322.10069191263255203841.JavaMail.root@sz0010a.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net> Message-ID: <8CC61D8C8D41157-5518-135DA@webmail-d050.sysops.aol.com> I am re-reading Bayne?s below, and indeed see that my changing the scenario: Jack and Jill both love Jake, the sheepdog. will not do. This may be something they share, and mutually share, at the volitive, conative, or as I prefer, boulemaic, level. But surely, as Bayne notes, Jack and Jill love each other. only with some provisos, which he gives, counts as ?reciprocal? love. Surely their shared love for Jake cannot be ?reciprocal? love. It is sad that I chose the example of a dog, since well, a dog cannot reciprocate. But if we imagine Jake to be a human being, you may get my drift. --- So perhaps, "mutual love" _is_ a misnomer. On the other hand, perhaps there IS something, pretty vacuous, though, alla Grice?s maxims, that Jack and Jill share if only the true conjunctive analysis -- which Bayne rejects -- holds. Oddly, I once discussed Grice?s views on this with Stich. I recall his summing up of Grice?s position after years. He said, Stich said, ?preposterous!?. I was so hurt -- this was at Campinas, that I couldn?t sleep for days. Anyway, the passage I was referring to Stich was the ending note in ?Method in philosophical psychology?, by Grice, where he considers things like love, or as he?d prefer ??? loving -- his point being that talk of this expands the original motivation he held at that particular presidential address of bringing in psychological attitudes, ?? which _will_ include ?desire?, only with an explanatory role in mind. When you ??? love somebody, you are beyond that. You don?t ascribe a psychological attitude to someone only to explain the other?s behaviour. But because, Grice writes, "of your CONCERN for the other". Seeing his mentioning of benevolence, if only in his conversational shade in his ?Conversation? lectures at Oxford in 1966, one may see what he means. Although of course, loving is not being benevolent. But Bayne?s idea of not harming each other, and the mutual respect, etc., may have something to do with this. So I would propose that an analysis of "loving" WILL entail, or yield as per logical implication (if you don?t want to use Moore?s mannerism -- ?entail? I mean -- that one desires the other?s welfare or something. In which case, this pretty vacuous content, rather than a full shared OBJECT(ION) of desire, will do. (I speak of "objection" of desire half-jocularly, but what I mean is that it?s not Jake that they both love, Jack, and Jill, but rather they have some concern -- rather than a mere assumption of the doxastic type -- for each other. The next step, of course, is go the whole hog, as Grice had done previously in ?Method?. Humans are intelligent enough to be able to deal with regularities formulated in PRETTY general terms. We do not need, or at least philosophers -- for I KNOW people -- constants for individuals like Jack, Jill, and Jake, delightful as they may be. So we may just deal with ??? a, b, c, ... n And in fact, it?s even better, as Bayne does, to deal with variables for individuals ??? x, y, z.? -- where the range is however, persons, rather than, say, cats (?delightful as they are?, Grice adds), or ?chairs?. So, the Matthew (I don?t use Saint unless I?m obliged) requirement of the Golden Rule, ?? Love thy neighbour may be all we need, with some provisos. The ?more than you love yourself?, or ?just as you love yourself?seems otiose -- vide Grice?s conversational maxims. I.e. for any given range of individuals, x1, x2, x3, etc. ... ?love thy neighbour? holds. This would actually place the narcissistic (in a domain of individuals with a one-member class, x) otiosely theorematic. On the other hand, reference to "avoid harm" SHOULD be replaced by a, I suggest, more general consideration in terms of mere boulemaic states. For, to echo a list-member who should remain anonymous, but whose name starts with a D, what of the masochist? It wouldn?t do, convincingly, to say that hers is a borderline case. So, instead, by having the restriction, ?let the other fulfill her goals?, seems enough. The person itself should rather have THAT honoured than a benevolent protection from Leviathan or what not. In which case, we should be back to reciprocity. But again, I don?t think I engage in too many reciprocal actions. I tend to be pretty convoluted in my psychologisms, and I don?t think people I quotidianly (?) deal with need to reciprocate me on anything. Grice?s example on holding the gate for me to pass seems otiose. In fact, I often the man outside the taxi would rather NOT hold the door for me. I LIKE to open doors. Reciprocity in mutual knowledge is a barbarism enough, possibly psychologically irrealisable. Recall that Grice avoids infinites like the rats, and would rather have anti-sneak clauses added here and there in case what you are asking for is, rather, manifestness, or overtness of intentions, desires, or other. But more later, I hope. Cheers,J. L. Speranza?? for the Grice Club -----Original Message-----From: Baynesr at comcast.netTo: hist-analytic Sent: Mon, Jan 11, 2010 9:13 pmSubject: Reciprocity: Rousseau vs. Rawls: Re: Hobbesian?I would like to clarify a point in view of JL (Speranza)'s mention of my introducing the "amorous" relation entailed by being "in love."While being in love certainly carries this implication, this is not my reason forintroducing it. Let me clarify this somewhat.John may love Mary and Mary may love John, even though they are not "in love."They are in this circumstance of reciprocity under no obligation to one another.But it appears to me to be the case that once they are "in love" they at onceare subject to a mutual or reciprocal obligation; there is something they "owe"each other which they did not under those circumstances where the only thingthat could be said was that John loves Mary and Mary loves John. So what isit that transforms this sort of reciprocity into a state of being in love. It is this,that the lover know that he is loved by the beloved. Once this is a fact, then thereexists the reciprocity that characterizes being in love over and above the bareconjunctive reciprocity mentioned. My contention at this point is that obligationarises from reciprocity; and the sort of reciprocity is epistemic, viz. that one KNOW that the beloved indeed love me; so the beloved is known to love meand because I know I love the beloved, there is this reciprocity: x knows y lovesx and x knows x loves y, so 'knows x loves y' and 'knows y loves x'? entails thatx knows they love *each other*. Thus the reciprocity is epistemic! But there ismore to this epistemic relation than one might think.The obligation of the beloved to the beloved is reciprocal; that obligation arises from such a state as being in love. This reciprocity in turn is epistemic; and soI claim that the obligation arises ultimately from an epistemic relation, not a moral fact. I might go so far as to say that the "ought" is not to be derived from the"is" but from the "known to be." I think this might be a new slant on an old problem.If anyone who knows the literature better than I (and they are legion) let me knowif anyone else has proposed it. From Baynesr at comcast.net Wed Jan 13 07:30:28 2010 From: Baynesr at comcast.net (Baynesr at comcast.net) Date: Wed, 13 Jan 2010 12:30:28 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [hist-analytic] Reciprocity: Rousseau vs. Rawls: Re: Hobbesian In-Reply-To: <8CC619EF6CB00C5-2B54-9E44@webmail-d031.sysops.aol.com> Message-ID: <709144141.10660491263385828365.JavaMail.root@sz0010a.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net> Sorry JL for the delay. I had one of those intrusive automatic downloads of FireFox and, suddenly, my registry went bonkers. This created problems beyond "issues." Finally, bounced that " sucka " off the system. Big mess. I'm also wrestling with a chap named Cudworth who is a remarkably insightful ethicist who anticipated Moore on a number of points in ethics. Also, I've gotta put up some more stuff on hist analytic. Also, Lewis is giving me fits, and I am still angry with Rawlsian philosophy, and I have to calm down. So you get the picture. So I'll only comment on a few things; all of what you say is valuable and fun to read, as many offlist have said. "So they are, literally, both Mary and John in love." Being 'in love' is tricky. On my view reciprocity is a necessary but not sufficient condition for being in love: I may not believe she knows I exist; she may not believe I know she exists; but we can love each other, but clearly we are not "in love." Also, each others' merely believing the other love him is insufficient for either being in love or (especially) there being an obligation that comes out of it. Belief on the view I take is not sufficient, no more than it is sufficient to establish guilt. There may be an obligation to punish, but only if the defendant is known (beyond a reasonable doubt) to be guilty. Again the obligation is created as the consequence of knowledge not belief. Once you try to make use of belief, most employ it to avoid realism, which I embrace, then you get into things like half belief; then you have a mess with partial obligation; being partially in love etc. This is wrong headed I believe. In matters of love, there are no relevant assumptions. So I can't follow some of what you are suggesting, but it is an interesting perspective. JL remarks: "How about...Each must do for himself with the least harm to each other." The problem here is that the reciprocal 'each other' is not bound; that is, I have no idea to what it refers. It has no antecedent! Like reflexives, reciprocals must be bound in their "governing category" meaning that they must be coindexed with an antecedent (within certain syntactical structures). So to my ear this is not grammatical. Regards STeve ----- Original Message ----- From: jlsperanza @ aol .com To: hist-analytic@ simplelists .co. uk Sent: Tuesday, January 12, 2010 5:04:52 AM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific Subject: Re: Reciprocity: Rousseau vs. Rawls : Re: Hobbesian -----Original Message----- From: Baynesr @comcast.net To: hist-analytic Sent: Mon, Jan 11, 2010 9:13 pm Subject: Reciprocity: Rousseau vs. Rawls : Re: Hobbesian ?From self love no concept of reciprocity is derivable. Nor does reciprocity, alone, imply obligation. I would like to clarify a point in view of JL ( Speranza ) 's mention of my introducing the "amorous" relation entailed by being "in love." While being in love certainly carries this implication, this is not my reason for introducing it. Let me clarify this somewhat. >John may love Mary > >and > >Mary may love John, >even though they are not "in love." Good point. Relying on Grice ?s informativeness, basically his "Maxims of Quantity", or pertaining to the Category of Quantity, as he humourously calls it "echoing Kant", I would think (1) Mary and John are in love. _implicates_ (2) Mary and John are in love with each other. But as you say, I may be wrong -- this would seem to depend on idiolect meaning, or as I prefer, idiosyncratic, as Grice says, meaning. I don?t use the nominal, "in love" much, since I?m a verb person. In particular, I?m having in mind this, "odd, but possible" context, as Grice would have it, that Mary is in love with Peter, and John is in love with Judith. So they are, literally, both Mary and John in love. I would prefer to use Jack and Jill for this, as it?s the example used by Grice . Otherwise, it starts to sound like a cheap film, "Mary and Carol, and Ed and Pete" or something. ---- Bayne continues: "They are in this circumstance of reciprocity under no obligation to one another." i.e. in the scenario (3) Jack loves Jill and Jill loves Jack. Bayne : "But it appears to me to be the case that once they are "in love"" i.e. (4) Jack and Jill are in love WITH EACH OTHER. "they at once are subject to a mutual or reciprocal obligation;" I see you do use "mutual" and it would be good to revise the etymology for this. I do suspect that binary is entailed or logically implied. "there is something they "owe" each other which they did not under those circumstances where the only thing that could be said was that John loves Mary and Mary loves John. So what is it that transforms this sort of reciprocity into a state of being in love." Good point. "It is this, that the lover know that he is loved by the beloved." And I was wondering if "believes" may do. I?m having in mind Ovid, Ars Amatoria . First, there are cases of self-deception, magisterially analysed by D. F. Pears in his Questions in the philosophy of mind and beyond (Motivated irrationality). Jack may not KNOW that he loves Jill. In fact, it happens with otherwise rational agents, a lot. Why, Jack may not even know he loves hisself , as I prefer. Some self-love! For, is ?love?a psychological predicate we are talking about? I hope so. If so, there?s issues of incorrigibility and privileged access, both discussed by Grice in his "Method in philosophical psychology". Etc. Bayne : "Once this is a fact, then there exists the reciprocity that characterizes being in love over and above the bare conjunctive reciprocity mentioned. My contention at this point is that obligation arises from reciprocity; and the sort of reciprocity is epistemic, viz. that one KNOW that the beloved indeed love me; so the beloved is known to love me and because I know I love the beloved, there is this reciprocity:" Very good. And to qualm those who object to long Gricean clauses in their analysis, Bayne properly goes symbolic: "x knows y loves x and x knows x loves y, so 'knows x loves y' and 'knows y loves x' ? entails that x knows they love *each other*." Or 1. Jack loves Jill. 2. Jill loves Jack 3. Jack assumes that Jill loves Jack. I.e. Jack assumes (2) 4. Jill assumes (1) "(Jack) knows (Jill) loves (him) and (Jill) knows (Jack) loves (Jill), so (she) 'knows (Jack) loves (Jill)' and (he) 'knows (she) loves (him)' ?entails that (he) knows they love *each other*." Isn ?t what is entailed merely that he knows, or assumes, that he loves her, and he further assumes that his love is requited by Jill? They both seem to mutually know or assume this -- but the "each other", as you say, is merely about their assumptions, not about the content of their love. To have a mutual love, they would need, say, a pet. So, Jack and Jill mutually love their sheepdog, Jake. -- recall the odd ending, with Jack breaking his crown and all that. I always found this rhyme so macabre. "Thus the reciprocity is epistemic! But there is more to this epistemic relation than one might think. The obligation of the beloved to the beloved is reciprocal; that obligation arises from such a state as being in love." It _is_ odd, isn ?t it. For there is no (x) such that both Jill and Jack love. Perhaps it?s their mutual welfare. In the case of sexual survival, it may well be an antecedent for Jack wanting Jill to perpetuate his genes and viceversa . But then, one pale of water ... "This reciprocity in turn is epistemic; and so I claim that the obligation arises ultimately from an epistemic relation, not a moral fact." Good. Assumptions. But recall they seem to be assumptions about moral facts, or feelings. And as Grice says, sometimes are assumptions ARE true. (What?s the good, Grice wonders, in Meaning Revisited, WoW , of having all our assumptions wrong? It doesn ?t even follow; it?s intranscendentally unkantian , as he?d say). Bayne : "I might go so far as to say that the "ought" is not to be derived from the "is" but from the "known to be."" It is in contexts like this I fear my "assume" won?t do, for you seem to require the factivity of "know" -- alla Gettier , A knows that p, if p is true" -- to get to a, however derived, moral "fact", alla Blackburn?s quasi-moral quasi-realism of attitudes. Bayne then considers St. Matthew: I?ll start the numbering from 1 again (1) Do onto others as you would have them do onto you. (2) Do what is good for you with the least possible harm to others. Bayne comments: >only (1) involves >a reciprocal. as per (1?) EACH do onto the other as EACH would have the other do onto ???? himself. (2?) EACH must do for himself with the least harm to the other Bayne adds a good point about the "singularity" constraint on the other. Warnock was appealed to this in his rendering of (Ex) as "some", too. "Logic and Metaphysics"). >Momentarily ignore the difference between (2?) and (2??') EACH must do for himself with the least harm to the OTHERS. Bayne : Both in (1) and (2) " 'each' from a remote position joins with 'other' to form 'each other' at another position. Allowing (1) to become (1?) Do onto EACH OTHER as EACH would have the other do onto himself Eureka: >Here we have a ... reciprocal. On the other hand (2) yields (2??) EACH must do for himself with the least harm to OTHER. Non-Eureka: "no genuine reciprocal can be found at (the) logical form of (2") -- How about (2' ' ' ') Each must do for himself with the least harm to each other ? You are right there seems to be a difference. I take the other here as the 10 comm. thing, love thy neighbour. Where it is not specified who the neighbour is. And this allows some humble Samaritans to say that one has to love one?s neighbour not like you love yourself, but MORE than you love yourself, and paradoxes like that. In fact, there is a church I never visit in Buenos Aires : Santisimo Sacramento. It was built by a ladida lady who wanted to show how much she loved her neighbour by building such an overornamented church it hurts. "If I live in a palace, shouldn ?t God live in one, too?", her odious motto. But I can imagine God rephrasing the above using the "each other" Perhaps in the vocative: "Each of ye, do for thyself, with the least harm for each other" ? -- Just exploring. Not offering as counterexamples or anything. "in the case of ( B''' ) but there is one in ( A'' ). Why is this? Syntactically, the reason is in the placement of 'himself' . Observe that 'himself' occurs in *between* 'each' and 'other' in ( B''' ). It suggests a "barrier"; that barrier is related to what "we" used to call a "governing category." 'Himself' is a reflexive; --- And wouldn ?t it be possible to avoid the reflexive nature of the FORMULATION of the practice by having, clumsily, things like Jack loves Jack. Etc. It seems reflexiveness is an accident, of coreference , etc. " 'each other' a reciprocal. On earlier theories of syntax the binding principles governing the relation of reflexives and reciprocals were treated as much alike (Both must be bound in their "governing category"). In ( B''' ) 'himself' needs binding in its category and it gets it from 'Each' . So 'Each' cannot "move" to 'other' without violating transivity of identity (forget the distinction for now between coreference and coindexation etc). Because there is this "barrier" namely 'himself' the reciprocal is impossible." Thanks. I?ll reconsider and get back to you. I see what you mean splendidly and would try to be looking perhaps more closely at the logical form, and how the surface form of both reflexives and reciprocals can be thought of as derivable defined operators, ... or something. Cheers, J. L. Speranza -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jlsperanza at aol.com Wed Jan 13 10:31:10 2010 From: jlsperanza at aol.com (jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Wed, 13 Jan 2010 10:31:10 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Reciprocity: Rousseau vs. Rawls: Re: Hobbesian Message-ID: <5f7c.68569ee.387f413e@aol.com> In a message dated 1/13/2010 7:32:22 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, Baynesr at comcast.net writes: "How about...Each must do for himself with the least harm to each other." The problem here is that the reciprocal 'each other' is not bound; that is, I have no idea to what it refers. It has no antecedent! Like reflexives, reciprocals must be bound in their "governing category" meaning that they must be coindexed with an antecedent (within certain syntactical structures). So to my ear this is not grammatical. --- Thanks for commentary. I'll get back to you re issues of realism. Take very much taken about that, and will consider 'assumption'-based analysis. It's interesting that assumptions and EXPECTATIONS -- its reciprocal, as it were -- seemed to work for Grice, but he was a realist too, so I'll reconsider. Re: your judgement of ungrammaticality: (1) * Each must do for himself with the least harm to each other. * marks ungrammatical. Bayne: "The problem here is that the reciprocal 'each other' is not bound; that is, I have no idea to what it refers. It has no antecedent! Like reflexives, reciprocals must be bound in their "governing category" meaning that they must be coindexed with an antecedent (within certain syntactical structures). So to my ear this is not grammatical." I was thinking of a pirotic formulation, as it were, i.e. alla Grice method in philosopical psychology, where maxims of his manual or imannuel are written or formulated for "any old pirot" as it were (or person, if you must). So in a model for two individuals a, b. (1) * Each must do for himself with the least harm to each other. we have MINIMISE-PAIN (a, b) MINIMISE-PAIN (b, a) irrelevant, otiose, but still corollaries: MINIMISE-PAIN (a, a) MINIMISE-PAIN (b, b) If we take a dyadic argument as ill-forming a sentence if equated ("John loves John"), ("John minimises his own pain") then we can avoid the latter two, and stick to the relevant first two hits. I wouldn't. In other words, to reply to Bayne: "The problem here is that the reciprocal 'each other' is not bound; that is, I have no idea to what it refers." Well, either a, or b. It wouldn't matter which. It applies to "any old pirot", or any constant of individual which is 'dossiered', to use Grice's parlance (his idea of 'dossiers' for individuals in terms of their definite descriptors), by the range of variables of individuals. "It has no antecedent!" In which case, I would suggest: give ANY constant, i.e. each and every, constant of individual as a possible antecedent. Note that philosophers and moralists usually SHOULD be concerned with mere formula with variables of individuals. It would be unfair if a moralist denies to provide an example of a moral law on the basis that he cannot find the antecedent for the variables! Or worse, that they complain the variable is not bound!? Bayne: "Like reflexives, reciprocals must be bound in their "governing category" meaning that they must be coindexed with an antecedent (within certain syntactical structures). So to my ear this is not grammatical." Sorry about that! And I do get your point. Will try to work on more grammatical forms. But again, recall that in my rewrite, it's not real minimise of pain we want. We don't want THAT type of benevolence. We don't want Evita to warn us not to cry for her! We want us, basically, as Grice has it in his 'pinko' agenda, 'to be left alone!'. I loved your idea of being 'partially in love'. I do think that when lovers (usually) speak of mutual reciprocal love, they don't know what they are talking about! Recall, "The power of love" You've got to GIVE a little TAKE a little. But as Eros and Anteros -- in Greek mythology go -- the love you GIVE is always GREATER than the love you TAKE. So what does that say for Reciprocity. I would like too to check what Russell in Principia says about reciprocal. I get hits for Langendoen, etc. -- but not Russell's idea, if any. Cheers, J. L. Speranza From Baynesr at comcast.net Wed Jan 13 11:49:09 2010 From: Baynesr at comcast.net (Baynesr at comcast.net) Date: Wed, 13 Jan 2010 16:49:09 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [hist-analytic] Reciprocity: Rousseau vs. Rawls: Re: Hobbesian In-Reply-To: <5f7c.68569ee.387f413e@aol.com> Message-ID: <1472942330.10746991263401349316.JavaMail.root@sz0010a.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net> I'm running out the door. Time for one brief comment. Russell doesn't discuss reciprocity anywhere. The real issue with respect to Russell and standard logic is the nature of scope and binding. You might be able to construct sentences involving reciprocals related to "Donkey sentences" (Geach, Evans) such as If Peter owns a donkey, he beats it. or to take an example from Hintikka, Tom and Dick admired each other's gift to himself. These may provide useful examples outside the usual binding theoretical principles in Chomsky. Treating quantifiers game theoretically is an option but outside the purview of PM style semantics. Sorry I can't go into this. I have to spend most all my time on the theory of justice at this point. MOre later perhaps. Actually, I have a paper no one has seen, one I wrote years ago. There I take some constructions we find in Castenada, involving quasi indicators, and attempt a binding theoretical approach to quantifier placement. If anyone is interested I might be able to find it. The problem is that when I was correcting a number of errors the house caught on fire; I set it aside and never went back. So if you know anyone who's done work on binding theory involving quasi-indicators, let me know. Regards Steve ----- Original Message ----- From: jlsperanza at aol.com To: hist-analytic at simplelists.co.uk Sent: Wednesday, January 13, 2010 7:31:10 AM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific Subject: Re: Reciprocity: Rousseau vs. Rawls: Re: Hobbesian In a message dated 1/13/2010 7:32:22 ?A.M. Eastern Standard Time, Baynesr at comcast.net writes: "How about...Each ?must do for himself with the least harm to each other." The problem here ?is that the reciprocal 'each other' is not bound; that is, I have no idea to ?what it refers. It has no antecedent! Like reflexives, reciprocals must ?be bound in their "governing category" meaning that they must be coindexed ?with an antecedent (within certain syntactical structures). So to my ear this ?is not grammatical. ? --- Thanks for commentary. ? I'll get back to you re issues of realism. Take very much taken about that, ?and will consider 'assumption'-based analysis. It's interesting that assumptions ?and EXPECTATIONS -- its reciprocal, as it were -- seemed to work for Grice, but ?he was a realist too, so I'll reconsider. ? Re: your judgement of ungrammaticality: ? (1) * Each must do for himself with the least harm to each other. ? * marks ungrammatical. ? Bayne: "The problem here is that the reciprocal 'each other' is not bound; ?that is, I have no idea to what it refers. It has no antecedent! Like ?reflexives, reciprocals must be bound in their "governing category" meaning ?that they must be coindexed with an antecedent (within certain syntactical ?structures). So to my ear this is not grammatical." ? I was thinking of a pirotic formulation, as it were, i.e. alla Grice method ?in philosopical psychology, where maxims of his manual or imannuel are written ?or formulated for "any old pirot" as it were (or person, if you must). ? So in a model for two individuals ? a, b. ? (1) * Each must do for himself with the least harm to each other. ? we have ? MINIMISE-PAIN (a, b) MINIMISE-PAIN (b, a) ? irrelevant, otiose, but still corollaries: ? MINIMISE-PAIN (a, a) MINIMISE-PAIN (b, b) ? If we take a dyadic argument as ill-forming a sentence if equated ("John ? loves John"), ("John minimises his own pain") then we can avoid the latter two, ?and stick to the relevant first two hits. I wouldn't. In other words, to reply to Bayne: ? ? "The problem here is that the reciprocal 'each other' is not bound; that ?is, I have no idea to what it refers." ? Well, either a, or b. It wouldn't matter which. It applies to "any old ? pirot", or any constant of individual which is 'dossiered', to use Grice's ? parlance (his idea of 'dossiers' for individuals in terms of their definite ? descriptors), by the range of variables of individuals. ? "It has no antecedent!" ? In which case, I would suggest: give ANY constant, i.e. each and every, ? constant of individual as a possible antecedent. Note that philosophers and ? moralists usually SHOULD be concerned with mere formula with variables of ? individuals. It would be unfair if a moralist denies to provide an example of a ?moral law on the basis that he cannot find the antecedent for the variables! Or ?worse, that they complain the variable is not bound!? ? Bayne: ? "Like reflexives, reciprocals must be bound in their "governing ?category" meaning that they must be coindexed with an antecedent (within ?certain syntactical structures). So to my ear this is not grammatical." ? Sorry about that! And I do get your point. Will try to work on more ? grammatical forms. But again, recall that in my rewrite, it's not real minimise ? of pain we want. We don't want THAT type of benevolence. We don't want Evita to ?warn us not to cry for her! We want us, basically, as Grice has it in his ?'pinko' agenda, 'to be left alone!'. ? I loved your idea of being 'partially in love'. I do think that when lovers ?(usually) speak of mutual reciprocal love, they don't know what they are talking ?about! Recall, "The power of love" ? ?? ?You've got to GIVE a little ?? ?TAKE a little. ? But as Eros and Anteros -- in Greek mythology go -- the love you GIVE is ? always GREATER than the love you TAKE. So what does that say for Reciprocity. I ?would like too to check what Russell in Principia says about reciprocal. I get ?hits for Langendoen, etc. -- but not Russell's idea, if any. ? Cheers, ? J. L. Speranza -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jlsperanza at aol.com Wed Jan 13 12:23:12 2010 From: jlsperanza at aol.com (jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Wed, 13 Jan 2010 12:23:12 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Reciprocity: Rousseau vs. Rawls: Re: Hobbesian Message-ID: <9a50.65bc6481.387f5b80@aol.com> In a message dated 1/13/2010 11:50:06 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, Baynesr at comcast.net writes: Russell doesn't discuss reciprocity anywhere. --- Good to hear about that. I find there are a couple of wiki hits for 'reciprocal'. I was revising its use in mathematics, and did not even check with quadratic reciprocals. They _looked_ inhibiting. I have not checked with Langendoen. I was just wondering about 'reciprocal' as applied to 'relation', which he (Russell) did consider. Since he was into, well, mathematics, he would have an idea, as I don't, quite quadratic reciprocals are so-called. Not quadratic, I don't care about that. Just 'reciprocal'. Bayne: "The real issue with respect to Russell and standard logic is the nature of scope and binding. You might be able to construct sentences involving reciprocals related to "Donkey sentences" (Geach, Evans) such as If Peter owns a donkey, he beats it. or to take an example from Hintikka, Tom and Dick admired each other's gift to himself." ---- This one is _so_ charming. And had to come from that clever Finn, Hintikka! "These may provide useful examples outside the usual binding theoretical principles in Chomsky. Treating quantifiers game theoretically is an option but outside the purview of PM style semantics. Sorry I can't go into this. I have to spend most all my time on the theory of justice at this point. MOre later perhaps." --- Sure. Indeed, you have to get to 'fair'. "Be fair to others". Recall that ONE good thing about Rawls is the re-institution of 'fair' as opposed to the rather verbose, 'just'. Greek dike, Roman, iustus. I forget if 'fair' is Anglo-Saxon or Romance. "Actually, I have a paper no one has seen, one I wrote years ago. There I take some constructions we find in Castenada, involving quasi indicators, and attempt a binding theoretical approach to quantifier placement. If anyone is interested I might be able to find it. The problem is that when I was correcting a number of errors the house caught on fire;" Oh my god. Sorry to hear about that. "I set it aside and never went back. So if you know anyone who's done work on binding theory involving quasi-indicators, let me know." Sure, and again, when you think, 'fair', keep this intelligent eye of yours on issues of reciprocity, for us to keep looking for quasi-grammatical counter-quasi-examples! Incidentally, for Bette Midler it's You've got to give a little, take a little, and let your poor heart break a little. [i.e. harm is good. JLS] That's the story of, that's the glory of love. You've got to laugh a little, cry a little, [i.e. harm is good. JLS] until the clouds roll by a little. That's the story of, that's the glory of love. You've got to win a little, lose a little, [i.e. harm is good. JLS] yes, and always have the blues a little. [i.e. harm is good] In the Greek myth, there's Love (Eros) and anti-Love, Anti-eros, or Anteros. This was represented as a child junior to Eros. They were weighed by Eros and Anteros's mother, Venus (or Aphrodite), and there are representations in Greek sculpture, reliefs, where obviously, Eros is heavier. The morals that ... well, love is hardly reciprocal. When Gilbert had his statue in Piccadilly Circus, Eros, he was offended that people misunderstood it as a statue of Eros. I have his biography, "In the shadow of Eros", and he notes that it is meant to represent, "Anteros", rather. He was offended because at the time, the Circus had become a center for urban prostitution, and the echoes to Shaftesbury were too loud to let Gilbert in peace about that, etc. Cheers, J. L. Speranza From Baynesr at comcast.net Wed Jan 13 13:12:52 2010 From: Baynesr at comcast.net (Baynesr at comcast.net) Date: Wed, 13 Jan 2010 18:12:52 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [hist-analytic] Reciprocity: Rousseau vs. Rawls: Re: Hobbesian In-Reply-To: <1472942330.10746991263401349316.JavaMail.root@sz0010a.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net> Message-ID: <1862034352.10789511263406372776.JavaMail.root@sz0010a.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net> JL, I'm resending this; I hope people don't receive duplicates. Sorry, but something got messed up. The two best essays I've read on reciprocals are: Heim, I., H. Lasnik and R. May. 1991. Reciprocity and plurality. Linguistic Inquiry 22:63-101. Heim, I., H. Lasnik and R. May. 1991. On "Reciprocal Scope". Linguistic Inquiry 22:173-192. It's been twenty years, almost. I just can't revist this stuff; but take a look at the first of these essays. It ties in nicely with Chomsky on binding. By the way, even some linguists don't realize that binding principles are parameterized; that is, they are not parts of "universal grammar" in Chomsky's sense. You get some interesting "violations" of some principles, for example, rules for binding reflexives is some languages. Old Irish, if I'm not mistaken. So logic will not distinguish universal grammar from other syntactic rules. The "others" are indexed to a given language. Regards Steve ----- Original Message ----- From: Baynesr at comcast.net To: hist-analytic at simplelists.co.uk Sent: Wednesday, January 13, 2010 8:49:09 AM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific Subject: Re: Reciprocity: Rousseau vs. Rawls: Re: Hobbesian I'm running out the door. Time for one brief comment. Russell doesn't discuss reciprocity anywhere. The real issue with respect to Russell and standard logic is the nature of scope and binding. You might be able to construct sentences involving reciprocals related to "Donkey sentences" (Geach, Evans) such as If Peter owns a donkey, he beats it. or to take an example from Hintikka, Tom and Dick admired each other's gift to himself. These may provide useful examples outside the usual binding theoretical principles in Chomsky. Treating quantifiers game theoretically is an option but outside the purview of PM style semantics. Sorry I can't go into this. I have to spend most all my time on the theory of justice at this point. MOre later perhaps. Actually, I have a paper no one has seen, one I wrote years ago. There I take some constructions we find in Castenada, involving quasi indicators, and attempt a binding theoretical approach to quantifier placement. If anyone is interested I might be able to find it. The problem is that when I was correcting a number of errors the house caught on fire; I set it aside and never went back. So if you know anyone who's done work on binding theory involving quasi-indicators, let me know. Regards Steve ----- Original Message ----- From: jlsperanza at aol.com To: hist-analytic at simplelists.co.uk Sent: Wednesday, January 13, 2010 7:31:10 AM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific Subject: Re: Reciprocity: Rousseau vs. Rawls: Re: Hobbesian In a message dated 1/13/2010 7:32:22 ?A.M. Eastern Standard Time, Baynesr at comcast.net writes: "How about...Each ?must do for himself with the least harm to each other." The problem here ?is that the reciprocal 'each other' is not bound; that is, I have no idea to ?what it refers. It has no antecedent! Like reflexives, reciprocals must ?be bound in their "governing category" meaning that they must be coindexed ?with an antecedent (within certain syntactical structures). So to my ear this ?is not grammatical. ? --- Thanks for commentary. ? I'll get back to you re issues of realism. Take very much taken about that, ?and will consider 'assumption'-based analysis. It's interesting that assumptions ?and EXPECTATIONS -- its reciprocal, as it were -- seemed to work for Grice, but ?he was a realist too, so I'll reconsider. ? Re: your judgement of ungrammaticality: ? (1) * Each must do for himself with the least harm to each other. ? * marks ungrammatical. ? Bayne: "The problem here is that the reciprocal 'each other' is not bound; ?that is, I have no idea to what it refers. It has no antecedent! Like ?reflexives, reciprocals must be bound in their "governing category" meaning ?that they must be coindexed with an antecedent (within certain syntactical ?structures). So to my ear this is not grammatical." ? I was thinking of a pirotic formulation, as it were, i.e. alla Grice method ?in philosopical psychology, where maxims of his manual or imannuel are written ?or formulated for "any old pirot" as it were (or person, if you must). ? So in a model for two individuals ? a, b. ? (1) * Each must do for himself with the least harm to each other. ? we have ? MINIMISE-PAIN (a, b) MINIMISE-PAIN (b, a) ? irrelevant, otiose, but still corollaries: ? MINIMISE-PAIN (a, a) MINIMISE-PAIN (b, b) ? If we take a dyadic argument as ill-forming a sentence if equated ("John ? loves John"), ("John minimises his own pain") then we can avoid the latter two, ?and stick to the relevant first two hits. I wouldn't. In other words, to reply to Bayne: ? ? "The problem here is that the reciprocal 'each other' is not bound; that ?is, I have no idea to what it refers." ? Well, either a, or b. It wouldn't matter which. It applies to "any old ? pirot", or any constant of individual which is 'dossiered', to use Grice's ? parlance (his idea of 'dossiers' for individuals in terms of their definite ? descriptors), by the range of variables of individuals. ? "It has no antecedent!" ? In which case, I would suggest: give ANY constant, i.e. each and every, ? constant of individual as a possible antecedent. Note that philosophers and ? moralists usually SHOULD be concerned with mere formula with variables of ? individuals. It would be unfair if a moralist denies to provide an example of a ?moral law on the basis that he cannot find the antecedent for the variables! Or ?worse, that they complain the variable is not bound!? ? Bayne: ? "Like reflexives, reciprocals must be bound in their "governing ?category" meaning that they must be coindexed with an antecedent (within ?certain syntactical structures). So to my ear this is not grammatical." ? Sorry about that! And I do get your point. Will try to work on more ? grammatical forms. But again, recall that in my rewrite, it's not real minimise ? of pain we want. We don't want THAT type of benevolence. We don't want Evita to ?warn us not to cry for her! We want us, basically, as Grice has it in his ?'pinko' agenda, 'to be left alone!'. ? I loved your idea of being 'partially in love'. I do think that when lovers ?(usually) speak of mutual reciprocal love, they don't know what they are talking ?about! Recall, "The power of love" ? ?? ?You've got to GIVE a little ?? ?TAKE a little. ? But as Eros and Anteros -- in Greek mythology go -- the love you GIVE is ? always GREATER than the love you TAKE. So what does that say for Reciprocity. I ?would like too to check what Russell in Principia says about reciprocal. I get ?hits for Langendoen, etc. -- but not Russell's idea, if any. ? Cheers, ? J. L. Speranza -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jlsperanza at aol.com Thu Jan 14 00:20:02 2010 From: jlsperanza at aol.com (jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Thu, 14 Jan 2010 00:20:02 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Not Cricket Message-ID: <3dc73.7ad415fc.38800382@aol.com> Thanks to S. Bayne for his recent note with the two refs. in Linguistic Inquiry. Will do. And please, do focus on your 'fair', or 'justice'. No just to keep you revising things you read twenty years ago! In any case, just checked that 'fair' with which Rawls seems to have been obsessed, is Anglo-Saxon. Below the etym., online. Interesting for some development along Gricean lines. Indeed Mayfair Lady became, "My fair Lady" in the musical... In any case, Grice has a couple of things to say about 'justice' in WoW. Basically his exegesis on Plato. It's odd how these linguistic philosophers took Aristotle and Plato so seriously. I was delighted when Urmson and Warnock added to Austin's Philosophical Papers Austin's unpublished essay on Plato's Line. Similarly, Grice's work on "Justice" in Plato's Republic is another taste one gets of the way these philosophers liked to shine amongst themselves with exegetical material of the classics. Brilliant! It's not cricket, is used, idiomatically, as "no fair!", so it may relate. Grice, recall, had his obit. titled: "professional philosopher and amateur cricketer", so there! Cheers, J. L. Speranza ---- O.E. f?ger "beautiful, pleasant," from P.Gmc. *fagraz (cf. O.N. fagr, O.H.G. fagar "beautiful," Goth. fagrs "fit"), from PIE *fag-. The meaning in ref. to weather (c.1200) preserves the original sense (opposed to foul). Sense of "light complexioned" (1550s) reflects tastes in beauty; sense of "free from bias" (mid-14c.) evolved from another early meaning, "morally pure, unblemished" (late 12c.). The sporting senses (fair ball, fair catch etc.) began in 1856. Fair play is from 1590s; fair and square is from c.1600. Fair-haired in the fig. sense of "darling, favorite" is from 1909. Fairly in the sense of "somewhat" is from 1805; it earlier meant "totally." Fairway (1584) originally meant "navigational channel of a river;" golfing sense is from 1910. First record of fair-weather friends is from 1736. --- From Baynesr at comcast.net Thu Jan 14 07:06:08 2010 From: Baynesr at comcast.net (Baynesr at comcast.net) Date: Thu, 14 Jan 2010 12:06:08 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [hist-analytic] Not Cricket In-Reply-To: <3dc73.7ad415fc.38800382@aol.com> Message-ID: <844141168.11095661263470768577.JavaMail.root@sz0010a.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net> Good point, and not just because I can respond briefly. Rawls doesn't take up ANY of the Greek philosophers, but DOES take up everyone else, it seems. This is interesting in itself. I'll take a look at Grice on this. Aristotle is a core figure in Anscombe, but here interest is morality not justice. I've been "indoctrinated" so heavily in the Kantian creed that Rawls's Kantianism is, at first, appealing. I was considering how I might define 'tolerance', given the counterfeit role it plays in Rawls. What I came up with is this: "Tolerance is the recognition of a duty to respect the freedom of others." Surely,there must be a better one. But what? Very tricky notion; not like, say, 'bias' which is conceptually somewhat void of conceptual content. This illustrates another interesting asymmetry: coming up with a definition of 'tolerance' is tough; so is providing a criterion of 'toleration'; perhaps there is not; whereas 'bias' is easy enough to define, although many will make a valiant effort to prove otherwise, *applying* any criterion seems to suggest the need for further critera. Tolerance is not a legal idea, bias is. Regards STeve ----- Original Message ----- From: jlsperanza at aol.com To: hist-analytic at simplelists.co.uk Sent: Wednesday, January 13, 2010 9:20:02 PM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific Subject: Not Cricket Thanks to S. Bayne for his recent note with the two refs. in Linguistic ? Inquiry. Will do. ? And please, do focus on your 'fair', or 'justice'. No just to keep you ? revising things you read twenty years ago! In any case, just checked that 'fair' ?with which Rawls seems to have been obsessed, is Anglo-Saxon. Below the etym., ?online. Interesting for some development along Gricean lines. Indeed Mayfair ?Lady became, "My fair Lady" in the musical... ? In any case, Grice has a couple of things to say about 'justice' in WoW. ? Basically his exegesis on Plato. It's odd how these linguistic philosophers took ?Aristotle and Plato so seriously. I was delighted when Urmson and Warnock added ?to Austin's Philosophical Papers Austin's unpublished essay on Plato's Line. ?Similarly, Grice's work on "Justice" in Plato's Republic is another taste one ?gets of the way these philosophers liked to shine amongst themselves with ?exegetical material of the classics. Brilliant! ? It's not cricket, is used, idiomatically, as "no fair!", so it may relate. ? Grice, recall, had his obit. titled: "professional philosopher and amateur ? cricketer", so there! ? Cheers, ? J. L. Speranza ? ---- ? O.E. f?ger "beautiful, pleasant," from P.Gmc. *fagraz (cf. O.N. fagr, ? O.H.G. fagar "beautiful," Goth. fagrs "fit"), from PIE *fag-. The meaning in ? ref. to weather (c.1200) preserves the original sense (opposed to foul). Sense ?of "light complexioned" (1550s) reflects tastes in beauty; sense of "free from ?bias" (mid-14c.) evolved from another early meaning, "morally pure, unblemished" ?(late 12c.). The sporting senses (fair ball, fair catch etc.) began in 1856. ?Fair play is from 1590s; fair and square is from c.1600. Fair-haired in the fig. ?sense of "darling, favorite" is from 1909. Fairly in the sense of "somewhat" is ?from 1805; it earlier meant "totally." Fairway (1584) originally meant ?"navigational channel of a river;" golfing sense is from 1910. First record of ?fair-weather friends is from 1736. ? --- From jlsperanza at aol.com Thu Jan 14 13:55:11 2010 From: jlsperanza at aol.com (jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Thu, 14 Jan 2010 13:55:11 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Not Cricket Message-ID: Yes, toleration and tolerant are great concepts. I cannot but think of Locke when I hear those words. The Grice ref. in fact is to Plato, Republic. It should be online googlebooks for Studies in the Way of Words, and the rather pretentious title goes: "Metaphysics, Eschatology, and Plato's Republic" and it's possibly Grice's last, since he wrote it in 1987 especially for the book. The "Republic" section concerns the dialogue between Socrates and Thrasymachus on 'fair' -- say as being 'moral' or 'legal' or 'political' as Rawls would have it. Grice feels Socratic but finds it hard to 'go the rounds' with Thrasymachus, hence the need to apply what he calls philosophically eschatological concepts. E.g. Grice writes: "Thrasymachus nowhere makes it clear whether he regards the POPULAR APPLICATION of the term 'just', which Thrasymachus may not himself endorse, as a positive or negative commendation." (p. 310). "Among [Socrates'] flaws in this argument one might point particulArly to the dubious analogy between the province of justice and the province of the arts, and also to a blatant equivocation with the word 'compete', which might mean either 'try to perform better than' or 'try to get the better of'" (p. 313) which look like anti-reciprocals, if you axes (sic) me. Grice goes on to discuss, "honor among thieves" as important. Grice's classicist prose sometimes take the best of him. "If the possession of Gyges's ring would enable our inroads upon others to remain undiscovered, no reasonable person would deny himself this advantage. Adeimantus reinfornces the demands expressed by Glaucon by drawing attention to the support lent by the prevailing education and culture to the RECEIVED opinion about justice as distinct from the view of it taken by Socrates" (p. 314) "In the case of Plato's Thrasymachus it seems that he, perhaps like Plato himself, is njot disposed to engage in the kind of conceptual sophistication practiced by Aristotle and by some philosophers since Aristotle; for Thrasymachus, the friends of MORAL JUSTICE (on the assumption that the representation of Thrasymachus as a kind of moral sceptic is legitmate) will be philosophers who treat the term 'moral justice' as one which refers to morality, or to moral virtue in general, a usage which Aristotle also recognises as legitimate , alongside the usage in which 'justice' is the name of one or more specific virtues" (p. 316) "The possibly more Kantian conception of the relation between moral and political justice will perhaps carry the consequence that the view of Socrates and his friends that moral justice is desirable independently of the consequences of acting justly is no accident." (p. 319) "My account also resembles the original account by Socrates in that it deploys the notion of ANALOGY which was a prominent ingredient in Socrates's story." (p. 320). On analogy: "Consider 'in in good shape', which seemingly applies to objects belonging to different stages, namely to animal bodies and to states. In addition to such 'holistic' epithets, which apply to subject which inhabit different stages, there will also be 'meristic' epithets, like 'part' itself, which apply to parts of such aforementioned subjects" (p. 323) "Gaps which appear in the ranks of first-mode specifications might be expected to favor neo-Socrates rather than neo-Thrasymachus, unless neo-Thrasymachus" --- Grice must be thinking Nozick. "can make out a good case in favour of the view that where first-mode specifications are lacking, second-mode specifications will also be lacking." (p. 323) "It might be possibly, by a move which would be akin to that of "Ramsification", to redescribe the things which inhabit a certain stage" (p. 324). Re: analogy. "It further suggests that neo-Socrates need both of these conceptions [of analogous terms], but, of course, cannot have both of them" (p. 332). "If we go beyond Plato, we might to add such forms of motivational appeal as that which arises from subscriptions to some principle governing the realization of the initial property" (p. 335). "Nothing has so far been said to rule out the possibility that while Socrates and other such persons may each be concerned that people IN GENERAL should value the realization of justice in themselves because of its intrinsic appeal, that is to say, for moral reasons, neverhteless, their concern that people in general should value for moral reasons the realization in themselves of justice is based at least in part on CONSEQUENTIAL or political grounds rather than on any intrinsic or moral appeal" (p. 335). "At this point it seems to me we move away from the territory of Socrates and Plato and nearer to the territory of Kant" (p. 336). etc. Cheers, J. L. Speranza In a message dated 1/14/2010 7:07:10 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, Baynesr at comcast.net writes: Good point, and not just because I can respond briefly. Rawls doesn't take up ANY of the Greek philosophers, but DOES take up everyone else, it seems. This is interesting in itself. I'll take a look at Grice on this. Aristotle is a core figure in Anscombe, but here interest is morality not justice. I've been "indoctrinated" so heavily in the Kantian creed that Rawls's Kantianism is, at first, appealing. I was considering how I might define 'tolerance', given the counterfeit role it plays in Rawls. What I came up with is this: "Tolerance is the recognition of a duty to respect the freedom of others." Surely,there must be a better one. But what? Very tricky notion; not like, say, 'bias' which is conceptually somewhat void of conceptual content. This illustrates another interesting asymmetry: coming up with a definition of 'tolerance' is tough; so is providing a criterion of 'toleration'; perhaps there is not; whereas 'bias' is easy enough to define, although many will make a valiant effort to prove otherwise, *applying* any criterion seems to suggest the need for further critera. Tolerance is not a legal idea, bias is. From Baynesr at comcast.net Thu Jan 14 18:26:33 2010 From: Baynesr at comcast.net (Baynesr at comcast.net) Date: Thu, 14 Jan 2010 23:26:33 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [hist-analytic] Not Cricket In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <1008653939.11367021263511593388.JavaMail.root@sz0010a.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net> First a couple of trivial points. Honor among thieves is, among thieves, what the golden mountain is to mountain climbers. "Thrasymachus nowhere makes it clear whether he regards the POPULAR APPLICATION of the term 'just', which Thrasymachus may not himself endorse, as a positive or negative commendation." (p. 310) Whatever the popular application may have been, I see no philological reason for believing that it might have been a term of derision or of simple fact: "There is a just man, let's kill him." This doesn't seem as though it would make sensein any language. "There is an X man, let's kill him" can, to use fashionable language, "contextualized, but now whare 'X' is just. This, of course, has been subject to considerable discussion, "a priori evils." Now a quick reaction to the second point you make from Grice. "Among [Socrates'] flaws in this argument one might point particulArly to the dubious analogy between the province of justice and the province of the arts, and also to a blatant equivocation with the word 'compete', which might mean either 'try to perform better than' or 'try to get the better of'" (p. 313) I would have to look at the argument again very closely, which I can't right now; but I have one reflection. Suppose we say that justice requires a sovereign and he is the philosopher king. Now what in the analogy corresponds to the philosopher king in the art. I would say it would be something very much like a master craftsman, someone who can "play all the instruments" AND compose. If this were the correct correspondence then I think Plato's argument, if I am right about which one etc. you are talking about can be saved. A further general remark. Socrates was deeply moved by Parmenides. He took, I believe, the minimal step away from Parmenides that would preserve much of his, otherwise shattered world - and here I'm talking about the logical parts of the Sophist. Physical objects were no more real for either than Russell. His, Socrates's ethical arguments are sometimes an exercise in youthful nostalgia in relation to Parmenides. Hare, Grice, Austin moved away from this conceptual forlornedness. Moore retained it, as did Mill. Rawls is in all of this not at all close to people like Hare;there is no analysis. Instead we have an incredibly complex set of relations between terms used?with new and not just?"popular application." After a few hundred pages it becomes prose, no analysis. There is somethng similar in Hegel's Philosophy of Right. Grice, however, is an unyielding analyst. I'd hate to have that blood hound after me, that's for sure. By the way, we should both (and others) save space on the archives by only quoting the message to which we respond. I'm trying to adjust to this. Regards STeve --- On Thu, 1/14/10, jlsperanza at aol.com wrote: From: jlsperanza at aol.com Subject: Re: Not Cricket To: hist-analytic at simplelists.co.uk Date: Thursday, January 14, 2010, 1:55 PM Yes, toleration and tolerant are great concepts. I cannot but think of? Locke when I hear those words. The Grice ref. in fact is to Plato, Republic. It should be online? googlebooks for Studies in the Way of Words, and the rather pretentious title? goes: "Metaphysics, Eschatology, and Plato's Republic" and it's possibly Grice's last, since he wrote it in 1987 especially for? the book. The "Republic" section concerns the dialogue between Socrates and? Thrasymachus on ? 'fair'? ? -- say as being ???'moral' or ???'legal' or 'political' as Rawls would have it. Grice feels Socratic but finds it hard to 'go the rounds' with? Thrasymachus, hence the need to apply what he calls philosophically? eschatological concepts. E.g. Grice writes: "Thrasymachus nowhere makes it clear whether he regards the POPULAR APPLICATION of the term 'just', which Thrasymachus may not himself endorse, as a positive or negative commendation." (p. 310). "Among [Socrates'] flaws in this argument one might point particulArly to the dubious analogy between the province of justice and the province of the arts, and also to a blatant equivocation with the word 'compete', which might mean either 'try to perform better than' or 'try to get the better of'" (p. 313) which look like anti-reciprocals, if you axes (sic) me. Grice goes on to discuss, ? "honor among thieves" as important. Grice's classicist prose sometimes take the best of him. "If the possession of Gyges's ring would enable our inroads upon others to remain undiscovered, no reasonable person would deny himself this advantage. ???Adeimantus reinfornces the demands expressed by Glaucon by drawing attention to the support lent by the prevailing education and culture to the ? ? RECEIVED opinion about ? ???justice as distinct from the view of it taken by Socrates" ? ? (p. 314) "In the case of Plato's Thrasymachus it seems that he, perhaps like Plato himself, is njot disposed to engage in the kind of ? ???conceptual sophistication practiced by Aristotle and by some philosophers since Aristotle; for Thrasymachus, the friends of MORAL JUSTICE (on the assumption that the representation of Thrasymachus as a kind of moral sceptic is legitmate) will be philosophers who treat the term ? ? 'moral justice' as one which refers to morality, or to moral virtue in general, a usage which Aristotle also recognises as legitimate , alongside the usage in which 'justice' is the name of one or more specific virtues" ???(p. 316) "The possibly more Kantian conception of the relation between moral and political justice will perhaps carry the consequence that the view of Socrates and his friends that moral justice is desirable independently of the consequences of acting justly is no accident." ???(p. 319) "My account also resembles the original account by Socrates in that it deploys the notion of ? ? ANALOGY which was a prominent ingredient in Socrates's story." (p. 320). On analogy: "Consider 'in in good shape', which seemingly applies to objects belonging to different stages, namely to animal bodies and to states. In addition to such 'holistic' epithets, which apply to subject which inhabit different stages, there will also be 'meristic' epithets, like 'part' itself, which apply to parts of such aforementioned subjects" (p. 323) "Gaps which appear in the ranks of first-mode specifications might be expected to favor neo-Socrates rather than neo-Thrasymachus, unless neo-Thrasymachus" --- Grice must be thinking Nozick. "can make out a good case in favour of the view that where first-mode specifications are lacking, second-mode specifications will also be lacking." (p. 323) "It might be possibly, by a move which would be akin to that of "Ramsification", to redescribe the things which inhabit a certain stage" (p. 324). Re: analogy. "It further suggests that neo-Socrates need both of these conceptions [of analogous terms], but, of course, cannot have both of them" (p. 332). "If we go beyond Plato, we might to add such forms of motivational appeal as that which arises from subscriptions to some principle governing the realization of the initial property" (p. 335). "Nothing has so far been said to rule out the possibility that while Socrates and other such persons may each be concerned that people IN GENERAL should value the realization of justice in themselves because of its intrinsic appeal, that is to say, for moral reasons, neverhteless, their concern that people in general should value for moral reasons the realization in themselves of justice is based at least in part on ? CONSEQUENTIAL or political grounds rather than on any intrinsic or moral appeal" ? (p. 335). "At this point it seems to me we move away from the territory of Socrates and Plato and nearer to the territory of Kant" ? (p. 336). etc. Cheers, J. L. Speranza -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jlsperanza at aol.com Fri Jan 15 18:34:56 2010 From: jlsperanza at aol.com (jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Fri, 15 Jan 2010 18:34:56 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Not Cricket Message-ID: <2e612.3322ccb9.388255a0@aol.com> Thanks for your comments, Steve. Please note, and you may comment on this, that my "not cricket" is meant, amusingly? to refer, apparently, to an idiom in English, "That's not cricket!" which is supposed to conversationally imply (if you excuse me the split infinitive), "It's not fair!" If you feel you need to change the header, do! (I call "not cricket" what Horn has called 'squatitive negation', for surely it would be uncolloquial to say, of Rawls, or any other that he _is_ cricket, i.e. 'fair'. Similarly with 'she is my cup of tea'. Oddly Grice relied a lot on this type of metaphor: "She is an old bag", WoW). --- Now to the comments on what S. R. Bayne self-labels, 'trivial', meaning that every schoolboy should study by heart in logic-grammar-and-rhetoric (the trivium) In a message dated 1/14/2010 6:27:38 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, Baynesr at comcast.net writes: "First a couple of trivial points." "Honor among thieves is, among thieves, what the golden mountain is to mountain climbers." Aha. I don't know. But if there is one Americanistic spelling I love is "honor" without the rather otiose 'u' of the British spelling, 'honour', so there you are. Was Robin Hood an honest thief? I don't think so. _I_ would possibly kill him (but in self defence, only, and as I make my way from Sherwood to Scarborough). My idea of honour I never understood. I recall in the film, with Margaret Rutherford, "The happiest days" (of one's life are the school days), she wonders about the school motto: "Guard thy honour" -- because in a female-only context, honour = virginity. ---- Bayne goes on to quote from Grice's brilliant eschatological (not scatological, as Grice's biographer, S. R. Chapman, wants it! -- ain't that an awful misspelling?) "Thrasymachus nowhere makes it clear whether he regards the POPULAR APPLICATION of the term 'just', which Thrasymachus may not himself endorse, as a positive or negative commendation."(p. 310) Bayne comments, properly: "Whatever the popular application may have been, I see no philological reason for believing that it might have been a term of derision or of simple fact: "There is a just man, let's kill him." This doesn't seem as though it would make sense in any language." Right. Although I never go to philology for reasons! (recall, 'rhyme or reason'. What do philologists know about things? Just joking). Bayne gives the extraordinarily good contextual example. Cfr. Malcolm Bradbury, apres Flanders/Swann, Eating people is wrong): (1) There is an X man, let's kill him" And comments "(1) can, to use fashionable language, be "contextualized, but _not_ where 'X' is "just". This, of course, has been subject to considerable discussion, "a priori evils."" Good. I'm not so sure, of course. Let's then provide the constant of predicate: X = "Be Just". Be fair, as I prefer. I would use, frankly, the first predicate used in predicate calculus, "F" for 'fair' in this case. And use 'a' as if it meant Robin Hood's first name, "Adolph", let's assume. So (1) becomes (2) Fa --> KILL(you, a)! ---- Or what is worse: Robin, among the thieves, sees this judge (from York, where R. Hall hails from), who we all know as a "very fair" man. But Robin has read Foucault, and thus thinks that if the judge is regarded as a fair man in the community of York, that's because he is entrenched in the power structures of the society, and that, to remedy that, and become cosmically fair, _he_, the judge, a fair man if ever there was one, should be, first robbed, and then _killed_, into the bargain. (Sorry, I'm in my ultra-verbose style today, but will improve tomorrow, I hope). Bayne goes on: "Now a quick reaction to the second point you make from Grice." He quotes from Grice, "Among [Socrates'] flaws in this argument one might point particularly to the dubious analogy between the province of justice and the province of the arts, and also to a blatant equivocation with the word 'compete', which might mean either 'try to perform better than' or 'try to get the better of'" (p. 313), and comments: "I would have to look at the argument again very closely, which I can't right now; but I have one reflection. Suppose we say that justice requires a sovereign and he is the philosopher king." Good point. For good ol' Socrates would certainly say, and in Greek too, "For verily our sovereign is a foolosopher and a fair man, too!" --- Bayne: "Now what in the analogy corresponds to the philosopher king in the art." Andy Warhol? Just joking! Well, if Michael Jackson was the king of pop, I think _anything_ is possible. Bayne: "I would say it would be something very much like a master craftsman, someone who can "play all the instruments" AND compose." Yep, and pay the fiddler. (Here's a donkey for you: (3) Hintikka paid himself so he was able to call his tune. Similarly, good ol' Gricean Larry Horn would usually praise hisself by damnation when saying (4) If I may blow my own horn, as it were. Bayne: "If this were the correct correspondence then I think Plato's argument, if I am right about which one etc. you are talking about can be saved." Yes. Indeed, Grice HAS "Analogy" as the main topic, almost of what he calls, indeed, 'philosophical eschatology'. Another one is "Metaphor". Analogy featured indeed large in Parmenides, and analogical reasoning Plato (if not Socrates -- I don't think he existed! -- cfr. Grice, "Vacuous Names") thus features VERY large, -- too large, according, as you say, to Aristotle -- if that's what you say. There is a book on 'analogy' in Ancient Greek thought, which we should search. Bayne: "A further general remark. Socrates was deeply moved by Parmenides. He took, I believe, the minimal step away from Parmenides that would preserve much of his, otherwise shattered world - and here I'm talking about the logical parts of the Sophist. Physical objects were no more real for either than Russell. His, Socrates's ethical arguments are sometimes an exercise in youthful nostalgia in relation to Parmenides. Hare, Grice, Austin moved away from this conceptual forlornedness. Moore retained it, as did Mill. Rawls is in all of this not at all close to people like Hare; there is no analysis." Exactly. That's why I praise your efforts in bringing him here in the right anal retentive perspective I hold on things! (Hist-Anal, I mean -- just joking!) Bayne: "Instead we have an incredibly complex set of relations between terms used with new and not just "popular application."" That _is_ sad, ain't it. Specially for us, native speakers. By native speaker I mean exactly the opposite of what Chomsky means. Anglo-Argentines call anyone whose mother tongue (they never speak of father tongue, alas) is NOT English, a 'native'. For we read Rawls and wonder. And wonder. And wonder. What do us, natives, know about 'popular applications'. I don't think Grice knew anything about 'popular applications' of "dikaios" in Greek, either! Here it may do to consult the online Greek dictionary edited by Alice Hargreaves's father, Liddell, and Scott. Liddell, incidentally, was said to have played the second fiddle. But his surname is supposed to be pronounced /li'DEL/, rather. Bayne: "After a few hundred pages it becomes prose, no analysis." Exactly. I especially skipped all those statistical tables that he drops in for good measure. What I like most of his style is the analytic footnotes, as this one in his "Public Affairs" journal, where he cares to quote Grice in his "Personal Identity" paper, Mind 1941. I THINK Rawls quotes the Perry reprint, in _Personal Identity_, University of California Press). Bayne: "There is something similar in Hegel's Philosophy of Right. Grice, however, is an unyielding analyst. I'd hate to have that blood hound after me, that's for sure." Right. And so did Hare! J. L. Speranza for the Grice Club -- if you can't run with the Hares join'em From Baynesr at comcast.net Sat Jan 16 07:47:48 2010 From: Baynesr at comcast.net (Baynesr at comcast.net) Date: Sat, 16 Jan 2010 12:47:48 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [hist-analytic] Not Tea Bag In-Reply-To: <2e612.3322ccb9.388255a0@aol.com> Message-ID: <160475590.11885761263646068222.JavaMail.root@sz0010a.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net> I'm a tea bag guy, so we'll go with tea bag. I should mention that my Engliish is not standard, not to mention my spellling etc. Having neverf graduated from high school and being adverse to formal education I have never acquired the subtlety of men "of good carriage ." In a word, I'm an urban peasan , scooped from from a small village with ties to the American south. So, e.g, 'that' and 'which' elude me. Of course, the distinction eluded a resistant Tarski but he was Polish! Margaret Rutherford was a superb actress. I have a great interest in early film in the U.S. given what's left of U.S. culture; what a mess. I just received a message from a dear friend, son of a Brazilian family with whom I grew quite close. He's at Cornell, not philosophy, and his English is as good as mine, except that my sentences are longer. Wish I could visit Argentina. There is a member of the list who goes there a lot. Maybe I can meet up with him sometime. S. America is MY cup of tea; yes, I am a "tea bag" person. Let me get to your technical points a bit later; I'm just beginning the day. They are probing and I can't respond "on the fly." By the way, Rousseau is amazing. I looked at my ol' school boy notes and sure enough I read it but, my goodness, now I understand Kemp-Smith emphasis on his influence on Kant. The fellow is amazing. I don't agree with him but what an amazing stylist. The French it seems invented style in philosophy and political writing. Regards STeve ----- Original Message ----- From: jlsperanza @ aol .com To: hist-analytic@ simplelists .co. uk Sent: Friday, January 15, 2010 3:34:56 PM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific Subject: Re: Not Cricket Thanks for your comments, Steve. ? Please note, and you may comment on this, that my "not cricket" is meant, ? amusingly? to refer, apparently, to an idiom in English, ? ??"That's not cricket!" ? which is supposed to conversationally imply (if you excuse me the split ? infinitive), ? ?? "It's not fair!" ? If you feel you need to change the header, do! ? (I call "not cricket" what Horn has called 'squatitive negation' , for ? surely it would be uncolloquial to say, of Rawls , or any other that he _is_ ? cricket, i.e. 'fair' . Similarly with 'she is my cup of tea' . Oddly Grice relied ?a lot on this type of metaphor: "She is an old bag", WoW ). ? --- Now to the comments on what S. R. Bayne self-labels, 'trivial' , meaning ?that every schoolboy should study by heart in logic-grammar-and-rhetoric (the ?trivium) In a message dated 1/14/2010 6:27:38 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, ? Baynesr @comcast.net writes: "First a couple of trivial points." "Honor among thieves is, among ?thieves, what the golden mountain is to mountain climbers." ? Aha. I don't know. But if there is one Americanistic spelling I love is ? "honor" without the rather otiose 'u' of the British spelling, 'honour' , so ? there you are. ? Was Robin Hood an honest thief? I don't think so. _I_ would possibly kill ? him (but in self defence, only, and as I make my way from Sherwood to ? Scarborough). ? My idea of honour I never understood. I recall in the film, with Margaret ? Rutherford, "The happiest days" (of one's life are the school days), she wonders ?about the school motto: ? ?? "Guard thy honour" ? -- because in a female-only context, honour = virginity. ? ---- ? Bayne goes on to quote from Grice's brilliant eschatological (not ? scatological, as Grice's biographer, S. R. Chapman, wants it! -- ain't that an ? awful misspelling?) " Thrasymachus nowhere makes it clear whether he regards the POPULAR ? APPLICATION of the term 'just' , which Thrasymachus may not himself endorse, as a ? positive or negative commendation."(p. 310) Bayne comments, properly: "Whatever the popular application may have been, I see no philological ? reason for believing that it might have been a term of derision or of simple ?fact: "There is a just man, let's kill him." This doesn't seem as though it ?would make sense in any language." ? Right. Although I never go to philology for reasons! (recall, 'rhyme or ? reason' . What do philologists know about things? Just joking). ? Bayne gives the extraordinarily good contextual example. Cfr . Malcolm ? Bradbury, apres Flanders/ Swann , Eating people is wrong): ? (1) There is an X man, let's kill him" ? And comments ? "(1) can, to use fashionable language, be "contextualized, but ? _not_ where 'X' is "just". This, of course, has been subject to ?considerable discussion, "a priori evils."" ? Good. I'm not so sure, of course. ? Let's then provide the constant of predicate: X = "Be Just". Be fair, as I ? prefer. I would use, frankly, the first predicate used in predicate calculus, ?"F" for 'fair' in this case. And use 'a' as if it meant Robin Hood's first name, ?"Adolph", let's assume. So (1) becomes ? ?? (2) Fa --> KILL(you, a)! ? ---- ? Or what is worse: Robin, among the thieves, sees this judge (from York, ? where R. Hall hails from), who we all know as a "very fair" man. But Robin has ?read Foucault, and thus thinks that if the judge is regarded as a fair man in ?the community of York, that's because he is entrenched in the power structures ?of the society, and that, to remedy that, and become cosmically fair, _he_ , the ?judge, a fair man if ever there was one, should be, first robbed, and then ? _killed_ , into the bargain. ? (Sorry, I'm in my ultra-verbose style today, but will improve tomorrow, I ? hope). ? Bayne goes on: "Now a quick reaction to the second point you make from Grice ." He ?quotes from Grice , "Among [ Socrates' ] flaws in this argument one might point particularly ?to the dubious analogy between the province of justice and the province of the ? arts, and also to a blatant equivocation with the word 'compete' , which might ?mean either 'try to perform better than' or 'try to get the better of' " (p. ?313), and comments: "I would have to look at the argument again very closely, which I can't ? right now; but I have one reflection. Suppose we say that justice requires a ? sovereign and he is the philosopher king." ? Good point. For good ol' Socrates would certainly say, and in Greek ?too, ? ?? "For verily our sovereign is a foolosopher and a fair man, ?too!" ? --- ? Bayne : "Now ?what in the analogy corresponds to the philosopher ?king in the art." ? Andy Warhol? Just joking! Well, if Michael Jackson was the king of pop, I ? think _anything_ is possible. ? Bayne : ? "I would say it would be something very much like a master craftsman, ? someone who can "play all the instruments" AND compose." ? Yep, and pay the fiddler. (Here's a donkey for you: ? ?? (3) Hintikka paid himself so he was ?? ? ? ?able to call his ?tune. ? Similarly, good ol' Gricean Larry Horn would usually praise hisself by ? damnation when saying ? ?? (4) If I may blow my own horn, as it were. ? Bayne : ? "If this were the correct correspondence then I think Plato's argument, if ? I am right about which one etc. you are talking about can be saved." ? Yes. Indeed, Grice HAS "Analogy" as the main topic, almost of what he ? calls, indeed, 'philosophical eschatology' . Another one is "Metaphor". ? Analogy featured indeed large in Parmenides , and analogical reasoning Plato ?(if not Socrates -- I don't think he existed! -- cfr . Grice , "Vacuous Names") ?thus features VERY large, -- too large, according, as you say, to Aristotle -- ?if that's what you say. ? There is a book on 'analogy' in Ancient Greek thought, which we should ? search. ? Bayne : ? "A further general remark. Socrates was deeply moved by Parmenides . He ? took, I believe, the minimal step away from Parmenides that would preserve much ?of his, otherwise shattered world - and here I'm talking about the logical ?parts of the Sophist. Physical objects were no more real for either than ? Russell. His, Socrates's ethical arguments are sometimes an exercise in youthful ?nostalgia in relation to Parmenides . Hare, Grice , Austin moved away from this ?conceptual forlornedness . Moore retained it, as did Mill. Rawls is in all of ?this not at all close to people like Hare; there is no analysis." ? Exactly. That's why I praise your efforts in bringing him here in the right ?anal retentive perspective I hold on things! (Hist-Anal, I mean -- just ? joking!) ? Bayne : ? "Instead we have an incredibly complex set of relations between terms used ? with new and not just "popular application."" ? That _is_ sad, ain't it. Specially for us, native speakers. By native ? speaker I mean exactly the opposite of what Chomsky means. Anglo-Argentines call ?anyone whose mother tongue (they never speak of father tongue, alas) is NOT ?English, a 'native' . For we read Rawls and wonder. And wonder. And wonder. What ?do us, natives, know about 'popular applications' . I don't think Grice knew ?anything about 'popular applications' of " dikaios " in Greek, either! Here it may ?do to consult the online Greek dictionary edited by Alice Hargreaves's father, ? Liddell , and Scott. ? Liddell , incidentally, was said to have played the second fiddle. But his ? surname is supposed to be pronounced / li'DEL /, rather. ? Bayne : ? "After a few hundred pages it becomes prose, no analysis." ? Exactly. I especially skipped all those statistical tables that he drops in ?for good measure. What I like most of his style is the analytic footnotes, as ?this one in his "Public Affairs" journal, where he cares to quote Grice in his ?"Personal Identity" paper, Mind 1941. I THINK Rawls quotes the Perry reprint, in ? _Personal Identity_ , University of California Press). ? Bayne : ? "There is something similar in Hegel's Philosophy of Right. Grice , however, ?is an unyielding analyst. I'd hate to have that blood hound after me, that's for ?sure." ? Right. And so did Hare! ? J. L. Speranza ?? for the Grice Club ? ?? -- if you can't run with the Hares join'em -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jlsperanza at aol.com Sat Jan 16 16:24:34 2010 From: jlsperanza at aol.com (jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Sat, 16 Jan 2010 16:24:34 -0500 Subject: [hist-analytic] Not Cricket Message-ID: <8CC65096EC85259-14A4-CD51@webmail-m004.sysops.aol.com> Thanks, Steve. I don?t know what was happening with me when I was writing my previous. I never meant to check your position vis a vis cricket. And while I loved your "not tea bag", I keep the previous header, for the sake of it! ---- Your point is very apt, and my contrived, or recherche, as someone would say, scenario where ?fair? (Greek ?dikaios?, I think) means, as you say, ?not commendable? is hard to find, if not impossible as you believe it is. But ain?t this essentialism? This would by my _second_ cri de coeur. "Opaque context!", as Grice jokes. For if you say that there is, as Grice would call it, an appropriateness-condition (very first page of WoW, I?m currently discussing this with D. Sperber on the relevance list, sort of) for the use of ?fair? (or Greek ?dikaios?) which is somehow tied with what he calls "popular application", or plain "meaning", then it would be like you give the _meaning_ as a datum or given. My mentor in ethics -- but I evolved! -- Osvaldo N. Guariglia, would OFTEN, to my irritation, argue like that! ""kill" already presupposes it?s a bad thing", or "murderer" -- I would follow him _there_, and one would. But why? I don?t think it?s, as you suggest, a philological reason (although you use the expression for another point -- that there is no linguistic evidence the term, ?fair?, or ?just? was ever used neutrally or negatively. So I?ll keep thinking about things and report back. It should also do, when speaking of "analogy" to consider primary applications of "fair" or "just". I think, with perhaps Grice, I would go for "just-acting" or "fair-acting" -- hence the analogy with cricket -- as primary. ?Just? tea bag? (Just joking). Your reference to "a priori evils" is very good -- alla Nussbaum, I assume. But again, here there WOULD be a distinction. It seems to me that talk of "ill-will" (rather than ill-willed behavior) seems conceptually prior. Later, J. L. Speranza From jlsperanza at aol.com Sat Jan 16 18:25:40 2010 From: jlsperanza at aol.com (jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Sat, 16 Jan 2010 18:25:40 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Not Cricket Message-ID: Since our fair list-owner is planning a book on justice, here a bit of linguistic botanising, for the sake of it. And in Greek, too. Direct from the online Liddell/Scott: The first thing that Liddell and Scott note is that "???????" is from " ????". Vis a vis Grice's reference to the "popular application" of "dikaios" in WoW, we have: "in Hom. and all writers, (predicated) -- of persons: observant of custom or rule, Od.3.52; esp. of social rule, well-ordered, civilized, ????????? ?? ??? ?????? ???? ?.? 9.175, cf. 8.575; [ ?????????????] ???????????? Il.13.6; [???????] ??????????? ?????????? 11.832, cf. Thgn.314, 794; ?ikaios ??????? a good citizen, D.3.21, etc.: metaph. of the sea, Sol.12.2 (Sup.); ?????? ??? a civilized way of living, Hdt.2.177. Adverb: ???????, ??????? woo in due form, decently, Od.14.90; ???? ???? ????? ?. ?????? loyally, S.Ant.292. Also: observant of duty to gods and men, righteous, Od.13.209, etc.; ??. ???? ????? ???????? Hp.Medic. 2; ????? ??? ?.? Hdt.1.96; opp. ????????, A.Th.598, cf. 610; ??. ??? ?????? Plato, Georgias, 507b; ???????? ??????? ?????? ????????? S.Ant.791 (lyr.); also of actions, etc., righteous, ??? ??????? ?????? a thing rightly said, Od.18.414, etc. Also, "? ???????" euphemism of a sacred snake, GDI 5056 (Crete). Also: equal, even, well-balanced, ???? ??????? evengoing chariot, X.Cyr.2.2.26: so metaph., ????? ?????? ??????? ???????? Pi.P.1.86; ???????????? ??????????? Hp.Art.7; ?????????? ????????? ibid.: hence, fair, impartial, ????????? Antipho 1.8; ???????????? Luc.Hist.Conscr.39. Also: legally exact, precise, ?? ?????????? ??? ????? to speak quite exactly, Hdt.7.108, cf. Th.3.44; of Numbers, ??? ?????? ??????? ???????? Hdt.2.149. Adverb ?dik????, ????? ?. ???? ?????????? D.21.3; ?ikaios ????????? ib.154. Also: lawful, just, esp. ?? ?ikaion, right, opp. ?? ??????, Hdt.1.96, A.Pr.189 (lyr.), etc.; ??? ?. ?? ??????? ??? ?? ????? Arist.EN1129a34; ?. ???????????, ????????????, ib.1131b25, 27; ?? ????????? ?. ib.1134b18; ????? ???????? ?? ???? ??? ??????????? ????? ?.? Id.Rh.1374a27, cf. EN1137b12; ???? ?????? ??????? Ar. Nu.99; ??? ??? ??? ?? ?.? D.21.67; ?????? ?. my own right, E.IA810; ?????? ??? ????? ?? ?. bring the case to this issue, Antipho6.24; ????? ??? ?. ?????? ???? not to do what is just and right by a man, X.HG5.3.10; ?? ?. ?????, ?????????, receive one's due, Id.An.7.7.14, 17; ?? ?. ?????????? ????? give a city its deserts, A.Ag.812; ?? ??? ???????, = ???????, Ar.Av.1435, cf. Th.2.89; so ??? ??? ???????, ??? ???????, Inscr.Prien.50.8 (ii B. C.), 123.8 (i B. C.); ????? ??? ?.? Lys.2.12, D.21.177; ?? ??????? lawful claim, ? ?????? ?????? ???? . . Th.3.54, cf. D. 21.179, Plu.Luc.3, etc.; ?? ???? ???????? ?. mutual obligations or contracts, Plb.3.21.10; ??? ???????????? ???? ???????? on certain agreed terms, D.H.3.51. Adv. ?-????? rightly, justly, Hdt.6.137; ??????? ? ?.? A.Ag.376 (lyr.); ???? ?. ??? ??????? And.1.135. I Also: of persons and things, meet and right, fitting, ??. ????? ??? ????? ??????? A.Ag.1604; ??????? ?? ?????? ? .? Id.Eu.55; ????? ?. ????????? ???? make a horse fit for another's use, X.Mem.4.4.5, cf. Cyn.7.4 (????? ?. ??? ??????? having a good mouth, Poll.1.196). Also: normal, ????????? Hp.Art.69; ??????? Id.Fract.1 (Sup.). Also: real, genuine, ??????? S.Fr.[1119]; ?????? ?? ?? ?? ????? ?.? Supp.Epigr.2.184.7 (Tanagra, ii B. C.). Adverb, ????? ??????? ???? ???? really and truly mine, S.Aj.547, cf.Pl.Cra.418e. ? ?. ????? the plea of equity, Th.1.76. Adverb ?dik????? with reason, Id.6.34, cf. S.OT675: Comp. ?dik??????? Ar.V.1149, etc.; also ?diko??????? Isoc. 15.170: Sup. ?dik?????? Ar.Av.1222; Aeol. ??????????? IG12(2).526c17 (Eresus). III. ???? ?? ?? ?. ??? 'the land of the leal', IG7.2543.3 (Thebes). In Prose, ??????? ????, c. inf., ??????? ???? ????? you are bound to come, Hdt.9.60, cf. 8.137; ??. ????? ?????? Id.9.27; ?. ???? ???????? I have a right to punish, Ar.Nu.1434, cf. S.Ant.400; ??. ???? ?????????? ??????? Antipho 3.3.7; ?. ???? ??????????? ????? they have most reason to distrust, Th.4.17; ??. ??????????? Lys.20.12; ??. ????? ??????????? dignus est qui pereat, D.6.37; ? ????????? ?????? ?. has a right to . . , Aristotle, Politics, 1287b12; with a non-personal subject, ?????? ?. ????????????? Th.3.40: less freq. in Comp. and Sup., ???????????? ??????????? Lys.20.34; ???????????? ?? ???????????? Plato Symposium 172b; but ??????? ???? is also found, Hdt.1.39, A.Pr.611, etc.: pl., ??????? ??? ????? ????????? S.Aj.1126, cf. Tr.495, 1116; ??????? ?? , c. opt., Pl. Phdr.276a. [??????? with penult. short in Orph.Fr.247.2; cf. ?? ??????: ?? ???????, Hsch.] So I would think what Grice is having in mind, apres Hart, is an externalist, Thrasymachean, Kelsenian positivistic, "usage", "He is just" -- he abides by Hamurabi's Code, whatever that is, say. Versus the properly internal, implicatural, perhaps Rawlsian and Baynesian, "just" -- with Baynes claiming that "He is unjust, but he is still commandable" involves, not, as Nowell-Smith, or Grice, or Hare (?) would say, a contextual or pragmatic 'oddity', but a breach of a meaning-postulate alla Aune, making it "a nonsensical thing to say". Of course I'm simplifying issues! Cheers, JLS From Baynesr at comcast.net Sun Jan 17 09:10:40 2010 From: Baynesr at comcast.net (Baynesr at comcast.net) Date: Sun, 17 Jan 2010 14:10:40 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [hist-analytic] Not Cricket In-Reply-To: <8CC65096EC85259-14A4-CD51@webmail-m004.sysops.aol.com> Message-ID: <1592225273.12109761263737440447.JavaMail.root@sz0010a.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net> "Your reference to "a priori evils" is very good -- alla Nussbaum, I assume." The idea has been around. It goes back to commentary on Aristotle, where there are things for which there is no excess or defect. For example, I may be incontinent with respect to eating, but there is nothing comparable with respect to murdering. So the idea, at least, has been around. Lot's of things may be "a priori"; even sensations, as I recall, for Kant (Second Critique). You mention the following case: "equal, even, well-balanced, ???? ??????? evengoing chariot, X.Cyr.2.2.26" I've sometimes wondered about the relation of 'aqua' to 'equal'. I imagine a calm morning; I look at the water; it is level ('equal') now 'aqua' may have been "calm water." Just a thought. Thanks for all this. Right now I must make the social contrract philosophers familiar rooms. This is nothing that can be done overnight but it must be done. I've looked at some of the usual commentaries, Sabine is very good, e.g., but for now its gotta be just a matter of slogging through stuff I read when I was young while in a hurry to get on with how 'the' fits in with 'the cat is on the mat'. Rawls avoids replying to Hare. Hare was harsh, but Rawls appears silent with respect to a number of his critics. Rawls is a very good philosopher. Unfortunately, much of what he wrote amounts to being an "advertisement" for his position. Still, I think he's the best political philosopher since Mill. Regards Steve ----- Original Message ----- From: jlsperanza at aol.com To: hist-analytic at simplelists.co.uk Sent: Saturday, January 16, 2010 1:24:34 PM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific Subject: Re: Not Cricket Thanks, Steve. I don?t know what was happening with me when I was writing my previous. I never meant to check your position vis a vis cricket. And while I loved your "not tea bag", I keep the previous header, for the sake of it! ---- Your point is very apt, and my contrived, or recherche, as someone would say, scenario where ?fair? (Greek ?dikaios?, I think) means, as you say, ?not commendable? is hard to find, if not impossible as you believe it is. But ain?t this essentialism? This would by my _second_ cri de coeur. "Opaque context!", as Grice jokes. For if you say that there is, as Grice would call it, an appropriateness-condition (very first page of WoW, I?m currently discussing this with D. Sperber on the relevance list, sort of) for the use of ?fair? (or Greek ?dikaios?) which is somehow tied with what he calls "popular application", or plain "meaning", then it would be like you give the _meaning_ as a datum or given. My mentor in ethics -- but I evolved! -- Osvaldo N. Guariglia, would OFTEN, to my irritation, argue like that! ""kill" already presupposes it?s a bad thing", or "murderer" -- I would follow him _there_, and one would. But why? I don?t think it?s, as you suggest, a philological reason (although you use the expression for another point -- that there is no linguistic evidence the term, ?fair?, or ?just? was ever used neutrally or negatively. So I?ll keep thinking about things and report back. It should also do, when speaking of "analogy" to consider primary applications of "fair" or "just". I think, with perhaps Grice, I would go for "just-acting" or "fair-acting" -- hence the analogy with cricket -- as primary. ?Just? tea bag? (Just joking). Your reference to "a priori evils" is very good -- alla Nussbaum, I assume. But again, here there WOULD be a distinction. It seems to me that talk of "ill-will" (rather than ill-willed behavior) seems conceptually prior. Later, J. L. Speranza -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jlsperanza at aol.com Sun Jan 17 15:35:33 2010 From: jlsperanza at aol.com (jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Sun, 17 Jan 2010 15:35:33 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] _Equi_vocality Message-ID: <1b1d6.926c1e3.3884ce95@aol.com> In a message dated 1/17/2010 10:25:48 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, Baynesr at comcast.net writes: You mention the following case: "equal, even, well-balanced, ???? ??????? evengoing chariot, X.Cyr.2.2.26" I've sometimes wondered about the relation of 'aqua' to 'equal'. I imagine a calm morning; I look at the water; it is level ('equal') now 'aqua' may have been "calm water." ---- Yes, "equal" _and" "acqua" is ever in my mind. I have just watered my plants! --- But anyway, back to 'equal'. Not sure if it relates to 'acqua'. While your scenario makes sense, I just think it's different roots, so, to echo you, no, from philological reasons. But back to 'equal'. I like, of course, to consider this in connection with " = ". When I did logic and metalogic with my good old tutor Roetti, we were fighting with Kleene, Introduction to Metamathematics. We eventually reached the algebra bit, and the logic of identity, and I realised that Frege was _not_ joking when he uses a = b in his writings. It's algebraic _and_ arithmetic. But equa-, as in equi-, has other connotations. I would have to doublecheck this but Grice, you know, was obsessed with 'meaning' and things (implicature). In Aspects of Reason he speaks of '_equi_vocality' thesis. In hypertext, or enriched text, the 'equi' is italicised. So what does he mean? One considers the OED for 'aequivocal', 'equivocal', and indeed, it relates to 'same voice', with 'equi-' being the =. So is this homophony? Grice didn't think so. Rather it's what I call uniguity (I dislike the hybrid, monoguity -- cfr. ambiguity), or monosemy, i.e. yet another corollary of his "modified Ockham's razor", [Sensa] non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem. ---- Back to 'equi-'vocality. It means exactly the opposite of what it says; but on second thoughts you realise the logic of Grice's analysis. People use, colloquially, "You are equivocating". As a bad thing. But for Grice it is a _good_ thing. Consider the 'popular applications' of "dikaios". Socrates may be saying to Thrasymachus: "You are aequivocating". But he is not. He is using the very same 'voice', 'dikaios'. What he is saying is that there's ONE voice, and that it equals itself. Grice on the other hand is playing when he says, He's caught in the grip of a vyce He's caught in the grip of a vice In British English, the things are spelled differently. Not in American. They are, like acqua and equal, different roots. (Incidentally, I think your "otter" is connected with 'water', or 'acqua', I forget). So there is no way the person is using the same voice, or 'equivocating', because originally they were different 'voices'. But this is confusing. In any case, there should be online discussion on 'equivocality thesis'. I cannot think how I can do search online with google using italics, but should find out. Cheers, JLS From jlsperanza at aol.com Sun Jan 17 15:42:30 2010 From: jlsperanza at aol.com (jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Sun, 17 Jan 2010 15:42:30 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Not Cricket Message-ID: <1b3ca.4a5643e1.3884d036@aol.com> In a message dated 1/17/2010 10:25:48 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, Baynesr at comcast.net writes: The idea has been around. It goes back to commentary on Aristotle, where there are things for which there is no excess or defect. For example, I may be incontinent with respect to eating, but there is nothing comparable with respect to murdering. So the idea, at least, has been around. --- Very good point. I loved your discussion to 'scholia', as I think scholars call it, of Aristotle. -- The apparatus criticum, as I think they also call it. --- So to apply it to 'fair', or 'just' -- you'd indeed be opting for "flat" vs. "rounded" (or variable) The flat/rounded distinction is Grice (Aspects of Reason, online, lecture i or ii). "more or less fair" "less or more fair" "more or less just" "less or more just" It seems all quartette makes sense. So it does not seem 'flat'. Alas, for I like my philosophical concepts made flat by analysis (just joking). O. T. O. H. "more or less unfair" "less or more unfair" "more or less unjust" "less or more unjust" also make sense. Indeed, people can flout all this. "He is quite dead" "He is rather dead" --- It seems that 'quite' is emphatic. For you cannot say, (naturally) "He is very dead" You should actually, because 'very', as R. Hall will know, is short for 'verily' and "He is, verily, dead." makes a lot of sense. There may be other tests -- and it becomes tricky if you focus as perhaps Grice wanted on 'just' as adverb, "just-acting". For the very idea of adverb becomes logical problematic The judge acted unfairly _____________________ The judge acted. -- the reference to these paradoxes in Luke, -- online site -- of the unfair or unjust judge. More later, I hope. Cheers, J. L. From jlsperanza at aol.com Sun Jan 17 15:51:14 2010 From: jlsperanza at aol.com (jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Sun, 17 Jan 2010 15:51:14 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] The Cat Sat On The Mat Message-ID: <1b685.55ac3045.3884d242@aol.com> In a message dated 1/17/2010 10:25:48 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, Baynesr at comcast.net writes: Sabine is very good, e.g., but for now its gotta be just a matter of slogging through stuff I read when I was young while in a hurry to get on with how 'the' fits in with 'the cat is on the mat'. Loved that! We _are_ kindred spirits. I even think I found, in I think, Toulmin, a diagramme of the thing which pleased me O O = = > XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX i.e. I later learned that the example, which apparently amused, as it should, Witters (Grice for "Wittgenstein") is the fare of the manuals to teach you English as a "native speaker", i.e. things used as textbooks in Anglo schools. I don't know. I never saw it in context. The phrase "The cat is on the mat" is much more abstract than "The cat _sat_ on the mat" hence my reference in the header. For this supports the idea that it's a rhythmical, prosodic, rhymical thing in mind. The /a/ in cAt sAt mAt Ditto, where I come from we use those rhymes a lot, but for us "native" speakers. I eventually got happy with my analysis of Cat in the Mat in my PhD! I may even have cited that example. What I do recall is my dropping off, just to show off, all the good, yet hard to read, to some, work by C. A. B. Peacocke. As you say, lots of things can be a priori for Kant. And almost anything can be "conceptual" and "perceptual" for Peacocke. So he ends up analysing -- and I combined it with Grice/Myro on 'propositional complex' in "Reply to Richards" as CAT [perceived as FURRY, WHITE, ...] predicate dyadic, SIT -- tense, -PRESENT, i.e. not present, past. on the -- repeat analysis of iota operator for 'the' of 'the' mat MAT [perceived as FURRY, WHITE, ...] I was pretty disappointed when I tried to follow Austin, rather than Grice -- recall their exchange: Grice: Honest, chap. I don't give a hoot what the dictionary says. Austin. And that's where you make your BIG mistake. For my then very poor dictionary -- the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English -- I'm not using contemporary anymore -- read in ways that I could replace, "The cat is or sat on the mat" as cat: "nasty woman" mat: "to be in the mat", to be punished. I could not get out of my head the horribly 'a priori evil' scenario of the scene! Cheers, J. L. Speranza From Baynesr at comcast.net Mon Jan 18 10:23:48 2010 From: Baynesr at comcast.net (Baynesr at comcast.net) Date: Mon, 18 Jan 2010 15:23:48 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [hist-analytic] Not Cricket In-Reply-To: <1b3ca.4a5643e1.3884d036@aol.com> Message-ID: <1530903415.12374241263828228099.JavaMail.root@sz0010a.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net> Just a very quick observation. I can say, x is flatter than y although x is not flat. Similarly, I can say x is rounder than y. But there is a difference. Being rounder entails a *degree* of roundness; being flat does not suggest with the same force a degree of flatness. This is probably owing to the fact that degree of flatness is privation of degree of roundness. So there is this asymmetry between round and flat. Similarly, I can say x is more just than y. x must have some degree of justice. There are other terms that differ because they are not in the comparative degree but are positive. So, e.g., I may say x is hotter than y meaning that x is not, necessarily, hot. But here I wouldn't want to say that x must possess some degree of hotness. So 'just' is not like 'hot'. It is not a comparative in the positive degree. What does this mean? I means that inasmuch as 'hot' requires a standard over and above the measure of temperature, so too, 'just' does NOT require a standard over and above any other magnitude. Notice 'warm'. I can say x is warmer than y meaning x's warmth is greater than y's even though it is not warm. But here x is not necessarily warm. But is this like 'just'? Further, if x is hotter than y is intended to mean x is hot and the hotness of x is greater than y then both x and y must be hot. But if x is more just than y do I ever say this with the intention of meaning that x is just and the justice of x is greater than that of y, so both are just? What does this all suggest? Well, perhaps, that 'just' unlike 'hot' is never grammatically a comparative in the positive degree. Is, justice, then comparative? We say, He received some just compensation or There was some justice in this. We do not say there was some heat where possessing heat implies (materially) being hot. In this respect 'heat' is not like 'just'; for we do not say there is some justice in this but it is not just. We say there is some heat here without meaning there is hotness. The logic of all this will once clarified have consequences for whether justice requires a standard, a standard of justice. I don't believe it does, but I might change my mind. Also, justice is not a privation of injustice; this figures in. Regards STeve ----- Original Message ----- From: jlsperanza at aol.com To: hist-analytic at simplelists.co.uk Sent: Sunday, January 17, 2010 12:42:30 PM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific Subject: Re: Not Cricket In a message dated 1/17/2010 10:25:48 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, ? Baynesr at comcast.net writes: The idea has been around. It goes back to ?commentary on Aristotle, where there are things for which there is no excess ?or defect. For example, I may be incontinent with respect to eating, but ?there is nothing comparable with respect to murdering. So the idea, at ?least, has been around. ? --- ? Very good point. I loved your discussion to 'scholia', as I think scholars ? call it, of Aristotle. -- The apparatus criticum, as I think they also call ?it. ? --- ? So to apply it to 'fair', or 'just' -- you'd indeed be opting for ? ?? ? ? "flat" ? vs. ? ?? ? ? ?"rounded" (or variable) ? The flat/rounded distinction is Grice (Aspects of Reason, online, lecture i ?or ii). ? ?? "more or less fair" ?? "less or more fair" ? ?? ?"more or less just" ?? ?"less or more just" ? It seems all quartette makes sense. So it does not seem 'flat'. Alas, for I ?like my philosophical concepts made flat by analysis (just joking). ? O. T. O. H. ? ?? ? ?"more or less unfair" ?? ? ?"less or more unfair" ? ?? ? ? "more or less unjust" ?? ? ? "less or more unjust" ? also make sense. Indeed, people can flout all this. ? ?? "He is quite dead" ?? "He is rather dead" ? --- It seems that 'quite' is emphatic. For you cannot say, ? ?? (naturally) ? ?? ? ? "He is very dead" ? You should actually, because 'very', as R. Hall will know, is short for ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ?'verily' ? ?? ?and ? ?? ? ? ?"He is, verily, dead." ? makes a lot of sense. ? There may be other tests -- and it becomes tricky if you focus as perhaps ? Grice wanted on 'just' as adverb, "just-acting". For the very idea of adverb ?becomes logical problematic ? ?? ? ? ? ? ?The ?judge acted unfairly ?? ? ? ? ? ? _____________________ ?? ? ? ? ? ?The ?judge acted. ? -- the reference to these paradoxes in Luke, -- online site -- of the ? unfair or unjust judge. ? More later, I hope. ? Cheers, ? J. L. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jlsperanza at aol.com Mon Jan 18 23:38:43 2010 From: jlsperanza at aol.com (jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Mon, 18 Jan 2010 23:38:43 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Not Cricket Message-ID: <43ac8.24f8ef70.38869153@aol.com> In a message dated 1/18/2010 10:25:37 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, Baynesr at comcast.net writes: The logic of all this will once clarified have consequences for whether justice requires a standard, a standard of justice. I don't believe it does, but I might change my mind. Also, justice is not a privation of injustice; this figures in. ---- Excellent comments. I was reading them, and you do sound like Austin and Grice at the best round of linguistic botanising. I will have to re-analyse each of your utterances one by one. For the record, I _think_ Grice opposes "flat" to "variable". I THINK I borrowed the 'flat' versus 'rounded' from, rather E. M. Forster, Aspects of the Novel. This is a book that is familiar with students of literature where I come from. Not that I am one. But I met some, and have socialised with some. On one occasion, we were discussing a silly novel, "Sebastian's Pride" by Susan Wilkinson -- I love Wilkinson. And this friend of mine, Graziella Carrozzi, said, "The problem with the novel is that all characters are flat; not a round one". It was later I read Grice about 'flat' rationality. But of course, the important point here is that you mention about the 'standard' of justice, and in what way injustice figures in. In another of my post, where I comment on your 'calm water', I make a reference to 'equal', and in fact, it's very good to equate justice WITH equity. But back to standards. Elsewhere I have considered at some length what Altham calls, apres Geach, pleonetetic logic. The logic of plurarity. Most, many, few, several (or 'severe' as I prefer). This may relate if justice is a mass noun, as it were. I have no idea. In any case, the analysis that Altham provides for these pleonetic terms (I read an abstract in the well-known Formal semantics of natural language, Cambridge University Press) -- Altham and Tennant, I think) is in terms of a standard of justice. On the other hand, there's the MESOTES. For Aristotle, surely 'just' was the mesotes or golden-proportionally means between the overjust and the injust. I don't know. At present I'm obsessed with Grice. He has Jack and Jill. Jack wants to get some water from a hill, in a bucket. (It's been raining cats and dogs here, and that would be very a dangerous thing to do). Jack, brave as he was English, went up the hill. But he fell down and broke his crown. Jill commented, before she knew: "Jack is an Englishman; he is, therefore, brave" So 'brave' is like courage, a virtue. 'brave' would be not the mesotes but the over-achieving agent. Imagine: going up the hill to fetch a pale of water. You need English bravery at its best for that. And then see the consequences: a failed wedding. But 'just'? Why is it that over-achieving judge sounds silly? And also, the fact that a judge is fair should be contingent (never tautological, right?) Consider Socrates discussing all these 'popular applications' of 'dikaios'. With Plato saying "very fair", "extremely fair". Then come the Judges of Athens and condemn Socrates to commit suicide, i.e. drink the hemlock. For Thrasymachus, if he was still alive, -- or if he read it in the news -- must have said, "So I WAN in the end. For this man, Socrates, was preaching us about the absolute value of 'just' but when it came to the grits he had to go by what the judge said was 'just'" And what the judge said was "just" is the 'popular application'. -- EVEN if the judge is unpopular. Or so said Kelsen. -- but I'll revise your beautiful analysis of 'hot', 'warm', and 'just'. While we're at it, I'll drop the ref. of a book, HIRSCHBERG, Julia. A theory of scalar implicature. Routledge. She discusses scales versus ranks. So, the issue may well be implicatural. I know that in my idiolect -- and in South America in general -- (except Brazil, where you sweat what you sweat), you can say, It's warm; indeed it's boiling hot. For the scale is Similarly, there must be a scale but I'll have to analyse. For Hirschberg, a rank is a different animal. I don't believe in ranks, but she does. If we say that Jack is a captain, we won't say -- she suggests -- that he is a tar. But I think that he is a tar if he is a captain. If he is a general, we don't say he is captain. It's a lower rank. So the 'scale' here does not seem to hold. It does hold for me, for I define 'general' as 'what a general does' and surely what a 'captain does' is below and included into what a general does. Less clear about how this relate to 'just' -- and why Hart wrote so much about all this in his Chair of Jurisprudence. We should find out what name that Chair has. I hope one beginning with "W". Cheers, J. L. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Baynesr at comcast.net Tue Jan 19 07:12:41 2010 From: Baynesr at comcast.net (Baynesr at comcast.net) Date: Tue, 19 Jan 2010 12:12:41 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [hist-analytic] Normativity of 'fair' and 'just':Re: Not Cricket In-Reply-To: <43ac8.24f8ef70.38869153@aol.com> Message-ID: <215533961.12751081263903161589.JavaMail.root@sz0010a.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net> ? 'Very' cuts across the distinction I was trying to draw. I'll only be able to respond to one point, one related to Plato. I have distinguished two sorts of adjectives. First there are adjectives such as 'fuzzy' which are such that if 'x is fuzzier than y' then 'x is fuzzy' . Then there is the class exemplified by 'bright' . Terms like 'bright' are such that from 'x is brighter than y' it does NOT follow that 'x is bright' . I pointed out that 'fairer' is like 'bright' and not like 'fuzzier' since 'x may be fairer than y' although 'x is not fair' . In the case of 'bright' I spoke of the comparative in the positive degree, but what is really up with this characterization is that 'bright' is a normative concept. So where does this leave 'fair' ? This grammatical criterion wold suggest that 'fair' is a normative concept. Now that may seem obvious to some, but when you consider what is included in " normativity " the philosophical considerations expand. In any case, it may turn out that contra Russell, to take a prominent example, you cannot get away with 'better than' ( 'x is better than y' does NOT entail 'x is good' ) and avoid some analysis of 'good' (assuming it is a normative notion). In other words, the relational expression in the form of a comparative relation will not suffice to abandoned the categorical conception which I take to be normative. Regards Steve In a message dated 1/18/2010 10:25:37 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, Baynesr @comcast.net writes: The logic of all this will once clarified have consequences for whether justice requires a standard, a standard of justice. I don't believe it does, but I might change my mind. Also, justice is not a privation of injustice; this figures in. ---- Excellent comments. I was reading them, and you do sound like Austin and Grice at the best round of linguistic botanising . I will have to re-analyse each of your utterances one by one. For the record, I _think_ Grice opposes "flat" to "variable". I THINK I borrowed the 'flat' versus 'rounded' from, rather E. M. Forster, Aspects of the Novel. This is a book that is familiar with students of literature where I come from. Not that I am one. But I met some, and have socialised with some. On one occasion, we were discussing a silly novel, "Sebastian's Pride" by Susan Wilkinson -- I love Wilkinson. And this friend of mine, Graziella Carrozzi , said, "The problem with the novel is that all characters are flat; not a round one". It was later I read Grice about 'flat' rationality. But of course, the important point here is that you mention about the 'standard' of justice, and in what way injustice figures in. In another of my post, where I comment on your 'calm water' , I make a reference to 'equal' , and in fact, it's very good to equate justice WITH equity. But back to standards. Elsewhere I have considered at some length what Altham calls, apres Geach , pleonetetic logic. The logic of plurarity . Most, many, few, several (or 'severe' as I prefer). This may relate if justice is a mass noun, as it were. I have no idea. In any case, the analysis that Altham provides for these pleonetic terms (I read an abstract in the well-known Formal semantics of natural language, Cambridge University Press) -- Altham and Tennant , I think) is in terms of ???? a standard of justice. On the other hand, there's the MESOTES . For Aristotle, surely 'just' was the mesotes or golden-proportionally means between the overjust and the injust . I don't know. At present I'm obsessed with Grice . He has Jack and Jill. Jack wants to get some water from a hill, in a bucket. (It's been raining cats and dogs here, and that would be very a dangerous thing to do). Jack, brave as he was English, went up the hill. But?he fell down and broke his crown. Jill commented, before she knew: ?? "Jack is an Englishman; he is, therefore, brave" So 'brave' is like courage, a virtue.? 'brave' would be not the mesotes but the over-achieving agent. Imagine: going up the hill to fetch a pale of water. You need English bravery at its best for that. And then see the consequences: a failed wedding. But 'just' ? Why is it that over-achieving judge sounds silly? And also, the fact that a judge is fair should be contingent (never?tautological, right?) Consider Socrates discussing all these 'popular applications' of 'dikaios' . With Plato saying "very fair", "extremely fair". Then come the Judges of Athens and condemn Socrates to?commit suicide, i.e. drink the hemlock. For Thrasymachus , if he was still alive,?-- or if he read it in the news -- must have said, ?? "So I WAN in the end. For this man, Socrates, was ??? preaching us about the absolute value of 'just' ??? but when it came to the grits he had to ??? go by?what the judge said was? 'just' " And what the?judge said was?"just" is the 'popular application' . -- EVEN if the judge is unpopular. Or so said Kelsen . ? -- but I'll revise?your beautiful?analysis of 'hot' , 'warm' , and 'just' . While we're at?it, I'll drop the ref. of a book, ?? HIRSCHBERG , Julia. A theory of scalar implicature .? Routledge . She discusses scales versus ranks. So, the issue?may well be implicatural . I know that in my idiolect -- and in South America in general -- (except Brazil, where you sweat what you sweat),?you can say, ??? It's warm; indeed it's boiling hot. For the scale is Similarly, there must be a scale but I'll have to analyse. For Hirschberg , a rank is a?different animal. I don't believe in ranks, but she does. If we say that?Jack is a?captain, we won't say -- she suggests -- that?he is a tar. But I think that he is a tar if he is a captain. If he is a?general, we don't say he is?captain. It's a lower rank. So the 'scale' here does not seem to hold. It does hold for me, for I define 'general' as 'what a general does' and surely what a 'captain does' is below and included into what a general does. Less clear about?how this relate to 'just' -- and why?Hart wrote so much about all this in?his Chair of Jurisprudence. We should find out what name that Chair has.?I hope one beginning with "W". Cheers, J. L. ? ----- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jlsperanza at aol.com Tue Jan 19 08:00:15 2010 From: jlsperanza at aol.com (jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Tue, 19 Jan 2010 08:00:15 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Normativity of 'fair' and 'just': Re: Not Cricket Message-ID: <17b1.1b178cd6.388706df@aol.com> In a message dated 1/19/2010 7:30:54 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, Baynesr at comcast.net writes: Russell, to take a prominent example, you cannot get away with 'better than' ('x is better than y' does NOT entail 'x is good') ---- Oh my God. That was an excellent post. Provided me a lot of pleasure just reading. Never mind analysing. So a brief feedback of encouragement. I once called something Speranza participial. Since I do not want to distract your thread, I'll send perhaps something along those lines separately (if you don't mind). But according to Speranza Participial, as I use it. Let me expand x means y There are TOO MANY specifications for this. One is 'timeless meaning'. Which seems to be what you, Steve, are up to. Even with timeless meaning we should distinguish. Of the whole utterance, or or part of the utterance "fair" seems to be a case in point. Especially when you relate it to "good". Recall that Grice, WoW, i, is criticising Hare's idea that x is good means "I commend x" -- no way! (WoW is Studies in the Way of Words, available as googlebooks, etc.). But there's also, of course, utterer's meaning, which is usually, 'utterer's occasion-meaning', I think Grice calls it (section on specifications of meaning). So back to 'fair'. and the Speranza participial. Briefly, the Speranza participial (named after one J. L. Speranza, and I used it elsewhere, etc. -- so I rather not change the label right now!) is Etymologically. I.e. x means y Etymologically, x means y. I take that for each specification of meaning, notably Expression-Meaning, versus Utterer's occasion-meaning, the Speranza participial holds. Now children. They'll say, "I goed to the park" -- I am told. I never HEARD one child say that, but a lot of psycholinguists saying (nay quoting) it as an example of what we heard lots of children say. Now, consider your counterexample to Russell x is good x is better than y If we take a Blackburnian attitude constructivism re: 'good' -- i..e. as a projection of attitude. Recall, "Eating people is wrong" and "The Reluctant Cannibal" I have written of elsewhere. We get x is good --- utterer's occasion-meaning, "I commend x" for Grice's manoeuvre is certainly to SAVE Hart at the level of the 'implicature'. But 'better'? I never _understood_ 'better'. True, I'm a native! It seems that philosophers should use GOODer. ---- post written in a hurried style up from now for reasons to disclose some day --. For what evidence do we have that 'bet-ter' relates to 'good'? I know, convention, etc. But etymologically? (I'm having in mind your counterexample to Russell: x is good ----- implicature: I commend x x is better than y -- implicature? A further point has to do with the 'predicate' analysis. It would be slighly otiose to render 'good' as a predicate. But perhaps not. Gx I recall I used that example, "x is good" when I was teaching philosophy to rather young folk. They would, when they are still not corrupted by philosophers, think that it does express a fact! The logical form perhaps is something along the lines of x! i.e. I commend x. In which case B(x, y) is only the surface grammar of x is better than y Rather it should be also be symbolised with "!". And to say this is not to endorse a subjectivism, or emotivism. Rather it is to reconsider Grice's view. For expression-meaning is ALWAYS rooted, by convention, or what have you, into utterer's occasion-meaning. Since his early "Meaning" (1948) he would have, "What words mean depends on what we mean by them", or "to put it roughly, what a word means is, roughlly, what, we, people [I recollect this 'people' which Grice has as 'people (vague)' distinctly] mean by them. In any case then, some thoughts. When I was studying, for another dry course, for a silly programme I was undertaking, I had to attend a naive class by one J. S., on the "history of the romance languages"! I knew all he had to say but the point, a good one, and he has a book coming out on that, where I hope he'll credit me or where he SHOULD credit me. Italian LATIN French Spanish ---- We should also include Catalonian, Portuguese, Provencal, etc. But the point, apparently, is that in Latin, 'good, better, worse' are ALWAYS 'unrooted' in the Speranza participial sense of the word. So, perhaps we should check if in SOME language, "good, better, and worse', or 'good, better, best', 'bad, worse, worst" ARE cognate. "better" and "best" are cognate, as are "worse" and "worst". But the point here is rather with 'good' and 'bet-' and 'bad' and 'worse'. For shouldn't it be 'ill', rather than 'bad'. Bad sounds too Michael Jacksony to me: I'm bad, I'm bad, I'm bad. implicating, "I'm god" -- for bad is good, etc. A further point is the -er form. Bet-er. I'm not sure about this, but it seems that the Latin 'synthetic' versus analytic (of the English), -er, form is better form? It always irritate a native that it's all about rhyme, or rythm, never sense. We say, 'more intelligent', because 'intelligent' is long. But we do say 'wittier', because witty is short (Indeed, Brevity is the soul of 'wit'). So Anglos ARE able to deal with the logic of 'more'. For we have, as you say: positive comparative -- 'more F' and superlative -- THE most F. (There is some literature on the pragmatics of comparatives, by, if I recall alright, J. D. Atlas, once of Wolfson, Oxford). So perhaps the key is also in the 'more' and not just in the 'very', which as you say, though, cuts the thing in two. One final point re 'cricket' which you have kept in the header. "It's no cricket" implicating, "That's UNfair". Seems an absolutive. I.e. it would be odd to say "He plays more cricket than I". meaning, "What he plays is more cricket than what I play". I.e. cricket is cricket is cricket. If you change ONE rule, it's not cricket anymore, and thus not fun anymore. So, 'cricket' SEEMS an absolute. But all the things moral philosophers say are usually NOT! J. L. Speranza for the Grice Club Ref. "Professional philosopher and amateur cricketer", obit of Grice in The Times, by anon. From jlsperanza at aol.com Tue Jan 19 10:43:00 2010 From: jlsperanza at aol.com (jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Tue, 19 Jan 2010 10:43:00 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Not Cricket Message-ID: <5b3c.241d9c40.38872d04@aol.com> I forget if it went thru, but I wanted to share this ref. then to Geach. I was saying that when I had to pass that class in Ethics (prof. Guariglia) I recall with cherishness the surprise of the examiners when I brought in an example from the required biblio, Philippa Foot, Theories of Morals. The example was (it was a horrible tr. to the vernacular and so I never remember Geach's original example) It is a good prychtolometer. Geach argues that this sentence makes sense, even if we have no idea what a prychtolometer is. He says it means: It is a prycholometer and it is good at any that a prycholometer is supposed to do. So I assume the same with "Fair Marian" "Marian is a fair one" A fair -- person? It seems that 'fair', applies to THINGS, or persons. To speak fair's fair involves a second-order predicate calculus, which may not be Grice's cup of tea ("I am wedded to first order predicate calculus with identity"). He is a good judge. He is good at whatever a judge is supposed to do. That was a good decision by the judge. Unfair to the backbone, of course, but still good. I hold that the utterance above, unless uttered by Richard Nixon, is _unintelligible_. But more later, I hope. Must rush J. L. S. Grice refers to Nixon in "Aspects of Reason" online, and imagines what Nixon's opening lecture would be as he is appointed White's professor of moral philosophy. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Baynesr at comcast.net Mon Jan 25 13:13:11 2010 From: Baynesr at comcast.net (Baynesr at comcast.net) Date: Mon, 25 Jan 2010 18:13:11 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [hist-analytic] Reciprocity: Rousseau vs. Locke Message-ID: <601151063.15093471264443191928.JavaMail.root@sz0010a.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net> I thought I'd drop a note to the list. Business and other matters have kept me from the list. Sorry. But I thought I'd drop a note on one development in my project. Some may recall our discussion of reciprocals. I was attempting to tie this into a discussion of reciprocity in Rawls and, more more generally, the social contract philosophers. As it turns out Rousseau and Locke have very different ideas on what a contract is, once you figure in their, respective, understandings of reciprocity. Rawls, I believe, is much closer to Rousseau. Locke is very different. Again, the distinction can be drawn from how they deal with reciprocity - recall here the two examples from Lasnik's linguistic account. The way I'm going to package this is to say there is a divide between Locke and Rousseau that defines the difference between "classical" and "nonclassical" liberalism. Rawls is on this account non-classical. "Liberalism" occurs twice here and is not, at this point, an ideological lightening rod. But there are implications for how a social contract philosopher might deal with some of Popper's remarks in Open Society, remarks that do carry ideological baggage. I like Popper. He is a sane man writing during insane times, but his way of thinking coheres well with Rawls at places. A more general problem for Rawls is how he borrows from analytical philosophy. For example, his entire treatment of crucial areas is dependent on what I think is an improper application of "reflective equilibrium." Rawls takes contract theory not as history but as a representational device. Now once you attempt to codify the role of reflective equilibrium beyond the "original position" you can "see" Rawls "falling off a cliff." My intention is to replace "reflective equibrium" in the discussion of contract. The cardinal error of much political philosophy is to see many issues as a contest between convention and nature. Reflective equibrium for Rawls concerns convention; for me, it concerns what I will call nature, but actually obtains between what most have described either as nature or convention. Recall a contract is not a convention per se. (D. Lewis) In any event, I think I have something different to say about the Rousseau/Locke divide with respect to reciprocity. If anyone knows of a literature detailing the difference please let me know. Regards Steve From Jlsperanza at aol.com Mon Jan 25 14:34:27 2010 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Mon, 25 Jan 2010 14:34:27 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Reciprocity: Rousseau vs. Locke Message-ID: <1782d.6cc06a13.388f4c43@aol.com> In a message dated 1/25/2010 1:14:20 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, Baynesr at comcast.net writes: /Locke divide with respect to reciprocity. If anyone knows of a literature detailing the difference please let me know. ---- R. Hall! R. Hall KNOWS _all_ the literature concerning Locke. He is, after all, the editor of one of the most charming philosophical journals ever invented, founded, and published in England: The Locke Newsletter. I brought up reading that newsletter. I think Locke is THE liberalist _par excellence_. My paper published for "Jabberwocky" was mainly about Lewis Carroll -- but also about John Locke. Hey, after all both were "Students" of Christ Church. My paper uses "liberalism" but in a jocular vein. You see, Jonathan Bennett (the genius born in New Zealand) has his commentary on Locke. But he also was a Gricean at weekends. He has this essay on Grice for the "Foundations of Language" journal, which he called "meaning-NOMINALISM". Drawing on Bennett, I called Locke-Carroll-Grice views meaning-LIBERALISM. For Bennett, meaning nominalism amounts to the mere belief that the meaning of a TOKEN is prior to the meaning of a TYPE. Meaning LIBERALISM, on the other hand, opposes itself to a monster created by A. G. N. Flew (a tutee of Grice, as it happens): "meaning ANARCHISM", on the one hand -- Flew's reference to Humpty Dumpty as a meaning-anarchist in a footnote to his Language and Logic series. On the other hand, meaning LIBERALISM contrasts with Meaning-SOCIALISM. I never met a meaning-socialist, unless I count a philosopher or two whom I met who referred to 'language' or the 'dictionary' as an institution. ----- So LIBERALISM stands as the mesotes or golden means between these two extremes anarchism (no rule) liberalism (the realm of reciprocity) socialism (authority overriding intersubjective reciprocity) ---- I was fascinated to trace the LIBERAL roots of Locke on meaning. His liberal views on contract, social contract (or pact, as he prefers), his views on tolerance, his defence of private property, are all well known, if difficult to analyse in detail. But his views of meaning. Why are they LIBERAL? Well, there's the notion of freedom. Unless you use 'freedom', you are not a real liberal. And Locke does. There is this passage in Essay Concerning Human(e) Understanding (the fascimile of the original read "Humane", not "Human" -- this always amused me) where he claims that "every speaker has the FREEDOM to make his words stand for any ideas he pleases" This is the ad-placitum of the mediaevalists, but with a twist. So far so good. But Bennett in his _Locke_ book, goes on to provide a further Gricean, or paleo-Gricean link. This freedom is somewhat limited by the reciprocity that the speaker (or utterer) creates with his addressee. There is some primitive conception of the role that the belief on the part of the addressee that the utterer will be held to entertain this or that idea that prevails. It's not surprising then that Alston, in his "Philosophy of Language" cares to cite Grice (and this is 1962 or 1964) in a footnote to his chapter on Locke. "A modern version of the ideationist view of language is found in Grice, "Meaning""). On the other hand, Rousseau, as Bayne knows, is ALL about pity, benevolence, and ... more pity! Cheers, JL Speranza -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Baynesr at comcast.net Wed Jan 27 16:55:11 2010 From: Baynesr at comcast.net (Baynesr at comcast.net) Date: Wed, 27 Jan 2010 21:55:11 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [hist-analytic] Explaining Making a Joke Message-ID: <359290019.16117861264629311187.JavaMail.root@sz0010a.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net> "Why did you do that?" "For a joke." "I see. You desired to make someone laugh; you thought that this joke would do it; so you did it." "Yes." But take 'for a joke'. Motive? To get my hands on motives I sometimes use 'I did it out of(from) ...'. This isn't perfect but it,sometimes, gets to motive where 'motive' doesn't imply intention. 'I did it out of anger implies no intention or 'text' associated with the act. But "I did it as a joke" is something I must intend; I can act from anger in the absence of an intention. So, do I say I had an idea for a joke when I saw that he did such and such? Well then my intention was to make a joke, but that's not making a joke with an intention. I came to desire to make the joke partly because the opportunity was perfect. Note here that the desire has an explanation in the belief; they are not independent as are many pro-attitudes and beliefs. This causal relation complicates things, but leaves us trying to figure how we can explain making a joke in terms of desires and beliefs. I suspect it is hopeless to do it in a way that is uniform in treatment to other types of action. This is an interesting but, maybe, not so important type of case but it is curious. Regards Steve Bayne From Baynesr at comcast.net Wed Jan 27 17:33:15 2010 From: Baynesr at comcast.net (Baynesr at comcast.net) Date: Wed, 27 Jan 2010 22:33:15 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [hist-analytic] Reciprocity: Rousseau vs. Locke In-Reply-To: <1782d.6cc06a13.388f4c43@aol.com> Message-ID: <2053800916.16138011264631595865.JavaMail.root@sz0010a.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net> Yes, Roland Hall! I had forgotten about the journal The Locke Newsletter. No one is "hawking" it but it's a good journal. Locke is a liberal in the "classical sense" as I and others use this term. Locke brings us Aristotle in a post Cartesian world. I like him. He's "solid" and doesn't try to sweep philosophy under the rug with a gimmick. I note your mention of Bennett. If you mean the guy who did that sixties book on Kant then I know who you mean. His treatment of Strawson is superb and rich in what it suggests for possible future discussion that didn't occur. Gareth Evans, maybe. On the type/token approach. I have been attracted to Scheffler on inscriptional approaches to use/mention. It's pure nominalism, semantically (at least in one sense). I'm using Durkheim's definition of 'socialism' for my book. No time to quote it now. I can't get structure out of my mind. Hope this doesn't become a diversion. It's the sort of thing that has kept me from finishing anything for thirty years or more. By the way, a look at the Utopians, the French in particular is extraordinarily illuminating. The French are my favorite political thinkers, although recently Karl Mannheim has impressed me a great deal; and as you may know, I think Hobbes is THE man to answer. Regards STeve ? ----- Original Message ----- From: Jlsperanza at aol.com To: hist-analytic at simplelists.co.uk Sent: Monday, January 25, 2010 11:34:27 AM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific Subject: Re: Reciprocity: Rousseau vs. Locke In a message dated 1/25/2010 1:14:20 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, Baynesr at comcast.net writes: /Locke divide with respect to reciprocity. If anyone knows of a literature detailing the difference please let me know. ---- R. Hall! R. Hall KNOWS _all_ the literature concerning Locke. He is, after all, the editor of one of the most charming philosophical journals ever invented, founded, and published in England: The Locke Newsletter. I brought up reading that newsletter. I think Locke is THE liberalist _par excellence_. My paper published for "Jabberwocky" was mainly about Lewis Carroll -- but also about John Locke. Hey, after all both were "Students" of Christ Church. My paper uses "liberalism" but in a jocular vein. You see, Jonathan Bennett?(the genius born in New Zealand) has his commentary on Locke. But he also was a Gricean at weekends. He has this essay on Grice for the "Foundations of Language" journal, which he called ?? "meaning-NOMINALISM". Drawing on Bennett, I called Locke-Carroll-Grice views meaning-LIBERALISM. For Bennett, meaning nominalism amounts to the mere belief that the meaning of a TOKEN is prior to the meaning of a TYPE. Meaning LIBERALISM, on the other hand, opposes itself to a monster created by A. G. N. Flew (a tutee of Grice, as it happens): "meaning ANARCHISM", on the one hand -- Flew's reference to Humpty Dumpty as a meaning-anarchist in a footnote to his Language and Logic series. On the other hand, meaning LIBERALISM contrasts with Meaning-SOCIALISM. I never met a meaning-socialist, unless I count a philosopher or two whom I met who referred to 'language' or the 'dictionary' as an institution. ----- So LIBERALISM stands as the mesotes or golden means between these two extremes anarchism (no rule) ?????????????? liberalism ?????????? (the realm of reciprocity) ??????????????????????????????????? socialism ??????????????????????????????? (authority overriding ???????????????????????????????? intersubjective reciprocity) ---- I was fascinated to trace the LIBERAL roots of Locke on meaning. His liberal views on contract, social contract (or pact, as he prefers), his views on tolerance, his defence of private property, are all well known, if difficult to analyse in detail. But? his views of meaning. Why are they LIBERAL? Well, there's the notion of freedom. Unless you use 'freedom', you are not a real liberal. And Locke does. There is this passage in Essay Concerning Human(e) Understanding (the fascimile of the original read "Humane", not "Human" -- this always amused me) where he claims that ?? "every speaker has the FREEDOM to make ??? his words stand for any ideas he pleases" This is the ad-placitum of the mediaevalists, but with a twist. So far so good. But Bennett in his _Locke_ book, goes on to provide a further Gricean, or paleo-Gricean link. This freedom is somewhat limited by the reciprocity that the speaker (or utterer) creates with his addressee. There is some primitive conception of the role that the belief on the part of the addressee that the utterer will be held to entertain this or that idea that prevails. It's not surprising then that Alston, in his "Philosophy of Language" cares to cite Grice (and this is 1962 or 1964) in a footnote to his chapter on Locke. "A modern version of the ideationist view of language is found in Grice, "Meaning""). On the other hand, Rousseau, as Bayne knows, is ALL about pity, benevolence, and ... more pity! Cheers, JL Speranza ? From Jlsperanza at aol.com Thu Jan 28 06:22:51 2010 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Thu, 28 Jan 2010 06:22:51 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] The Diversions of Purley Message-ID: <172c.39c54a42.3892cd8b@aol.com> In a message dated 1/27/2010 5:39:17 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, Baynesr at comcast.net writes: I can't get structure out of my mind. Hope this doesn't become a diversion. It's the sort of thing that has kept me from finishing anything for thirty years or more. ---- Come on. Look on the bright side, Steve. Who wants to _finish_ things? Finish things is _killing_ them, and we won't want that happen, will we? This Tooke was a genius. He was always, or allways as I prefer, 'diverting' his-self, and others! And at Purleigh, too, where you won't find anyone to divert other than your-self, on occasion! I read from wiki: "On his return from Huntingdonshire [the author of "The diversions of Purley"] became once more a frequent guest at Tooke's house at Purley, and in 1782 assumed the name of Horne Tooke. In 1786 Horne Tooke conferred perpetual fame upon his benefactor's country house by adopting, as a second title of his elaborate philological treatise of "Epea Pteroenta" ? the expression ???? ????????? comes from Homer ? the more popular though misleading title of The Diversions of Purley. The treatise at once attracted attention in England and the Continent. The first part was published in 1786, the second in 1805. The best edition is that which was published in 1829, under the editorship of Richard Taylor, with the additions written in the author's interleaved copy." JLS From Jlsperanza at aol.com Thu Jan 28 06:12:05 2010 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Thu, 28 Jan 2010 06:12:05 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Reciprocity: Rousseau vs. Locke Message-ID: <1574.46c41218.3892cb05@aol.com> In a message dated 1/27/2010 5:39:17 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, Baynesr at comcast.net writes: I note your mention of Bennett. If you mean the guy who did that sixties book on Kant then I know who you mean. ---- Indeed. Jonathan Francis Bennett. Born in New Zealand, educated at Oxford, now Emeritus in Syracuse. I read from the amazon.com ref. to the Locke book that it's basically about his views on meaning. "SOMEONE may utter words and mean nothing by them, or hear words and understand nothing by them: communication involves not just uttering and hearing, but..", he writes. It's possibly too general a study on Locke to quote in your study, though. JL From Jlsperanza at aol.com Fri Jan 29 16:45:53 2010 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Fri, 29 Jan 2010 16:45:53 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Grice on Freedom Message-ID: <140f4.56bce651.3894b111@aol.com> I may jot a thing or two in the griceclub.blogspot about this, some day, but wanted to share with S. R. Bayne my discovery that, as per Chapman's bio -- often quoted by yours truly -- Grice was interested in things like alcohol-free free for lunch free-wheeling Chapman: "Grice's notes from the early 1980s show him applying the familiar techniques of 'linguistic botanising' to the concept of freedom." which I trust will feature in Bayne's concerns -- e.g. this commentary on Rawls. It seems to me that only free agents can _enter_ contracts that will bind them. Odd paradox but lovely --. Chapman continues: "He jotted down phrases such as 'alcohol-free', 'free for lunch', and 'free-wheeling', and listed many possible definitions, including 'liberal', 'acting without restriction' and 'frank in conversation'. versus "Frank (Sibley) in conversation." Oops. Etc. J. L. Speranza -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jlsperanza at aol.com Wed Jan 27 20:34:23 2010 From: jlsperanza at aol.com (jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Wed, 27 Jan 2010 20:34:23 -0500 Subject: [hist-analytic] Explaining Making a Joke In-Reply-To: <359290019.16117861264629311187.JavaMail.root@sz0010a.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net> References: <359290019.16117861264629311187.JavaMail.root@sz0010a.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net> Message-ID: <8CC6DD1277C5029-1DD8-C270@webmail-m094.sysops.aol.com> Good thoughts. Yes, jocular behaviour is very ... jocular. I agree with you about "make the addresse laugh", or "smile", if we are Brits. A tutor I once had disliked "laughing", and even "smiling". "Showing your teeth," he?d say, is an atavic primate behaviour. Chimps show their teeth when they are angry." Oddly, Chapman notes that when transcribing some of the Grice tapes, she couldn?t get a clear message. The laughter in the audience was so loud. --- I believe the best jokes are UNintentional. I don?t mean slapstick or Charlie Chaplin falling in the street as he slips over a banana. I mean, even the most complicated, sophisticated music-hall monologue cannot TRUST the addressee will laugh, or smile. That?s why I suppose I?m no professional joker. But then _who_ is. So we would need to distinguish between SUCCEEDING making a joke and other. Succeeding making a joke can be part of your intention, of course. One of the most pathetic films I?ve seen in my life is set in Blackpool with Laurence Olivier. I studied the text in great detail. It?s Osborne, ?The Entertainer?. His jokes are SO pathetic, that of course, they move you to tears. I was recently re-watching it, and the bit when Phoebe starts singing The man I love is up in the lavatory The man I love is looking down on me is just pathetically funny. There?s a good ambiguity in "fun". Fun ha ha, fun queer. Humour is one of the most subjective things in Western civilisation. And I?m using Western civilisation jocularly. REPORTER (to Gandhi): What do you think of Western civilisation? GANDHI: A good idea. I think it would be a good idea. Cheers, JL From rbj at rbjones.com Mon Feb 1 10:43:30 2010 From: rbj at rbjones.com (Roger Bishop Jones) Date: Mon, 1 Feb 2010 15:43:30 +0000 Subject: [hist-analytic] My FTD project In-Reply-To: <2053800916.16138011264631595865.JavaMail.root@sz0010a.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net> References: <2053800916.16138011264631595865.JavaMail.root@sz0010a.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net> Message-ID: <201002011543.30482.rbj@rbjones.com> A little less than a year ago I described on hist-analytic a project I had in mind for a monograph on "The Fundamental Triple-Dichotomy". (See: http://rbjones.com/pipermail/hist-analytic_rbjones.com/2009q1/000137.html ) I hoped to use hist-analytic as a sounding board for the ideas. This has happened to some extent, but only in relation to the most fundamental and elementary parts, disagreement on these has effectively blocked any progression onto less elementary issues. Throughout the year my ideas have evolved, seemingly with ever increasing pace, but progress has been in my conception of the project rather than its execution. We have discussed some of the central ideas of the project on hist-analytic, without much sign of rapprochement, even between myself and philosophers one would imagine to be sympathetic. I think it safe now to say that the FTD project has disappeared, having been subsumed under a series of broader projects (first "Metaphysical Positivism", now "Positive Philosophy"). I am now playing at once with several different ideas for philosophical books, and at the same time hoping that this year I will make substantial progress in the execution of at least one of them. A large part of this is analytic philosophy, some of it is historical. I won't attempt to describe in greater detail my present projects, but if anyone is interested I do try to keep (or achieve) at www.rbjones.com as good a picture of where I am and where I am going as possible, and will be glad to discuss any of this here on hist-analytic. All this is part of my own search for a viable way forward for myself in doing analytic philosophy, which because of my dissatisfaction with the status quo is an enterprise which is substantially metaphilosophical. I wonder whether a general discussion of ways forward for analytic philosophy would be of interest? Roger Jones From Jlsperanza at aol.com Mon Feb 1 12:34:24 2010 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Mon, 1 Feb 2010 12:34:24 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Whither Analytic Philosophy? Message-ID: Thanks for the question, R. B. In a message dated 2/1/2010 11:52:39 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, rbj at rbjones.com writes: >I wonder whether a general discussion of ways forward for analytic philosophy >would be of interest? I guess I'll look for Aunt Matilda's crystal ball in the attic. But here below some google hits (first page for "whither analytic philosophy?" which may lead (somewhere). -- I am myself now become a 'historicist': with Grice dead in 1988 -- whither indeed! I mean, we still have those 14 cartoons to scan and things -- but ... --- People are talking of 'post-analytic', now -- but these are people who never _were_ analytic in the first person, which makes their speculations rather mystic. --- It is good to consider 'apostasies', as I call them. Schiffer, great Griceanist; in 1987, he has a revelation. Almost burns his "Meaning" and writes, "Remnants of meaning". Grandy/Warner invite him to contribute to the PGRICE festschrift where he protects his-self with, "I trust Paul will bear (or forebear, I forget) my apostasy" -- and his case has not been unique. Mind, with Grice living a couple 20 years more, he might just as well turned into a pre-Cartesian. I mean, analytic philosophy is as broad and diverse as "analytic philosophers". You, R. B. Jones, are a positivist, so you are, I guess, concerned with 'whither _positivism_?", rather. But I'm starting to ramble... J. L. Speranza for the griceclub.blogspot. What is Analytic Philosophy? - Cambridge University Press 1, Imposters, bunglers and relativists, 232. 2, What, if anything, is wrong with analytic philosophy? 242. 3, Whither analytic philosophy? 255 ... www.cambridge.org/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn...ss=fro - Cached What is analytic philosophy? - Google Books Result Hans-Johann Glock - 2008 - Philosophy - 292 pages It is therefore the prerogative of people like Mulligan, Philipse, Searle and Tugendhat, who have put in the hard work. 3 WHITHER ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY? ... books.google.com/books?isbn=0521694264... [PDF] WHAT IS ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY? File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - Quick View 1 Imposters, bunglers and relativists. 232. 2 What, if anything, is wrong with analytic philosophy? 242. 3 Whither analytic philosophy? 255. Bibliography ... assets.cambridge.org/97805218/.../9780521872676_frontmatter.pdf - Similar Integra Software Services Private Limited Puviarassy Kalieperumal ... 11.4 03 255 261 7 Section 3 Whither analytic philosophy? 12 04 262 282 21 Bibliography Bibliography 13 04 283 292 10 Index Index Cambridge University Press ... assets.cambridge.org/isbn13/97805218/.../9780521872676ofb.xml - Cached Show more results from assets.cambridge.org [PDF] Contents File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - Quick View by HJ Glock - Cited by 7 - Related articles - All 2 versions 9 Present and future. 1 Imposters, bunglers and relativists. 2 What, if anything, is wrong with analytic philosophy? 3 Whither analytic philosophy? ... www.lnb.lt/.../17_What%20is%20analytic%20philosophy200951713616.pdf Hot, Cool And Sexy On HedWeb HedWeb Philosofun Whither Analytic Philosophy? A photographic examination by HedWeb's exceedingly versatile Melissa Wyatt ... www.hedweb.com/nuhed96.htm - Cached E-KHMER Blog Reader :: Cambodian bloggers directory 1 ???? 2008 ... Whither Analytic Philosophy? 2008-01-01 00:20:17 Author : Alvin [View:20] ... feed.e-khmer.net/current.php?ksearch=1¤tPage=1439 - Cached What is Analytic Philosophy? Hans-Johann Glock Paperback NON ... 231, (31). Imposters, bunglers and relativists. 232, (10). What, if anything, is wrong with analytic philosophy? 242, (13). Whither analytic philosophy? ... www.keenzo.com/showproduct.asp?M=CAMBRIDGE...PRESS...ID... What is Analytic Philosophy? Hans-Johann Glock Paperback NON ... Whither analytic philosophy? 255, (7). Bibliography, 262, (21). Index, 283. Product Reviews (0), Write a Review. The CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS ... www.keenzo.com/showproduct.asp?ID=1912297 Kinokuniya BookWeb ... and relativists 232(10) What, if anything, is wrong with analytic 242(13) philosophy? Whither analytic philosophy? 255(7) Bibliography 262(21) Index 283 ... bookweb.kinokuniya.co.jp/guest/cgi-bin/bookseaohb.cgi?... - Cached From rbj at rbjones.com Mon Feb 1 14:55:04 2010 From: rbj at rbjones.com (Roger Bishop Jones) Date: Mon, 1 Feb 2010 19:55:04 +0000 Subject: [hist-analytic] Whither Analytic Philosophy? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <201002011955.04997.rbj@rbjones.com> On Monday 01 Feb 2010 17:34, Jlsperanza at aol.com wrote: > In a message dated 2/1/2010 11:52:39 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, > rbj at rbjones.com writes: > >I wonder whether a general discussion of ways forward for analytic > >philosophy would be of interest? > > I guess I'll look for Aunt Matilda's crystal ball in the attic. I was thinking more of preferences or prescriptions than predictions, but predictions are also of interest. > -- I am myself now become a 'historicist': with Grice dead in 1988 -- > whither indeed! With you JL, I feel obliged to be picky about words. Aren't you a historian rather than a historicist, or are you both? > --- People are talking of 'post-analytic', now -- but these are people who > never _were_ analytic in the first person, which makes their speculations > rather mystic. and do they mean a philosophy which no longer undertakes analysis, or one which is no longer exclusively analytic. I don't advocate exclusively analytic philosophy, I just use "analytic" as an adjective for a particular kind or part of philosophy. I notice that your reference below gets us to an article which thinks analytic philosophy is about a century old, (and I have heard you speak of this as the scope of this list) but philosophical analysis goes back at least as far as Socrates, so I'm not keen on the use of "analytic" to refer to a period rather than a kind. Of course, if you do use it for a period, then it will be apt to refer to post-analytic, even for Gricean philosophy if you do it too late for it to be analytic. > I mean, analytic philosophy is as broad and diverse as "analytic > philosophers". You, R. B. Jones, are a positivist, so you are, I guess, > concerned with 'whither _positivism_?", rather. No, I really was interested in "whither analytic?". And my positivism is far removed from what people think positivism is, as was Carnap's (which was also far removed from what most philosophers think Carnap's philosophy was), and really is very analytic (if only I could synthesize a good account of it). Is there a hidden agenda in my question? Am I making an opportunity to ask the question "what's wrong with analytic philosophy" so we know what to fix? Does that question make sense to a scholar of Grice? Surely one just observes carefully and admires? Is the future more of the same? > But I'm starting to ramble... Way to late to save yourself from that! But you are an entertaining and loveable rambler. RBJ for his-self -- rbjones.com From Jlsperanza at aol.com Tue Feb 2 04:06:17 2010 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Tue, 2 Feb 2010 04:06:17 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Whither Analytic Philosophy? Message-ID: <1e.78767f5a.38994509@aol.com> Lovely comments, R. B.! Forays, _that_ gave me the wrong clue! How was I to know you meant 'prescription'. Who am _I_ to prescribe? Just joking. I see that I wrote on post-analytic in this FORUM, "The analytic/post-analytic distinction". You are very right it all started with Socrates. Grice has a good one here, when he compares, in our copies of WoW, Retrospective Epilogue, that is: Oxonian dialectics and Athenian dialectics. He wants to say that unlike the Athenian dialectics (Socrates, Plato, Aristotle), the Oxonian dialectics, with the exception of perhaps J. O. Urmson, who was into the Paradigm-Case Argument, they never really cared about this or that truth _value_! Grice was an entire man. Elsewhere I speak of the latitude and longitude of Grice. He jokingly refers to Oxonian tutors as having to be good at two fronts: the history of philosophy (the greats) and modern stuff published in modern journals and stuff: for problems scan the centuries, Grice writes. My very first publication, which I offered as a memorial to Grice, features a collocation I cared to love from G. N. Leech. In his _principles of pragmatics_ he speaks of 'retrospects and prospects'. And it is this I am good that. I can talk of retrospects for ages. I'm less sure about prospects. A good thing about them is that they _are_ open-ended. With the fashion of deconstructionism, and post-structuralism, I'm sure the same applies to _retrospects_ -- on a clear day! Later. JLS -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Jlsperanza at aol.com Tue Feb 2 04:12:54 2010 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Tue, 2 Feb 2010 04:12:54 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Analytic Philosophy: Retrospects and Prospects Message-ID: If the 'whither' tends to sound on the apocalyptic side (Grice meant to write a book, "From Genesis to Revelations (and back): a new discourse on metaphysics", but he died -- ain't death cruel -- as a friend of mine told me in Facebook: "There once was a cooperative library shelved in a pool but its generative water became so exceedingly cool That a slow swimmer named Grice Got stuck in the ice. So picture the implicature ... life's cruel." (c) E. Daffington, Jr. Cheers, JL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Baynesr at comcast.net Tue Feb 2 12:32:20 2010 From: Baynesr at comcast.net (Baynesr at comcast.net) Date: Tue, 2 Feb 2010 17:32:20 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [hist-analytic] Down Time? Message-ID: <2015442162.1876501265131940736.JavaMail.root@sz0010a.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net> I am fed up with Microsoft Vista. I'm reinstalling my old XP. Since I'm not an expert at this and a lot has to be done the sytem may be down for a day or so; maybe not. Regards Steve -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rbj at rbjones.com Tue Feb 2 11:22:52 2010 From: rbj at rbjones.com (Roger Bishop Jones) Date: Tue, 2 Feb 2010 16:22:52 +0000 Subject: [hist-analytic] Whither Analytic Philosophy? In-Reply-To: <1e.78767f5a.38994509@aol.com> References: <1e.78767f5a.38994509@aol.com> Message-ID: <201002021622.52797.rbj@rbjones.com> On Tuesday 02 Feb 2010 09:06, Jlsperanza at aol.com wrote: > Lovely comments, R. B.! You're too kind JL, if that's possible. I try to keep an even temper, and I don't think I am too bad at that, but I can't match your positive character, problems get in my way and I am compelled to cut them down. > Forays, _that_ gave me the wrong clue! How was I to know you meant > 'prescription'. Who am _I_ to prescribe? Or I. No, I'm not keen on prescription, its a bit futile. I prefer (but don't prescribe) something in between preferences and prescriptions, which is (believe it or not) analysis. Start with a mixture of analysis and instinctive preferences and analyse them to death, or at least a little way in the hope of supporting choice between the alternatives (where choice is necessary). This is part of my new methodological pluralism with which I supplement Carnap's principle of tolerance (generally treated with so little tolerance). It may be too much to hope that you will engage in thoroughgoing chrystal- ball-gazing JL, but I tried an idea last year which I am tempted to revive. in: http://rbjones.com/pipermail/hist-analytic_rbjones.com/2009q2/000267.html I said: > 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. Considering Grice and Carnap both to lie near the liberal end of some spectrum of which the opposite is dogmatism, I did think it would be interesting to consider how Grice and Carnap might be reconciled, and imagined metaphysical positivism a means for such a reconciliation. This little project soon got snowed under, but I wonder if I might interest Speranza, (or anyone else) in a slight variation on that idea. Let us imagine that Grice and Carnap lived on and are now embodied as JLS and RBJ, with the kind of philosophical views which one might speculate that they would have had after living through the second half of the twentieth century, JLS representing Grice and myself Carnap (I do believe that my own views are conceivably what Carnap might have come to). The burning question would then be (for me), what then would be the sticking points on which they could not agree? Though I soon forgot about my first idea last year, I did actually write something, which is in: http://www.rbjones.com/rbjpub/www/papers/p008.pdf where there is a section on Carnap and Grice (the date on the front is incorrect, I haven't touched it since 2 June). Reactions? RBJ -- rbjones.com From jlsperanza at aol.com Tue Feb 2 12:44:21 2010 From: jlsperanza at aol.com (jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Tue, 02 Feb 2010 12:44:21 -0500 Subject: [hist-analytic] Whither Analytic Philosophy? In-Reply-To: <201002021622.52797.rbj@rbjones.com> References: <201002021622.52797.rbj@rbjones.com> Message-ID: <8CC72467C6EB90A-5B0-21F7@webmail-d076.sysops.aol.com> R. B. Jones: "Though I soon forgot about my first idea last year, I did actually write something, which is in: http://www.rbjones.com/rbjpub/www/papers/p008.pdf where there is a section on Carnap and Grice (the date on the front is incorrect, I haven't touched it since 2 June)." Lovely! "If you bring Speranza to a party he?ll bring Grice along". Or as Mirembe Nantongo elsewhere said elsewhere -- "worse, he?ll come dressed as a Conversational Implicature" (it?s a fancy dress party, you see). I enjoyed your epithet for Grice, "metaphysically relaxed". "metaphysically non-anal retentive", as I prefer. I once was googling for analytic philosophy and came across the blog of one philosopher who defines his-self as "in the anal-retentive tradition of analytic philosophy". Ah well. Not your Grice. In notes and tapes Chapman transcribed for posterity, Grice is heard as saying -- awing their students, as I prefer, i.e. eliciting "aws!" from them, "Not long ago, ?metaphysics? was a term of abuse in Oxford." Not anymore, I suspect (When I stayed at the Randolph, with a view to St. John?s) I was flabbergasted to overhear conversations at Memorial of Martyrs, and they were NOT telling each other to "Carnap off", either. You write: "Grice thought of (his-self) as a kind of ordinary language philosopher", which you scare quote. Elsewhere I posted something: "Extra-Ordinary Language!" for one has to consider Grice?s inverted snobbery here. But I think that compared to _Bradley_ (I always have Bradley on the tip of my tongue. Nobody has read him, so nobody can gladiatorally refute me) Grice?s English IS pretty ordinary (I?m still trying to locate the LATIN for this. Reading Cicero in the Loebs I came across a reference to "extraordinary language" but forget to remember what inapt Latin expression he used for his lovely English one). I?ll continue then: This is ALL very serious. For Grice, the use of metaphysical is VERY appropriate here. He is honouring Russell, "grammar" a "pretty" "good guide to a logical form", where you cannot disconnect pretty and good. The correct is "prettily GOOD guide". It?s not like i. My niece Sue is pretty and good. But more like ii. Sue is pretty good (at whatever she does) Grice was slightly infuriated by Russell?s cavalierism. Surely, when Russell spoke of "stone-age metaphysics", he could, and SHOULD, have spoken of a "stone-age PHYSICS". For Carnap and Co, to cut a long story short: physics =df metaphysics. And right they were, too! Aristotle was confused, but more so his disciples. There he left a couple of notes meant for digestion by his students. VERY obscure. "And what shall we call _these___" , axed (sic) Theophrastos. "Well," Jenny replied, "They were next to "ta phusika biblia", so let?s call them..." "Ta meta ta phusika biblia, you said?" And the rest is legend. ---- There are important points in Carnap that allow for a Gricean tolerant exegesis. Carnap?s emphasis on "decisions" regarding one?s conceptual frameworks, etc. Why be a scientist, e.g. rather than a poet alla Heidegger. These decisions are "transcategorial" in nature. They are eschatoalogical. For Grice saw that there are TWO branches of metaphysics or theoria-theoria, as he also called it: ontologia proper. By which he meat both ontologia generalis -- pretty much along Jones?s excellent remarks on izzing and hazzing. and ontologia specialis by which the Greeks -- Grecians and Griceans -- understood: cosmologia and psychologia -- But there is a less trodden path in metaphysics too: eschatology, which deals NOT with the general or special theory of categories, but with our decisions to adopt this or that categorial scheme. I don?t like Strawson a lot. I CANNOT read Strawson without reading Grice between the lines. Grice spoiled Strawson for me. But recently re-reading Chapman?s "Grice" -- and she is no philosopher, so some of the idioms do not ring bells fo her -- I find reiterative mentions or references to Grice?s use of REVISIONARY. I cannot think "revisionary" without thinking of my "Robbing Peter to Pay Paul". For Strawson did the honest thing an honest chap could back in 1959, when he published his "essay in descriptive metaphysics". He could only LAUGH at revisionary philosophy. But the last laugh is of course on the man who could do it! J. L. Speranza for the griceclub.blogspot. Ref. Schiffer: ?That man with that uproaring laughter, holding the martini is Grice? ?And why is he called Grice?? ?Because he is Grice?. From jlsperanza at aol.com Tue Feb 2 13:18:23 2010 From: jlsperanza at aol.com (jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Tue, 02 Feb 2010 13:18:23 -0500 Subject: [hist-analytic] Positivism in 21th.-Century Analytic Philosophy Message-ID: <8CC724B3DC160B6-67C8-7B6@webmail-d076.sysops.aol.com> That?s R. B. Jones! Sorry for pompous header, and I see poor Stephen is having problems with Word. Indeed a bad software, it seems. Anyway, a little ps. in care R. B. Jones cares to comment on the value-side to what I see his "metaphysical" scheme: positivism. I see he may endorse a NEUTRAL view of "positivism" as the "logical" positivists once endorsed. Where "positivism" has little in the way of comparison with things like Comte?s philosophy and stuff. But perhaps, no. And Jones is a _positivist_ of the old school as he should and as I would myself be, if I could make sense of the idea of "progress" which was in Comte?s head and in the contributors to the "Unified Science" project. Grice writes, "beware of the devil of scientism", in Conception of Value. Oddly, I love a devil -- and one of my favourite operas is "Mefistofele" by Boito. Etc. JL From rbj at rbjones.com Tue Feb 2 16:25:55 2010 From: rbj at rbjones.com (Roger Bishop Jones) Date: Tue, 2 Feb 2010 21:25:55 +0000 Subject: [hist-analytic] Positivism in 21th.-Century Analytic Philosophy In-Reply-To: <8CC724B3DC160B6-67C8-7B6@webmail-d076.sysops.aol.com> References: <8CC724B3DC160B6-67C8-7B6@webmail-d076.sysops.aol.com> Message-ID: <201002022125.55872.rbj@rbjones.com> On Tuesday 02 Feb 2010 18:18, jlsperanza at aol.com wrote: > Anyway, a little ps. in care where? > R. B. Jones cares to comment on the > > value-side > > to what I see his "metaphysical" scheme: positivism. I see he may > endorse a NEUTRAL view of "positivism" as the "logical" positivists > once endorsed. Not sure what kind of neutrality you speak of here, I don't recall using the term myself. However. I'll clarify my position and terminology. I use the term "metaphysical positivism" for the purely analytic aspects of my philosophy. I use the term "positive philosophy" for a much broader conception of philosophy. I haven't said much on hist-analytic about this but it is sketched very briefly on my web site. As far as values are concerned, insofar as one simply analyses these, that belongs to metaphysical positivism, but insofar as one takes a position that belongs to positive philosophy. However, I have recently been inclining towards adopting positions rather more subtly, by analysing their merits vis-a-vis the alternatives, and this tendency results in discussions which might have been positive philosophy looking rather like metaphysical positivism. That very same tendency also results in metaphysical positivism getting more and more like pure analysis. Much of Carnap's philosophy should, according to Carnap, be understood not as doctrine but as proposals for usage. Thus, whereas Kripke purports to show that there are necessities de-re, supposedly contra Carnap, Carnap merely proposed that we should adopt a usage for the terms Necessary and Analytic which makes necessity de-re (if defined as non-analytic necessity) a vacuous concept. In metaphysical positivism I now retreat from Carnap's tendency to "make proposals", and fall back on more analysis, a step which falls under a heading "epistemic retreat" which I invented for myself (I don't think its in use). So whereas Carnap proposes this close connection between analyticity and necessity, I just aspire to expose its merits relative to the alternatives, and you can please yourself whether you adopt such a usage. Now this retreat into meta-analysis might make things a bit more NEUTRAL, but I think of it as making them more OBJECTIVE, and more solid (more likely to be true). Often we have better grounds for comparisons than absolute judgements. A technical example is the very high level of confidence we can have that ZF is more likely to be consistent than ZFC, and the much weaker levels of confidence that either one is consistent. In my philosophy, theory is subordinate to practice, in the sense that the purpose of theoretical philosophy is to underpin and serve the purposes of practical philosophy. This possibly brings me closer to Comte than more recent positivists. Unlike Wittgenstein's position in the Tractatus this is something which I can speak about. My positivism is explicitly rooted in ancient scepticism, which itself rooted in practical philosophy. Both practically and theoretically however, its not very good. On the practical side, scepticism about rationality is dealt with in far better ways in the ancient Chinese philosophy of Dao. The principle of Wu-Wei is pretty much the idea that we shouldn't rationally decide what to do anyway, we should act from deep within. > Where "positivism" has little in the way of comparison > with things like Comte?s philosophy and stuff. Comte seems to be a bit of a curates egg. But his core idea, that civilisation progresses through stages which are characterised by something like how we decide what is true, seems to me to have something in it. History is much more complicated than that, but progress is desirable and progress in the way in which we resolve differences is an important, if not the most important element of what we mean by civilisation. This puts the focus on rationality, and one can regard the notion of positive science as being about the rationality of our conduct of science. > But perhaps, no. And Jones is a _positivist_ of the old school as he > should and as I would myself be, if I could make sense of the idea of > "progress" which was in Comte?s head and in the contributors to the > "Unified Science" project. The Unified Science project, if you read Carnap, was a rejection of a previous distinction made between social and physical sciences, the details of which I am not familiar with. My own position is that it is uncertain that there is anything common to all sciences except possibly a nomologo-deductive method, possibly not even that. Depends where you want to draw the line between science and non-science, and I don't really care about that line. > Grice writes, "beware of the devil of scientism", in Conception of > Value. Well, I agree. I don't think that I am, or that Carnap was, scientistic. He was in his philosophy, interested almost exclusively in scientific philosophy, and in philosophy for science. But that is just a specialism, not scientism. RBJ rbjones.com From Jlsperanza at aol.com Tue Feb 2 17:21:36 2010 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Tue, 2 Feb 2010 17:21:36 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Positivism in 21th.-Century Analytic Philosophy Message-ID: <3144.5c58333b.3899ff70@aol.com> In a message dated 2/2/2010 5:01:23 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, rbj at rbjones.com writes: The Unified Science project, if you read Carnap, was a rejection of a previous distinction made between social and physical sciences, the details of which I am not familiar with. --- Just a brief thankyou then, as I elaborate on these issues. I love the IDEA of a unified science if that's just what it was supposed to mean: One Big Science. It may have to do also with one of the 'betes noires' Grice encounters. In your pdf you mention "Gladiators", but let's not forget "Naturalism". It seems that naturalism and perhaps Materialism -- Betes noires are for Grice, reductive schemes ending in -ism -- Reductionism being the blackest of them all. _are_ the banners of Scientism (or the Devil of Scientism). But I'll elaborate. I enjoyed your distinctions between 'positivism' and 'positive'. And your idea of 'epistemic retreat'. I love that. It's indeed the 'ataraxia' of the sceptics, on the sort of negative side -- in that it may lead to non-action -- but it's also the need to take things at ease, without a sense of _urgency_. I feel philosophers _need_ a retreat. The Academy of Plato _was_ a retreat -- perhaps more so than Aristotle's Lycaeum. It is noticeable how the physical geography of Athens -- Socrates in the public agora, Plato way out in the groves of Academos, Aristotle back to the hustle and bustle of the Lycaeum -- tell of things. Etc. -- the ps thing was meant as a ps to my two other posts, I think, "Whither" and "Retrospects and to focus the thread into the things that matter you! :) JL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Baynesr at comcast.net Tue Feb 2 17:32:03 2010 From: Baynesr at comcast.net (Baynesr at comcast.net) Date: Tue, 2 Feb 2010 22:32:03 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [hist-analytic] Whither Analytic Philosophy? In-Reply-To: <8CC72467C6EB90A-5B0-21F7@webmail-d076.sysops.aol.com> Message-ID: <859681655.2031351265149923795.JavaMail.root@sz0010a.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net> "If you bring Speranza to a party he?ll bring Grice along". He is said to eat Grice Crispies, eats them?at?gricy spoons, and says "WOW!" more than any other living philosopher; moreover he is alleged to have been a?a frequent guest on "The Grice is Right" or was that "The Grice is always Right"?? And he killed him a gricely bear when he was only three! Is the grice ever going to melt? What is the grice/earnings ratio for Grice toy manufacturers? So many questions for JL to consider. Regards Steve ----- Original Message ----- From: jlsperanza at aol.com To: hist-analytic at simplelists.co.uk Sent: Tuesday, February 2, 2010 9:44:21 AM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific Subject: Re: Whither Analytic Philosophy? R. B. Jones: "Though I soon forgot about my first idea last year, I did actually write something, which is in: http://www.rbjones.com/rbjpub/www/papers/p008.pdf where there is a section on Carnap and Grice (the date on the front is incorrect, I haven't touched it since 2 June)." Lovely! "If you bring Speranza to a party he?ll bring Grice along". Or as Mirembe Nantongo elsewhere said elsewhere -- "worse, he?ll come dressed as a Conversational Implicature" (it?s a fancy dress party, you see). I enjoyed your epithet for Grice, "metaphysically relaxed". "metaphysically non-anal retentive", as ?I prefer. I once was googling for analytic philosophy and came across the blog of one philosopher who defines his-self as "in the anal-retentive tradition of analytic philosophy". Ah well. Not your Grice. In notes and tapes Chapman transcribed for posterity, Grice is heard as saying -- awing their students, as I prefer, i.e. eliciting "aws!" from them, "Not long ago, ?metaphysics? was a term of abuse in Oxford." Not anymore, I suspect (When I stayed at the Randolph, with a view to St. John?s) I was flabbergasted to overhear conversations at Memorial of Martyrs, and they were NOT telling each other to "Carnap off", either. You write: "Grice thought of (his-self) as a kind of ordinary language philosopher", which you scare quote. Elsewhere I posted something: ?? "Extra-Ordinary Language!" for one has to consider Grice?s inverted snobbery here. But I think that compared to _Bradley_ ? (I always have Bradley on the tip of my tongue. Nobody has read him, so nobody can gladiatorally refute me) Grice?s English IS pretty ordinary (I?m still trying to locate the LATIN for this. Reading Cicero in the Loebs I came across a reference to "extraordinary language" but forget to remember what inapt Latin expression he used for his lovely English one). I?ll continue then: This is ALL very serious. For Grice, the use of metaphysical is VERY appropriate here. He is honouring Russell, "grammar" a "pretty" "good guide to a logical form", where you cannot disconnect pretty and good. The correct is "prettily GOOD guide". It?s not like ?? i. My niece Sue is pretty and good. But more like ?? ii. Sue is pretty good (at whatever she does) Grice was slightly infuriated by Russell?s cavalierism. Surely, when Russell spoke of "stone-age metaphysics", he could, and SHOULD, have spoken of a "stone-age PHYSICS". For Carnap and Co, to cut a long story short: ?? ? ? ? physics =df metaphysics. And right they were, too! Aristotle was confused, but more so his disciples. There he left a couple of notes meant for digestion by his students. VERY obscure. "And what shall we call _these___" , axed (sic) Theophrastos. "Well," Jenny replied, "They were next to "ta phusika biblia", so let?s call them..." "Ta meta ta phusika biblia, you said?" And the rest is legend. ---- There are important points in Carnap that allow for a Gricean tolerant exegesis. Carnap?s emphasis on "decisions" regarding one?s conceptual frameworks, etc. Why be a scientist, e.g. rather than a poet alla Heidegger. These decisions are "transcategorial" in nature. They are eschatoalogical. For Grice saw that there are TWO branches of metaphysics or theoria-theoria, as he also called it: ?? ontologia proper. By which he meat both ?? ?ontologia generalis -- pretty much along Jones?s excellent remarks on izzing and hazzing. and ?? ?ontologia specialis by which the Greeks -- Grecians and Griceans -- understood: ?? ? ? ? cosmologia and ?? ? ? ?psychologia -- But there is a less trodden path in metaphysics too: eschatology, which deals NOT with the general or special theory of categories, but with our decisions to adopt this or that categorial scheme. I don?t like Strawson a lot. I CANNOT read Strawson without reading Grice between the lines. Grice spoiled Strawson for me. But recently re-reading Chapman?s "Grice" -- and she is no philosopher, so some of the idioms do not ring bells fo her -- I find reiterative mentions or references to Grice?s use of ?? ?REVISIONARY. I cannot think "revisionary" without thinking of my "Robbing Peter to Pay Paul". For Strawson did the honest thing an honest chap could back in 1959, when he published his "essay in descriptive metaphysics". He could only LAUGH at revisionary philosophy. But the last laugh is of course on the man who could do it! ?? J. L. Speranza ?? ? ?for the griceclub.blogspot. ?? ? ? ? ?Ref. Schiffer: ?That man with that uproaring laughter, ?? ? ? ? ? ? ?holding the martini is Grice? ?And why is he called ?? ? ? ? ? ? ?Grice?? ?Because he is Grice?. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rbj at rbjones.com Thu Feb 4 12:32:14 2010 From: rbj at rbjones.com (Roger Bishop Jones) Date: Thu, 4 Feb 2010 17:32:14 +0000 Subject: [hist-analytic] Positivism in 21th.-Century Analytic Philosophy In-Reply-To: <3144.5c58333b.3899ff70@aol.com> References: <3144.5c58333b.3899ff70@aol.com> Message-ID: <201002041732.14947.rbj@rbjones.com> On Tuesday 02 Feb 2010 22:21, Jlsperanza at aol.com wrote: > I love the IDEA of a unified science if that's just what it was supposed to > mean: One Big Science. I have to admit, having glanced back at my extremely concise notes, that it it all bound up with reductionism in a sense (the language of unified science was supposed to be physicalistic, i,e, materialistic) very close to the one which Grice abhors. > It may have to do also with one of the 'betes > noires' Grice encounters. In your pdf you mention "Gladiators", but let's > not forget "Naturalism". It seems that > > naturalism > > and perhaps > > Materialism > > -- Betes noires are for Grice, reductive schemes ending in -ism -- > Reductionism being the blackest of them all. We talked about this last year on hist-analytic I see. http://www.rbjones.com/pipermail/hist-analytic_rbjones.com/2009q1/000078.html The precise abhorrence you quote Grice as relating there is to: the idea that semantic concepts are unsatisfactory or even unintelligible, *unless* they can be provided with interpretations in terms of some predetermined, privileged, and favored array of concepts; This is something which Grice _thinks_ he has not done. Its not clear whether he thinks it illegitimate, undoable, or just uninteresting. In our present conversation we need also to consider whether this kind of reductive analysis is something which Carnap accepted/did/found interesting. This seems to me uncertain. Do you get out of Grice's crosshairs if you are a pluralistic reductionist, i.e. at any moment you are reducing to a single kind of thing, but then at the next moment you will by trying it out on another single kind of thing? I may be worth considering in this Grice's interest in the causal theory of perception, for it seems to me that is a move conciliatory to logical positivism. Austin's attack in Sense and Sensibila is aimed primarily at the logical positivists, and it fits my gladiatorial category because Austin doesn't care what Ayer means by "directly perceive" he will refute him by reference to what it actually means, in "ordinary" language, ignoring what philosophers mean by it and what a scientist might easily have meant by it. Grice's conciliatory gesture is to try to make sense of causal theories, the essence one might say of which is to explain the details of how perception is mediated by causal processes (and hence not unmediated, and hence reasonably describable as not direct). > _are_ the banners of Scientism (or the Devil of Scientism). But I'll > elaborate. > > I enjoyed your distinctions between 'positivism' and 'positive'. And your > idea of 'epistemic retreat'. I love that. It's indeed the 'ataraxia' of the > sceptics, on the sort of negative side -- in that it may lead to non-action > -- but it's also the need to take things at ease, without a sense of > _urgency_. I feel philosophers _need_ a retreat. The Academy of Plato > _was_ a retreat -- perhaps more so than Aristotle's Lycaeum. It is > noticeable how the physical geography of Athens -- Socrates in the public > agora, Plato way out in the groves of Academos, Aristotle back to the > hustle and bustle of the Lycaeum -- tell of things. > > Etc. -- the ps thing was meant as a ps to my two other posts, I think, > "Whither" and "Retrospects and to focus the thread into the things that > matter you! :) > > JL > -- rbjones.com PGP public key at: rbjones.com/rbj.asc From rbj at rbjones.com Thu Feb 4 14:58:34 2010 From: rbj at rbjones.com (Roger Bishop Jones) Date: Thu, 4 Feb 2010 19:58:34 +0000 Subject: [hist-analytic] Positivism in 21th.-Century Analytic Philosophy In-Reply-To: <201002041732.14947.rbj@rbjones.com> References: <3144.5c58333b.3899ff70@aol.com> <201002041732.14947.rbj@rbjones.com> Message-ID: <201002041958.34893.rbj@rbjones.com> Sorry, my last message in this thread was posted in error, and is incomplete. I will finish it and post the rest, in a while. Roger From jlsperanza at aol.com Thu Feb 4 16:08:21 2010 From: jlsperanza at aol.com (jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Thu, 04 Feb 2010 16:08:21 -0500 Subject: [hist-analytic] Positivism in 21th.-Century Analytic Philosophy In-Reply-To: <201002041732.14947.rbj@rbjones.com> References: <201002041732.14947.rbj@rbjones.com> Message-ID: <8CC73F550E7B842-EEC-2BF0@webmail-d069.sysops.aol.com> Jones: >I have to admit, having glanced back at my extremely concise notes, >that it it all bound up with reductionism in a sense (the language of >unified science was supposed to be physicalistic, i,e, materialistic) >very close to the one which Grice abhors. Jones then retrieves some quotes from http://www.rbjones.com/pipermail/hist-analytic_rbjones.com/2009q1/000078.html and comments: >The precise abhorrence you quote Grice as relating there is to: >"the idea that semantic concepts are unsatisfactory or even >unintelligible, *unless* they can be provided with >interpretations in terms of some predetermined, >privileged, and favored array of concepts" >This is something which Grice _thinks_ he has not done. >It?s not clear whether he thinks it illegitimate, undoable, or just >uninteresting. >In our present conversation we need also to consider whether this kind of >reductive analysis is something which Carnap accepted/did/found >interesting. >This seems to me uncertain. Good. It was CERTAIN to Biro. When I met Biro in, of all places, Buenos Aires, we discussed these things. He had this "Reductionism in Gricean meaning", or some sort, published in "The Monist", of all journals. My ref. to him was via Suppes?s mentioning Biro in PGRICE ed Grandy-Warner. Biro told me that he had indeed responded to Suppes?s criticism, and on his return to Gainesville, he had his secreatary -- poor thing -- type his letter to Suppes and made a copy for me, which must be floating on the Swimming-Pool Library somewhere. In further correspondence with him, I found that he did find of interest a distinction, fine no doubt, made by Grice in his "Valedictory Essay" between an analysis being not mere reductive but reductionist. So, as you distinguish positive and postivist Grice did distinguish between ?reductive?and ?reductionist?. Reductionist is STRONGER. Reductive is any type of analysis worth doing. Reductionist is a reductive analysis with a vengeance. This connects with Grice vis a vis his revolutionary idea of REDUCING the semantic to the psychological ("means" to "intends" if you wish). But NOT, eg. "believies" or "intends" to "neurophysiological processes". In the context of his introduction of the reductive-reductionist distinction, he is having in mind the argument of one Mrs. Julie M. Jack in Oxford (Somerville) but it should appeal Biro or any other philosopher who may have misinterpreted Grice on this or that front. The next step in the dialogue is to see what Carnap would make of this distinction. It?s in WoW:RE, googlebooks. It?s just one page long. --- Jones continues: >Do you get out of Grice's crosshairs if you are a pluralistic reductionist, >i.e. at any moment you are reducing to a single kind of thing, but then at >the next moment you will by trying it out on another single kind of thing? Don?t know. I think scientists may work like that. I confess that I was for once obsessed as to what to reduce the semantic to. I never doubted it reduced to the psychological. The semantic never had a big bite on me. But I _was_ obsessed, especially vis a vis Schiffer?s challenge of the conceptual ?loop?, not to say vicious circle, that may ensue if you then go to say, alla Fodor or Katz, that there?s a LOT, language of thought such that we THINK it. It seemed I had to compromise with something subtler than that, but reading Cummins?s "Mind and Meaning" did not provide me a clue -- his neo-Gricean homunculi I found unattractive --. Eventually, for the purposes of my PhD dissertation, I settle -- you HAVE to settle for purposes of PhD dissertations -- for C. A. B. Peacocke?s _Concept_. Jones: >I may be worth considering in this Grice's interest in the causal theory of >perception, for it seems to me that is a move conciliatory to logical >positivism. >Austin's attack in Sense and Sensibila is aimed primarily at the logical >positivists, and it fits my gladiatorial category because Austin doesn't >care what Ayer means by "directly perceive" he will refute him by >reference to what >it actually means, in "ordinary" language, ignoring what philosophers >mean by >it and what a scientist might easily have meant by it. >Grice's conciliatory gesture is to try to make sense of causal theories, >the >essence one might say of which is to explain the details of how >perception is >mediated by causal processes (and hence not unmediated, and hence >reasonably >describable as not direct). Right. But there is a page in the WoW relevant section, III of ?Causal theory? which has offended most people I shewed it to. He says, (words to the effect): "I, qua philosopher, care not for what this causal a link is supposed to be. I live a BIG blank. I?m not interested. I?m only interested that such causal link BE postulated". Indeed, I think perception is for the scientist to analyse. As a student of the humanities one is usually required to pass at least one course in psychology, and it would seem, from the textbooks they have you swallow, that perception and motivation are the ONLY things they have said something or anything interesting about. It would be presumptious to say, "Perception is for the philosopher to analyse", with all the experiments psychologists and ethologists and zoologists have designed. But there?s "cause" which IS a Humean (sort of, or Anti-Humean) philosophical term, so the more you focus on the CAUSAL and the less in the perception the more you realise this is after all "PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION", which is the title of the piece edited by Warnock in Oxford which included Grice?s 1961 bit. In a way the approaches between Austin, Sense and Sensibilia and Grice?s "Causal Theory of Perception" are not that disparate. The most charming pieces in Austin (and I?m saddened that Grice found this book unentertaining) concerns things like the church is a speck from this distance. etc. The church is a speck or seems a speck? And needless to say (then why say it) I found it VERY refreshing when I was able to read first hand from Chapman?s book what Grice and Warnock were saying about ?visum?: I saw a visum of a cow. I saw a cow. Cfr. I heard the mowing of a cow. --- I tend to think that Grice?s problem with the causal theory of perception was his attack of Anscombe?s Wittgenstein: A horse cannot look like a horse. For Grice it CAN, and actually, ceteris paribus, WILL. So the doubt-or-denial is a scale-implicature. "Say S, rather than W, when you can" -- where S and W stand for Strong And Weak. And where they can be expressed in PHYSICALIST terms -- but not in the unified-science meaning, but in the material-object meaning -- rather than in the more standardly empiricist views that Austin is attacking in terms of sense dataa. Bayne I think will remark that the logical positivists couldn?t pass the faith of phenomenalism. The physicalism of Mach was foreign to them. The logical syntax of the world, as I think Sellars noted, resolves in a purely phenomenalist account of things. Etc. J. L. Speranza > _are_ the banners of Scientism (or the Devil of Scientism). But I'll > elaborate. > > I enjoyed your distinctions between 'positivism' and 'positive'. And your > idea of 'epistemic retreat'. I love that. It's indeed the 'ataraxia' of the > sceptics, on the sort of negative side -- in that it may lead to non-action > -- but it's also the need to take things at ease, without a sense of > _urgency_. I feel philosophers _need_ a retreat. The Academy of Plato > _was_ a retreat -- perhaps more so than Aristotle's Lycaeum. It is > noticeable how the physical geography of Athens -- Socrates in the public > agora, Plato way out in the groves of Academos, Aristotle back to the > hustle and bustle of the Lycaeum -- tell of things. > > Etc. -- the ps thing was meant as a ps to my two other posts, I think, > "Whither" and "Retrospects and to focus the thread into the things that > matter you! :) > > JL > -- rbjones.com PGP public key at: rbjones.com/rbj.asc From baynesrb at yahoo.com Thu Feb 4 17:05:57 2010 From: baynesrb at yahoo.com (steve bayne) Date: Thu, 4 Feb 2010 14:05:57 -0800 (PST) Subject: [hist-analytic] Positivism in 21th.-Century Analytic Philosophy In-Reply-To: <8CC73F550E7B842-EEC-2BF0@webmail-d069.sysops.aol.com> Message-ID: <681372.76175.qm@web36507.mail.mud.yahoo.com> "The semantic never had a big bite on me. But I _was_ obsessed, especially vis a vis Schiffer?s challenge of the conceptual? ?loop?, not to say vicious circle, that may ensue if you then go to say, alla Fodor or Katz," ? It probably wouldn't interest many out there but years ago I was investigating the semantical paradoxes in terms of "antecedent containment deletion." If suspected the vicious circle principle sometimes invoked in the treatment of the paradoxes was related to this phenomenon. Some advances on this topic of antecedent containment deletion were made in the 90s. Sag did some things in the 70s. ? On Fodor: his first book was a masterpiece (Psychological Explanation). I once mentioned it to him and he said something like: "You like that ol' thing?" Or something like that. He's a great?conversationalist and a natural born egalitarian. Lakoff is an interesting alternative to Katz, who was not a natural born egalitarian. My problem with Katz is mainly with compositionality in semantics. I no more believe this than I believe that intensional contexts are reducible to extensional contexts. Here's an off the wall thought: if such a reduction were possible how would we deal with the "inverse variation of intension and extension"? Most, I guess, would ask: "What's the problem?" No time for this now. Good discussion going on. ? Regards ? Steve --- On Thu, 2/4/10, jlsperanza at aol.com wrote: From: jlsperanza at aol.com Subject: Re: Positivism in 21th.-Century Analytic Philosophy To: hist-analytic at simplelists.co.uk Date: Thursday, February 4, 2010, 4:08 PM Jones: > I have to admit, having glanced back at my extremely concise notes, > that it it all bound up with reductionism in a sense (the language of unified? science was supposed to be physicalistic, i,e, materialistic) > very close to the one which Grice abhors. Jones then retrieves some quotes from http://www.rbjones.com/pipermail/hist-analytic_rbjones.com/2009q1/000078.html and comments: > The precise abhorrence you quote Grice as relating there is to: > "the idea that semantic concepts are? unsatisfactory or even > unintelligible,? *unless* they can be provided with > interpretations in terms? of some predetermined, > privileged, and favored? array of concepts" > This is something which Grice? _thinks_ he has not done. > It?s not clear whether he thinks it illegitimate, undoable, or just > uninteresting. > In our present conversation we need also to consider whether this kind of > reductive analysis is something which Carnap accepted/did/found interesting. > This seems to me uncertain. Good. It was CERTAIN to Biro. When I met Biro in, of all places, Buenos Aires, we discussed these things. He had this "Reductionism in Gricean meaning", or some sort, published in "The Monist", of all journals. My ref. to him was via Suppes?s mentioning Biro in PGRICE ed Grandy-Warner. Biro told me that he had indeed responded to Suppes?s criticism, and on his return to Gainesville, he had his secreatary -- poor thing -- type his letter to Suppes and made a copy for me, which must be floating on the Swimming-Pool Library somewhere. In further correspondence with him, I found that he did find of interest a distinction, fine no doubt, made by Grice in his "Valedictory Essay" between an ???analysis being? not mere reductive ? ? ? ? ? ? ? but reductionist. So, as you distinguish positive and postivist Grice did distinguish between ?reductive?and ?reductionist?. Reductionist is STRONGER. Reductive is any type of analysis worth doing. Reductionist is a reductive analysis with a vengeance. This connects with Grice vis a vis his revolutionary idea of REDUCING the semantic to the psychological ("means" to "intends" if you wish). But NOT, eg. "believies" or "intends" to "neurophysiological processes". In the context of his introduction of the ? ? ? ? ? reductive-reductionist distinction, he is having in mind the argument of one Mrs. Julie M. Jack in Oxford (Somerville) but it should appeal Biro or any other philosopher who may have misinterpreted Grice on this or that front. The next step in the dialogue is to see what Carnap would make of this distinction. It?s in WoW:RE, googlebooks. It?s just one page long. --- Jones continues: > Do you get out of Grice's crosshairs if you are a pluralistic reductionist, > i.e. at any moment you are reducing to a single kind of thing, but then at >the next moment you will by trying it out on another single kind of thing? Don?t know. I think scientists may work like that. I confess that I was for once obsessed as to what to reduce the semantic to. I never doubted it reduced to the psychological. The semantic never had a big bite on me. But I _was_ obsessed, especially vis a vis Schiffer?s challenge of the conceptual? ?loop?, not to say vicious circle, that may ensue if you then go to say, alla Fodor or Katz, that there?s a LOT, language of thought such that we THINK it. It seemed I had to compromise with something subtler than that, but reading Cummins?s "Mind and Meaning" did not provide me a clue -- his neo-Gricean homunculi I found unattractive --. Eventually, for the purposes of my PhD dissertation, I settle -- you HAVE to settle for purposes of PhD dissertations -- for C. A. B. Peacocke?s _Concept_. Jones: > I may be worth considering in this Grice's interest in the causal theory of > perception, for it seems to me that is a move conciliatory to logical > positivism. > Austin's attack in Sense and Sensibila is aimed primarily at the logical > positivists, and it fits my gladiatorial category because Austin doesn't >care? what Ayer means by "directly perceive" he will refute him by >reference to what > it actually means, in "ordinary" language, ignoring what philosophers mean by > it and what a scientist might easily have meant by it. > Grice's conciliatory gesture is to try to make sense of causal theories, >the > essence one might say of which is to explain the details of how perception is > mediated by causal processes (and hence not unmediated, and hence reasonably > describable as not direct). Right. But there is a page in the WoW relevant section, III of ?Causal theory? which has offended most people I shewed it to. He says, (words to the effect): "I, qua philosopher, care not for what this causal a ? link is supposed to be. I live a BIG blank. I?m not ? interested. I?m only interested that such causal ? link BE postulated". Indeed, I think perception is for the scientist to analyse. As a student of the humanities one is usually required to pass at least one course in psychology, and it would seem, from the textbooks they have you swallow, that perception and motivation are the ONLY things they have said something or anything interesting about. It would be presumptious to say, "Perception is for the philosopher to analyse", with all the experiments psychologists and ethologists and zoologists have designed. But there?s "cause" which IS a Humean (sort of, or Anti-Humean) philosophical term, so the more you focus on the CAUSAL and the less in the perception the more you realise this is after all "PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION", which is the title of the piece edited by Warnock in Oxford which included Grice?s 1961 bit. In a way the approaches between Austin, Sense and Sensibilia and Grice?s "Causal Theory of Perception" are not that disparate. The most charming pieces in Austin (and I?m saddened that Grice found this book unentertaining) concerns things like ???the church is a speck from this distance. etc. ? The church is a speck or seems a speck? And needless to say (then why say it) I found it VERY refreshing when I was able to read first hand from Chapman?s book what Grice and Warnock were saying about ?visum?: ? I saw a visum of a cow.? I saw a cow. ? Cfr. I heard the mowing of a cow. --- I tend to think that Grice?s problem with the causal theory of perception was his attack of Anscombe?s Wittgenstein: ? A horse cannot look like a horse. For Grice it CAN, and actually, ceteris paribus, WILL. So the doubt-or-denial is a scale-implicature. "Say S, rather than W, when you can" -- where S and W stand for Strong And Weak. And where they can be expressed in PHYSICALIST terms -- but not in the unified-science meaning, but in the material-object meaning -- rather than in the more standardly empiricist views that Austin is attacking in terms of sense dataa. Bayne I think will remark that the logical positivists couldn?t pass the faith of phenomenalism. The physicalism of Mach was foreign to them. The logical syntax of the world, as I think Sellars noted, resolves in a purely phenomenalist account of things. Etc. J. L. Speranza > _are_ the banners of Scientism (or the Devil of Scientism). But I'll > elaborate. > > I enjoyed your distinctions between 'positivism' and 'positive'. And? your > idea of 'epistemic retreat'. I love that. It's indeed the 'ataraxia' of the > sceptics, on the sort of negative side -- in that it may lead to non-action > --? but it's also the need to take things at ease, without a sense of > _urgency_. I? feel philosophers _need_ a retreat. The Academy of Plato >? _was_ a retreat --? perhaps more so than Aristotle's Lycaeum. It is >? noticeable how the physical? geography of Athens -- Socrates in the public >? agora, Plato way out in the groves? of Academos, Aristotle back to the >? hustle and bustle of the Lycaeum -- tell of? things. > > Etc. -- the ps thing was meant as a ps to my two other posts, I think, > "Whither" and "Retrospects and to focus the thread into the things that >? matter you! :) > > JL > -- rbjones.com? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? PGP public key at: rbjones.com/rbj.asc -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From aune at philos.umass.edu Thu Feb 4 17:27:28 2010 From: aune at philos.umass.edu (Bruce Aune) Date: Thu, 4 Feb 2010 17:27:28 -0500 Subject: [hist-analytic] Science News About "Forbidden" Colors Message-ID: In case anyone on the list didn't see it, the latest issue of Scientific American has a very interesting article on what have been considered "impossible" colors, mixtures of red and green, blue and yellow. In my arguments with Steve I mentioned that it was thought to be physically impossible for human beings (owing to the structure of their eyes) to perceive such mixtures, but recent experiments have show that some people in certain special circumstances can actually see such colors. I mention the article because of its intrinsic interest; I am not trying to open a discussion that went on long enough. Best regards, Bruce -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jlsperanza at aol.com Fri Feb 5 09:13:03 2010 From: jlsperanza at aol.com (jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Fri, 05 Feb 2010 09:13:03 -0500 Subject: [hist-analytic] Positivism in 21th.-Century Analytic Philosophy In-Reply-To: <681372.76175.qm@web36507.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <681372.76175.qm@web36507.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <8CC748476C79E9F-7228-11189@webmail-m077.sysops.aol.com> "if such a reduction were possible how would we deal with the "inverse variation of intension and extension"? Most, I guess, would ask: "What's the problem?"" Egstactly, and I?m sorry I attacked R. B. Jones?s post when it was unfinished! But I?m sorry I didn?t mean any wrong. And I?ll have a look at his pdf. document again. But in any case, our thoughts on reductive, not reductionist reductionist, not reductive may shed light on Jones?s use of this "adjective", ?reductive?. (Indeed in the phrase, ?reductive analysis?). This distinction Grice thinks does hold water. A reductive analysis is one like his, Utterer means that p. (and thus, ulitmately, higher up, "p" means p) reduces to Utterer intends that p. where "p" is a dummy symbol as it were -- and stands not for proposition but, he says to annoy us, "propositional COMPLEX". But there are many other levels at which the reductive, not reductionist can be read (I do think that "reductionist, but not reductive", alla Church, is imcompatible -- reductionist eliminationists are into reductive analysis, or have to be, but the converse, as Grice notes, does not hold). A lot of work in this area is being done by Anita Avramides examining, of all people DAVIDSON for Davidson went on record, alas, as proposing a Symmetricalist view, in which the psychological and the semantic are INTER-RELATED in ways that challenge any Gricean worth her name! --- Now, Bayne refers to the "intension" vs. "extension" and Katz?s attempt to reduce the "intensional" to the "extensional". And, indeed, the link Jones?s was referring to in his earlier post to Grice?s abhorrence for a bete noire, was connected to this Bete Noire which he sees as an offspring of Reductionism: the bete noire of Extensionalism. His argument against Extensionalism is pretty abstract in "Prejudices and Predilections", in "Reply to Richards" and may entertain you even if it does not have the bite to it that you would be expecting. In any case, it remains to see why these issues pertain to Carnap, or to Positivism, as I hope they do! (Never mind 21th. century!) Cheers, JL From jlsperanza at aol.com Fri Feb 5 15:01:23 2010 From: jlsperanza at aol.com (jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Fri, 05 Feb 2010 15:01:23 -0500 Subject: [hist-analytic] Positivism in 21st-Century Analytic Philosophy In-Reply-To: <8CC73F550E7B842-EEC-2BF0@webmail-d069.sysops.aol.com> References: <8CC73F550E7B842-EEC-2BF0@webmail-d069.sysops.aol.com> Message-ID: <8CC74B52039C7CD-7AC-10E9@webmail-d046.sysops.aol.com> A correction on the typo in header. ObGricean: It?s 1, it?s 2, it?s 3. It?s first, it?s second, it?s third. Some people have noted that while 3, 2, 1 form a scale that generates "scalar implicatures" Third, Second, First would not. I disagree. I too think that "third, second, first" generate scalar implicatures. Second ObGricean: Is it the case that ordinals for, say, 1, are IRREGULAR in all natural language. Cfr prim-ero, segund-o, in Spanish. premiere in French. primo in Italian. Levinson, and later Beutinck, have looked for evidence of numerals and ordinals in languages other than English. From what I recall, in a language that Levinson researched on (he is an anthropologist at heart), more than "5" means "too many" (It IS a digital language alright!) Cheers. JLS From rbj at rbjones.com Fri Feb 5 15:13:43 2010 From: rbj at rbjones.com (Roger Bishop Jones) Date: Fri, 5 Feb 2010 20:13:43 +0000 Subject: [hist-analytic] Positivism in 21th.-Century Analytic Philosophy In-Reply-To: <681372.76175.qm@web36507.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <681372.76175.qm@web36507.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <201002052013.43503.rbj@rbjones.com> On Thursday 04 Feb 2010 22:05, steve bayne wrote: > My problem with Katz is mainly with > compositionality in semantics. I no more believe this than I believe > that intensional contexts are reducible to extensional contexts. So what is the problem with compositionality? > Here's an off the wall thought: if such a reduction were possible > how would we deal with the "inverse variation of intension and > extension"? Most, I guess, would ask: "What's the problem?" Yes! RBJ From rbj at rbjones.com Fri Feb 5 16:00:43 2010 From: rbj at rbjones.com (Roger Bishop Jones) Date: Fri, 5 Feb 2010 21:00:43 +0000 Subject: [hist-analytic] Grice and Carnap on Analysis In-Reply-To: <8CC748476C79E9F-7228-11189@webmail-m077.sysops.aol.com> References: <681372.76175.qm@web36507.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <8CC748476C79E9F-7228-11189@webmail-m077.sysops.aol.com> Message-ID: <201002052100.43431.rbj@rbjones.com> On Friday 05 Feb 2010 14:13, jlsperanza at aol.com wrote: > But in any case, our thoughts on > > reductive, not reductionist > reductionist, not reductive > > may shed light on Jones?s use of this "adjective", ?reductive?. (Indeed > in the phrase, ?reductive analysis?). This is Grice's usage we are concerned with, the term "reductive analysis" is not one I use myself. > This distinction Grice thinks does hold water. A reductive analysis is > one like his, > > Utterer means that p. > (and thus, ulitmately, > higher up, "p" means p) > reduces to > Utterer intends that p. > > where "p" is a dummy symbol as it were -- and stands not for > proposition but, he says to annoy us, "propositional COMPLEX". So Grice analyses propositions in terms of the intention of the utterer? (I'm presuming here that the second p, the one intended, is not actually the same as the first, otherwise we haven't moved very far, i.e. "means p" reduces to "intends q" for suitable p and q). I'd like to focus this Carnap/Grice thing onto the issue of analysis, and whether there are irreconcilable differences between their conceptions of analysis. The 21st century bit is so that we can ignore early discarded positions. e.g. aspects of the Aufbau project which did not survive, also of course, Carnap's syntactic phase, and even extrapolate their philosophical development to consider whether there were _irreconcilable_ differences. In my last incomplete message I started talking about Grice's interest in causal theories of perception, which might be seen as a conciliatory bridge building exercise. A causal theory of perception is an alternative to a phenomenalistic reductionism of the kind which Grice rejects. (and a way of reading the idea, rejected by Austin, that all perception is mediated) Though Carnap accepted the failure of the Aufbau project, he remained interested in the epistemological project of relating in some way physicalistic or theoretical languages with phenomenalistic languages. But this was already arguably not reductionist in the sense deprecated by Grice. Why not? Well Grice talks about a _semantic_ reduction to a single kind of entity, and I think it reasonable to suppose (unless you can tell me otherwise) that what he had in mind was that the entities reduced are defined in terms of the entities reduced to. But Carnap abandoned the idea that the relationship between physical objects and phenomema could be of that kind. Which I believe means that he accepted that physicalistic language could not be reduced _semantically_ to phenomenalistic language. He was looking for some other relationship between the two. So what Carnap was looking for was not the kind of thing which Grice rejected. Furthermore, I think there is every reason to believe that a causal theory of perception in which the relationship involved is causal, would be acceptable to Carnap. This is consistent with a moderate empiricism. The question remains whether he would be satisfied with that alone, or whether he would still be looking for some stronger relationship. Personally I don't see why he should. And I don't think there is anything stronger to be had. So, do you believe that story, and if so, how far does this go towards reconciling the ideas of analysis of the two philosophers? RBJ From jlsperanza at aol.com Fri Feb 5 19:07:26 2010 From: jlsperanza at aol.com (jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Fri, 05 Feb 2010 19:07:26 -0500 Subject: [hist-analytic] Philosophy -- What "verboten"? Message-ID: <8CC74D77FCEED6A-6398-D38D@webmail-d041.sysops.aol.com> I loved B. Aune?s post to Hist-Anal, pointing out that a recent issue of a Science magazine features an article, of intrinsic interest on "forbidden colours" --- Surely something that should interest to B. Aune who taught Kant for some time! I am fascinated by the choice of word "forbidden" in the header of B. Aune. For it is almost like when Grice says that the cooperative principle of conversation is ?mandatory?. ?Mandatory? seems weaker. It is a command. ?Forbidden? as applied to the spectrum, "Nobody can be red and green all over". B. Aune does NOT desire to rehush a conversation that happened long ago. He doesn?t mean Kant-Hume: No, he means Aune-Bayne! compared to which Kant-Hume happened almost in another multiverse! B. Aune seems to me the modern Kant. Kant would not have had access to the recent issue of "Science", but Aune does. So perhaps this tells us something about synthetic a priori. How many types of "can?t" are at play. It seems in the analytic realm, it?s the CAN?T of logical impossibility -- which is the ONLY can?t I abide with. The ca?nt of synthetic may not after all be a can?t, thus what it forbids becomes ?forbids? in retrospect. Aune qualifies the discovery in the Science piece: it?s not the unempirical apperceptual subject of Kant: it?s people on SPECIAL OCCASIONS which may see that something CAN be green and red all over. Fascinating! Etc. J. L. Speranza From jlsperanza at aol.com Fri Feb 5 19:45:03 2010 From: jlsperanza at aol.com (jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Fri, 05 Feb 2010 19:45:03 -0500 Subject: [hist-analytic] Grice and Carnap on Analysis In-Reply-To: <201002052100.43431.rbj@rbjones.com> References: <201002052100.43431.rbj@rbjones.com> Message-ID: <8CC74DCC125266E-6398-DCDB@webmail-d041.sysops.aol.com> Thanks for the message. Indeed I re-read your post of Feb. 4, and I see you are using "reductive analysis" as applying to Grice, which is very good. You wrote: "In our present conversation we need also to consider whether this kind of reductive analysis is something which Carnap accepted/did/found interesting. This seems to me uncertain." And add in your later post, under this header "(T)he term "reductive analysis" is not one I use myself." Should?t you?! It?s pretty inocuous. I use it. Grice used it. As long as we don?t go the whole hog and use "reductionist" analysis too. I DO use reductionist analysis but on very RARE occasions -- when people say "moral" is a primitive irreducible to people?s volitions, say. -----Recall the charming scenario when Grice felt he needed the distinction in this two types of analysis: when criticising or responding to Mrs. Julie M. Jack, in Oxford, WoW:RE. You ask; "So Grice analyses propositions in terms of the intention of the utterer?" And no need to change the "p" into "q". Recall Tarski, "snow is white" is true if snow is white. Grice would say that the same "p" occurs in the analysans and analysandum. They are not propositions, because we are not giving sufficient or necessary conditions for "p", only for larger expressions where their linguistic counteparts, notably in the sense of "that"-clauses -- alla Ausin -- occur. Grice calls this a dummy instance of a propositional complex, not a proposition. It is decomposible, if we say, "By uttering, "snow is white" he meant that the snow he had perceived in Oklahoma was white, and by white he meant muddy white. There are elements within "p" that we can make sense of. "snow is white" is a COMPOSITE thing. Jones: "I'd like to focus this Carnap/Grice thing onto the issue of analysis, and whether there are irreconcilable differences between their conceptions of analysis. The 21st century bit is so that we can ignore early discarded positions. e.g. aspects of the Aufbau project which did not survive, also of course, Carnap's syntactic phase, and even extrapolate their philosophical development to consider whether there were _irreconcilable_ differences. In my last incomplete message I started talking about Grice's interest in causal theories of perception, which might be seen as a conciliatory bridge building exercise. A causal theory of perception is an alternative to a phenomenalistic reductionism of the kind which Grice rejects. (and a way of reading the idea, rejected by Austin, that all perception is mediated). Though Carnap accepted the failure of the Aufbau project, he remained interested in the epistemological project of relating in some way physicalistic or theoretical languages with phenomenalistic languages. But this was already arguably not reductionist in the sense deprecated by Grice. Why not? Well Grice talks about a _semantic_ reduction to a single kind of entity, and I think it reasonable to suppose (unless you can tell me otherwise) that what he had in mind was that the entities reduced are defined in terms of the entities reduced to." Yes, reductive analysis is of the necessary and sufficient conditions. It aims at biconditionals of the form =df which is really biconditional only, rather than identity. It becomes identity when you elevate the thing to a higher-order calculus. There?s nothing so mysterious about this. In Grice WoW:v, it merely means finding whether the prong analysis is either too strong or too weak. It shouldn?t be either. Jones: "But Carnap abandoned the idea that the relationship between physical objects and phenomema could be of that kind. Which I believe means that he accepted that physicalistic language could not be reduced _semantically_ to phenomenalistic language. He was looking for some other relationship between the two. So what Carnap was looking for was not the kind of thing which Grice rejected. Furthermore, I think there is every reason to believe that a causal theory of perception in which the relationship involved is causal, would be acceptable to Carnap. This is consistent with a moderate empiricism. The question remains whether he would be satisfied with that alone, or whether he would still be looking for some stronger relationship. Personally I don't see why he should. And I don't think there is anything stronger to be had. So, do you believe that story, and if so, how far does this go towards reconciling the ideas of analysis of the two philosophers? Sure. Grice was cautious as to the difference between "analysis" -- usually vacuous he knew they WERE alla "eyedoctor" is an oculist. His claim to fame, his 24 clause-long analysis of "u means that p" would STILL be vacuous uninformative in this sense. On the other hand, he distrusted, but sometimes abided by "theory" -- Since he does use "theory" in "causal THEORY of perception", it?s not fair to go the whole hog and say he was into ANALYSING phenomenalistic language in terms of, as I prefer, noumenalist language. Rather than physicalist language, Grice speaks, alla Berlin (his very Eearly "Concepts and Categoires"), of material-object language the language of cats, pillar boxes, pilla boxes being red, etc. Similarly, the phenomenalist language perhaps he woud call "sense-datum language". The idea made popuar by Weismann, who knew Carnap, and had settled in Bristol. --- The Causal Theory of Perception, by Grice, then is more like an excercise in ANALYSIS, which uses "theory" as a red-herring. He is concerned with "verbs" in the report of sense-datum language: It seems to me that that pillar box over there is red. It _SEEMS_ to you? You never saw a pillar box in this area which is NOT red, and you have the cheek to DOUBT that? But he was trying to refute Wittgenstein, who, while self-appointing hisself (sic) The Patron of Ordinary Language, would say, The red pillar box doesn?t seem red: it IS red.. This is NOT a metalinguistic negation: It?s not warm in Bordighera: it?s hot. Joan Rivers isn?t 70 years old: she?s 75. The way to explain this is by considering that a sense-datum statement is a WEAKER item compared to a material-object statement. But that the postulate, or maxim, don?t be weak unless you have to IS ?flouted?when for a philosophical concern, you are bound to say something that may be the odd thing to say in context, but not if you are a philosopher. When Carnap speaks ?physicalist?, I would think he is more seriously into the language of physics. Heisenberg had demolished some tenets regarding the possibility of theory-free observation. To observe a physical object,. as physicists do, is a theory-laden experiment. The "causal" bit has also to be considered seriously. It seems that Grice took Hume (where the heart is) more serioulsy than Carnap. Grice (WoW) considers the animism that Hume feared in the idea of ?cause? not just as involing a "necessary link" which sounded like a metaphysical excrescence, but also as involving an animist, or anthropomorphist view of things. Aitia, in Greek, which translates cause was a legal term in Greek originally, as in "a rebel without a cause". Or "my cause to fight for the Falklands is to liberate the sheep dwn there", or something. It?s the final cause. The efficient cause, which only interested the logical positivists needs a special argumentation in its favour and a better defense after demlitions by Hume and notably Mill in System of Logic -- his weaker methods of correspondences do not necessarily play with the full-blown idea of cause. Anyway, must rush. But lovely to consider these issues. Cheers, JL Speranza From rbj at rbjones.com Sat Feb 6 18:07:44 2010 From: rbj at rbjones.com (Roger Bishop Jones) Date: Sat, 6 Feb 2010 23:07:44 +0000 Subject: [hist-analytic] Grice and Carnap on Analysis In-Reply-To: <8CC74DCC125266E-6398-DCDB@webmail-d041.sysops.aol.com> References: <201002052100.43431.rbj@rbjones.com> <8CC74DCC125266E-6398-DCDB@webmail-d041.sysops.aol.com> Message-ID: <201002062307.44582.rbj@rbjones.com> On Saturday 06 Feb 2010 00:45, jlsperanza at aol.com wrote: > Thanks for the message. Indeed I re-read your post of Feb. 4, and I see > you are using "reductive analysis" as applying to Grice, which is very > good. > > You wrote: "In our present conversation we need also to consider > whether this kind of reductive analysis is something which Carnap > accepted/did/found interesting. This seems to me uncertain." > > And add in your later post, under this header > > "(T)he term "reductive analysis" is not one I use myself." > > Should?t you?! It?s pretty inocuous. I use it. Grice used it. I don't object to it. As I understand it reductive analysis is a way of analysing aspects of languages, and this is not something I do systematically (I might be obliged to do it ad hoc in the course of a conversation, but natural languages are never the subject matter of my philosophy, so I don't do this kind of thing systematically). I am like Carnap in that my deliberations about language are either about language in general (e.g. in discussing concepts like analyticity, though this only applies to descriptive language), or else they are about formal languages. In the latter case I tend to prescribe a semantics, and though mathematical logicians might define a logical system and then do something like analysis to determine what are its models., I don't think they call this analysis, and I;m confident they wouldn't call it reductive analysis. > As long > as we don?t go the whole hog and use "reductionist" analysis too. I DO > use reductionist analysis but on very RARE occasions -- when people say > "moral" is a primitive irreducible to people?s volitions, say. Well I do want to know why Grice objects to reductionist analysis. I can see in specific cases that it doesn't work. I have never been in the least tempted to suppose that material objects can be analysed into phenomena. But on the other hand, fundamental physics seems to be seeking a "TOE" and there is no reason in principle why such a TOE might not involve just one kind of individual substance. The claim that a theory is a TOE takes a bit of understanding, and whatever the relationship between the TOE and the rest of science there will be a temptation to call it some kind of reduction, which by Grice would then count as reductionist? >From my scant knowledge of Grice I would be surprised if he came out against the possibility of a single substance TOE (if that were thought to be scientifically tenable). What do you think? Anyway, the upshot of all this is that I do not yet see an irreconcilable difference between Grice and Carnap on this. I think as far as a TOE is concerned, Carnap would be interested without prejudice in exploring the question how the rest of science would relate to such a theory (this must fall squarely in the project of unified science), and he would bend and stretch his conception of the relationship until he found one which worked. In a rather different way I would have thought that Grice would have a similar attitude. What he was rejecting was not a scientific reduction, but a radical positivistic one, which was scientifically untenable? And Carnap was pragmatic rather than dogmatic, he had already abandoned naive phenomenalistic reductionism. > You ask; > > "So Grice analyses propositions in terms of the intention of the > utterer?" > > And no need to change the "p" into "q". > Utterer means that p. > (and thus, ulitmately, > higher up, "p" means p) > reduces to > Utterer intends that p. I put this in again. Yes, I completely misconstrued this last time, thinking it was offered as a general pattern for the analysis of propositions "p", but it is rather a specific analysis of the meaning of "means that", At least I hope that the intended content of that sentence is that "means that" means "intends that", because if it is construed as telling us something about the meaning of p (which is how I at first took it) then I would have to raise objection. > Recall Tarski, > > "snow is white" is true if snow is white. I do. But Tarski does not in fact offer this as a viable method of defining the semantics of a language, it serves in his paper in a description of certain difficulties which arise in defining the semantics of natural languages which Tarksi considers so serious that he completely abandons any such enterprise. > Grice would say that the same "p" occurs in the analysans and > analysandum. They are not propositions, because we are not giving > sufficient or necessary conditions for "p", only for larger expressions > where their linguistic counteparts, notably in the sense of > "that"-clauses -- alla Ausin -- occur. Grice calls this a dummy > instance of a propositional complex, not a proposition. It is > decomposible, if we say, "By uttering, "snow is white" he meant that > the snow he had perceived in Oklahoma was white, and by white he meant > muddy white. There are elements within "p" that we can make sense of. > "snow is white" is a COMPOSITE thing. I'm afraid I don't get this. I feel that I am some way off understanding this bit of Grice. > When Carnap speaks ?physicalist?, I would think he is more seriously > into the language of physics. Yes, I would have thought so. > The "causal" bit has also to be considered seriously. It seems that > Grice took Hume (where the heart is) more serioulsy than Carnap. Grice > (WoW) considers the animism that Hume feared in the idea of ?cause? not > just as involing a "necessary link" which sounded like a metaphysical > excrescence, but also as involving an animist, or anthropomorphist view > of things. Aitia, in Greek, which translates cause was a legal term in > Greek originally, as in "a rebel without a cause". Or "my cause to > fight for the Falklands is to liberate the sheep dwn there", or > something. It?s the final cause. The efficient cause, which only > interested the logical positivists needs a special argumentation in its > favour and a better defense after demlitions by Hume and notably Mill > in System of Logic -- his weaker methods of correspondences do not > necessarily play with the full-blown idea of cause. This aspect of logical positivism is new to me. I don't think I have read any of their writings on causation. One expects positivists to be rather instrumental, so what you say is surprising to me. RBJ From Jlsperanza at aol.com Sat Feb 6 19:51:06 2010 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Sat, 6 Feb 2010 19:51:06 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Grice and Carnap on Analysis Message-ID: <31fc6.480aed47.389f687a@aol.com> Re: "reductive analysis" as used by Grice WoW:RE versus 'reductionist analysis': "I don't object to it. As I understand it reductive analysis is a way of analysing aspects of languages, and this is not something I do systematically (I might be obliged to do it ad hoc in the course of a conversation, but natural languages are never the subject matter of my philosophy, so I don't do this kind of thing systematically)." I'm going to use "NL" for "natural language". It's not a construction I use, but see Jones does. I'll oppose it to FL, formal language, which I don't use it either but he does. I think that the _linguistic_ version of 'reductive analysis' is just _one_: surely one that appealed to Grice. But in his day, they were never sure what 'linguistic' meant. Recall that I think Bergmann had coined 'linguistic revolution', or 'linguistic turn'. EVERYTHING was linguistic. To use your charmer: it was a linguistic TOE. But they used 'linguistic' so freely that they sometimes engaged in what irritated Mundle (The critique of LINGUISTIC philosophy, Oxford, 1973) -- a charming book by an opponent that I rather read any day before some exercises in silly linguistic analysis. This man has charm): He analyses abuses of 'the grammar of ...' 'the logical syntax of ...' While Grice and Strawson would be seen as merely analysing usages, etc. they were, or thought they were into concepts. Kemmerling found out this the hard way. He wrote his PhD in German on 'meaning'. Surely he had to use 'meinen' (German for meaning). He found that none of the Gricean clauses applied to 'meinen'. He is still my favourite Continental German, if you can believe that). Jones: "I am like Carnap in that my deliberations about language are either about language in general (e.g. in discussing concepts like analyticity, though this only applies to descriptive language), or else they are about formal languages. In the latter case I tend to prescribe a semantics, and though mathematical logicians might define a logical system and then do something like analysis to determine what are its models., I don't think they call this analysis, and I'm confident they wouldn't call it reductive analysis." Good. I think ONE way to approach this is via ch. ii of my PhD thesis. Just joking. There, I analyse Grice's claim to analyse 'and' versus the logician's AND. The implicature "and then" as in "Oh, Mary -- she is very fine. She got married and had a child." It may well turned out that the proceeding was: she did have a child, a single married, suffered quite a bit for it, and eventually married the vicar. But now she is, oh, so very fine." For Grice, 'and' implicates 'and then'. So, in NL. In FL it never does. Even in NL it never does. Why, well because in his system Q -- he only cared to compile such a FL when tributing Quine, in Davidson/Hintikka, Festchrift for Quine -- 'p & q' is defined truth-functionally. There are two ways of doing this: via Grentzen-type inference rules, and via truth-tables. Both yield the same, syntax-based or semantic-based analysis of "&". Think of PM Principia Mathematica -- and their heris as Grice calls them. Think of the definition of the iota operator, as in ix.Kx & -Bx the king of France is not bald. Wrong logical form: correct logical form: -(ix.Kx & Bx) -- by using the SECOND logical form, you avoid the silly implicature: the king of France is NOT bald: there's none! ---- Jones: "Well I do want to know why Grice objects to reductionist analysis. I can see in specific cases that it doesn't work. I have never been in the least tempted to suppose that material objects can be analysed into phenomena. But on the other hand, fundamental physics seems to be seeking a "TOE" and there is no reason in principle why such a TOE might not involve just one kind of individual substance. The claim that a theory is a TOE takes a bit of understanding, and whatever the relationship between the TOE and the rest of science there will be a temptation to call it some kind of reduction, which by Grice would then count as reductionist? From my scant knowledge of Grice I would be surprised if he came out against the possibility of a single substance TOE (if that were thought to be scientifically tenable). What do you think?" I THINK one problem may be Hitler. Suppose the TOE explains all that Hitler did. But we may still find that this is insufficient. We want to analyse history in terms of the intentions of the historical agents. I don't think proponents of TOE are going to go over the details. So they may analyse Hitler as a general case of pharmaceutical even phenomena. In broader terms, what I think Grice did object -- especially in the closing section of The conception of value -- the devil of scientism in his Method: from the banal to the bizarre -- is that an explanation in terms of the most fundamental physical theory -- call it TOE -- may leave us cold when we are dealing at ANOTHER level of theory. It seems he would say that the choice of 'theoretical concepts' is just that. The TOE works with some THEORETICAL (hence TOE) objects. But folksy wisdom has its own theoretical objects. The theory of the folk (and Grice could get repetitive here -- in later years he became more and more a defender of the common woman) will work for the folk in a way which the TOE may not? The schematics of how a stratum of theory -- which he calls C -- may be insufficient for another stratum C' is out there in the paper. I have discussed it elsewhere. If I find the relevant quote I will provide. Since he is not, as he usually is not, being dogmatic. Jones: "Anyway, the upshot of all this is that I do not yet see an irreconcilable difference between Grice and Carnap on this. I think as far as a TOE is concerned, Carnap would be interested without prejudice in exploring the question how the rest of science would relate to such a theory (this must fall squarely in the project of unified science), and he would bend and stretch his conception of the relationship until he found one which worked. In a rather different way I would have thought that Grice would have a similar attitude. What he was rejecting was not a scientific reduction, but a radical positivistic one, which was scientifically untenable? And Carnap was pragmatic rather than dogmatic, he had already abandoned naive phenomenalistic reductionism." You are right. The idea that material-object sentences could be reduced to sense-datum sentences was indeed old fish, and posited to prove how wrong a blind empiricist can go. I always understood it in terms of, strange as it seems, Picasso's paintings. The ugly women he depicts are supposed to represent the woman as seen from almost every angle. The result is disastrous. Similarly, the phenomenalist is trying to capture the complexity of a thing like "The cat is on the mat" in terms of all the sensations, notably infinite or very numerous, that are instilled on me for me to able able to utter that sentence. Grice would perhaps call TOE theory-theory or first philosophy, but more of that later. Jones: "Yes, I completely misconstrued this last time, thinking it was offered as a general pattern for the analysis of propositions "p", but it is rather a specific analysis of the meaning of "means that", At least I hope that the intended content of that sentence is that "means that" means "intends that", because if it is construed as telling us something about the meaning of p (which is how I at first took it) then I would have to raise objection." Right. The idea that 'p' works as a dummy here Grice conceived when pressurised by Richards (in Repy to Richards) to reply to the challenge of vascous circle. Sic. Quinion has just distributed a malaprop on vascuous circle and cannot resist. --- The problem with Tarski also appealed to Grice since you mention: "But Tarski does not in fact offer this as a viable method of defining the semantics of a language, it serves in his paper in a description of certain difficulties which arise in defining the semantics of natural languages which Tarksi considers so serious that he completely abandons any such enterprise." Right. A pity, though. One thing Grice found failed with Tarski is things like "What the policeman said is true". I have seen policemen, and I think this works. They usually say the truth. I think it's part of their training or something. They could actually be discharged if they don't ("Do you know the way to the bank?" -- "Five blocks to the right, two to the left" -- myself, I usually lie rather than confess I don't know. Just joking). But Grice considers, words: Tarski is unable to symbolise what the policeman said is true. --- "Suppose what he said is "Monkeys can talk". He goes on in WoW:iii. The idea is that a disquotational theory of truth alla Tarski, is like Strawson's in terms of the illocution of 'ditto-ing', unable to cope with 'embedded contexts'. Etc. On the other hand, our formal devices (conjunction, disjunction, conditional, etc) ARE truth-functional, so we know about 'true' all we need to know about it, and no need for a Polish logician, respected as he was, to go the whole hog and bring Aristotle to justify his Polish considerations alla Lukasiewicz. Jones: Re: the compositionality of 'the cat is on the mat' or 'monkeys can talk' Jones: "I'm afraid I don't get this. I feel that I am some way off understanding this bit of Grice." I was merely dropping the compositionality thing, since S. R. Bayne had mentioned it, and you were asking for a clarification. But I suppose that expecting clarification of Grice deciphered by yours truly is a bit too much. I was trying to say that in predicate-calculus, it's usually Fa. an individual with feature F. This means that "p" is decomposed into "F" and "a". And there is a way in which questions of 'meaning' apply to "F" and "a" -- what is the meaning of "F"? What is the meaning of "a"? Usually, the latter is deemed nonsense. Proper names have no meaning/sense, only reference. And Fs are given the sense of their extension. But in any case, it seems proper to be able to apply 'means' to sub-sentential, sub-propositional parts. The compositionalists, as I understand them, are wanting to say that the meaning of 'p' is a composite of the meaning of 'F', 'a', and the syncategoremata involved. Not for Grice. Re: 'cause' as efficient cause in much of the positivistic thought: "This aspect of logical positivism is new to me. I don't think I have read any of their writings on causation. One expects positivists to be rather instrumental, so what you say is surprising to me." Good point. I would have to read more about them, then. That was the story I was taught! Recall philosophers, especially when cross-examining, need a good story even if false. When I had to pass my course of Metaphysics, with a flying A+, I must say (the official teacher was ill for a whole year, so I was cross-examined by Mario Presas, Osvaldo Guariglia and Ezequiel de Olaso) it was all about the refutation of positivism by, of all people, Romano Harre. And Madden! I had to read that bore of a book. They say that Hume (even if that's were your heart is) is wrong: 'cause' is not as Hume thought it wasn't. There's causal powers. Aristotle had seen that but nobody else till Harre and Madden had realised. I also had to discuss a paper in The British Journal of the Philosophy of Science on Aristotle and essentialism. But you are right that the Carnapians were perhaps pretty much pragmaticists or pragmatists about things that mattered. The fact that Heisenberg had brought to the fore the idea that observation is theory-laden, and that what counts is success in experimental, I wouldn't think they were into 'efficient' causes. I will have to revise that. The most important Argentine philosopher of all time -- who lived all his life in Canada and was born of Scots parents in Buenos Aires, Mario Bunge -- wrote loads about that. He has a 6-volume story of his "Treatise of Basic Philosophy". So back to theoria-theoria. Grice was a metaphysician. So here it is where we may reconcile Carnap and Grice. Grice thought that there was a thing called theoria-theoria or prote philosophia, first philosophy alla Aristotle. Thus, he would have objected to your earlier, colloquial idea that the TOE is into the ultimate 'substantia'. Grice would have been particular as to whether we _do_ mean 'substance', hypokheimenon of Aristotle. What if it's a mere wavicle? Recall that for Eddington -- and Grice discusses this in "Eddington's Tables" in his Actions and Events -- it's not really 'substantial' table that is the true table, but a table made up of wavicles. The idea of the ultimate item of matter fascinates physicists. Indeed, when I hear physicists speak -- as I often do, on Discovery Channel -- talk about the big bang, and the multiverses where laws other than Einstein's or Newton's hold -- I call them philosophers. I call them Thales, if pressed. Etc. So, yes. I would think that 1. We don't need to retreat to a pragmatist escapade. Most of our notions, e.g. analyticity, Grice claims at the end of his day, are "pragmatist" in nature: to say that they are pragmatist is no excuse to deny them a truth-value, since a truth-value is after all a type of value. Grice was enamoured with this constructive idea of 'value' as pervading it all (especially since he saw metaphysicians have to be REMINDED that value exists, he said). 2. We perhaps need, as philosophers, to, however, keep some respect for 'folk wisdom'. Grice was conservative here, and he would say that, whatever TOE claims, the ideas of the woman of the street should be given proper consideration, if only, as it were, _in_ the street. Etc. J. L. Speranza -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Jlsperanza at aol.com Sat Feb 6 21:28:27 2010 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Sat, 6 Feb 2010 21:28:27 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] The Devil of Scientism Message-ID: <33d8d.74cfd21.389f7f4b@aol.com> This quote by Grice to reconsider: "We must be ever watchful against the Devil of scientism, who would lead us into myopic overconcentration on the nature and importance of knowledge, and of scientific knowledge in particular; the Devil who is even so audacious as to tempt us to call in question the very system of ideas required to make intelligible the idea of calling in question anything at all; and who would even prompt us, in effect, to suggest that since we do not really think but only think that we think, we had better change our minds without undue delay." Grice at his sumptuous best -- and in need for a reductive analysis into what he may have meant in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions! (Just to tease Jones!) Best, JLS -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Jlsperanza at aol.com Sat Feb 6 21:42:16 2010 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Sat, 6 Feb 2010 21:42:16 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Bete Noires in the Dark Message-ID: <3417e.62511f44.389f8288@aol.com> It's no good that Grice sometimes disqualified PC language. Nobody should speak of a 'bete noire' if one is not French. Recall Melville: the beastest beast of them all was _white_! --- Anyway, this quotes below for Jones to reconsider how an inoperant harmless noun, scientia, derived from Latin for 'know', scio, becomes a bete noire when it attches to -ism! --- Cheers, JL 'scientic': 1541 R. COPLAND Guydon's Quest. Chirurg. Pref., There be ryght many and sondry sortes, aswell of very good and scyentyke bokes, as of ryght expert men within this Realme in the scyentycall arte of Cyrugery. Ibid., Your scyentycall beneuolence. c1875 W. JAMES in R. B. Perry Tht. & Char. of W. James (1935) I. 523 In a rough way materialism or ?scientificism? gratifies no. (1) [sc. an explanation of things by their cause]. 1884 Will to Believe (1897) 165 Subjectivism has three great branches,we may call them scientificism, sentimentalism, and sensualism, respectively. 1877 Fraser's Mag. XVI. 274 Its dogmatism on the one hand,..and its ? scientism? on the other, even when most atheistic, are tempered with mutual civility. 1895 Daily News 14 Nov. 6/5 By scientism he meant to express that change which had come over the thought of the world in consequence of the wonderful additions to the common stock of knowledge. 1903 Contemp. Rev. May 727 What modern Scientism knows as the Supersensuous Consciousness. 1921 G. B. SHAW Back to Methuselah p. lxxviii, The iconography and hagiology of Scientism are as copious as they are mostly squalid. 1937 J. LAVER French Painting in Nineteenth Cent. i. 73 It really appeared to many educated people that at last all the secrets of the universe would be discovered and all the problems of human life solved. This superstition..we may call ? Scientism?. 1938 G. REAVEY tr. Berdyaev's Solitude & Society i. 12 Science has not only progressively reduced the competence of philosophy, but it has also attempted to suppress it altogether and to replace it by its own claim to universality. This process is generally known as ?scientism?. 1942 F. A. VON HAYEK in E conomica IX. 269 We shall wherever we are concerned, not with the general spirit of disinterested inquiry but with that slavish imitation of the method and language of science, speak of ?scientism? or the ?scientistic? prejudice. 1953 A. H. HOBBS Social Problems & Scientism ii. 17 Scientism, as a belief that science can furnish answers to all human problems, makes science a substitute for philosophy, religion, manners, and morals... It is a pattern of beliefs..a creed that shapes thinking and affects behavior. 1956 E. H. HUTTEN Lang. Mod. Physics vi. 273 This belief in the omnipotence of science is..making a mockery of science: for this scientism represents the same, superstitious, attitude which, in previous times, ascribed such power to a supernatural agency. 1957 W. H. WHYTE Organization Man iii. 23 Scientism,..the promise that with the same techniques that have worked in the physical sciences we can eventually create an exact science of man. 1969 Encounter Jan. 23/2 There is an aberration of science..which has come to be known as ?scientism?... It stands for the belief that science knows or will soon know all the answers. 1972 K. R. POPPER Objective Knowl. iv. 185 The term ?scientism? meant originally ?the slavish imitation of the method and language of (natural) science?, especially by social scientists. Ibid. 186 But I would go even further and accuse at least some professional historians of ?scientism?. 1977 A. SHERIDAN tr. J. Lacan's ?crits iii. 76 The early development of psychoanalysis..expresses..nothing less than the re-creation of human meaning in an arid period of scientism. 1980 Times Lit. Suppl. 26 Sept. 1072/2 Naturalism, in David Thomas's usage, is equivalent to what many know as scientism: the doctrine that there is no reason to think that the study of human agents, and the study of the social systems to which human agents give rise, cannot be pursued according to a methodology drawn from natural science. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Jlsperanza at aol.com Sat Feb 6 23:45:28 2010 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Sat, 6 Feb 2010 23:45:28 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Another Bete Noire: Mechanism Message-ID: <35ef2.799d87ab.389f9f68@aol.com> >From the OED: 1867 Michigan Univ. Mag 1 86 Neither mechanicism which places the cause of all disease in the primary disturbance of mechanical conditions and forces, or chemicism, which places such disturbance in the chemical relation of particles..can contain the exclusive truth. --- Come on, we are not judges, 'the truth and nothing but the truth'? 1882 Mind 7 248 Teleology was, in some respects, a falling-off from the rigid mechanicism first taught by the prae-Socratic schools. --- so now you see why Sedley needs the defending! 1908 Internat. Jrnl. Ethics 18 519 The doctrine became, under the form of hylozoism, pure materialism and mechanicism. I loved that! Note it's hylozoism, not the common-or-garden Platonising, 'hylomorphism'. 1962 W. STARK Fund. Forms of Social Thought II. xii. 176 A fresh high-water mark of mechanicism was reached in the eighth decade of the nineteenth century. ---- a breath of fresh air? 1971 Archivum Linguisticum 2 115 But if to avoid the limitations of Kuryowicz's method, we have to admit that a form passes arbitrarily from one function to another, not taking into account the facts of polarization, attraction, etc., then we fall into mechanicism. --- Strictly, we fall into Kuryowiczian mechanicism, from which it's pretty easy to recover (unlike Humpty Dumpty's wall). 1990 Jrnl. Hist. Ideas 51 610 Goethe's..reaction against mathematicism and mechanicism. Etc. The puzzle for Grice then would be: how can 'teleology' fit with 'mechanism' and should it? Etc. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Jlsperanza at aol.com Sun Feb 7 00:58:32 2010 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Sun, 7 Feb 2010 00:58:32 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Grice on the intension/extension reduction Message-ID: <36af9.2e826501.389fb088@aol.com> Further to the comparison Grice/Carnap -- a revisit of the bete noire Grice selects to fight in his best 'gladiatorial' (to echo Jones's apt simile) manner in "Reply to Richards" Grice selects "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." Etc. JL Speranza -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Jlsperanza at aol.com Sun Feb 7 09:14:37 2010 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Sun, 7 Feb 2010 09:14:37 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Rosebud and cherry-tree landscape -- _desserted_ Message-ID: <1e5e.5d238c73.38a024cd@aol.com> Yet another ref. in the "Carnap and Grice on analysis" series. This one already discussed, but again in terms of Grice's view on "minimalism". All his betes noires end in -ism. His idea that, to use Strawson's simile in "A logician's landscape", the minimalist paints a florid landscape as brutally deserted. Etc. JL Speranza. ps. A compleat list of the betes noires perhaps in order, perhaps at the Griceclub.blogspot.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rbj at rbjones.com Sun Feb 7 10:01:05 2010 From: rbj at rbjones.com (Roger Bishop Jones) Date: Sun, 7 Feb 2010 15:01:05 +0000 Subject: [hist-analytic] Rosebud and cherry-tree landscape -- _desserted_ In-Reply-To: <1e5e.5d238c73.38a024cd@aol.com> References: <1e5e.5d238c73.38a024cd@aol.com> Message-ID: <201002071501.05653.rbj@rbjones.com> On Sunday 07 Feb 2010 14:14, Jlsperanza at aol.com wrote: > Yet another ref. in the "Carnap and Grice on analysis" series. This one > already discussed, but again in terms of Grice's view on "minimalism". All > his betes noires end in -ism. His idea that, to use Strawson's simile in > "A logician's landscape", the minimalist paints a florid landscape as > brutally deserted. Etc. JL Speranza. But aren't these anti-ism antagon-isms rather crudely drawn? Isn't our language rich enough for there to be some acceptable kinds of minimalism as well as some noxious ones? Shouldn't we expect from Grice a finer drawing of the Bete he wants to paint noire? > ps. A compleat list of the betes noires perhaps in order, perhaps at > the Griceclub.blogspot.com I will put it in my "pdf" if you come up with one, and we can analyse which ones Carnap falls foul of. RBJ From jlsperanza at aol.com Sun Feb 7 13:03:59 2010 From: jlsperanza at aol.com (jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Sun, 07 Feb 2010 13:03:59 -0500 Subject: [hist-analytic] Rosebud and cherry-tree landscape -- _desserted_ In-Reply-To: <201002071501.05653.rbj@rbjones.com> References: <201002071501.05653.rbj@rbjones.com> Message-ID: <8CC76370EA2888B-3E90-38E9@webmail-d053.sysops.aol.com> "But aren't these anti-ism antagon-isms rather crudely drawn? Isn't our language rich enough for there to be some acceptable kinds of minimalism as well as some noxious ones? Shouldn't we expect from Grice a finer drawing of the Bete he wants to paint noire? ... I will put it in my "pdf" if you come up with one, and we can analyse which ones Carnap falls foul of." Excellent. Does motivate me. You are right that the betes need not be "as black as they are painted", to use the locution. I actually wrote donkey ears ago, to impress my PhD thesis advisor a thing I called "Minimal conversational pragmatics alla Grice". It was so minimal it was only 5-pages long. He was NOT impressed. "You need to fill a 300 page thesis, you know". Anyway, later when I read Chapman?s "Grice" I see that my mentor (Grice) WAS into minimalism, too, back in the day, when lecturing on conversation to his la-di-da tuttees in Oxford in 1966. He said (words): Surely my account is a minimal or minimalist one. And you may say that no conversation proceeds along these lines. But I?ll challenge your silly observation with the remark that that remark is neither here nor there. Why, you would not go and complain to a physicist that his theory of frictionless solids is _silly_ because it?s too minimal, would you? And in any case, how much better Maximalism is? Etc. J. L. Speranza From Jlsperanza at aol.com Sun Feb 7 15:35:06 2010 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Sun, 7 Feb 2010 15:35:06 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Pilgrim Grice Message-ID: I actually found the post in hist-analytic which I now paste. It's in context with Dale's PhD for NYU (available online). And it's of course a parody on Pilgrim's Progress by Bunyan. Dale recalls a passage where pilgrim Grice finds himself in the road to the Holy of Holies: "As I thread my way unsteadily along the tortuous mountain path which is supposed to lead, in the long distance, to the City of Eternal Truth, I find myself beset by a multitude of demons and perilous places, bearing names like Extensionalism, Nominalism, Positivism, Naturalism, Mechanism, Phenomenalism, Reductionism, Physicalism, Materialism, Empiricism, Scepticism, and Functionalism. ... After a more tolerant (permissive) middle age, I have come to entertain strong opposition to *all of them*, perhaps partly as a result of the strong connection between a number of them and the philosophical technologies which used to appeal to me a good deal more than they do now" ("The Life and Opinions of Paul Grice", by Paul Grice). Dale comments: "Though this passage does suggest that he, when writing it, was against some sort of reductionism, it also strongly suggests that earlier in his life he supported it." Indeed. And it's a pity Positivism is one of them because we are trying to check which Carnap, to use Jones's expression, "falls foul of". Need NOT. Some are good, betes noires, once tamed. Let's list them alphabetically and recalling that they are all the offsprings of Mother Minimalismus. Empiricism Extensionalism Functionalism Materialism Mechanism Naturalism Nominalism Phenomenalism Positivism Physicalism Reductionism Scepticism. Now with some editorial by yours truly. First we don't need the capitals. That's the first step to tame them empiricism. Nothing wrong with it. And it is the perfect pronoun for a bete noire, because ISMUS was neuter in Latin, unless it was masculine. Locke was one, Grice was one, Mill was one. Grice PLAYED with being a rationalist alla Kant, just to be irreverent. I rather am scared by RATIONALISM -- but don't spread the word! extensionalism. Well. He does say that the way he quantifies into (WoW:5) is enough to give an extensionalist the trembles. But the fact that he was so self-conscious about logical form (e.g. his "Vacuous Names") and the fact that he never used triangles and squares to symbolise serious modalities like poss. and nec. makes you wonder. functionalism. Ned Block, the big one, lists Grice's Method in philosophical psychology as the most functionalist a philosopher can BE. I think Grice is thinking of identity-thesis alla Smart that he need not go into. He was a multiple realisability functionalist of properties, not states. Etc. Schiffer has tried to elucidate this in pre-apostatic writings. materialism. What's the mind? Never matter, or vice versa. This must have to do with Grice's ontological marxism: if they work, they exist. By 'they' he means things like 'mental predicates'. But I don't think he was into res cogitans itself. So if he wasn't a materialist he wasn't a DUALIST. And DUALISM does scare me. Also ANIMISM. mechanism. This is the idea in "Method" that there's a mechanist explanation that leaves you cold when you want to say that you scratch your head because it itches. But the TOE is trying to reconcile these aspects. It may also have to do with computer modelling: heuristic, abduction, etc. are difficult to model mechanistically, but not impossible. naturalism. He does say that mean-N is the basis for mean-NN, so I think, or am pretty sure he means here a scheme that leaves VALUE out of the picture. Especially concerned with the non-naturalistic basis of reason or rationality: if rationality is a faculty OVER our pre-rational, natural, dispositions, it cannot be "natural" herself. Etc. nominalism. This must be a joke unless he is thinking of those ridiculous theories by Scheffler. Type/token Grice always used. He uses x to symbolise token, X to symbolise type. He may be objecting to an extensional treatment of 'classes'. Etc. He may be thinking of higher-order predicate-calculus where we can substantivise over properties, etc. alla Strawson, Subject and predicate in logic and grammar. phenomenalism. This is the early early Grice and we know Carnap rejected this too. The opposite, Physicalism, actually scares me much more. I do love phenomenalism, even if inappropriate, as a good way of understanding the paintings of Picasso. He must be having in mind solipsism as a consequence of phenomenalism, and the paradoxes of Berkeley brought to reality by Dr. Johnson when kicking a stone. positivism. I should leave to Jones to expand on this. The antonym, negativism, is much more of a scarer. I think he must be meaning what he elsewhere calls, disrespectfully, the 'rednecks of Vienna' -- as if the sun there were so strong! (I love Vienna). physicalism. Well, if this is not the antonym of phenomenalism, he must be meaning something alla Smart, identity thesis. Neutralism, Monism, I'm surprised don't challenge him. The opposite, Spritualism, is more of a scarer, too. reductionism. We see his problem with reductive AND reductionist analysis. So here it's eliminationism he objects. And he does it because, once a linguistic botaniser, allways (sic) a linguistic botaniser. What's the good of having learned English if Stich and Churchland and the rest of them are going to tell you that, roughly, is all _false_ (cf. Jones on Formal versus Natural Languages, though). scepticism. This is loose Grice. He thinks Gettier etc are too rigid. We know more than we care to admit. A schoolboy knows that the battle of Trafalgar was in 1811, etc. So no need to be Phyrronian. I see Jones's pdf. has a section on my favourite philosopher of Antiquity: Phyrro, and so I'm ready to distinguish between good and bad sceptics. They were all good, honest people in fact. I think it's the French philosophers, Voltaire, etc. who gave scepticism a bad name. Etc. J. L. Speranza -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rbj at rbjones.com Tue Feb 9 07:09:44 2010 From: rbj at rbjones.com (Roger Bishop Jones) Date: Tue, 9 Feb 2010 12:09:44 +0000 Subject: [hist-analytic] Grice and Carnap on Analysis In-Reply-To: <31fc6.480aed47.389f687a@aol.com> References: <31fc6.480aed47.389f687a@aol.com> Message-ID: <201002091209.44675.rbj@rbjones.com> We need some focus JL! Analysis. I've attempted a fairly general response on this message, but I will have to be more draconian on the rest if I'm to get any progress in the rest of my life. On Sunday 07 Feb 2010 00:51, Jlsperanza at aol.com wrote: > Re: "reductive analysis" as used by Grice WoW:RE versus 'reductionist > analysis': > > "I don't object to it. As I understand it reductive analysis is a way of > analysing aspects of languages, and this is not something I do > systematically (I might be obliged to do it ad hoc in the course of a > conversation, but natural languages are never the subject matter of my > philosophy, so I don't do this kind of thing > systematically)." > > I'm going to use "NL" for "natural language". It's not a construction I > use, but see Jones does. I'll oppose it to FL, formal language, which I > don't use it either but he does. > > I think that the _linguistic_ version of 'reductive analysis' is just > _one_: surely one that appealed to Grice. But in his day, they were never > sure what 'linguistic' meant. Recall that I think Bergmann had coined > 'linguistic revolution', or 'linguistic turn'. EVERYTHING was linguistic. > To use your charmer: it was a linguistic TOE. But they used 'linguistic' > so freely that they sometimes engaged in what irritated Mundle (The > critique of > LINGUISTIC philosophy, Oxford, 1973) -- a charming book by an opponent > that I rather read any day before some exercises in silly linguistic > analysis. This man has charm): He analyses abuses of > > 'the grammar of ...' > 'the logical syntax of ...' > > While Grice and Strawson would be seen as merely analysing usages, etc. > they were, or thought they were into concepts. Kemmerling found out this > the hard way. He wrote his PhD in German on 'meaning'. Surely he had to > use 'meinen' (German for meaning). He found that none of the Gricean > clauses applied to 'meinen'. He is still my favourite Continental German, > if you can believe that). > > Jones: > > "I am like Carnap in that my deliberations about language are either about > language in general (e.g. in discussing concepts like analyticity, though > this only applies to descriptive language), or else they are about formal > languages. In the latter case I tend to prescribe a semantics, and though > mathematical logicians might define a logical system and then do something > like analysis to determine what are its models., I don't think they call > this analysis, and I'm confident they wouldn't call it reductive > analysis." > > Good. I think ONE way to approach this is via ch. ii of my PhD thesis. Just > joking. There, I analyse Grice's claim to analyse 'and' versus the > logician's AND. The implicature "and then" as in > > "Oh, Mary -- she is very fine. She got married and had a child." > > It may well turned out that the proceeding was: she did have a child, a > single married, suffered quite a bit for it, and eventually married the > vicar. But now she is, oh, so very fine." > > For Grice, 'and' implicates 'and then'. So, in NL. In FL it never does. I think the strongest you should say is never has, but you have to be close to ominiscient to do that there are so many FL's about. There isn't a any reason in principle why a formal language might not have an "and then" connective, though it would have to be a temporal logic. > Even in NL it never does. Why, well because in his system Q -- he only > cared to compile such a FL when tributing Quine, in Davidson/Hintikka, > Festchrift for Quine -- 'p & q' is defined truth-functionally. There are > two ways of doing this: via Grentzen-type inference rules, and via > truth-tables. Both yield the same, syntax-based or semantic-based > analysis of "&". Think of PM Principia Mathematica -- and their heris as > Grice calls them. Think of the definition of the iota operator, as in > > ix.Kx & -Bx > > the king of France is not bald. Wrong logical form: correct logical form: > > -(ix.Kx & Bx) > > -- by using the SECOND logical form, you avoid the silly implicature: the > king of France is NOT bald: there's none! This looks like a muddle to me JL. Iota is usually a "VBTO", a variable binding term operator, and would be used to make a definite description (ix. Kx) from a predicate such as "King of France" The whole would then be rendered: ~B(ix. Kx) If you want to demonstrate Russell's theory of descriptions by such a notation then its tricky, because the bound variable in the description has to be used outside (the description) for the assertion, so there isn't any easy way to abbreviate the full statement, which would have been something like: (there exists a unique x such that Kx), and ~B x Problems with the scope of x there, so you spell it out : exists x s.t. Kx and (forall y Ky => y = x) and ~Bx I don't think there is any strictly correct transcription into a FL of something which in natural languages yields sentences of doubtful status. I don't think that it is true to say that: The King of France is not bald means the same as: Its not true that the King of France is bald The latter is less contentious than the former, to which I would not assent. Neither Russell's theory of descriptions not the use of a definite description operator gets this distinction, for those of us who don't like to affirm the falsity of the "the king of france is bald". > ---- > > > Jones: > > "Well I do want to know why Grice objects to reductionist analysis. I can > see in specific cases that it doesn't work. I have never been in the least > tempted to suppose that material objects can be analysed into phenomena. > But on the other hand, fundamental physics seems to be seeking a "TOE" and > there is no reason in principle why such a TOE might not involve just one > kind of individual substance. The claim that a theory is a TOE takes a bit > of understanding, and whatever the relationship between the TOE and the > rest of science there will be a temptation to call it some kind of > reduction, which by Grice would then count > as reductionist? From my scant knowledge of Grice I would be surprised if > he came out against the possibility of a single substance TOE (if that > were thought to be scientifically tenable). What do you think?" > > I THINK one problem may be Hitler. > > Suppose the TOE explains all that Hitler did. I don't think that a physicist with a TOE need be committed to that claim. > But we may still find that > this is insufficient. We want to analyse history in terms of the intentions > of the historical agents. I don't think proponents of TOE are going to go > over the details. So they may analyse Hitler as a general case of > pharmaceutical even phenomena. In broader terms, what I think Grice did > object -- especially in the closing section of The conception of value -- > the devil of scientism in his Method: from the banal to the bizarre -- is > that an explanation in terms of the most fundamental physical theory -- > call it TOE -- may leave us cold when we are dealing at ANOTHER level of > theory. > It seems he would say that the choice of 'theoretical concepts' is just > that. The TOE works with some THEORETICAL (hence TOE) objects. But folksy > wisdom has its own theoretical objects. The theory of the folk (and Grice > could get repetitive here -- in later years he became more and more a > defender of the common woman) will work for the folk in a way which the > TOE may not? > > The schematics of how a stratum of theory -- which he calls C -- may be > insufficient for another stratum C' is out there in the paper. I have > discussed it elsewhere. If I find the relevant quote I will provide. Since > he is not, as he usually is not, being dogmatic. This seems to me the be an argument against the possibility of a TOE to which all else is linguistically reducible. I accept this, but I think the idea of a TOE which does not offer that is coherent and sufficient to understand the physicists concept of TOE. The is some more subtle form of "reduction" involved here (if we want to call it a reduction). Carnap did embrace something like this in his latter attitude towards the relationship beween physicalistic and phenomenalistic language. Personally I would not call that relationship a reduction at all. But the idea of a TOE is interesting because it does exemplify something that I am inclined to call a reduction, or an analysis (this is really what or similar to Russell's analyses of mind and matter are) > Jones: > > > > "Yes, I completely misconstrued this last time, thinking it was offered as > a general pattern for the analysis of propositions "p", but it is rather a > specific analysis of the meaning of "means that", > At least I hope that the intended content of that sentence is that "means > that" means "intends that", because if it is construed as telling us > something > about the meaning of p (which is how I at first took it) then I would have > to > raise objection." > > Right. The idea that 'p' works as a dummy here Grice conceived when > pressurised by Richards (in Repy to Richards) to reply to the challenge of > vascous circle. Sic. Quinion has just distributed a malaprop on vascuous > circle and cannot resist. > > --- The problem with Tarski also appealed to Grice since you mention: > > "But Tarski does not in fact offer this as a viable method of defining the > semantics of a language, it serves in his paper in a description of > certain difficulties which arise in defining the semantics of natural > languages which Tarksi considers so serious that he completely abandons > any such enterprise." > > Right. A pity, though. Tarksi's reasons for dumping natural languages here are global (the liar paradox) rather than local the semantics of particular details. I think that one can hope to cast light on the meaning of little fragments of the language even though there is this big problem making the whole fit together. Also I don't think the liar is as big a problem as Tarski took it to be. The real problem with natural languages from the point of view of semantics is that they are chameleons, totally adaptable to their context (especially the speaker and hearers), so one can doubt that there is any definite language there at all. > One thing Grice found failed with Tarski is things > like > > "What the policeman said is true". > > I have seen policemen, and I think this works. They usually say the truth. > I think it's part of their training or something. They could actually be > discharged if they don't ("Do you know the way to the bank?" -- "Five > blocks to the right, two to the left" -- myself, I usually lie rather > than confess I don't know. Just joking). But Grice considers, words: > > Tarski is unable to symbolise > what the policeman said is true. > > --- "Suppose what he said is "Monkeys can talk". He goes on in WoW:iii. The > idea is that a disquotational theory of truth alla Tarski, is like > Strawson's in terms of the illocution of 'ditto-ing', unable to cope with > 'embedded contexts'. Etc. > > On the other hand, our formal devices (conjunction, disjunction, > conditional, etc) ARE truth-functional, so we know about 'true' all we need > to know about it, and no need for a Polish logician, respected as he was, > to go the whole hog and bring Aristotle to justify his Polish > considerations alla Lukasiewicz. > > Jones: > > Re: the compositionality of > > 'the cat is on the mat' > > or > > 'monkeys can talk' > > Jones: > > "I'm afraid I don't get this. I feel that I am some way off understanding > this bit of Grice." > > I was merely dropping the compositionality thing, since S. R. Bayne had > mentioned it, and you were asking for a clarification. But I suppose that > expecting clarification of Grice deciphered by yours truly is a bit too > much. I was trying to say that in predicate-calculus, it's usually > > Fa. > > an individual with feature F. This means that "p" is decomposed into "F" > and "a". And there is a way in which questions of 'meaning' apply to "F" > and "a" -- what is the meaning of "F"? What is the meaning of "a"? > Usually, the latter is deemed nonsense. Proper names have no > meaning/sense, only reference. And Fs are given the sense of their > extension. But in any case, it seems proper to be able to apply 'means' > to sub-sentential, sub-propositional parts. The compositionalists, as I > understand them, are wanting to say that the meaning of 'p' is a > composite of the meaning of 'F', 'a', and the syncategoremata involved. > Not for Grice. Yes, but the question is, why not? What cases does he have in mind as violating compositionality. The notion of compositionality you describe does not seem materially different from the one which I find in semantics in computer science. But for that kind of semantics it is easy to prove that any semantics can be rendered compositionally. That's if you get free choice of what the "meanings" are. You just have to make sure that the meanings have enough information in them that you don't every have to look back at the original syntax to discover the meaning of the whole of which they are a part. If you can't achieve that technical effect more elegantly (and normally it would not be problematic) then you can contrive it by including a copy of the syntax in the denotation. So technically, if you allow yourself enough freedom about the meaning of "meaning" (i.e. the semantic domains in your denotational semantics), then you can always make a semantics compositional. However. if you wanted the things denoted to be "meanings" as these are understood in ordinary language, then that could be tricky. > > Re: 'cause' as efficient cause in much of the positivistic thought: > > "This aspect of logical positivism is new to me. I don't think I have read > any of their writings on causation. > One expects positivists to be rather instrumental, so what you say is > surprising to me." > > Good point. I would have to read more about them, then. That was the story > I was taught! Recall philosophers, especially when cross-examining, need a > good story even if false. When I had to pass my course of Metaphysics, > with a flying A+, I must say (the official teacher was ill for a whole > year, so I was cross-examined by Mario Presas, Osvaldo Guariglia and > Ezequiel de Olaso) it was all about the refutation of positivism by, of > all people, Romano Harre. > > And Madden! I'm glad no-one every asked _me_ about them! > I had to read that bore of a book. They say that Hume (even if that's were > your heart is) is wrong: 'cause' is not as Hume thought it wasn't. So he was right? (all he said after all, was that causal connections are not necessary, and by that he clearly(!) meant, logically necessary) > Grice was a metaphysician. So here it is where we may reconcile Carnap and > Grice. Grice thought that there was a thing called theoria-theoria or prote > philosophia, first philosophy alla Aristotle. Thus, he would have objected > to your earlier, colloquial idea that the TOE is into the ultimate > 'substantia'. I don't understand the objection. > Grice would have been particular as to whether we _do_ mean > 'substance', hypokheimenon of Aristotle. What if it's a mere wavicle? > > Recall that for Eddington -- and Grice discusses this in "Eddington's > Tables" in his Actions and Events -- it's not really 'substantial' table > that is the true table, but a table made up of wavicles. The idea of the > ultimate item of matter fascinates physicists. > > Indeed, when I hear physicists speak -- as I often do, on Discovery Channel > -- talk about the big bang, and the multiverses where laws other than > Einstein's or Newton's hold -- I call them philosophers. I call them > Thales, if pressed. Well, I agree, there is so much metaphysics in there and so little appreciation of the "fact". > Etc. > > So, yes. I would think that > > 1. We don't need to retreat to a pragmatist escapade. Most of our notions, > e.g. analyticity, Grice claims at the end of his day, are "pragmatist" in > nature: to say that they are pragmatist is no excuse to deny them a > truth-value, since a truth-value is after all a type of value. Grice was > enamoured with this constructive idea of 'value' as pervading it all > (especially since he saw metaphysicians have to be REMINDED that value > exists, he said). Carnap has a good story on how pragmatic decisions can be incorporated into language, and then yield analytic truths. > 2. We perhaps need, as philosophers, to, however, keep some respect for > 'folk wisdom'. Grice was conservative here, and he would say that, whatever > TOE claims, the ideas of the woman of the street should be given proper > consideration, if only, as it were, _in_ the street. I don't think there is any more of an issue here, with a TOE, than with the rest of science. People sometimes are just wrong, and science might correct them. But there is a danger that a scientist might misconstrue ordinary language as saying something which he knows to be false, and then attempt to correct him where is is not in error. RBJ From Jlsperanza at aol.com Tue Feb 9 15:12:01 2010 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Tue, 9 Feb 2010 15:12:01 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Hume Is Where The Heart Is Message-ID: <119ab.2658b001.38a31b91@aol.com> In a message dated 2/9/2010 10:08:35 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, rbj at rbjones.com writes: They say that Hume (even if that's were > your heart is) is wrong: 'cause' is not as Hume thought it wasn't. So he was right? (all he said after all, was that causal connections are not necessary, and by that he clearly(!) meant, logically necessary) ---- I'm thinking of Gricean-type objections to the very idea of 'cause'. And that's pretty Humean of Grice, and rightly so, too! He is considering utterances like: i. Decapitation was the _cause_ of Charles I's death. as meaning, originally, or literally, or metaphysically, or anti-Humeanly: ii. Charles I's decapitation _willed_ his death. (WoW:162). While the phenomenalism (empiricist) thing concerned Hume, he was possibly thinking that 'cause' -- qua _term_ is misleading in that it infuses our talk with an animistic ring to it, which is _NOT_ what a physicist is thinking when he uses 'cause'. But then Heisenberg and his indeterminacy destroyed the last hope? Etc. JL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Jlsperanza at aol.com Tue Feb 9 14:58:41 2010 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Tue, 9 Feb 2010 14:58:41 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Aune on Wright -- Grice on Strawson, "and"/"and then" Message-ID: <11216.6c4ffc9b.38a31871@aol.com> Excellent point, Roger. In a message dated 2/9/2010 10:08:35 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, rbj at rbjones.com writes: > For Grice, 'and' implicates 'and then'. So, in NL. In FL it never does. I think the strongest you should say is never has, but you have to be close to ominiscient to do that there are so many FL's about. There isn't a any reason in principle why a formal language might not have an "and then" connective, though it would have to be a temporal logic. --- Indeed, as Aune commented on a post by yours truly, indeed Wright suggested it (trust he would). Grice slightly, but interestingly, considers Wright's -- that's von Wright, he died aged 100, I think -- proposal but more in terms of the logic of events, which is as he should. So that to use Strawson's example Jill got married (to Jack) and had a child. depicts a different 'event-transition' from Jill had a child (by Jack) and then got married (to Pete). --- Urmson laughed at this in _Philosophical Analysis_ on the strength that to ask the logician's dot or ampersand to cover _that_ would be _too much_, and Grice followed suit by explaining it in terms of an ad-hoc maxim, 'be orderly: when you report events, follow the standard chronological flux of things: from the past, stop slightly in the present, and then proceed to the future". Etc. J. L. Speranza -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Jlsperanza at aol.com Tue Feb 9 15:17:35 2010 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Tue, 9 Feb 2010 15:17:35 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Grice and Carnap on Analysis Message-ID: <11d61.588ab7f1.38a31cdf@aol.com> Very seriously sorry for having changed the headers like that -- I AM in a hurry and if I send everything under "Carnap and Grice" I'll never recall what I meant! (:)). This one is about the use of 'substance' really. In a message dated 2/9/2010 10:08:35 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, rbj at rbjones.com writes: Thus, he would have objected > to your earlier, colloquial idea that the TOE is into the ultimate > 'substantia'. ---- --- I think I was sort of playing with that fascinating book by Owen (which I never read, of course) but that Grice loved: The Snares of Ontology, in Aristotle -- Grice quotes it in "Aristotle" paper PPQ 1988. The point about the use of 'substantia'. This is a pretty technical term in what many regard as a bad metaphysical scheme. Recall that if Hume is Where The Heart Is (as we agree) he just objected to our use of "cause" and our use of "substance". No such thing! --- So I think Grice would be serious as to the types of items, or classes of items, that we need postulate as basic in our theory. This I think he called a theory-theory, or first-philosophy, which is then back to Aristotle's GENERAL rather than special ontology. Grice is possibly thinking of Whitehead's process-metaphysics which, for all Eddington knew, could be just more basic to a physicist than the Substance-Attribute Aristotelian one (Eddington's 'wavicle', THIS FORUM). Etc. J. L. Speranza I don't understand the objection. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Jlsperanza at aol.com Tue Feb 9 15:03:01 2010 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Tue, 9 Feb 2010 15:03:01 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Grice on "the king of France" as non-controversial common-ground, etc. Message-ID: <114ac.2467474c.38a31975@aol.com> In a message dated 2/9/2010 10:08:35 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, rbj at rbjones.com writes: This looks like a muddle to me JL. Iota is usually a "VBTO", a variable binding term operator, and would be used to make a definite description (ix. Kx) from a predicate such as "King of France" The whole would then be rendered: ~B(ix. Kx) If you want to demonstrate Russell's theory of descriptions by such a notation then its tricky, because the bound variable in the description has to be used outside (the description) for the assertion, so there isn't any easy way to abbreviate the full statement, which would have been something like: (there exists a unique x such that Kx), and ~B x Problems with the scope of x there, so you spell it out : exists x s.t. Kx and (forall y Ky => y = x) and ~Bx I don't think there is any strictly correct transcription into a FL of something which in natural languages yields sentences of doubtful status. I don't think that it is true to say that: The King of France is not bald means the same as: Its not true that the King of France is bald The latter is less contentious than the former, to which I would not assent. Neither Russell's theory of descriptions not the use of a definite description operator gets this distinction, for those of us who don't like to affirm the falsity of the "the king of france is bald". ---- I discussed this elsewhere under "Shuga-free". Grice discusses Sluga's proposal in his "Presupposition and Conversational Implicature" but dropped the Sluga reference -- actually it had come out as "Shuga" in the Cole book -- in WoW:xviii -- What Grice learnt from "Shuga" (as I call Sluga) had to do with the 'alleged' ambiguity of 'negation'. In order to deal with the ambiguity of "The author of "Sein und Zeit" wears a moustache" "Shuga" thought it important to distinguish the formal treatment of 'the' ('der', in German). According to _one_ account, 'the' comes out as a _term_ (this is the option Grice favoured). According to the other account, 'the' (or 'der') comes out as a _quantifier_. In symbols (ix)Zx & Mx there is an x such that x is the author of 'Sein und Zeit' and x wears a moustache where the predicates Z and M are extensionally defined as: Z: ... is the author of "Sein und Zeit" M: ... wears a moustache. The influence of Frege is obvious here, since Grice especially liked of "Shuga" that he had read Frege _well_ (in the vernacular). Hans Sluga should be grateful that Grice gricefully misquoted his surname as "Shuga", rather than "Slug". Etc. J. L. Speranza -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Jlsperanza at aol.com Tue Feb 9 15:55:30 2010 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Tue, 9 Feb 2010 15:55:30 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Shuga-Free Message-ID: <1341c.753ac618.38a325c2@aol.com> Further to neo-Carnap calling neo-Grice, lovingly, 'a muddle all over the place' with bits of shuga on it, too -- but burnt. Since I have WoW to hand, I will quote the passage where Grice originally had this footnote to the effect that he owes this to "Hans Shuga" (in P. Cole, Radical Pragmatics, 1981, but WoW has this essay as being indeed 1970). Grice writes: "Before we go further [in our attempt to rob Peter to pay Paul, as it were. JLS -- since Grice is into the campaign to re-visit Russell/Whitehead's modernism vs. Strawson truth-value gappy neo-traditionalism -- these are Grice's terms]..." "...it would be EXPEDIENT to define the task somewhat more precisely" [it is at this point that he credits 'Shuga'] "If we are looking for a possible FORMAL COUNTERPART of such a sentence as [the author of 'Sein und Zeit' wears a moustache] we have TWO candidates to consider." [the first candidate being] (ix.Zx)Mx "in which the iota-operator is treated as being SYNTACTICALLY analogous to a QUANTIFIER" -- the second candidate being M(ix.Zx) "in which the iota operator is treated as a DEVICE for forming a TERM" -- and not as a 'term' itself, as I wrote in my previous post, which would be stupid. Grice continues with a very important point -- which he then owes to 'Shuga': "If we select [the first candidate], then, when we introduce negation, we have two SEMANTICALLY distinguishable ways of doing so" a.1. - ((ix.Zx)Mx) a.2 (ix.Zx)-Mx "The second [a.2] will, and the first [a.1] will not, ENTAIL the existence of an x [e.g. Heidegger] that is UNIQUELY [the author of Sein und Zeit]" "But if we select [a.2] there is only ONE place -- prefixing -- for the introduction of negation." "And, in consequence, (ix.Zx)-M -- ["The author of Sein und Zeit did not ALWAYS wear a moustache"] "will be a [scope-] ambiguous structure" "unless we introduce a disambiguating scope convention" -- as Grice does: two of them: the square-bracket device, which turns certain expressions immune to negation, and, in "Vacuous Names", the numeral subscripts. Grice continues: "One ONE REDUCTION to primitive notation the existence of a unique [author of Sein und Zeit] will be ENTAILED" -- the term is Moore's. [and thus we do not need Strawson's notion of 'presupposition'] "On the other will will not", but will be 'implicated' conversationally; and thus we don't need the Strawsonian notion of truth-value gappy presupposition either -- but cfr. Noel Burton-Roberts and his neo-Strawsonian fanfares. Grice continues: "Call these respectively the STRONG and the WEAK readings." How to decide? Grice is clear: his ear for English: "Now, if there WERE a clear distinction in SENSE [Fregean sense] (in English) between, say" S [the author of Sein und Zeit did not wear a moustache then] and W [it is not the case that the author of Sein und Zeit wore a moustache then] "(if the former demanded the STRONG reading and the latter the WEAK one), then it would be REASONABLE to correlate" 'the author of Sein und Zeit wears a moustache" "with the formal structure that treats the iota operator LIKE A QUANTIFIER" ('as a quantifier' seems better English -- cfr. P A Stone on 'Girls won't be girls') GRICE'S AVOWAL: "But this does NOT seem to be the case; I see no such clear SEMANTIC distinction" nor do I. Geary sees, but a pragmatic distinction, and then, not _that_ clear -- "On a clear day you can see forever" -- "on a VERY clear day you can see as far as Aylesbury" Noel Coward). Grice continues: "So it seems BETTER to associate" the author of Sein und Zeit wears a moustache "with the formal structure that treats the iota operator as a term-forming device" (and not as a term simpliciter as I clumsily wrote in my previous). "We are then committed to the STRUCTURAL ambiguity of" the author of Sein und Zeit does not wear a moustache [eg. since he died some years ago] Having credited Shuga with that Grice finishes the consideration: "The proposed task may NOW be defined as follows: on one reading, [the author of Sein und Zeit does not wear a moustache] entails the existence of a unique [author of Sein und Zeit], on the other it does not; but in fact, without waiting for disambiguation, people understand the utterance of [the author of Sein und Zeit does not wear a moustache] as IMPLYING (in some fashion) the unique existence of [an author of Sein und Zeit]. This is intelligible if on one reading -- the strong one -- the unique existence of [an author of Sein und Zeit] is ENTAILED, on the other -- the weak one -- though NOT ENTAILED, it is *conversationally implicated* [emphasis mine. JLS]" "What needs to be shown [he does], then, is a route by which the weaker reading coult come to implicate what it does not entail" (I believe Shuga is credited as author in the UC/Berkeley obit of Grice, online -- since it was a joint collaboration of Stroud and Shuga, as they both were present for the Grice-bench warming ceremony; and apparently Shuga's recollections of how bizarre he found Grice's explanations on how to play cricket -- on the Balliol 'campus' -- amused a few). Besides a book on Heidi (gger) to, Shuga authored, I believe, Frege, for the Honderich Arguments from the Philosophers series. ETc. JL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Baynesr at comcast.net Thu Feb 11 16:27:39 2010 From: Baynesr at comcast.net (Baynesr at comcast.net) Date: Thu, 11 Feb 2010 21:27:39 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [hist-analytic] McPherson's Hobbes Message-ID: <1095729523.2498261265923659038.JavaMail.root@sz0010a.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net> First, I would mention that I will be commenting on recent posts; but I've been extremely taken with attempting to come to some resolution on Hobbes's view of the state of nature and a couple of other things. For example, almost all the commentators take him to be an atheist. Is suspect he was, but the textual evidence is not very strong. The same can be said of his "state of nature." Most everyone characterizes it as a state of murderous animals (well, pretty much); but I wasn't convinced. Then I get hold of a book by MacPherson, now pretty much forgotten, I guess. Here are a couple of comments on his contribution. What is behind some of these remarks of mine concern his take on freedom and nature in relation to the "initial position." MacPherson In his book The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism: Hobbes to Locke, (Oxford, 1962) C. B. MacPherson presents a different ?picture than is ordinarily supposed regarding what, according to Hobbes, the state of nature is. His account would render Hobbes?s conception closer ?to Locke?s in that the state of nature does not exclude the existence of society. MacPhereson says, His [Hobbes?s] state of nature is a statement of the behaviour to which men as they now are, men who live in civilized societies and have the desires of civilized men, would be led if all law and contract enforcement?were removed. [MacPherson (1962) p. 22] What we should notice here is that, logically, this is to specify a state of nature counterfactually as what would (counterfactually) obtain in the absence of contract. This approach affords us an opportunity of seeing a number of issues in a very different light than would otherwise be possible. Throughout our investigation behind much of what is to be said is the status of sociobiological aspects of the state of nature. Do we regard the state of nature as an animal state and then attempt to deduce the details of the state of nature by invoking biological concepts, perhaps social Darwinism? It may turn out that society, as well as the behavior associated with ?beasts,? represent merely a continuum of sociobiological phenomena. This is a distinct possibility. But even so, if we accept MacPherson?s proposal, then we are barred from applying sociobiological principles to the contractors in the initial position at the same level as we would apply them to, say, the social insects. Rousseau appears to put man in a state of nature close to the animal world in a number of respects. One is the role of pity in both worlds; but the point to note is that if MacPherson?s is the best proposal for understanding Hobbes, then sociobiology, and social Darwinism, would be difficult to establish as governing events represented by social contract theory. Steve Bayne -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Jlsperanza at aol.com Thu Feb 11 16:53:05 2010 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Thu, 11 Feb 2010 16:53:05 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] McPherson's Hobbes Message-ID: <5b00.1176b114.38a5d641@aol.com> What an excellent quote! S. R. Bayne quotes from McPherson, The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism: Hobbes to Locke (Oxford, 1962) "[Hobbes?s] state of _nature_ is a statement" this is slightly ambiguous. People do use 'manifesto', 'predicament, 'statement' -- 'fashion as a statement', etc. but call me neo-Strawsonian if I say that a statement needs to have a better logical 'dress'! McPherson continues: "of the behaviour to which men as they _now_ are," i.e. in 1628. This _is_ important, given the political agenda behind Hobbes's Leviathan -- and the events of amusingly referred to by Grice, as "The decapitation of Charles I's head was the cause of his death, they say". (WoW:ix) "men who live in civilized societies" -- as was England during the Civil War! Give me a break! (Bayne, as a New Englander -- he isn't but I think he SHOULD! will understand that all I love about the Americans was when visiting New Haven I found out that all the streets in that town bear the names of the regicides!) "and have the desires of civilized men," such as Cromwell. There is a town in Connecticut I used to visit often: Cromwell. And L. Horn lives in Hampden! --- "would be led if all law -- and *contract* enforcement ? were removed." which is precisely what the royalists (in their typical cavalier attitude to death) were thinking the roundheads like Cromwell were doing! The good thing about his counterfactual is that it IS imaginable. The terrorists from MY part of the world used to chant a counterfactual, too: "If Evita Peron were alive today, she would be a suicide bomber" (Si Evita viviera seria montonera). I always had problem with that counterfactual and not because it's subjunctive! Etc. JL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rbj at rbjones.com Thu Feb 11 17:32:35 2010 From: rbj at rbjones.com (Roger Bishop Jones) Date: Thu, 11 Feb 2010 22:32:35 +0000 Subject: [hist-analytic] Hume Is Where The Heart Is In-Reply-To: <119ab.2658b001.38a31b91@aol.com> References: <119ab.2658b001.38a31b91@aol.com> Message-ID: <201002112232.35709.rbj@rbjones.com> On Tuesday 09 Feb 2010 20:12, Jlsperanza at aol.com wrote: > While the phenomenalism (empiricist) thing concerned Hume, he was possibly > thinking that 'cause' -- qua _term_ is misleading in that it infuses our > talk with an animistic ring to it, which is _NOT_ what a physicist is > thinking when he uses 'cause'. But then Heisenberg and his indeterminacy > destroyed the last hope? My take on Hume is that his reservations are more basic than that. He reasons very "logically" about cause, and (at least in the enquiry) his primary aim is to insist that the supposed necessity of a causal connection is illusory. This is directly connected to the conception of necessity which he identifies in Hume's fork, which is what we call logical necessity or analyticity (yes Hume does appear to identify these even though he does have the word), and Hume does not seem even to consider the possibility that the supposed necessity of causal relationship involves some weaker kind of necessity. To this he adds the implicit premise that if this kind of necessity is not present then nor is knowledge (for the thing we might infer because we think it causes our sensory impressions is not actually a necessary precondition, and therefore might not be, and therefore cannot be known to be. This is a purely logical argument, and since Hume is persuaded by it he has no need even to consider any subtleties there might be in the meaning of "cause". He just latches on the supposed necessity of the connection and that's good enough for his scepticism. RBJ From rbj at rbjones.com Thu Feb 11 17:19:13 2010 From: rbj at rbjones.com (Roger Bishop Jones) Date: Thu, 11 Feb 2010 22:19:13 +0000 Subject: [hist-analytic] Bete Noires in the Dark (scientism) In-Reply-To: <3417e.62511f44.389f8288@aol.com> References: <3417e.62511f44.389f8288@aol.com> Message-ID: <201002112219.13741.rbj@rbjones.com> Scanning Speranza's collection of quotes about scientism I offer the following characterisation. Scientism is the systematic application of scientific method (at any level) beyond its effective scope, or an excessive, possibly utopian, conception of the potential of such methods. This is a pejorative construal of the concept. I wonder, has it always been a pejorative term or have people sometimes thought it a positive thing? RBJ From Jlsperanza at aol.com Thu Feb 11 19:03:03 2010 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Thu, 11 Feb 2010 19:03:03 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Hume Is Where The Heart Is Message-ID: <9dea.1a28a0c9.38a5f4b7@aol.com> In a message dated 2/11/2010 5:41:18 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, rbj at rbjones.com writes: present then nor is knowledge (for the thing we might infer because we think it causes our sensory impressions is not actually a necessary precondition, and therefore might not be, and therefore cannot be known to be. ---- very good point. I will explore the logical form behind all this. What does "cause" apply to. Surely we have to think, if proto-Carnapian at all, in terms of Carnap's brilliant excavations on the logic of relations in his Abriss, etc. This branch of logic is not as required today as it was by Russell and Carnap. So let us propose "C" to stand for ... causes ... EXCURSUS on the meaning of 'cause' which R. B. Jones dismisses as Oxonian and irredeemably Oxonian at that. :): Carnap is unclear to me in various points as to how we are supposed to deal with this. We are supposed to get rid of ALL connotations regarding words. But we sometimes can't. Or Kant I'd be enough of a rationalist to add. -- cfr his early example, 1937, as tr. by Ms. Smeaton, "Pirots karulize elatically." His whole point is that the ANALYTIC necessity is of things like: Pirots karulize elatically A is a pirot _______________________ . . . A karulizes elatically. "For all I care," Hospers wrote, "A pirot can be a ten-story building" (The question then is whether there was a victim as to it karulizing elatically as it did). --- So we better use something different than "CAUSE". Grice proposes "Fid" "Fid" has the proper nonsensical ring to it. He uses to express any relation FID(x, y) x stands in relation FID to y -- cited by Chapman, from Grice, "How Pirots Karulize Elatically: Some Simpler Ways" --- FID(x, y) we are supposed to be wanting to introduce this into the pirot-talk, as it were. Into our talk about causes. --- We are at a _loss_. Grice plays with the notion of 'consequentia', which may be weaker than 'cause'. y is a consequence of x (WoW:xix) ---- The idea is that 'consequentia' is neutral: it can mean CAUSAL in the proper interpretation as it relates to, I'd think Grice-Carnp-Hume would want to say -- obbles or objects. obble o is caused by obble o' Fid(obble o, obble o') Here the problem is that 'cause' is best seen as involving events. But Grice is working with a Carnapian idea of a Predikat-Kalkuel: So we have to define an event in terms of an obble having this or that property. Fing and Fang, Grice suggests. obble o is FING obble o' is FANG since we have to deal with variables only, we need to re-define the obble into a predicate OBBLE(x) --> FING(x) the obble o is fing (the pillar box is red -- the bridge collapsed) Now we want to have the bridge collapsed. Is that a consequens, or a consequentia? It wouldn't matter: the bridge's collapse was the CAUSE of Jack's death. But what about the bridge's collapse itself? What caused it? Here Grice plays with 'reason': "It does not seem an appropriate thing to say that the reason why the bridge collapsed is that its structure was basically cellophane." And if we do, we wouldn't like to say that this was a "Bad" reason. "Bad reason" as applied to the realm of causes, sounds VERY Harsh. Where this is a serious criterion for Grice (as it was for all his beloved empiricists, Berkeley here) to reject the claim. So the collapse of the bridge is a token of an event. What is the structure in terms of x? BRIDGEx AND COLLAPSEDx. i.e. We cannot introduce --> here, which is Hume's point. Hume knew we can't and we do know we can't. All we can do is state that the bridge collapsed. At this point Romano Harre and Mardsen walk in. They want to say that, in spite of all that Hume convinced a few about, things, obbles, have CAUSAL powers. It's not just this and then that --- where all we can gather is this 'temporal sequence' alla Mill's methods of difference. We want to say that something CAUSED something else. This, I gather, was part of Hume's problem. When you have spent a few studying the idiocies by Aristotle on this (substratum, hypokheimenon, aition telos, and all the dunsical tr. into the Latina Lingua) you read Hume and it's exhilaratingly Scots! So, I think Hume is criticising the Scholastics's use of 'causa'. I wouldn't think he cared for the scientist's occasional misuse of 'causalist' talk, because, other than Boyle, etc. there were not that many scientists around _THEN_. But now, Grice is protesting, "they seem to be ALL OVER THE PLACE!". "Surely we can't have that!" --- Etc. J. L. Speranza From Jlsperanza at aol.com Thu Feb 11 18:43:56 2010 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Thu, 11 Feb 2010 18:43:56 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] "The Devil of scientism" Message-ID: <95d8.5752c0f8.38a5f03c@aol.com> --- where "Devil" is case-sensitive! In a message dated 2/11/2010 5:41:17 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, rbj at rbjones.com writes: Scientism is the systematic application of scientific method (at any level) beyond its effective scope, or an excessive, possibly utopian, conception of the potential of such methods. This is a pejorative construal of the concept. I wonder, has it always been a pejorative term or have people sometimes thought it a positive thing? ---- I'd leave others to drop in, but just to note that the collocation used by Grice is strangely similar to the betes-noire thing: for it's demons and perilous places in "Pilgrim Grice" and 'devil of scientism' in 1991. There was once a query about scientism and scientificism in CHORA-L, and I then searched for collocations in the OED. Scientism is the systematic application of scientific method (at any level) beyond its effective scope, or an excessive, possibly utopian, conception of the potential of such methods. --- right. This is just implicatural. I.e. what Carnap would have as an 'unintended' pragmatic effect that an assertion may have on you. 'devil' as used by Grice ("the devil of scientism") should not be always negatively used. A devil is like a demon (which is how he describes the betes-noires). But there are daemons and there are daemons. In fact, there are good daemons, which the Greeks (or Griceans) valued high enough as to call 'happy': rather the good daemon was the one that made _you_ happy (Grice quotes his student J. L. Ackrill on this, Proc. Brit. Ac. 1975). There shouldn't be such an implicature. After all 'scientia' is just the abstract of 'scio' which is the briefest statement a Roman could make about 'I know'. So 'scientia' becomes, 'things to be known'. (cf. sapientia, which is supposed to be what philosophers love -- philosophia, love of wisdom). The Grecians distinguished between 'episteme' and sophia, but the Romans were never so genial. --- So if scio is 'to know' one should think that the -ism indeed brings the 'minimalist' wrong connotation about it. There's a hybris, as Jones notes, give science where no science is due, sort of thing. But the _aim_ at _knowing_ ('scio') should not be termed 'devilish' per se. The dialectic here is between dogmatic those who know and know they know and the sceptic (another bete noire for Grice) -- these cannot be defined as 'those who know they don't' because this was the silly old Socratic paradox). But Grice is playing on this: the devil of scientism will want to have us say that not only we don't know but that we don't know we know. ---- I'll see if I can retrieve the original quote. It's not vintage Grice, though. He allows in a footnote it was George Myro's idea! ("the tenor of the remark", Grice adds). Etc. The Grice reprint (1991) reads: "We must be ever watchful against the Devil of scientism, who would lead us into myopic overconcentration on the nature and importance of knowledge, and of scientific knowledge" --- slightly oxymoronic in Roman, scientia _is_ knowledge. "in particular; the Devil who is even so audacious as to tempt us to call in question the very system of ideas required to make intelligible the idea of calling in question anything at all." He may be thinking that, say, if a scientist says that all value-judgements are _unscientific_ then the very proposition, _science is a valuable thing_ becomes meaningless. The appeal to external/internal, as per Carnap, may not do, nor his pragmatist bent as to, what works works. Etc, but of course we'd need to elaborate on this. "and who would even prompt us, in effect, to suggest that since we do not really think but only think that we think, we had better change our minds without undue delay." --- this is like a RAA i.e. reductio ad absurdum, which is indeed Grice's intro for "not", or elimination, rather. For there is of course the blatant contradiction of a Neutral Monist who has us "changing our _minds_" when we are supposed to have none! But also there's this doxastic version (alla Hintikka) of Socrates' originally epistemic paradox I know that I do not know This cannot, alla Grandy, be understood self-reflectively (His review of Schiffer, JP) (i) I know that I do not know that (i) ---- But Grice here -- while capitalising either devil or scientism, we can dismiss that -- has 'think', i.e believe: "we do not really think" where the devil is engaging in, to use Austin's artless sexism, as Grice has it in Gr01:3, a trouser-word, the 'real' (Austin's objections to the 'real' duck in Sense and Sensibilia -- the word that wears the trousers) "but only think that we think" and what's wrong with that? It's wrong in the epistemic context I don't know. I only know that I know. With 'think' Grice CANNOT be thinking of privileged access and incorrigibility which he has JUST introduced as pirotic advantages for survival: if pirot thinks that p, ceteris paribus, pirot thinks that he thinks that p. ---- "who would even prompt us, in effect, to suggest that since we do not really think but only think that we think" and this is supposed to be the protasis or premise to the conclusion of this argument that we are suggested to make, as prompted by the devil of scientism -- where here it is scientism qua devil alla Descartes's malignant daemon of the Meditationes Metaphysicae. --- i.e. the modal conclusion: that "we had better change our minds without undue delay." Again, the argument being: (A) We (the common man, etc) don't really think but only think that we think. ----------------------------------------------- We had better change our minds without undue delay. Since (A) is RAA absurd, a forteriori, the devil wins because he is having as proving something we cannot be prove -- or something! Ever watchful against him, indeed! JL Speranza --- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Baynesr at comcast.net Fri Feb 12 11:42:35 2010 From: Baynesr at comcast.net (Baynesr at comcast.net) Date: Fri, 12 Feb 2010 16:42:35 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [hist-analytic] McPherson's Hobbes In-Reply-To: <5b00.1176b114.38a5d641@aol.com> Message-ID: <771332011.2782151265992955442.JavaMail.root@sz0010a.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net> Sorry for the delay JL . There is a lot of long winded stuff in political theory. Let me comment on a couple of things. First, actually, I'm not a New Englander . I lived in NE over twenty years, but the family is from the South and the Midwest. My branch came up through Tennessee to S. Illinois around 1850. Historically, deep roots in the Confederacy, although my sympathies were never with the ideas of succession or slavery etc. Now on counterfactuals . MacPherson describes his counterfactual approach as "abstraction," and I think this is pretty much unobjectionable. But there is something very interesting here. The counterfactual specification of worlds is one thing, but its equivalence to a form of abstraction is something else difficult to deny. By stipulating a world which is the same except with regard to X in a way I abstract from the world. So I abstract a class of facts from the world. Recall Locke. There as I recall abstraction is not of facts but ideas. So the difference is fundamentally one of "facts" vs. "things" but there is still abstraction. There is an important difference. That important difference is that Locke is an empiricist and his abstraction is empirical. In the counterfactual case we extend the method of abstraction to facts or classes of facts. So we can view counterfactual stipulation as non-empirical abstraction. Regards Steve ----- Original Message ----- From: Jlsperanza @ aol .com To: hist-analytic@ simplelists .co. uk Sent: Thursday, February 11, 2010 1:53:05 PM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific Subject: Re: McPherson's Hobbes What an excellent quote! S. R. Bayne quotes from ? McPherson, The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism:? Hobbes to Locke (Oxford, 1962) ?? "[Hobbes?s] state of _nature_ ?? is a ? ? ? ?? statement" this is slightly ambiguous. People do use 'manifesto', 'predicament,? 'statement' -- 'fashion as a statement', etc. but call me neo-Strawsonian if I? say that a statement needs to have a better logical 'dress'! McPherson continues: "of the behaviour to which men as they _now_ are," ? ? i.e. in 1628. This _is_ important, given the political? agenda behind Hobbes's Leviathan -- and the events of amusingly referred to by? Grice, as "The decapitation of Charles I's head was the cause of his death, they? say". (WoW:ix) ?? "men who live in civilized societies" -- as was England during the Civil War! Give me a break! ( Bayne , as a New Englander -- he isn't but I think he SHOULD! will? understand that all I love about the Americans was when visiting New Haven I? found out that all the streets in that town bear the names of the? regicides!) ? ?? "and have the desires of? civilized men," such as Cromwell. There is a town in Connecticut I used to visit often:? Cromwell. And L. Horn lives in Hampden! --- ?? "would be led if ? ? ?? all law ? ? ? ? ?? -- and? *contract* ? ? ? ?? enforcement? ?? were? removed." which is precisely what the royalists (in their typical cavalier attitude? to death) were thinking the roundheads like Cromwell were doing! The good thing about his counterfactual is that it IS imaginable. The terrorists from MY part of the world used to chant a counterfactual ,? too: ? ? ? ?? "If Evita Peron were alive? today, ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? she would be a suicide bomber" (Si Evita viviera seria montonera). I always had problem with that counterfactual and not because it's? subjunctive! Etc. JL ????????? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rbj at rbjones.com Fri Feb 12 15:31:57 2010 From: rbj at rbjones.com (Roger Bishop Jones) Date: Fri, 12 Feb 2010 20:31:57 +0000 Subject: [hist-analytic] Shuga-Free In-Reply-To: <1341c.753ac618.38a325c2@aol.com> References: <1341c.753ac618.38a325c2@aol.com> Message-ID: <201002122031.57720.rbj@rbjones.com> On Tuesday 09 Feb 2010 20:55, Jlsperanza at aol.com wrote: > > "If we are looking for a possible FORMAL COUNTERPART > of such a sentence as > > [the author of 'Sein und Zeit' wears a moustache] > > we have TWO candidates to consider." > > [the first candidate being] > > (ix.Zx)Mx > > "in which the iota-operator is treated as being > SYNTACTICALLY analogous to a QUANTIFIER" > > -- the second candidate being > > M(ix.Zx) > > "in which the iota operator is treated as a > DEVICE for forming a TERM" > -- and not as a 'term' itself, as I wrote in my previous post, which would > be stupid. Well actually, not so stupid. In HOL the choice function _is_ a term as are all the variable binders; but this is unimportant. Lets suppose we are working in a first order language. These are two alternative syntaxes, and there is more than one plausible reading of the semantics for each syntax. Did Grice say anything at this point about the semantics. Lets proceed under the assumption that the second should be read as the most direct interpretation of Russell's theory of descriptions: ((ix.Zx)Mx) <=> (Ex)(Zx /\ (y)(Zy => y=x) /\ Mx) > Grice continues with a very important point -- which he then owes to > 'Shuga': > > "If we select [the first candidate], then, when we introduce negation, > we have two SEMANTICALLY distinguishable ways of doing so" > > a.1. - ((ix.Zx)Mx) > > a.2 (ix.Zx)-Mx > > "The second [a.2] will, and the first [a.1] will not, ENTAIL > the existence of an x [e.g. Heidegger] that is UNIQUELY > [the author of Sein und Zeit]" > > "But if we select [a.2] there is only ONE place -- prefixing -- I think you mean here [the second candidate]. > for the introduction of negation." > > "And, in consequence, > > (ix.Zx)-M > > > -- ["The author of Sein und Zeit did not ALWAYS wear a moustache"] Surely not. If the semantics were as I mentioned above then this should be the obvious rendering. > -- ["The author of Sein und Zeit did not wear a moustache"] > "will be a [scope-] ambiguous structure" > > "unless we introduce a disambiguating scope convention" I don't see why. Before we rendered Russellian description as a quantifier we really did have a scope ambiguity, but once it is a quantifier the scope rules for quantifiers sort it out for us. > -- as Grice does: two of them: the square-bracket device, which turns > certain expressions immune to negation, and, in "Vacuous Names", the > numeral > subscripts. > > Grice continues: > > "One ONE REDUCTION to primitive notation Is that "On ONE"? > the existence of a unique [author of Sein und Zeit] > will be ENTAILED" > > -- the term is Moore's. > > [and thus we do not need Strawson's notion of 'presupposition'] Which was always surely an alternative to Russell's theory rather than an interpretation of it. > "On the other will will not", but will be 'implicated' conversationally; > and thus we don't need the Strawsonian notion of truth-value gappy > presupposition either -- but cfr. Noel Burton-Roberts and his > neo-Strawsonian > fanfares. I agree that neither of the two alternatives "needs" Strawsons gaps, they are both ways of doing without them and therefore staying within a two-valued logic. However, the point of Strawson's gaps is not that we need them, but that they provide a better account of the way natural languages work. This is a matter of controversy, but it does not address this issue to argue that there are alternative ways in which descriptions can be understood. > Grice continues: > > "Call these respectively the STRONG and the WEAK readings." > > How to decide? Grice is clear: his ear for English: > > "Now, if there WERE a clear distinction in SENSE [Fregean sense] > (in English) between, say" > > > S [the author of Sein und Zeit did not wear a moustache then] > > and > > W [it is not the case that the author of Sein und Zeit wore a moustache > then] > > "(if the former demanded the STRONG reading > and the latter the WEAK one), then it would be > REASONABLE to correlate" > > 'the author of Sein und Zeit wears a moustache" > > "with the formal structure that treats the > iota operator LIKE A QUANTIFIER" > > ('as a quantifier' seems better English -- cfr. P A Stone on 'Girls won't > be girls') > > GRICE'S AVOWAL: > > "But this does NOT seem to be the case; I see > no such clear SEMANTIC distinction" > > nor do I. Geary sees, but a pragmatic distinction, and then, not _that_ > clear -- "On a clear day you can see forever" -- "on a VERY clear day you > can > see as far as Aylesbury" Noel Coward). > > Grice continues: > > "So it seems BETTER to associate" > > the author of Sein und Zeit wears a moustache > > "with the formal structure that treats the iota operator > as a term-forming device" > > (and not as a term simpliciter as I clumsily wrote in my previous). > > "We are then committed to the STRUCTURAL ambiguity > of" > > the author of Sein und Zeit does not wear a moustache > > [eg. since he died some years ago] How is this a structural ambiguity? > Having credited Shuga with that Grice finishes the consideration: > > "The proposed task may NOW be defined as follows: on one reading, [the > author of Sein und Zeit does not wear a moustache] entails the existence > of a > unique [author of Sein und Zeit], on the other it does not; but in fact, > without waiting for disambiguation, people understand the utterance of > > [the author of Sein und Zeit does not wear a moustache] > > as IMPLYING (in some fashion) the unique existence of [an author of Sein > und Zeit]. This is intelligible if on one reading -- the strong one -- the > > unique existence of [an author of Sein und Zeit] is ENTAILED, on the other >-- >the weak one -- though NOT ENTAILED, it is *conversationally implicated* >[emphasis mine. JLS]" > > >"What needs to be shown [he does], then, is a route by which the weaker >reading coult come to implicate what it does not entail" However, it seems to me that the problem is with the truth conditions for the sentence. The merit of Strawson's treatment as presupposition is that we then get out of having to decide on the truth value in the problematic cases. But talk of implicature doesn't solve that problem. If we have to assign a truth value when unique existence fails, then it is natural to chose "FALSE" (and we then get the problem of what we are assigning false to if we don't have the disambiguating quantifier syntax). However, you cannot chose the truth value independently of your choice about what is implied or entailed (these are the same in first order logic since it is complete) by the construct. If you chose FALSE then the sentence will imply unique existence, whether you like it or not (assuming a two-valued logic). So then it becomes superfluous to invoke implicature. Chosing TRUE is even worse, for then the description becomes pretty meaningless. So IF it was Grice's aim to argue the superiority of implicature over presupposition, the argument if I have it right, fails. RBJ From rbj at rbjones.com Fri Feb 12 16:45:11 2010 From: rbj at rbjones.com (Roger Bishop Jones) Date: Fri, 12 Feb 2010 21:45:11 +0000 Subject: [hist-analytic] Shuga-Free In-Reply-To: <201002122031.57720.rbj@rbjones.com> References: <1341c.753ac618.38a325c2@aol.com> <201002122031.57720.rbj@rbjones.com> Message-ID: <201002122145.11348.rbj@rbjones.com> The closing analysis in my last message was incomplete, insofar as I did not consider the possibility of treating existence and uniqueness separately. If you don't have truth gaps, I don't think you can treat "unique existence" as implicature, (it has to be entailed) but you could have existence entailed and uniqueness as implicature. Is that what Grice ended up with? I am a fan of implicature, it is good for answering a number of controversial claims by Wittgenstein and Austin (inter alia). But so far I'm not convinced by this application. RBJ From Jlsperanza at aol.com Fri Feb 12 20:10:00 2010 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Fri, 12 Feb 2010 20:10:00 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Frictionless Pulleys --Re: McPherson's Hobbes and Grice on 'implicature' in 1964 Message-ID: <1824f.2f211875.38a755e8@aol.com> In a message dated 2/12/2010 12:10:45 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, Baynesr at comcast.net writes: MacPherson describes his counterfactual approach as "abstraction," ---- Long winded indeed! --- Perhaps you can let us know about his background. I mean: he got his book published with Oxford alright, but he sounds, a "new Worlder"? You should provide the quote where he does go "abstraction". I don't think it was in the quote you provided this far. In this one he was saying that the state of nature was a "statement". ----- Thanks for the clarification on your background and your attitudes towards seccesion and slavery. South of Dixie towards Mid-West, etc. It would be good to know McPherson's too. (Not because we want to be gossipy, but surely if we are going to listen to some talk Hobbes, the Leviathan, the philosophy of rights we may have a suspicion that if the person is, say, an obdurate Brit, or a revolutionary American, or a liberal, or whatever, will judge his views. I don't say pre-judge, just judge (It's a verb I invent). --- I don't quite follow your views on abstraction, but they are interesting. Indeed 'abstract' is a very complex verb, but I hope McPherson is just using it alla Roget's Thesaurus to mean: -- schema -- gedanke experiment. Etc. I.e. As when Grice was criticised: What you say is too abstract. Surely we don't want to say that participants in a conversation do this and do that as you say they do. He would reply -- I quote from Chapman: (Since it took me sometime to rescue it, and it's frictionless PULLEYS and not solids as I thought, I'm appending that to subject matter to we can play on the interface McPherson exegesis of Hobbes McPherson as Neo-Hobbes method: "abtraction" 'state of nature' as statement counter-factual. etc. GRICE account of conversation as neo-Aristotle and neo-Kant method: abstraction Purposes of abstract methodology: to propose a model that may run against the facts but it still works. Counterfactual method as 'transcendental justification' alla Kant. It identifies the minimal elements and proceeds to discourse on the logic of this or that: Grice: "We never know what Grice is doing", Chapman complains. But she is a teacher of English at Liverpool. Philosophers do. She is very clever enough and indeed to unbury the things by Grice from us. "He does say what he is doing in some "unpublished" stuff. Personally, I agree with those philosophers who say, "Burn all I left, after you burn me". But not when it comes to Grice: because I love him, and because many of that stuff is things he SAID in public. As a historian of 20th century Oxford philosophy, I'm interested I was interested as to what they were getting (and it's here that what McPherson is trying to do may illuminate): Grice, Chapman says, in this unpublications, "defends his method of working with as few 'cards on the table' as possible, in the knowledge that this WILL result in certain deliberate simplifications" McPherson's abstraction --- "In another lecture, proposing to address some questions put to him a previous discussion about the nature of his undertaking" he notes that he is "considering what is (or may be) only an IDEAL (emphasis Grice's --JLS) case, one which is artificially simplified -- McPherson's abstracted. JLS-- by ABSTRACTING from all considerations OTHER than those involved in ... [say an illumination of 'contract'. JLS]. "I do not claim that there ACTUALLY [empahsis Grice's. JLS] occur any ... conversations [write state of nature for McPherson] of this artificially simplified kind." "It MIGHT" and this is where Grice gets to be my CHARMING GRICE: "even be that these COULD [emphasis Grice's] not be (cf frictionless pulleys)." "..." "Since the object of this exercise is to provide a bit of THEORY -- vs.analysis.JLS, as he had undertaken in "Meaning"--he is specifically making the change of methodology here] "...which will EXPLAIN, for a certain family of cases, why is it that a ...." "I would suggest that the final TEST for the adequacy and utility of this model should be" "First: can it be used to construct explanations of the presence of ... and is it more comprehensive and more economical than any rival --- McPherson say on 'divine' formation of contracts -- "Second, "Are there no doubt crude, PRETHEORETICAL (Grice's emphasis. JLS) explanations which one would be prompted to give of ... (this or that) consistent with, or better still, favourable pointers towards, the requirements invovled in the model." I NOTE FOR THE RECORD that Grice is using "implicature" here -- so this predates the OED3 quote which gives is at 1967. This is 1964. ------ In a way it compares to ideal-observer's theories, which became more and more influential in moral/political theory and out of which Grice will draw a few commodities he'll expand in e.g. his Method in philosopoical psychology. The details of how this work for i. Hobbes ii. McPherson iii. More importantly, YOU remains to be seen! Best, JL Speranza -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Jlsperanza at aol.com Fri Feb 12 20:37:53 2010 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Fri, 12 Feb 2010 20:37:53 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Shuga-Free, or Shuga-Fix? Message-ID: <18c5c.3cfa41b8.38a75c71@aol.com> We are considering some discussion by Grice on who he calls "Shuga" -- well, that was P. Cole. We know he meant "Sluga" ("Radical Pragmatics", ed. Cole) -- the proper-name reference dropped when the essay got included in WoW. In a message dated 2/12/2010 4:34:54 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, _rbj at rbjones.com_ (mailto:rbj at rbjones.com) quotes from Grice: (WoW:essay, "Presuppositon and Conversational Implicature"): "We are then committed to the STRUCTURAL ambiguity of" Speranza's examples: [the pirot does not karulize elatically] > [eg. since he died some years ago] --- and asks "How is this a structural ambiguity?" Well, precisely in cases where 'the pirot' is a 'vacuous' not name, here, but description (or a vacuous definite description) and where ascribe to its referent (the denotatum for 'the pirot' which is nowhere to be ascribed anything) that it karulises elatically seems otiose. In the case of the affirmative version the pirot karulises elatically --in a scenario where 'the pirot' has no denotatum, the thing is FALSE. --in a scenario where 'the pirot' has no denotatum, though, to negate the pirot does not karulise elatically turns the thing TRUE. "It is true that the pirot does not karulise elatically: the pirot died some years ago". --- This is the 'structural ambiguity' Grice is talking about. It could do to see how Carnap dealt with 'vacuous' portions of the universe of discourse like that. It's noteworthy that these problems arise in connection only with the third quantifier Grice lists in WoW:ii, 'the'. It certainly does not arise with 'all' which possibly had him fighting with Strawson back in 1952, "None of the pirots in the room karulise elatically" "But there are none!" "That's precisely what I mean" cfr. "books on the table are by English writers" in long appendix to post on "Vacuity", THIS FORUM. "All of Smith's children are sleeping" "He has none" "That's what I said. And they are all sleeping" (x)Cx --> Sx Etc. J. L. Speranza -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Jlsperanza at aol.com Fri Feb 12 20:51:31 2010 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Fri, 12 Feb 2010 20:51:31 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Entailment-Cum-Implicature (Was: Re: Shuga-Free Message-ID: <1914e.2dd89e43.38a75fa3@aol.com> In a message dated 2/12/2010 5:41:39 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, rbj at rbjones.com writes: I am a fan of implicature, it is good for answering a number of controversial claims by Wittgenstein and Austin (inter alia). But so far I'm not convinced by this application. ----- I would think then: "entailment" and "implicature" are the two notions or Moore's notion (entailment) and Grice's notion vs. Strawson's notion ('presupposition') what we would have is then i. the pirot karulises elatically this ENTAILS that the pirot exists. since 'the pirot exists' or there is an x such that PIROTx is the first conjunct in the three-conjuncted Russellian expansion. ii. the pirot does not karulise elatically does NOT entail that the pirot exists. and thus is TRUE if the pirot does not exist. So far we are dealing only with entailment. Strawson wanted to say that in (ii), (ii) presupposes that the pirot exists. Grice comes in: "Too strong (as metaphysically dangerous -- for what is a truth-value gap?)". Better say: By uttering (ii) on occasion, the utterer may conversationally implicate that the pirot exists. --- Grice was the champion of cancellability: His examples of the-x, in negated contexts: "If I come on a group of peole arguing about whether (the pirot) (karulises elatically), it is not linguistically improper [I'm using () to adapt my example. JLS] for me to say that (the pirot) (does not karulise elatically), since there is (no pirot). Of course I do not have to put it that way, but I perfectly welll can. Second, it can be even less obvious. If it is a matter of dispute whehter the government has a very undercover person ((they call it 'the pirot')) who interrogates those whose loyalty is suspect ((they call this to kaulise elatically)) and who, if he existed, could be legitimately be referred to as ('the pirot who karulises elatically') and if further I am known to be very sceptical about the existence of such a (pirot), I could perfectly well say to a plainly loyal person: ("Well, the pirot who karulises elatically will NOT be carulising elatically TO YOU at any rate"), without, I would think, being taken to IMPLY that such a (pirot) exists. Further if I am well known to disbelieve in the existence of such a (pirot), though others are inclined to believe in him, when I find a man who is apprised of my position, but who is worried in case he is to witness the pirot karulising elatically to him, I could try to reassure him by saying, "The pirot who karulises elatically will not be karulising elatically TO YOU, don' t worry." Then it would be clear that I said this because I was sure there is no such (pirot)." --- Etc. JLS -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Baynesr at comcast.net Sat Feb 13 15:49:57 2010 From: Baynesr at comcast.net (Baynesr at comcast.net) Date: Sat, 13 Feb 2010 20:49:57 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [hist-analytic] Frictionless Pulleys --Re: McPherson's Hobbes and Grice on 'implicature' in 1964 In-Reply-To: <1824f.2f211875.38a755e8@aol.com> Message-ID: <186091068.3152941266094197020.JavaMail.root@sz0010a.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net> The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism: Hobbes to Locke, Oxford, 1962. Macpherson is taking much from Hobbes's "Rudiments." He isn't a logician; where I speak of " counterfactual conditionals" he just talks about "conditionals." He has, however, an extraordinary aptitude and sees that this is a matter of logic not just political theory. So close to being right after the passage I cite he says: "Thus in the Rudiments the state of war is hypothetical condition, got by a purely logical abstraction." (p. 28) When counterfactualizing , he takes a fact hypothesizes that it is changed while holding all else constant, very much like Kripke's stipulation of worlds. This is not an empirical matter as in abstracting concepts; but it is abstraction nonetheless by counterfactualizing . In empirical abstraction we "drag out" a feature by holding it "fixed" under conditions where all else varies. I use "holding" advisedly so as not to imply too much about the "active mind" in an empiricist ontology. So that is my claim. Again, just as a concept or idea is retained while others are "thrown out" so too in counterfactualizing ONE fact is thrown out and the rest retained, whatever they might be. This is roughly the idea. The analogy is not perfect since facts are not things (concepts) and what we are dealing with is a conditional. I should mention that while I abhor the very idea of slavery, succession is another matter. Much depends on whether the Constitution agreed upon by CONSENT remains binding when it is no longer by consent. The conditions of this "binding" ramify throughout the history of contract theory and is an interesting topic in its own right. My interest in MacPherson is that his ideas can be applied to some ideas in economics championed by Peter Schumpeter , Baumol , and a number of others. In addition, he had a interesting disagreement with Milton Friedman I am going to pursue somewhat. I generally side with Friedman, but Schumpeter's views on entrepreneurial capitalism create an opening between Keynesianism and free-market capitalism. I will use SOME of MacPherson in attacking Rawlsian ideas, but I will use it constructively as part of the philosophical foundations for a new theory of contract. We'll see what happens. Best wishes Steve ----- Original Message ----- From: Jlsperanza @ aol .com To: hist-analytic@ simplelists .co. uk Sent: Friday, February 12, 2010 5:10:00 PM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific Subject: Frictionless Pulleys --Re: McPherson's Hobbes and Grice on 'implicature' in 1964 In a message dated 2/12/2010 12:10:45 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, Baynesr @comcast.net writes: MacPherson describes his counterfactual approach as "abstraction," ---- Long winded indeed! --- Perhaps you can let us know about his background. I mean: he got his book published with Oxford alright, but he sounds, a "new Worlder "? ??? You should provide the quote where he does go "abstraction". I don't think it was in the quote you provided this far. In this one he was saying that the state of nature was a "statement". ----- Thanks for the clarification on your background and your attitudes towards seccesion and slavery. South of Dixie towards Mid-West, etc. It would be good to know McPherson's too. (Not because we want to be gossipy, but surely if we are going to listen to some talk ???????????? Hobbes, the Leviathan, the philosophy ?????????????????? of rights ?? we may have a suspicion that if the person is, say, an obdurate Brit, or a revolutionary American, or a liberal, or whatever, will judge his views. I don't say pre-judge, just judge (It's a verb I invent). ? --- I don't quite follow your views on abstraction, but they are interesting. ? Indeed 'abstract' is a very complex verb, but I hope McPherson is just using it alla Roget's Thesaurus to mean: ?? -- schema ?? -- gedanke experiment. Etc. I.e. As when Grice was criticised: What you say is too abstract. Surely we don't want to say that participants in a conversation do this and do that as you say they do.????? He would reply ?? -- I quote from Chapman: (Since it took me sometime to rescue it, and it's frictionless PULLEYS and not solids as I thought, I'm appending that to subject matter to we can play on the interface ? McPherson ??? exegesis ?????? of ? Hobbes McPherson as Neo-Hobbes method: " abtraction " 'state of nature' as statement counter-factual. ?? etc.??????????????????????? GRICE ??????????????????????? account of conversation ???????????????????????????? as neo-Aristotle ???????????????????????????? and neo-Kant ??????????????????????? method: abstraction ???? Purposes of abstract methodology: ???? to propose a model that may run against the facts ???? but it still works.? ???? Counterfactual method as 'transcendental justification' ???? alla Kant. ???? It identifies the minimal elements and proceeds to ???? discourse on the logic of this or that: Grice : "We never know what Grice is doing", Chapman complains. But she is a teacher of English at Liverpool. Philosophers do. She is very clever enough and indeed to unbury the things by Grice from us. "He does say what he is doing in some "unpublished" stuff. Personally, I agree with those philosophers who say, "Burn all I left, after you burn me". But not when it comes to Grice : because I love him, and because many of that stuff is things he SAID in public. As a historian of 20th century Oxford philosophy, I'm interested I was interested as to what they were getting (and it's here that what McPherson is trying to do may illuminate): Grice , Chapman says, in this unpublications , "defends his method of working with as few 'cards on the table' as possible, in the knowledge that this WILL result in certain deliberate simplifications" ????????? McPherson's abstraction --- "In another lecture, proposing to address some questions put to him a previous discussion about the nature of his undertaking" he notes that ?? he is "considering what is (or may be) only an IDEAL (emphasis Grice's -- JLS ) case, one which is ?? artificially simplified ?????????????? -- McPherson's abstracted. JLS -- by ABSTRACTING from all considerations ????? OTHER than those involved in ... [say an illumination of 'contract' . JLS ]. "I do not claim that there ACTUALLY [ empahsis Grice's . JLS ] occur any ... conversations [write state of nature for McPherson] of this artificially simplified kind." "It MIGHT"? and this is where Grice gets to be my CHARMING GRICE : "even be that these COULD [emphasis Grice's ] not be (cf frictionless pulleys)." "..." "Since the object of this exercise is to provide a bit of THEORY ? -- vs.analysis. JLS , as he had undertaken in "Meaning"--he is specifically making the change of methodology here] "...which will EXPLAIN, for a certain family of cases, why is it that a ...." "I would suggest that the final ??????????? TEST for the adequacy and utility of this model should be" ?? "First: can it be used to construct ??? explanations of the presence of ... ??? and is it more comprehensive and more economical ??? than any rival --- McPherson say on 'divine' formation of contracts -- ?? "Second, "Are there no doubt crude, PRETHEORETICAL ( Grice's emphasis. JLS ) ??? explanations which one would be prompted to give of ... (this or that) ?????? consistent with, or better still, favourable pointers towards, the ???? requirements invovled in the model." I NOTE FOR THE RECORD that Grice is using " implicature " here -- so this predates the OED3 quote which gives is at 1967. This is 1964. ------ In a way it compares to ideal-observer's theories, which became more and more influential in moral/political theory and out of which Grice will draw a few commodities he'll expand in e.g. his Method in philosopoical psychology. The details of how this work for ? i. Hobbes ? ii. McPherson ????????? iii. More importantly, YOU remains to be seen! Best, JL Speranza -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Jlsperanza at aol.com Sat Feb 13 16:23:38 2010 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Sat, 13 Feb 2010 16:23:38 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] State of Nature: Methodological? Abstraction? Counter-Factual? Message-ID: In a message dated 2/13/2010 3:51:19 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, Baynesr at comcast.net writes: "Thus in the Rudiments the state of war is hypothetical condition, got by a purely logical abstraction." (p. 28) ---- Thanks for the further quote from McPherson. That's an interesting thought! I would be interested to learn more about the different approaches here. I always divided the approaches into -- genetic: those who believe the state of nature did exist. ----- methodological: those who use it as a methodological device. Rawls, "veil of ignorance". It's all pretty confusing, I know. But I _am_ interested. --- I am particularly inclined to regard those allusions as 'mythical'. A 'myth' may have 'educational' value, though (My recent invigorated sympathies for 'myth' derive from Wharton's book on pragmatics -- new with CUP which concludes with what he calls Grice's 'myth' about the origin of language. [Grice's myth: in the origin there was 'nature'. Only signs naturally signifying this or that. In the state of our civilised states, it's all artificial, etc.] ---- I'm slightly confused by talk of 'counterfactual' -- in terms of possible-world semantics. It seems to me that a true counterfactual, I mean a genuine counterfactual (a subjunctive, or past subjunctive) conditional would need to postulate something different from a mere reference to the _past_. I don't think the past is a different world, as we may say an irreal world is a different world. Hartey used to say that the past is "a foreign country" but that's different and just metaphorical). ---- I do like McPherson's idea that in Hobbes's counterfactual, it is not men as having desires they might have had then back in the state of nature, but as having desires as they have NOW, in this world, at this time. Etc. JLS -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Jlsperanza at aol.com Sat Feb 13 16:45:57 2010 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Sat, 13 Feb 2010 16:45:57 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Conditional vs. Hypothetical Message-ID: In a message dated 2/13/2010 3:51:19 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, Baynesr at comcast.net writes: "Thus in the Rudiments the state of war is hypothetical condition, got by a purely logical abstraction." (p. 28) ---- Not to nitpick, but perhaps you are reading too much of your own good healthy robust and Lewisian logical background onto poor ol' McPherson (you haven't disclosed his affiliation yet! :)). We should play a little with that lovely Greek word, -thesis it yields: hypo-thesis -- hypo-thetical. Latin: sup-positio, suppositio. pro-thesis prae-positio thesis positio apothesis re-positio I never understood, for example, the logic of prae-sub-positio! --- But 'conditional'? Are we thinking material, here? Incidentally, while I think I know that Gk. for 'if' is 'ei', I'm less sure what word Philo (who invented the 'horseshoe' of the logicians, apparently) gave for 'material conditional'. The 'material' sounds obscenely Aristotelian (vs. formal-implication, no doubt). I recently received a query as to Grice's "Indicative Conditionals" for example. This is the title that he used in WoW for his 4th William James Lecture. Note "conditional", but, and he does consider 'subjective conditionals" which he doesn't think are truth-functional. Etc. The terminology, while Stoic -- and Grice would be familiar with it via Benson Mates's researches on Stoic Logic, could be (and R. Hall may help us here) 'grammatical' (via Dionysos Thrax) here: after all, unlike 'and' and 'or' -- the other propositional connectors used by the stoics, 'if' (Greek 'ei', Latin 'si') imports a sub-ordination p ---> q protasis apodosis --- In this connection, I treasure one of the most pedantic talks I ever had to wear. My thesis advisor, E. A. Rabossi, discussing with Beatrix Lavandera, a linguist. Every time Lavandera said 'protasis' and 'apodosis' in her comments, Rabossi would go, "I hope both Dr. Lavandera and the audience will forgive me for using 'antecedent' and 'consequent' instead! JLS From Baynesr at comcast.net Sun Feb 14 18:42:35 2010 From: Baynesr at comcast.net (Baynesr at comcast.net) Date: Sun, 14 Feb 2010 23:42:35 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [hist-analytic] State of Nature: Methodological? Abstraction? Counter-Factual? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <569712821.3401251266190955986.JavaMail.root@sz0010a.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net> MacPherson differs from most other commentators on Hobbes by insisting that the state of nature at "initial position" involves a preexisting society. He distinguishes three different societies. What characterizes all of them are certain market conditions. They are The Status Society, the Simple Market Society and the the Possessive Market Society, which is what we live in. His task is to provide a motive for leaving the state of nature defined in these terms, which are not a state of war in the sense traditionally conceived. It is this third sort that allows for this possibility. His details are reasonably persuasive but, more importantly, insightful and original. They are useful to me because of the interface with economics and, ultimately, distributive justice. That's where Rawls and some game theoretically oriented people will come in. On possible worlds: take a look at how Kripke introduces them. He calls it by "stipulation." I think that is how he puts it but I don't have the book in front of me. If I am right, Kripke is not stipulating a world but, rather, abstracting worlds from the actual world. There can, therefore, if I am right, only be as many worlds as facts. Can't go into all that; I'm doing other stuff. On Myth: I have to think about this a bit more. Keep in mind that for Rawls the idea of a contract being formulated and agreed upon is not a "myth" but a representational device. There are other alternatives. I won't get into that. The aspect of myth that interests me is what Cassirer talks about in the Myth of the State. It's an easy read. I'm gonna take another look at it. Poincare made some "crack" about him not being such a good mathematician. "Mathematician?" I thought. If Poincare would call me a not so good anything I'd be flattered. Regards STeve ----- Original Message ----- From: Jlsperanza @ aol .com To: hist-analytic@ simplelists .co. uk Sent: Saturday, February 13, 2010 1:23:38 PM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific Subject: State of Nature: Methodological? Abstraction? Counter-Factual? In a message dated 2/13/2010 3:51:19? P.M. Eastern Standard Time, Baynesr @comcast.net writes: "Thus in the? Rudiments the state of war is hypothetical condition, got by a purely? logical abstraction." (p. 28) ----? Thanks for the further quote from McPherson. That's an interesting thought! I would be interested to learn more about the different approaches? here. I always divided the approaches into -- genetic: those who believe the state of nature did exist. ----- methodological: those who use it as a methodological device. Rawls ,? "veil of ignorance". It's all pretty confusing, I know. But I _am_ interested. --- I am particularly inclined to regard those allusions as 'mythical' . A? 'myth' may have 'educational' value, though (My recent invigorated sympathies? for 'myth' derive from Wharton's book on pragmatics -- new with CUP which concludes with what he calls Grice's 'myth' about the origin of language. ? ? [ Grice's myth: in the origin there was 'nature' . Only? signs naturally signifying this or that. In the state of our civilised states,? it's all artificial, etc.] ---- I'm slightly confused by talk of 'counterfactual' -- in terms of? possible-world semantics. It seems to me that a true counterfactual , I mean a? genuine counterfactual (a subjunctive, or past subjunctive) conditional would need to postulate something different from a mere reference to the _past_ . I? don't think the past is a different world, as we may say an irreal world is a? different world. Hartey used to say that the past is "a foreign country" but? that's different and just metaphorical). ---- I do like McPherson's idea that in Hobbes's counterfactual , it is not? men as having desires they might have had then back in the state of nature, but as having desires as they have NOW, in this world, at this time. Etc. JLS -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Jlsperanza at aol.com Sun Feb 14 19:17:56 2010 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Sun, 14 Feb 2010 19:17:56 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] McPherson on Hobbes: status/simple market/possessive market Message-ID: <246e8.6cdba612.38a9ecb4@aol.com> --- In a message dated 2/14/2010 6:48:23 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, Baynesr at comcast.net writes: "What characterizes all of them are certain market conditions. They are The Status Society, the Simple Market Society and the the Possessive Market Society." --- These are very good. As you say _anything_ that analyses or cares to analyse what was meant by Hobbes by his state of 'nature' is welcome! --- A good point about the 'myth', other than the Cassirer thing you quote (I like Cassirer) is the idea of 'evolutionary'. Wonder if McPherson talks about it, or considers that the passage from those three sub-varieties onto 'the state we're in' is viewed as 'evolutionary'. I tried to track down the use of 'evolutionary' in Grice, but failed (to what extent, for example, the conventional, arbitrary, system of signs we call 'language' we have is an evolution over pooh-pooh). If McPherson is abstracting, and thinking as you say that this is counter-factual, etc he must be keeping at leas the _desires_ as fixed. No evolution there. So he may need a 'change' of conditions, environment, or whatever, to 'justify' or at least 'explain' the change from one status to the other (or state to the other). This would be, as you say, 'de facto'. (If you say that). Rather than 'de iure'. At this point, he (or your reading of him) may want to consider whether that is not a bit 'rough', or too rough. We may claim that our desires have NOT changed, but the point for a philosopher to (at least) conceive is whether they should NOT have changed. It is when we find Hobbes's views as _explanatory_ rather than descriptive that we start caring for him as a 'philosopher'. For an account of how the transition from one state to the other is achieved along empirical lines we go to palaeontology, archaeology, history, prehistory, sociology, biosociology, ethology, even economics. For a philosophical _theory_ or as I prefer 'analysis', we go to philosophers: we go to Hobbes. (We may NOT go to McPherson if you'll tell me he only taught, say, Ethology at ... -- just joking!) (So perhaps you can provide briefly, in terms of agents's desires, in what ways those three substates consist and diverge. And what main 'transmutation' is effected in the State 2 -- with the previous ones as State 1, State 1' and State 1".). JLS From rh1 at york.ac.uk Mon Feb 15 06:51:07 2010 From: rh1 at york.ac.uk (rh1 at york.ac.uk) Date: 15 Feb 2010 11:51:07 +0000 Subject: [hist-analytic] Conditional vs. Hypothetical In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Dear JL, I'm not clear what I should help with, but if it's Philo's description of what we call the material conditional, he ddn't use a word for it. He said, The connected proposition is true when it is not the case that it begins with the true and ends with the false. (The whole passage is in Bochenski's History of Formal Logic, at 20.07, and the original is at AM VIII.113 in your Sextus Empiricus (lovely Loeb). Bochenski gives some explanation about the avoidance of any word meaning `conditional' Probably you know all this, and wanted something else. All the best, Roland On Feb 13 2010, Jlsperanza at aol.com wrote: >In a message dated 2/13/2010 3:51:19 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, >Baynesr at comcast.net writes: >"Thus in the Rudiments the state of war is hypothetical >condition, got by a purely logical abstraction." (p. 28) > > ---- Not to nitpick, but perhaps you are reading too much of your own > good healthy robust and Lewisian logical background onto poor ol' > McPherson (you haven't disclosed his affiliation yet! :)). > We should play a little with that lovely Greek word, > -thesis >it yields: hypo-thesis -- hypo-thetical. Latin: sup-positio, suppositio. > pro-thesis prae-positio > thesis >positio > apothesis re-positio > I never understood, for example, the >logic of prae-sub-positio! > > --- But 'conditional'? Are we thinking material, here? Incidentally, > while I think I know that Gk. for 'if' is 'ei', I'm less sure what word > Philo (who invented the 'horseshoe' of the logicians, apparently) gave > for 'material conditional'. The 'material' sounds obscenely Aristotelian > (vs. formal-implication, no doubt). > I recently received a query as to Grice's "Indicative Conditionals" > for example. This is the title that he used in WoW for his 4th William > James Lecture. Note "conditional", but, and he does consider 'subjective > conditionals" which he doesn't think are truth-functional. Etc. > > The terminology, while Stoic -- and Grice would be familiar with it via > Benson Mates's researches on Stoic Logic, could be (and R. Hall may help > us here) 'grammatical' (via Dionysos Thrax) here: > > after all, unlike 'and' and 'or' -- the other propositional connectors > used by the stoics, > > 'if' (Greek 'ei', Latin 'si') > > imports a sub-ordination > > p ---> q > > protasis apodosis > > >--- In this connection, I treasure one of the most pedantic talks I ever >had to wear. My thesis advisor, E. A. Rabossi, discussing with Beatrix >Lavandera, a linguist. > > Every time Lavandera said 'protasis' and 'apodosis' in her comments, > Rabossi would go, "I hope both Dr. Lavandera and the audience will > forgive me for using 'antecedent' and 'consequent' instead! > >JLS > From Jlsperanza at aol.com Mon Feb 15 08:02:02 2010 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Mon, 15 Feb 2010 08:02:02 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Conditional vs. Hypothetical Message-ID: <260d.3e4d5ca5.38aa9fca@aol.com> In a message dated 2/15/2010 rh1 at york.ac.uk writes: ""The connected proposition is true when it is not the case that it begins with the true and ends with the false." (Philo cited by Sextus, Ad. Math. viii.113, Loeb CL) (cfr. Bochenski, Hist. Form. Logic, 20.7). "Bochenski gives some explanation about the avoidance of any word meaning `conditional'". Thanks! Yes, one would have thought that Philo went to on "Laconic" side. (Grice, otoh, would have provided a thesaurus list of at least five! Witness his supplying his 'new' thing, the 'implicature': "It is clear that whatever B IMPLIED, suggested, meant, ... is different form what B _said_" (WoW:24). Now _this_ use of 'implied' I'm not concerned. -My ref. to Dionysos was to see if the term was used by _grammarians_ then, if not logicians. I would think they dubbed 'an' ("if") a syncategorema. But I should have to look further. In any case, it may do to pay, meanwhile, some consideration to the etymology of "conditio" as used in 'conditional' (to translate, if this is what it's supposed to be doing, the hypothetical, but cfr. suppositio) -- and which does not seem to be a Graeco-Roman term to me at all, on the face of it. If you are puzzled by the 'dicio' in 'conditio-' is good ol' dic- as in "Master dixit" (which I always, especially as it applies to Master = Grice, I take to mean, The master inDICated (rather than plain, said). The ostensive ring this brings must be the original 'implicatum' -- unless it was used for Jesus Christ). The "condition", then is just form the Latin, condicio (from "com-", together + "dicere" "to speak" (see diction). (And thus more akin to the syn-logism). The evolution of meaning through "stipulation, condition," (a verbal agreement) to "situation, mode of being", which confusedly can be either factual/actual or not. Now, wiki lists the conjunctions for Modern Greek. For the three connectors: Copulative: (Logician's "and") -- "???," "??". Separatist: (Logician's "or") -- "?," "????" Hypothetical (Logician's "if"): -- "??", "???", "???", and "???" But back to 'condition' to mean "situation". Is this redundant? The way "condition" meant to indicate counterfactual explains why we license the below as _non_-redundant: In a commentary on Rawls at _www.statemaster_ (http://www.statemaster) I read: "the state of nature is used in social-contract theories to describe the hypothetical condition of humanity before the (institution of the contract)" It's not, but one wonders. At least it's not a conjunctive addition. (This may relate to that post by Aune, where he said "By if I meant if, not iff" ---- which provoked a post by yours truly this forum where I regard that, alla Horn, From if to iff (strenghening) it may be argued that the Chrysippean implication comes out as a conversational (but no more than that) implicatum of the Philonian implicatum (or something). I do mention Chrysippus (Palaeo-Strawson here), but I mean merely the 'if' to 'iff' strenghening as conversationally implicated. I drop onto the bargain the idea that the 'then', as used in if-then clauses kills Philo as it were (for Grice). Etc. JL Speranza --- From Baynesr at comcast.net Tue Feb 16 09:55:54 2010 From: Baynesr at comcast.net (Baynesr at comcast.net) Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2010 14:55:54 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [hist-analytic] McPherson on Hobbes: status/simple market/possessive market In-Reply-To: <246e8.6cdba612.38a9ecb4@aol.com> Message-ID: <1843961769.3939551266332154712.JavaMail.root@sz0010a.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net> My first impression was that Hobbes offers very little to the analytical philosopher. But I think now that this was mistaken. Whereas Rawls moves to assert the primacy of the political over the moral ("comprehensive views"), Hobbes seeks, as MacPherson points out, a reduction of obligation to purely material principles related to the "possessive individualism" in the "possessive market place." What I will show is that having linked Rousseau and Rawls I can also show that Hobbes belongs in this group rather than those who adopt a more Lockean position. Much will depend on how we understand the idea of freedom. There is a seamless connection between Hobbes on Man and Hobbes on the Commonwealth. Rawls tries the same thing, but his success is doubtful. Rawls loses sight of the individual, whereas Hobbes who would probably be somewhat sympathetic to Rawls does not. Everything depends on the nature of reciprocity which has not been sufficiently examined by past scholars. Once this is done we see much more clearly. Now ESSENTIAL to this, I think, is coming to grips with D. Lewis's treatment of Grice in his work on convention. I am deferring that until I get clearer on freedom among contractarians . Then back to Grice ! What Rawls doens't capture is the relation of individuals in a market economy (of any of the sorts discussed) to contract. Understandablyt since his "methodological avoidance" of "comprehensive views" leads him down that road. Regards Steve ----- Original Message ----- From: Jlsperanza @ aol .com To: hist-analytic@ simplelists .co. uk Sent: Sunday, February 14, 2010 4:17:56 PM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific Subject: McPherson on Hobbes: status/simple market/possessive market --- In a message dated 2/14/2010 6:48:23 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, ? Baynesr @comcast.net writes: "What characterizes all of them ?are certain market conditions. They are The Status Society, the Simple ?Market Society and the the Possessive ?Market Society." --- These are very good. As you say _anything_ that analyses or cares to ? analyse what was meant by Hobbes by his state of 'nature' is welcome! --- A good point about the 'myth' , other than the Cassirer thing you quote ? (I like Cassirer ) is the idea of ?? 'evolutionary' . Wonder if McPherson talks about it, or considers that the passage from ? those three sub-varieties onto 'the state we're in' is viewed as ? 'evolutionary' . I tried to track down the use of 'evolutionary' in Grice , but failed (to ? what extent, for example, the conventional, arbitrary, system of signs we call ? 'language' we have is an evolution over pooh-pooh). ?? If McPherson is abstracting, and thinking as you say that this ?is counter-factual, etc he must be keeping at leas the _desires_ as fixed. No ? evolution there. So he may need a 'change' of conditions, environment, or ? whatever, to 'justify' or at least 'explain' the change from one status to the ? other (or state to the other). This would be, as you say, 'de facto' . (If you ? say that). Rather than 'de iure' . ??At this point, he (or your reading of him) may want to consider ?whether that is not a bit 'rough' , or too rough. We may claim that our desires ?have NOT changed, but the point for a philosopher to (at least) conceive is ? whether they should NOT have changed. It is when we find Hobbes's views as ? _explanatory_ rather than descriptive that we start caring for him as a ? 'philosopher' . For an account of how the transition from one state to the other ? is achieved along empirical lines we go to palaeontology, archaeology, history, ?prehistory, sociology, biosociology , ethology, even economics. For a ? philosophical _theory_ or as I prefer 'analysis' , we go to philosophers: we go ?to Hobbes. (We may NOT go to McPherson if you'll tell me he only taught, say, ?Ethology at ... -- just joking!) ??(So perhaps you can provide briefly, in terms of agents's desires, ?in what ways those three substates consist and diverge. And what main ? 'transmutation' is effected in the State 2 -- with the previous ones as State 1, ? State 1' and State 1".). ? JLS -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Jlsperanza at aol.com Tue Feb 16 10:28:27 2010 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2010 10:28:27 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] McPherson's Hobbes: 'possessive individualism' Message-ID: <73e0.4d24d839.38ac139b@aol.com> In a message dated 2/16/2010 9:56:38 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, Baynesr at comcast.net writes: Hobbes seeks, as MacPherson points out, a reduction of obligation to purely material principles related to the "possessive individualism" in the "possessive market place." ----- I would think this trades on Locke's (later) views on 'property rights'. For what is to have a property right but a right to _possess_. -- Expansion on Hobbes's own terms here (not 'possess' I would expect) a good thing. -- One bit of a good area: if we are going to focus on 'reciprocality', or reciprocity, the idea of -- the 'common good', or the very 'common' or 'communal property', or 'shared property'. This seems to be something that cannot indeed be _reduced_ to 'individualistic posession'. -- The house that Jack built. -- belongs to Jack. -- On Jack's demise the Jack belongs to Tom-and-Jerry. --Tom-and-Jerry own the house. ------ Ergo Tom owns the house. --- I would accept the conclusion above as 'implicatural'. I.e. the idea that we are asked to provide maximal informativeness seems irrelevant. It's still true that Tom 'owns' the house. Sure, he cannot 'sell' it, but then perhaps he 'can' sell it (i.e. we are not saying that 'he only' can sell it). Etc. I love the idea ('idea') of obligation cashing out in desire, as it were. And I'm ready to take the Lockean defense here! (the seamless connection Hobbes-Locke-Grice, if you wish!) Looking forward to your defense of Grice, I hope, contra Lewis. This below was posted elsewhere, and I'm contributing it to the hist-anal files then... Begin forwarded message below. Lakoff cajoled onto discussing Grice etc by _yours truly_. Cheers, J. L. Speranza -- ===== begin forwarded message Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2002 16:59:18 -0800 ( PST) From: George Lakoff To: cogling at ucsd.edu Subject: Re: Convention and metaphor Errors-To: cogling-errors at ucsd.edu Sender: cogling-relay at ucsd.edu Reply-To: George Lakoff X-MailScanner: PASSED (v1.2.7 95540 gAR1L1SX019258 mailbox5.ucsd.edu) X-UCL-PHONETICS-&-LINGUISTICS-MailScanner: Found to be clean Grice, Lewis, and Metaphor Theory It is nice to see good ol' topics from the 60's - Paul Grice's implicatures and David Lewis' conventionality - taken up again. The phenomena need to reconsidered seriously within the cognitive linguistics context. But when Sherman Wilcox writes "I admit to knowing not a stitch of Davidson," I fear that he isn't the only one, and that most folks in the cognitive linguistics tradition may also not know the context of Grice's and Lewis' work either. Since I shared a history with them (they were friends of mine back when I was working on logic), I think a bit that history might be useful - especially since it is relevant to the current discussion. Their work cannot now be taken at face value and has to be thought of in a historical perspective, for reasons that will become clear below. Paul Grice's lectures on implicature (Language and Conversation) were given as the William James Lectures at Harvard in 1967. I was teaching there at the time and I attended. David Lewis was a grad student there and, I believe, he was in the room too. Grice's intent was conservative. Strawson had given lots of examples showing the inadequacy of Russell's symbolic logic in general and his Theory of Descriptions in particular. Grice was defending Russell. His argument was that you could keep Russellian logic for semantics and truth conditions, while getting the real natural language examples right by adding a theory of conversation on top of the logic. Since I was trying to incorporate logic and pragmatics into linguistics at the time (1967), I became enamored of Paul's work. He, however, refused to publish it. I managed to get a copy and distributed over 1,000 copies through the linguistic underground by 1973, and also managed to get chapter 2 published in the Cole-Morgan volume on Speech Acts in 1975. (The story involves a bar in Austin, Texas.) Paul was an objectivist who insisted that all meaning was literal. Nonetheless, much of Paul's work was insightful - although his one metaphor example was pitifully analyzed. The only way Paul's theory could deal with metaphor was to claim that metaphors had a literal meaning conveyed via implicature. Searle later tried applying this idea in his paper on metaphor in the Ortony volume, a disastrous attempt. During the 70's, Paul's work became taken very seriously by those trying to keep formal logic as a theory of thought - with the result that it got reinterpreted - for good reason. Gazdar did a formalization within logic of the maxim of quantity in his dissertation. Grice's student Deirdre Wilson (she had typed his manuscript) realized that all the maxims could be seen as instances of relevance. Her theory of relevance also tried to preserve formal logic as a theory of semantics. When Fillmore formulated frame semantics, I realized that relevance - and with it Gricean implicature - could be handled via frame-based inference with a cognitive linguistics framework. The formal mechanism for doing this precisely did not exist then (the 70's), though it does now - Narayanan's simulation semantics within NTL. It would be a great thesis topic for someone to work out the technical details now that a technical mechanism is available. David Lewis' Harvard dissertation on Convention was a product of the same era - 1968, if I remember correctly. David was also an objectivist - of the most extreme variety. It's worth taking a look at his essay in the Davidson-Harman volume of the Semantics of Natural Language, where he argues that meaning has nothing to do with psychology - neither mind nor brain. For David, meaning could only be a correspondence between formal symbols and the objective world, where the objective world was taken as being modeled via set-theoretical models. The symbols were to be linked to the world-models via some mathematical function. For human languages, that function he claimed was determined by convention - which is why he wrote his thesis on the topic. But "convention" could not be could not be a matter of human psychology for David; it had to be objective as well. David's idea was to use the economic theory of his time - utility theory - to provide what he took as an objectivist account of convention, since utility was seen as something objective in the world. The irony here, of course, is that Danny Kahneman, my former cognitive science colleague at Berkeley - now at Princeton - just won the Nobel Prize in economics for proving that such a view of economics cannot be maintained. The examples he used were cases that revealed how people really reason: by prototype, frame, and metaphor - the staples of cognitive linguistics. David's work, like Paul's, was insightful, despite the objectivist intellectual tradition in which it was embedded. They were both super-smart people who transcended the theories they were brought up with. Both theories were exemplary products of their time, the late 60's (a period I enjoyed and am particularly fond of). But the intellectual tradition in which the theories were embedded cannot be taken seriously today, and so the work cannot be taken at face value. The theories were formulated before the age of cognitive science and neuroscience. We now know from those fields that objectivism is false (see the survey in Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things and the update in Philosophy in the Flesh). We know that every aspect of thought and language works through human brains, which are structured to run bodies and which create understandings that are not objectively true of the world. Metaphor is an important part of this story. The neural theory of metaphor (see PITF) explains how the system of conceptual metaphor is learned, why certain conceptual metaphors are universal and others are not, why the system is structured around primary metaphor, why metaphor acquisition works as it does, why conceptual metaphors preserve image-schemas, why metaphorical inference works as it does, and why conceptual metaphors tend to take sensory-motor concepts as conceptual source domains and non-sensory-motor concepts as targets. Convention also makes sense only in neural terms. What each of us takes as conventional must be instantiated in our synapses. The question is, what is the mechanism? In some cases, the usage-based theories of gradual entrenchment may make sense. For other cases, they don't. Metaphor is a case where those theories make no sense, as I pointed out in my previous note. The old entrenchment theories simply cannot explain what the neural theory of metaphor explains. Bill Croft aks, "How can a linguist decide whether a metaphor is conventional?" and he claims, "There is no easy way, and little or no research that I know of on the topic (please direct me to any!)." It is true that there is no easy way. The work is hard. But there is a huge amount of research on the topic. I refer him to chapter 6 of Philosophy in the Flesh (pp. 81-87), where nine forms of convergent evidence are listed - and to the references at the end of the book, where massive literature on the research is cited. Croft himself, for all his many accomplishments, is, to my knowledge, not a metaphor researcher. For those who are, there's a lot to know. In summary: Cognitive linguistics is committed to being consistent with what is known about the brain and the mind. That changes over time, and cognitive linguistics must change with it. Entrenched ideas about entrenchment may have to change as well. The ideas of Paul Grice and David Lewis from the 60's cannot just be taken over into cognitive linguistics as they were formulated. They cannot be taken at face value. They have to be rethought on the basis of what has been learned since. This is not just true of Grice and Lewis. My old work on generative semantics from the 60's had lots of neat insights as well. But they too have to be rethought. Some can be translated into cognitive linguistics - others cannot. None of this is easy or obvious. It is important to know the history of all this work. Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it. Best wishes to all, George ===== end forwarded message JL Speranza From baynesrb at yahoo.com Tue Feb 16 11:29:15 2010 From: baynesrb at yahoo.com (steve bayne) Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2010 08:29:15 -0800 (PST) Subject: [hist-analytic] McPherson's Hobbes: 'possessive individualism' Message-ID: <550361.13596.qm@web36505.mail.mud.yahoo.com> JL, Let me get back to you on much of this, especially the Lakoff stuff. Keep in mind that Hobbes predates Locke. Locke has a very involved theory of property, but Hobbes was the first to integrate the emergence of a market view of the world into a theory of government. HIs approach displaced much of the theology that had preceded him. This was somewhat anticipated by Grotius, who deserves a bit more credit than MacPherson is will to admit. Lakoff is a positively wonderful thinker and, from my limited experience, human being. I met him once at a cognitive science conference where I gave a paper on modeling causal relations. Lackoff's rejection of compositionality confirmed every suspicion I've had about attempting this sort of modeling. Anyway, he's very good and most impottantly intellectually honest. Regards Steve --- On Tue, 2/16/10, Jlsperanza at aol.com wrote: From: Jlsperanza at aol.com Subject: McPherson's Hobbes: 'possessive individualism' To: hist-analytic at simplelists.co.uk Date: Tuesday, February 16, 2010, 10:28 AM In a message dated 2/16/2010 9:56:38 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,? Baynesr at comcast.net writes: Hobbes seeks, as MacPherson points out, a? reduction of obligation to purely material principles related to the? "possessive individualism" in the "possessive market? place." ----- I would think this trades on Locke's (later) views? on 'property rights'. For what is to have a property right but a right to? _possess_. -- Expansion on Hobbes's own terms here (not 'possess' I would? expect) a good thing. -- One bit of a good area: if we are going to focus on? 'reciprocality', or reciprocity, the idea of -- the 'common good', or the? very 'common' or 'communal property', or 'shared property'. This seems to be? something that cannot indeed be _reduced_ to 'individualistic? posession'. -- The house that Jack built. -- belongs to? Jack. -- On Jack's demise the Jack belongs to? Tom-and-Jerry. --Tom-and-Jerry own the? house. ------ Ergo Tom owns the? house. --- I would accept the conclusion above as 'implicatural'. I.e.? the idea that we are asked to provide maximal informativeness seems irrelevant.? It's still true that Tom 'owns' the house. Sure, he cannot 'sell' it, but then? perhaps he 'can' sell it (i.e. we are not saying that 'he only' can sell it). Etc. I love the idea ('idea') of obligation cashing out in desire, as it? were. And I'm ready to take the Lockean defense here! (the seamless connection? Hobbes-Locke-Grice, if you wish!) Looking forward to your defense of? Grice, I hope, contra Lewis. This below was posted elsewhere, and I'm? contributing it to the hist-anal files then... Begin forwarded? message below. Lakoff cajoled onto discussing Grice etc by _yours truly_.? Cheers, J. L. Speranza -- ===== begin forwarded message Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2002? 16:59:18 -0800 ( PST) From: George Lakoff ? To: cogling at ucsd.edu Subject: Re: Convention and metaphor Errors-To:? cogling-errors at ucsd.edu Sender: cogling-relay at ucsd.edu Reply-To: George? Lakoff X-MailScanner: PASSED (v1.2.7? 95540 gAR1L1SX019258 mailbox5.ucsd.edu)? X-UCL-PHONETICS-&-LINGUISTICS-MailScanner: Found to be clean? Grice, Lewis, and Metaphor Theory? It is nice to see good ol'? topics from the 60's - Paul Grice's implicatures and David Lewis'? conventionality - taken up again. The phenomena need to reconsidered? seriously within the cognitive linguistics context. But when Sherman Wilcox? writes "I admit to knowing not a stitch of Davidson," I fear that he isn't? the only one, and that most folks in the cognitive linguistics tradition? may also not know the context of Grice's and Lewis' work either. Since I? shared a history with them (they were friends of mine back when I was? working on logic), I think a bit that history might be useful - especially? since it is relevant to the current discussion. Their work cannot now be? taken at face value and has to be thought of in a historical perspective,? for reasons that will become clear below.? Paul Grice's lectures on? implicature (Language and Conversation) were given as the William James? Lectures at Harvard in 1967. I was teaching there at the time and I? attended. David Lewis was a grad student there and, I believe, he was in the? room too. Grice's intent was conservative. Strawson had given lots of? examples showing the inadequacy of Russell's symbolic logic in general and? his Theory of Descriptions in particular. Grice was defending Russell.? His argument was that you could keep Russellian logic for semantics and? truth conditions, while getting the real natural language examples right by? adding a theory of conversation on top of the logic. Since I was trying to? incorporate logic and pragmatics into linguistics at the time (1967), I? became enamored of Paul's work. He, however, refused to publish it. I? managed to get a copy and distributed over 1,000 copies through the? linguistic underground by 1973, and also managed to get chapter 2 published? in the Cole-Morgan volume on Speech Acts in 1975. (The story involves a bar? in Austin, Texas.) Paul? was an objectivist who insisted that all meaning was literal. Nonetheless,? much of Paul's work was insightful - although his one metaphor example was? pitifully analyzed. The only way Paul's theory could deal with metaphor was? to claim that metaphors had a literal meaning conveyed via implicature.? Searle later tried applying this idea in his paper on metaphor in the Ortony? volume, a disastrous attempt.? During the 70's, Paul's work? became taken very seriously by those trying to keep formal logic as a theory? of thought - with the result that it got reinterpreted - for good reason.? Gazdar did a formalization within logic of the maxim of quantity in his? dissertation. Grice's student Deirdre Wilson (she had typed his? manuscript) realized that all the maxims could be seen as instances of? relevance. Her theory of relevance also tried to preserve formal logic as a? theory of semantics. When Fillmore formulated frame semantics, I realized? that relevance - and with it Gricean implicature - could be handled via? frame-based inference with a cognitive linguistics framework. The formal? mechanism for doing this precisely did not exist then (the 70's), though it? does now - Narayanan's simulation semantics within NTL. It would be a great? thesis topic for someone to work out the technical details now that a? technical mechanism is available.? David Lewis' Harvard? dissertation on Convention was a product of the same era - 1968, if I? remember correctly. David was also an objectivist - of the most extreme? variety. It's worth taking a look at his essay in the Davidson-Harman volume? of the Semantics of Natural Language, where he argues that meaning has? nothing to do with psychology - neither mind nor brain. For David, meaning? could only be a correspondence between formal symbols and the objective? world, where the objective world was taken as being modeled via? set-theoretical models. The symbols were to be linked to the? world-models via some mathematical function. For human languages, that? function he claimed was determined by convention - which is why he wrote his? thesis on the topic. But "convention" could not be could not be a matter of? human psychology for David; it had to be objective as well. David's idea was? to use the economic theory of his time - utility theory - to provide what he? took as an objectivist account of convention, since utility was seen as? something objective in the world. The irony here, of course, is that Danny? Kahneman, my former cognitive science colleague at Berkeley - now at? Princeton - just won the Nobel Prize in economics for proving that such a? view of economics cannot be maintained. The examples he used were cases that? revealed how people really reason: by prototype, frame, and metaphor -? the staples of cognitive linguistics.? David's work, like Paul's,? was insightful, despite the objectivist intellectual tradition in which it? was embedded. They were both super-smart people who transcended the theories? they were brought up with. Both theories were exemplary products of their? time, the late 60's (a period I enjoyed and am particularly fond of). But? the intellectual tradition in which the theories were embedded cannot be? taken seriously today, and so the work cannot be taken at face value. The? theories were formulated before the age of cognitive science and? neuroscience. We now know from those fields that objectivism is false (see? the survey in Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things and the update in Philosophy? in the Flesh). We know that every aspect of thought and language works? through human brains, which are structured to run bodies and which create? understandings that are not objectively true of the world.? Metaphor is an important part? of this story. The neural theory of metaphor (see PITF) explains how the? system of conceptual metaphor is learned, why certain conceptual metaphors? are universal and others are not, why the system is structured around? primary metaphor, why metaphor acquisition works as it does, why conceptual? metaphors preserve image-schemas, why metaphorical inference works as it? does, and why conceptual metaphors tend to take sensory-motor concepts as? conceptual source domains and non-sensory-motor concepts as targets.? Convention also makes sense? only in neural terms. What each of us takes as conventional must be? instantiated in our synapses. The question is, what is the mechanism? In? some cases, the usage-based theories of gradual entrenchment may make sense.? For other cases, they don't. Metaphor is a case where those theories make no? sense, as I pointed out in my previous note. The old entrenchment theories? simply cannot explain what the neural theory of metaphor explains.? Bill Croft aks, "How can a? linguist decide whether a metaphor is conventional?" and he claims, "There? is no easy way, and little or no research that I know of on the topic? (please direct me to any!)." It is true that there is no easy way. The work? is hard. But there is a huge amount of research on the topic. I refer him to? chapter 6 of Philosophy in the Flesh (pp. 81-87), where nine forms of? convergent evidence are listed - and to the references at the end of the? book, where massive literature on the research is cited. Croft himself, for? all his many accomplishments, is, to my knowledge, not a metaphor? researcher. For those who are, there's a lot to know.? In summary: Cognitive? linguistics is committed to being consistent with what is known about the? brain and the mind. That changes over time, and cognitive linguistics must? change with it. Entrenched ideas about entrenchment may have to change as? well. The ideas of Paul Grice and David Lewis from the 60's cannot just be? taken over into cognitive linguistics as they were formulated. They? cannot be taken at face value. They have to be rethought on the basis of? what has been learned since. This is not just true of Grice and Lewis. My? old work on generative semantics from the 60's had lots of neat insights as? well. But they too have to be rethought. Some can be translated into? cognitive linguistics - others cannot. None of this is easy or obvious. It? is important to know the history of all this work. Those who do not know? history are doomed to repeat it. Best wishes to all, George? ===== end forwarded message JL Speranza From Jlsperanza at aol.com Tue Feb 16 11:45:59 2010 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2010 11:45:59 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Grotius -- and Grice: important philosophers whose surnames beging with "Gr". Message-ID: I'm glad to be able to share the Lakoff bit with you. I read and re-read it and learn more things about it. I especially like his story behind getting Grice contributing that "Logic and Conversation" piece to Cole/Morgan (that also included Lakoff/Johnson, Conversational Postulates). He also (Lakoff did) 10,000 copies of it for the 1973 Performadillo thing, so if one person is responsible for the fame and infame of the implicature, you know! --- I love Grotius! --- JLS -- and there's Grandy, too. --- In a message dated 2/16/2010 11:29:57 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, baynesrb at yahoo.com writes: This was somewhat anticipated by Grotius, who deserves a bit more credit than MacPherson is will to admit. Lakoff is a positively wonderful thinker and, from my limited experience, human being. I met him once at a cognitive science conference where I gave a paper on modeling causal relations. Lackoff's rejection of compositionality confirmed every suspicion I've had about attempting this sort of modeling. Anyway, he's very good and most impottantly intellectually honest. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From baynesrb at yahoo.com Tue Feb 16 12:23:03 2010 From: baynesrb at yahoo.com (steve bayne) Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2010 09:23:03 -0800 (PST) Subject: [hist-analytic] Grotius -- and Grice: important philosophers whose surnames beging with "Gr". In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <105155.69796.qm@web36502.mail.mud.yahoo.com> I wouldn't be surprised if Grice moved Lakoff away from compositionality. Remember back in the old days of Katz/Lakoff, both of these chaps were friendly to compositionality. I read Lakoff's Fire, Women and Other Dangerous Things. His discussion of paradigms is really good and he is remarkably entertaining as well as informed. You might just let him know you posted this, as he might be queried since it's in the very nice Archive set up by Roger. Regards Steve --- On Tue, 2/16/10, Jlsperanza at aol.com wrote: > From: Jlsperanza at aol.com > Subject: Grotius -- and Grice: important philosophers whose surnames beging with "Gr". > To: hist-analytic at simplelists.co.uk > Date: Tuesday, February 16, 2010, 11:45 AM > > > > > > I'm glad to be able to share the Lakoff bit with > you. I read and re-read it > and learn more things about it. I especially like his story > behind getting Grice > contributing that "Logic and Conversation" piece > to Cole/Morgan (that also > included Lakoff/Johnson, Conversational Postulates). He > also (Lakoff did) 10,000 > copies of it for the 1973 Performadillo thing, so if one > person is responsible > for the fame and infame of the implicature, you know! > > --- > > I love Grotius! > > --- > > JLS > -- and there's Grandy, too. > > --- > > > In a message dated 2/16/2010 11:29:57 A.M. Eastern > Standard Time, > baynesrb at yahoo.com writes: > This > was > somewhat anticipated by Grotius, who deserves a bit > more credit than > MacPherson is will to admit. > > Lakoff is a positively wonderful thinker > and, from my > limited experience, human being. I met him once > at a > cognitive science conference where I gave a paper > on modeling causal > relations. Lackoff's rejection > of compositionality confirmed every > suspicion I've > had about attempting this sort of modeling. Anyway, > he's > very good and most impottantly intellectually > honest. > > > > > --- On Tue, 2/16/10, Jlsperanza at aol.com wrote: > From: Jlsperanza at aol.com > Subject: Grotius -- and Grice: important philosophers whose surnames beging with "Gr". > To: hist-analytic at simplelists.co.uk > Date: Tuesday, February 16, 2010, 11:45 AM > > > > > > I'm glad to be able to share the Lakoff bit with > you. I read and re-read it > and learn more things about it. I especially like his story > behind getting Grice > contributing that "Logic and Conversation" piece > to Cole/Morgan (that also > included Lakoff/Johnson, Conversational Postulates). He > also (Lakoff did) 10,000 > copies of it for the 1973 Performadillo thing, so if one > person is responsible > for the fame and infame of the implicature, you know! > ? > --- > ? > I love Grotius! > ? > --- > ? > JLS > ? -- and there's Grandy, too. > ? > --- > ? > > In a message dated 2/16/2010 11:29:57 A.M. Eastern > Standard Time, > baynesrb at yahoo.com writes: > This > was > somewhat anticipated by Grotius, who deserves a bit > more credit than > MacPherson is will to admit. > > Lakoff is a positively wonderful thinker > and, from my > limited experience, human being. I met him once > at a > cognitive science conference where I gave a paper > on modeling causal > relations. Lackoff's rejection > of compositionality confirmed every > suspicion I've > had about attempting this sort of modeling. Anyway, > he's > very good and most impottantly intellectually > honest. > > > > > From Jlsperanza at aol.com Tue Feb 16 12:19:45 2010 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2010 12:19:45 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Grice and Schelling and von Neumann Message-ID: Some commentary on this post by Lakoff then: "It is nice to see good ol' topics from the 60's - Paul Grice's implicatures and David Lewis' conventionality - taken up again." Exactly. As Grice would say, if philosophy generated the same old problems, it would be dead, though! So we hope there's a change of idiom, somehow! "most folks in the cognitive linguistics tradition may also not know the context of Grice's and Lewis' work either." --- This Does NOT apply to Baynes and J. L. Speranza. They know what they are talking about, and they are NOT in the cognitive linguistics tradition! (Personally, I'm only in the Gricean tradition, and when pressed, but count me on the Grecian tradition _any day_. "David Lewis was a grad student there and, I believe, he was in the room too." -- and listening. He failed to implicate that, but that's what he meant. I know because M. Wrigley attended Grice's conferences on Locke in Oxford, and while he _was_ in the room, he wasn't listening! -- (I love Wrigley). "I managed to get a copy and distributed over 1,000 copies through the linguistic underground by 1973" --- Oops. Not 10,000. I see they can multiply easily though! In a way, there was a problem with (c) here, but Grice never cared! (Now of course it's all protected by (c) The Estate of H. P. Grice. No more those old games! ---- "and also managed to get chapter 2 published in the Cole-Morgan volume on Speech Acts in 1975. (The story involves a bar in Austin, Texas.) " --- where Grice was _forced_, as it were, or 'intoxicated' into doing it. But of course Grice never cited Cole/Morgan. He only cared to cite Davidson/Harman who had published it before then in "Grammar and Logic" for Dickinson, California, "The grammar of logic". This was a two-column per page thing. It was only in (1989) WoW that Grice acquired full rights to his own thing -- since the day it had been typed out of his handwritten notes which is the only date he gives: 1967. --- "although his one metaphor example was pitifully analyzed." Lakoff (who married Robin Talmach, another good ol' Gricean) is referring to You're the cream in my coffee (title of song) as analysed by J. L. S. to pitiful effects! ---- "Searle later tried applying this idea in his paper on metaphor in the Ortony volume, a disastrous attempt." Bayne refers to Lakoff's honesty, and I agree, but I think this use of 'disastrous' as applied to anything Gricean is a bit, 'disastrous'? --- Lakoff goes on to mention Gazdar's ("bucket" and the device that allows for frame-semantics, and advises someone to write a thesis on this -- not me!) ---- Now for Lewis -- which deals more directly with Bayne's current lovely project -- or how to teach a lesson in pure philosophy to Rawlsian Lakoff writes: "David Lewis' Harvard dissertation on Convention was a product of the same era - 1968, if I remember correctly." I was mentioning in CogLing that Lewis's title of the dissertation was: "Conventions OF LANGUAGE" And it's a good thing that he dropped "of language" when the thing got book-published. Thesis advisor was Quine. Grice NEVER thought 'convention' had ANYTHING to do with anything! ---- Lakoff: "David was also an objectivist - of the most extreme variety. It's worth taking a look at his essay in the Davidson-Harman volume of the Semantics of Natural Language, where he argues that meaning has nothing to do with psychology - neither mind nor brain." Interesting that Lakoff should mention this, because it's in Davidson/Harman, 1975, though, that Grice 1975, Logic and Conversation also appeared. I would need to know more details about this. I would think that Grice, a self-appointed, self-defined, etc. 'philosopher' would rather have his stuff published by philosophers as Davidson and Harman are or were rather than Cole/Morgan. --- "For David [Kellog Lewis] meaning could only be a correspondence between formal symbols and the objective world, where the objective world was taken as being modeled via set-theoretical models. The symbols were to be linked to the world-models via some mathematical function. For human languages, that function he claimed was determined by convention - which is why he wrote his thesis on the topic." --- But NOT for Grice who in 1967 was having a variable 'c' for modes of correlation (now in WoW). These are: i ---- iconic c --- conventional o --- other. I.e. Grice is saying that convention is only ONE mode of correlation and certainly not the essential one. "Meaning is not essentially tied to convention" (Grice WoW:MR). Lakoff is writing for linguists or cognitive linguists, not for philosophers, necessarily!) "But "convention" could not be could not [sic] be a matter of human psychology for David; it had to be objective as well. David's idea was to use the economic theory of his time - utility theory - to provide what he took as an objectivist account of convention, since utility was seen as something objective in the world." This is Lakoff's lovely tirade agaisnt objectivism. I have another reading. As a philosopher (as Lewis and Grice were -- Lakoff more of a logician? Don't know) ANALYSIS is the only viable way. So what Lewis is proposing is an analysis, never mind 'objective'. ---- Lakoff goes on: "The irony here, of course, is that Danny Kahneman, my former cognitive science colleague at Berkeley - now at Princeton - just won the Nobel Prize in economics for proving that such a view of economics cannot be maintained." The irony being that it was unmerited? :) "The examples he used were cases that revealed how people really reason: by prototype, frame, and metaphor - the staples of cognitive linguistics. " -- but what do those Swedes know? Just teasing. "David's work, like Paul's, was insightful, despite the objectivist intellectual tradition in which it was embedded." So back to the economy model. This is in reference to posts of mine in that list re: Schelling, von Neumann, the co-ordination problem of 'convention', etc. The idea that 'convention' is NOT a primitive term, and that it involves a reductive analysis to other notions. And what's wrong with utility, as Gr--- I mean, Grotius would say? "David's idea was to use the economic theory of his time - utility theory - to provide what he took as an objectivist account of convention" Also because like Grice they were utilitarians at heart, and only later Kantians. The only reason to be a Kantian is to be able to ground utilitarianism. Grice was even amused to be called a 'futilitarian'! (I owe discussion with the great great great philosopher R. C. Stalnaker -- _contra_ Warner, JP 1991 -- on this point). Lakoff: "They were both super-smart people who transcended the theories they were brought up with. Both theories were exemplary products of their time, the late 60's (a period I enjoyed and am particularly fond of). But the intellectual tradition in which the theories were embedded cannot be taken seriously today," How about re-hushing them a bit? "and so the work cannot be taken at face value. The theories were formulated before the age of cognitive science and neuroscience. We now know from those fields that objectivism is false" But not KNOW that we know! Etc. Lakoff: "Convention also makes sense only in neural terms. What each of us takes as conventional must be instantiated in our synapses. The question is, what is the mechanism? In some cases, the usage-based theories of gradual entrenchment may make sense." Well, I'm pleased as a Gricean I don't have to deal with it ("Meaning is not essentially tied with convention" (WoW:MR). "This is not just true of Grice and Lewis. My old work on generative semantics from the 60's had lots of neat insights as well. But they too have to be rethought. Some can be translated into cognitive linguistics - others cannot. None of this is easy or obvious. It is important to know the history of all this work. Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it." Unless you join the Grice Club! J. L. Speranza Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2002 16:59:18 -0800 ( PST) From: George Lakoff To: cogling at ucsd.edu Subject: Re: Convention and metaphor Errors-To: cogling-errors at ucsd.edu Sender: cogling-relay at ucsd.edu Reply-To: George Lakoff X-MailScanner: PASSED (v1.2.7 95540 gAR1L1SX019258 mailbox5.ucsd.edu) X-UCL-PHONETICS-&-LINGUISTICS-MailScanner: Found to be clean Grice, Lewis, and Metaphor Theory It is nice to see good ol' topics from the 60's - Paul Grice's implicatures and David Lewis' conventionality - taken up again. The phenomena need to reconsidered seriously within the cognitive linguistics context. But when Sherman Wilcox writes "I admit to knowing not a stitch of Davidson," I fear that he isn't the only one, and that most folks in the cognitive linguistics tradition may also not know the context of Grice's and Lewis' work either. Since I shared a history with them (they were friends of mine back when I was working on logic), I think a bit that history might be useful - especially since it is relevant to the current discussion. Their work cannot now be taken at face value and has to be thought of in a historical perspective, for reasons that will become clear below. Paul Grice's lectures on implicature (Language and Conversation) were given as the William James Lectures at Harvard in 1967. I was teaching there at the time and I attended. David Lewis was a grad student there and, I believe, he was in the room too. Grice's intent was conservative. Strawson had given lots of examples showing the inadequacy of Russell's symbolic logic in general and his Theory of Descriptions in particular. Grice was defending Russell. His argument was that you could keep Russellian logic for semantics and truth conditions, while getting the real natural language examples right by adding a theory of conversation on top of the logic. Since I was trying to incorporate logic and pragmatics into linguistics at the time (1967), I became enamored of Paul's work. He, however, refused to publish it. I managed to get a copy and distributed over 1,000 copies through the linguistic underground by 1973, and also managed to get chapter 2 published in the Cole-Morgan volume on Speech Acts in 1975. (The story involves a bar in Austin, Texas.) Paul was an objectivist who insisted that all meaning was literal. Nonetheless, much of Paul's work was insightful - although his one metaphor example was pitifully analyzed. The only way Paul's theory could deal with metaphor was to claim that metaphors had a literal meaning conveyed via implicature. Searle later tried applying this idea in his paper on metaphor in the Ortony volume, a disastrous attempt. During the 70's, Paul's work became taken very seriously by those trying to keep formal logic as a theory of thought - with the result that it got reinterpreted - for good reason. Gazdar did a formalization within logic of the maxim of quantity in his dissertation. Grice's student Deirdre Wilson (she had typed his manuscript) realized that all the maxims could be seen as instances of relevance. Her theory of relevance also tried to preserve formal logic as a theory of semantics. When Fillmore formulated frame semantics, I realized that relevance - and with it Gricean implicature - could be handled via frame-based inference with a cognitive linguistics framework. The formal mechanism for doing this precisely did not exist then (the 70's), though it does now - Narayanan's simulation semantics within NTL. It would be a great thesis topic for someone to work out the technical details now that a technical mechanism is available. David Lewis' Harvard dissertation on Convention was a product of the same era - 1968, if I remember correctly. David was also an objectivist - of the most extreme variety. It's worth taking a look at his essay in the Davidson-Harman volume of the Semantics of Natural Language, where he argues that meaning has nothing to do with psychology - neither mind nor brain. For David, meaning could only be a correspondence between formal symbols and the objective world, where the objective world was taken as being modeled via set-theoretical models. The symbols were to be linked to the world-models via some mathematical function. For human languages, that function he claimed was determined by convention - which is why he wrote his thesis on the topic. But "convention" could not be could not be a matter of human psychology for David; it had to be objective as well. David's idea was to use the economic theory of his time - utility theory - to provide what he took as an objectivist account of convention, since utility was seen as something objective in the world. The irony here, of course, is that Danny Kahneman, my former cognitive science colleague at Berkeley - now at Princeton - just won the Nobel Prize in economics for proving that such a view of economics cannot be maintained. The examples he used were cases that revealed how people really reason: by prototype, frame, and metaphor - the staples of cognitive linguistics. David's work, like Paul's, was insightful, despite the objectivist intellectual tradition in which it was embedded. They were both super-smart people who transcended the theories they were brought up with. Both theories were exemplary products of their time, the late 60's (a period I enjoyed and am particularly fond of). But the intellectual tradition in which the theories were embedded cannot be taken seriously today, and so the work cannot be taken at face value. The theories were formulated before the age of cognitive science and neuroscience. We now know from those fields that objectivism is false (see the survey in Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things and the update in Philosophy in the Flesh). We know that every aspect of thought and language works through human brains, which are structured to run bodies and which create understandings that are not objectively true of the world. Metaphor is an important part of this story. The neural theory of metaphor (see PITF) explains how the system of conceptual metaphor is learned, why certain conceptual metaphors are universal and others are not, why the system is structured around primary metaphor, why metaphor acquisition works as it does, why conceptual metaphors preserve image-schemas, why metaphorical inference works as it does, and why conceptual metaphors tend to take sensory-motor concepts as conceptual source domains and non-sensory-motor concepts as targets. Convention also makes sense only in neural terms. What each of us takes as conventional must be instantiated in our synapses. The question is, what is the mechanism? In some cases, the usage-based theories of gradual entrenchment may make sense. For other cases, they don't. Metaphor is a case where those theories make no sense, as I pointed out in my previous note. The old entrenchment theories simply cannot explain what the neural theory of metaphor explains. Bill Croft aks, "How can a linguist decide whether a metaphor is conventional?" and he claims, "There is no easy way, and little or no research that I know of on the topic (please direct me to any!)." It is true that there is no easy way. The work is hard. But there is a huge amount of research on the topic. I refer him to chapter 6 of Philosophy in the Flesh (pp. 81-87), where nine forms of convergent evidence are listed - and to the references at the end of the book, where massive literature on the research is cited. Croft himself, for all his many accomplishments, is, to my knowledge, not a metaphor researcher. For those who are, there's a lot to know. In summary: Cognitive linguistics is committed to being consistent with what is known about the brain and the mind. That changes over time, and cognitive linguistics must change with it. Entrenched ideas about entrenchment may have to change as well. The ideas of Paul Grice and David Lewis from the 60's cannot just be taken over into cognitive linguistics as they were formulated. They cannot be taken at face value. They have to be rethought on the basis of what has been learned since. This is not just true of Grice and Lewis. My old work on generative semantics from the 60's had lots of neat insights as well. But they too have to be rethought. Some can be translated into cognitive linguistics - others cannot. None of this is easy or obvious. It is important to know the history of all this work. Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it. Best wishes to all, George -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Jlsperanza at aol.com Tue Feb 16 12:54:37 2010 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2010 12:54:37 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Grotius and Grice -- (was: Bayne and Speranza) Message-ID: I'm glad Bayne suspects that McPherson is not fair enough with Grotius! >From wiki: "[the man] laid the foundations for international law, based on natural law." and Grice was ALWAYS emphasing how natural things are once you look at them from the naturally natural point of view. This was the real Grice. When that infamous person wrote about the "causes of death of famous philosopher" he wrote: Grice: non-natural causes ! --- >From wiki, on Grotius Senior: "he groomed his son from an early age in a traditional humanist and Aristotelian education." Same cannot be said of Grice. His father was dead by the time he could care. It was ALL Grice's mother the one to congratulate here! But yes, he was groomed into a fine Aristotelian education alright. Chapman notes that since Grice could not attend a proper prep, this mother who ran this lah-di-dah school in the premises of his affluent mansion at Harborne, "would accept the Grices -- Paul and Derek" in her classes, provided they would not implicate too much." (or words). First google page for hits for "Grotius McPherson Hobbes" below. Enjoy! J. L. Speranza ---- [DOC] CORE TEXTS IN POLITICAL THEORYFile Format: Microsoft Word - View as HTML P. Zagorin 'Hobbes without Grotius' History of Political Thought vol. ... Also comments on C. B. Macpherson's interpretation of Hobbes as a 'possessive ... _www.sps.ed.ac.uk/__data/assets/word_doc/0004/.../Core_Texts_0910.doc_ (http://www.sps.ed.ac.uk/__data/assets/word_doc/0004/.../Core_Texts_0910.doc) The challenge of human rights: their origin, development, and ... - Google Books ResultJohn Mahoney - 2007 - Political Science - 215 pages Nevertheless, the point is worth noting that Grotius' near-parenthesis did prove of ... Hobbes and Rousseau As European philosophizing on natural rights ... books.google.com/books?isbn=1405152419... HOBBES, LOCKE AND PROFESSOR MACPHERSONHOBBES, LOCKE AND PROFESSOR MACPHERSON society would surely find Grotius's brand of individualism a truer expression of his needs than Hobbes's permanent ... doi.wiley.com/10.1111/j.1467-923X.1964.tb01998.x Economics 3LL3 - HobbesWhite Gent., Mr. Thomas Hobbs, and Hugo Grotius. .... C. B. Macpherson, 1962, The political theory of possessive individualism: Hobbes to Locke. ... socserv.mcmaster.ca/econ/ugcm/3ll3/hobbes/index.html - Cached - Similar C.B. Macpherson and the problem of liberal democracy - Google Books ResultJules Townshend - 2000 - Political Science - 191 pages Hobbes was concerned with the same problems as Grotius, namely how to build a ... In PI as already noted, Macpherson observed Hobbes' antipathy towards the ... books.google.com/books?isbn=1853312134... Hugo Grotius (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)by J Miller - 2005 When I hear Grotius praised to the skies and Hobbes covered with execration I see how far ...... Macpherson, C.B. (1962). The Political Theory of Possessive ... plato.stanford.edu/entries/grotius/ - Similar Amazon.com: greg taylor's review of Hobbes: A Very Short ...Tuck's volume on Hobbes is one of those republications. ... highlights Hobbes relationship to Montaigne, Machiavelli, Descartes and Grotius. ... Kant, the Utilitarians, Toennis, Leo Strauss, C.B. Macpherson, Cassirer, Oakeshott, ... _www.amazon.com/review/R2FHVFZY8I5HTO_ (http://www.amazon.com/review/R2FHVFZY8I5HTO) - Cached Property, mainstream and critical positions - Google Books ResultCrawford Brough Macpherson - 1978 - Business & Economics - 207 pages As previously shown, Hobbes, while professing to make all rights dependent ... Grotius had previously described ( 1 ) as a state of things in which everyone ... books.google.com/books?isbn=0802063365... The Distortions of Political Theory: The XVIIth Century Caseby L Krieger - 1964 - Related articles B. Macpherson, The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism: Hobbes .... read theorists of the century, may double for Grotius and Hobbes, ... _www.jstor.org/stable/2707902_ (http://www.jstor.org/stable/2707902) The Rights To Punish and Resist Punishment in Hobbes's Leviathan ...Grotius, Hugo. 1925. The Law of War and Peace. Trans. Francis W. Kelsey . ... Edited by C. B. Macpherson. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Hobbes, Thomas. 1840. ... prq.sagepub.com/cgi/content/refs/44/4/853 - Similar From Jlsperanza at aol.com Tue Feb 16 12:31:38 2010 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2010 12:31:38 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Grotius and Grice: The Importance of the Historical Context Message-ID: In a message dated 2/16/2010 12:25:24 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, baynesrb at yahoo.com writes: You might just let him know you posted this, as he might be queried since it's in the very nice Archive set up by Roger. ----- --- --- I should, yes! The text of the email from Lakoff I actually retrieved from another website, and it's in the public domain. (It was posted by R. A. Hudson to a public forum). I'm NOT familiar with cogling and the way posts are archived there. In any case, our ref., if pressed, is Hudson's redistributing Lakoff's post elsewhere. ----- Many of those lists are 'internal'. It seems Lakoff (I was only a member of CogLing for a time, and I don't Know if I'm still subscribed -- I unsubscribed to some of those lists, as I recall) is addressing the topics to who he regards as "linguists working in the cognitive linguistic tradition" etc. As a member of hist-analytic we know we are addressing the topics to historians of analytic philosophy. And when I really want to go "Gricean" I address them to griceclub.blogspot. But all is in the public domain, so there! Now back to Grotius! If Grotius and Grice were not Great, who was! Grice said, "We should treat those who were great and are now dead as if they were great (as they were) but were now ALIVE" ---- ! J. L. Speranza -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Jlsperanza at aol.com Sat Feb 20 17:42:09 2010 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Sat, 20 Feb 2010 17:42:09 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] "The Nothing [[It --JLS]self --JLS] Nothings" (Ayer, 1946:) Message-ID: <2a9f0.135c6de4.38b1bf41@aol.com> ------ I am discussing elsewhere this with R. B. Jones, but wonder if S. R. Bayne can give us a minute of his precious attention, to consider 'selbst'. Heidegger did write in his "What is metaphysics?" lecture, as typed, Das Nichts selbst nichtet. When in 1946 Ayer was popularising Vienna-Circle 'doctrine' in Oxford (and whereabouts, London) he skipped, like Carnap before him had, the 'selbst'. I wonder: The nothing nothings itself? Or Nothing itself nothings? ---- I am not too vernacular with German vernacular reflexives. But in English we do distinguish, I think, between: The Nothing self-nothings and The Nothing, itself, nothings (things which are not necessarily Nothing itself). I should contrast with other vernacular versions in other vernaculars. Sp. "La nada anonada", I think it goes. where: "Nada" is feminine, rather than a 'thing' -- but I think "Thing" was feminine in Old English, too. I think it's neuter in German (Ding) but Heidegger is not using 'ding' at all -- plain "Nichts". Eng. is very tricky here: There's Nought. But that's Ne-Ought. German "Nichts" itself is "Ne" plus "Ichts" which can also mean "aught", I understand. Sartre would have put it yet differently. Sp. 'anonada' for the verb, 'anonadar', is puzzling, in that the 'a-' prefix is NOT negative. It is just emphatic. "Nothing" turns things onto "nothing". "Ex nihilo nihil" sort of thing. Pap tr. the thing in 1959 in a different way, still. Etc. I'm not sure if German requires the 'it' in 'itself', or the 'her' in 'herself', etc. so one wonders about strict tr. of the Heideggerian 'selbst', etc. J. L. Speranza "Heidegger is the greatest living philosopher" Grice, WoW:18 --- google.books. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Baynesr at comcast.net Sun Feb 21 12:00:22 2010 From: Baynesr at comcast.net (Baynesr at comcast.net) Date: Sun, 21 Feb 2010 17:00:22 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [hist-analytic] Menger/Bohm-Bawerk "Paradox" In-Reply-To: <1734854486.5777621266771306342.JavaMail.root@sz0010a.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net> Message-ID: <737255931.5778711266771622646.JavaMail.root@sz0010a.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net> Karl Menger and Bohm-Bawerk had to make use of the term "class of wants" in order to refute the objections raised by those who considered bread as such more valuable than silk because the class "want of nourishment" is more important ?than the class "want of luxurious clothing." (Von Mises, Human Action, Foundation for Economic Education, p. 123) First, it should be noted that Von Mises is a fictionalist with respect to classes. That is, he believes they are "entirely superfluous." However, what is interesting is the relation of this "paradox" and the matter of marginal utility in economics. We must distinguish total utility and marginal utility. Take gold. If we consider its marginal utility, where 'marginal utility' means something like "the change that would accrue in satisfaction upon producing one additional unit product or service." In this case the marginal utility of gold is greater than iron: if I get one additional ounce of gold I'm financially better off that receiving one additional ounce of iron. BUT if we talk about total utility iron is more valuable that gold, since the world would lose considerably if ALL the iron disappeared as opposed to all the gold. What I find interesting about marginal utility, aside from its importance to economics, is how it resembles other notions that trade on the "margin." For example we can think of a morpheme as the smallest unit that makes a difference to meaning. So 'ly' may indicate t he adverbial. Thus morphology is a study of morphemes not definitions of meaning etc. There are other examples. Consider for example 'calorie' (in grams): "the energy required to raise the temperature a gram of water 1 ?C." Now this is very similar to the "marginal" notions except that the "margin" is predetermined. In any event, the Menger/Bohm-Bawerk "paradox" may conceal some interesting issues in philosophy of science. In future posts I may dealing with issues in philosophy of economics that interface the usual discussions in physics. What I'm "fishing" for is middle ground between Schumpeter and the business cycle people and the Austrians, even though Scumpeter was a student of Bohm-Bawerk. Regards Steve From rbj at rbjones.com Mon Feb 22 13:17:47 2010 From: rbj at rbjones.com (Roger Bishop Jones) Date: Mon, 22 Feb 2010 18:17:47 +0000 Subject: [hist-analytic] Grice's Betes Message-ID: <201002221817.47249.rbj@rbjones.com> I have given further consideration to Grice's Betes Noires and the risk that they would be an impediment to conversation with Carnap, and I have read at least some of what he writes of them in PGRICE (but cut of at page 81!). I would like to suggest that the key to Grice and Carnap understanding each other in this context is to make a distinction between different kinds of "Minimalism". The signs are that this is not a distinction which has occurred to Grice, but I believe it is key to understanding why not all minimalisation is as bad as Grice seems to think it is, and to his understanding of Carnap. The distinction I draw is between dogmatic minimalisation and pluralistic or pragmatic minimalisation. (there probably are three there, but for the time being I will treat the second two as one). The distinction is best understood by reference to phenomenalism and materialism. Grice cannot understand how someone can be both a phenomenalist and a materialist. Insofar as these are dogmatic minimalisms this seems to me reasonable. But Carnap is a pluralistic and a pragmatic minimalist, and as such he is both a phenomenalist (or would like to be if he could make it work) and a materialist (supposing that to be a reasonable description of his materialistic language). For Carnap the phemonemalistic language will be useful for some purposes, and the physicalistic for others, and either can be used for addressing the problems to which they are best suited. This pragmatic element is crucial in motivating much minimalism. Of course, that's not always the case. Many nominalists are dogmatic and will rejects the ontology of set theory without offering any other solution to the problems it addresses best. In mathematics, minimalisation is a way of simplifying the rigourisation of mathematics using formal systems. Its not a nominalistic minimalisation for it embraces a lavish abstract ontology, but the ontology is exclusively of pure well-founded extensional sets, so there is only one kind of abstract entity. One could have chosen some other kind of abstract entity, or a broader selection, but this one is the simplest and there are practical advantages in selecting just the one kind of entity. So its a good idea to chose. And you have to chose even if you are going to have lots of different kinds of abstract entity, there is always a minimalisation of kinds goind on in these foundational enterprises. It need not be a dogmatic minimalisation, one can (and many do) advocate and make use of such foundation systems, but accept any number of alternative and contradictory minimalisations, and even use different ones for different problems (though its likely to be simpler to stick to one). So the question is, if the idea of pluralistic minimalism could be made clear to Grice, would he be more tolerant of such minimalisms than he is of (what I like to call) dogmatic minimalisms? There are special issues to be addressed in connection with extensionalism, and probably for some other specific -isms, but I will leave these for another day. RBJ From Jlsperanza at aol.com Mon Feb 22 16:33:43 2010 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Mon, 22 Feb 2010 16:33:43 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] =?iso-8859-1?q?Grice=27s_B=EAtes_Noires=3A_the_Tw?= =?iso-8859-1?q?elve_of_Them=2C_and=2C_in_strict_Order_of_Appearanc?= =?iso-8859-1?q?e?= Message-ID: <156da.48f5b73b.38b45237@aol.com> also known as 'demons' (if not 'perilous places') "I am also adversely influenced by a different kind of unattractive feature which ... these b?tes noires seem to possess" (p. 68). --- And their lovely mother rearing her lovely head: Minimalism "As I thread my way unsteadily along the tortuous mountain path which is supposed to lead, in the long distance, to the City of Eternal Truth, I find myself beset by a multitude of demons and perilous places, bearing names like Extensionalism, Nominalism, Positivism, Naturalism, Mechanism, Phenomenalism, Reductionism, Physicalism, Materialism, Empiricism, Scepticism, and Functionalism." (Grice, Prejudices and Predilections -- vide Gr86). (cfr. "in strict order of apperance") In a message dated 2/22/2010 1:22:32 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, rbj at rbjones.com writes: if the idea of pluralistic minimalism could be made clear to Grice, would he be more tolerant of such minimalisms than he is of (what I like to call) dogmatic minimalisms? --- Of course, Roger! You are making Grice sound like an ogre, if that's the word! He would be willing to _talk_. He did, most of his life! Just a few points! ---- When you say that he doesn't understand ... how someone may be Phenomenalist and Materialist. Let's go back to that page 80. I don't think we NEED p. 81, just _now_. He is listing 'demons': -- Phenomanlism -- Materialism and he says that he is finding an antipathy for them all. A "twelvefold antipathy" he writes. He finds it agreeable, as it were, to refer to his 'twelvefold antipathy' to be directed towards "Minimalism". So I would make a distinction between your use of 'minimisation' --- for it's the whole totally black bete noire of the -ism that repelled Grice (on his way to the City of Eternal Truth, as he ironically puts it of course -- it's all a parody of Bunyan's boring protestant booklet!) ---- So, he is having those demons. And he has to have a caveat. "I'm not saying I ever met one person who personified them all" (or something). And _then_ he adds, "for, perhaps it is difficult to see how someone can provide support to both Materialism and Phenomenalism". So, while he would appreciate your distinctions, he is just indeed, merely pointing out that his is not a 'strawman' or more of a 'strawman' than it needs be. But I'll re-read your minimalisations with interest. At this point one wonders about Pragmatism! --- ! Now, in terms of Carnap. You are saying that Minimalism can wear many 'guises': there's a dogmatic Minimalism, and other: pluralistic and pragmatism. I would think he would, alas, have Pluralism as a bete noire. For he is saying, "a man, if a philosopher, and virtuous, is _entire_." One is not sure what he means, but I think he means consistency (in his dogmas, if you wish). We have to be careful when we speak of 'dogmas' with Grice. Whoelse or elsewho, would have written something with the typically British spelling, "In defence of a dogma" and get away with it. (Cfr. Grandy on underdogma as cited by Grice WoW:Mean.Rev.). So, he would NOT have favoured someone (I think his name is "Puddle") 'going': "Oh, I'm a materialist in _metaphysics_, when since on Thursdays I'm also teaching the Ethics seminar (he is on sabbatical, Harry) I am a non-naturalist to appease the Moorean among by pre-pubescent students". So one has to be careful. This leaves us with Minimalism, as it stood (for him). He is precise about Minimalism. In GriceClub, etc -- if we do search, etc. -- there's Trade, which is a word Grice uses for the point. It's a pretty complex simile, and I have to work on this for each of the 12 betes. But his idea is that each bete is a protectionist, and that as such she should be labelled a 'criminal'. And the place to sue her is the "Trade Commision" -- for philosophers. For a philosopher wants to use a device -- say: "abstract entity" as you mention them (why is it that Grice uses it in plural? Surely your idea of just one TYPE of abstract entity seems daemoniac enough!). -- I love a daemon, eudaemon. So Minimalism is dogmatically as you say blocking our desire for philosophical explanation. The best illustration is the breakdown of rationality that Hume thought had brought when it came to Ethics. Hume forked the thing in such a way that a moralist had to be an irrationalist. Kant Kant Cope That Cant, and wrote his long thing, Practical Reason Treatise, to show that there ARE rational guidelines in the realm of 'ought'. So, what was underlooked, or just DENIED, or rejected by Hume's minimalism is proved, to the Kantian amongst us, to have been protectionistically overlooked. I.e. there _are_ patterns of argument in ethics. With academia you never know. I mean, this is philosophy. They cannot really FAIL you if you keep sticking to Stevenson's emotivism! The standards for passing and dropping out and get a philo degree are not like dentistry! So everything is 'compromisable', etc. But you get my drift. Keep up the good work. If I propose a little Table of Categories for each of the beasts, I shall, here in Analytic. And S. R. Bayne SHOULD be joining in! (Not to mention Aune, Hall, and all the rest of them, provided it's with _good_ things). Cheers, JL JL Speranza From rbj at rbjones.com Tue Feb 23 16:09:55 2010 From: rbj at rbjones.com (Roger Bishop Jones) Date: Tue, 23 Feb 2010 21:09:55 +0000 Subject: [hist-analytic] =?iso-8859-1?q?Grice=27s_B=EAtes_Noires=3A_the_Tw?= =?iso-8859-1?q?elve_of_Them=2C_and=2C_in_strict_Order_of_Appearanc?= =?iso-8859-1?q?e?= In-Reply-To: <156da.48f5b73b.38b45237@aol.com> References: <156da.48f5b73b.38b45237@aol.com> Message-ID: <201002232109.55349.rbj@rbjones.com> On Monday 22 Feb 2010 21:33, Jlsperanza at aol.com wrote: > In a message dated 2/22/2010 1:22:32 P.M. Eastern > Standard Time, rbj at rbjones.com writes: > if the idea of pluralistic minimalism > could be made clear to Grice, would he be more tolerant > of such minimalisms than he is of (what I like to call) > dogmatic minimalisms? > > > --- Of course, Roger! > > You are making Grice sound like an ogre, if that's the > word! He would be willing to _talk_. He did, most of his > life! I think my tone is consistent with his: "After a more tolerant (permissive) middle age, I have come to entertain a strong opposition to them all..." > Just a few points! > > ---- When you say that he doesn't understand ... how > someone may be Phenomenalist and Materialist. Let's go > back to that page 80. I don't think we NEED p. 81, just > _now_. > > He is listing 'demons': > > -- Phenomanlism > -- Materialism > > and he says that he is finding an antipathy for them all. > A "twelvefold antipathy" he writes. He finds it > agreeable, as it were, to refer to his 'twelvefold > antipathy' to be directed towards "Minimalism". So I > would make a distinction between your use of > > 'minimisation' > > --- for it's the whole totally black bete noire of the > -ism that repelled Grice (on his way to the City of > Eternal Truth, as he ironically puts it of course -- > it's all a parody of Bunyan's boring protestant > booklet!) I don't understand the point you are making here about my use of the word "minimisation". In this context I intend only to mean by it the adoption of some minimalism. > So, he is having those demons. And he has to have a > caveat. > > "I'm not saying I ever met one person who personified > them all" (or something). > > And _then_ he adds, "for, perhaps it is difficult to see > how someone can provide support to both Materialism and > Phenomenalism". > > So, while he would appreciate your distinctions, he is > just indeed, merely pointing out that his is not a > 'strawman' or more of a 'strawman' than it needs be. > But I'll re-read your minimalisations with interest. At > this point one wonders about But I want him not to have appreciated the distinction, because if he has appreciated it and has not qualified his antipathy then I would have to conclude that he is opposed to the -isms even if they are pluralistic and/or pragmatic rather than dogmatic. If that were the case then the prospects for concord would be much diminished, and even those for profitable conversation might be at risk. > Pragmatism! > > --- ! > > Now, in terms of Carnap. > > You are saying that > > Minimalism > > can wear many 'guises': there's a dogmatic Minimalism, > and other: pluralistic and pragmatism. I don't say that he makes that distinction. It looks to me like he thinks of them all pragmatically. > I would think he would, alas, have > > Pluralism > > as a bete noire. For he is saying, "a man, if a > philosopher, and virtuous, is _entire_." One is not sure > what he means, but I think he means consistency (in his > dogmas, if you wish). We have to be careful when we > speak of 'dogmas' with Grice. Whoelse or elsewho, would > have written something with the typically British > spelling, "In defence of a dogma" and get away with it. > (Cfr. Grandy on underdogma as cited by Grice > WoW:Mean.Rev.). > > So, he would NOT have favoured someone (I think his name > is "Puddle") 'going': > > "Oh, I'm a materialist in _metaphysics_, > when since on Thursdays I'm also > teaching the Ethics seminar (he is > on sabbatical, Harry) I am a > non-naturalist to appease the > Moorean among by pre-pubescent > students". I don't think Carnap or I would talk quite that way. Its not we put on different hats, its just that we use languages, methods and tools which are appropriate to the problem at hand. You Grice sound worse than Carnap on the "unified language" front, admittedly only in philosophy, but perhaps more dogmatic. I don't think its difficult to find a lateral unity in philosophy without having to exorcise these demons. The lateral unity is surely in analytic method, and this is consistent with pragmatic minimalisms. > > So one has to be careful. > > This leaves us with Minimalism, as it stood (for him). > > He is precise about Minimalism. In GriceClub, etc -- if > we do search, etc. -- there's Trade, which is a word > Grice uses for the point. It's a pretty complex simile, > and I have to work on this for each of the 12 betes. But > his idea is that each bete is a protectionist, and that > as such she should be labelled a 'criminal'. And the > place to sue her is the "Trade Commision" -- for > philosophers. For a philosopher wants to use a device -- > say: "abstract entity" as you mention them (why is it > that Grice uses it in plural? Surely your idea of just > one TYPE of abstract entity seems daemoniac enough!). -- > I love a daemon, eudaemon. > > So Minimalism is dogmatically as you say blocking our > desire for philosophical explanation. But not unless its dogmatic minimalism. And Grice's cure is itself a dogmatism. Mathematicians work in set theory because it suits them best. Should they be castigated for doing so? They won't care if Grice does castigate them. > The best > illustration is the breakdown of rationality that Hume > thought had brought when it came to Ethics. Hume forked > the thing in such a way that a moralist had to be an > irrationalist. So you want ethics to be a branch of logic? > Kant Kant Cope That Cant, and wrote his > long thing, Practical Reason Treatise, to show that > there ARE rational guidelines in the realm of 'ought'. Well I'm not familiar with the story. The odds are that we are talking to cross purposes, just as in the case of Kripke's refutation of Carnap. But we will be stretched a bit thin if we take on ethics right now! > So, what was underlooked, or just DENIED, or rejected by > Hume's minimalism is proved, to the Kantian amongst us, > to have been protectionistically overlooked. > > I.e. there _are_ patterns of argument in ethics. I don't think there is any denial of that in Hume, or in Carnap. > Keep up the good work. If I propose a little Table of > Categories for each of the beasts, I shall, here in > Analytic. Well it looks like the demons will be fodder for debate for some time. RBJ From rbj at rbjones.com Tue Feb 23 17:23:07 2010 From: rbj at rbjones.com (Roger Bishop Jones) Date: Tue, 23 Feb 2010 22:23:07 +0000 Subject: [hist-analytic] =?iso-8859-1?q?Grice=27s_B=EAtes_Noires=3A_the_Tw?= =?iso-8859-1?q?elve_of_Them=2C_and=2C_in_strict_Order_of_Appearanc?= =?iso-8859-1?q?e?= In-Reply-To: <156da.48f5b73b.38b45237@aol.com> References: <156da.48f5b73b.38b45237@aol.com> Message-ID: <201002232223.07991.rbj@rbjones.com> Here's a short follow up to my last on this. We are heading for conflicts here between Grice and Carnap, which fall outside Carnap's conception of philosophy, and which I would suggest Carnap sidestep. The first problem is with Grice's antipathy to -isms. These are not disagreements about matters of fact, because most of these -isms if you track them down to a proposition it will be a proposition of metaphysics, and it will probably be in that part of metaphysics which Carnap does opt out of. The upshot would be that Grice would reject an -ism and Carnap would fail to assert it, for it would be one of his external questions. So we might find Carnap denying that he is a physicalist (in Grice's terms) but continuing to use physicalistic language when it suited him. Possibly Grice would object to that practice, and hence would be objecting to Carnap's principle of tolerance. However, the principle of tolerance is not for Carnap a proposition of philosophy, it is normative. So if they had a debate about this it would not be for Carnap a philosophical debate. If I were him I wouldn't. Something similar happens in relation to the conflict which you describe between Hume and Kant. Whether you can derive an ought from an is depends on the semantics of moral terms in natural languages. This therefore falls outside of Carnap's conception of philosophy, and he should have no philosophical axe to grind with Kant. He might well still disagree with Kant on whether than can be done, but he could not do so as a philosopher according to his own notion of philosophy, There are a lot of areas where we would find problems of this kind, where Grice's view are considered by Carnap just not to fall within Carnap's conception of philosophy (and possibly vice-versa) and so one has to hope from the point of view of their having a worthwhile conversation we would have to hope that the residue would be of sufficient interest and that each was prepared to leave alone the areas which either considered out of scope. It is entirely possible that nothing would remain. Analytic philosophy in the second half of the twentieth century was almost engineered on the principle that anything is OK (open to discussion) so long as it gives no quarter to positivism. This has been my experience by and large, that there really is virtually no conversation which I can have with most philosophers because they cannot accept my language or my attitude toward language. I was hoping that Grice would be more accommodating, but perhaps not. RBJ From Jlsperanza at aol.com Tue Feb 23 21:25:57 2010 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Tue, 23 Feb 2010 21:25:57 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] =?iso-8859-1?q?Grice=27s_B=EAtes_Noires=3A_the_Tw?= =?iso-8859-1?q?elve_of_Them=2C_and=2C_in_str?= Message-ID: <1e0e4.580f7e1.38b5e835@aol.com> In a message dated 2/23/2010 5:47:46 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, rbj at rbjones.com writes: >I think my tone is consistent with his: "After a more tolerant (permissive) middle age, I have come >to entertain a strong opposition to them all..." But as we've discussed elsewhere (I'm sure, but now that I think, not publicly!) we sort of agreed that the paradoxical point, which perhaps Grice saw -- I would add he did, for exegetical reasons -- is that he was being less tolerant of intolerance! (But seeing that Carnap built HIS philosophy around the Prinzip der Toleranz, I'm hoping Grice is not meaning Carnap (necessarily) -- we have to keep some polemic, though! >I don't understand the point you are making here >about my use of the word "minimisation". In this context >I intend only to mean by it the adoption of some >minimalism. Aha. It's only that it does not scare me enough! Minimalisation, perhaps?! :). In a way, there is a semantic overlap here with the monsters of Reductionism and Eliminationism (that he doesn't care to list). For to reduce (as per reductionism) is of course to minimise and so is, in a way, to eliminate. So one has to be careful. If we say we minimise ethics, say (e.g. Mackie, The Invention of Right and Wrong), we may be meaning different things. For Grice, I think, Hume minimised ethics. (Indeed he minimised the role of reason in the practical realm). But I wouldn't call Hume a minimal ethicist. He does provide a minimisation alright, or minimalismisation, if ou want. Will think. But in any case I accept your use of the thing as an instance of Minimalisation at work. In the best guises the minimalisation has to work as eliminationism. For he (Grice) is saying that Minimalism DE-LEGITIMISES a range of explanations. It's not like they are minimised. If they are, they are minimised to the maximum minimum. In this connection, I would like to consider the idea of "zero tolerance" which I've seen in various places. How tolerant is a zero-tolerant, who has minimised everything to ... zero? (I'm not saying Carnap had zero-tolerance, and I would have to argue that Grice didn't!)(Just joking. I don't think he was zero-tolerant. The bracket (Baker notes, ft in Gr91) that Grice used a lot of these, and one wonders about the 'permissive (tolerant)', 'tolerant (permissive)', too; but we are talking of minimalisation now, not of intolerance necessarily. >But I want [Grice] *not* [emphasis mine. JLS] to have appreciated the distinction, >because if he has appreciated it and has not qualified his >antipathy then I would have to conclude that he is opposed >to the -isms even if they are pluralistic and/or pragmatic >rather than dogmatic. ... >If that were the case then the prospects for concord would >be much diminished, and even those for profitable >conversation might be at risk. Excellent points. Yes, we'll have more to say about your qualification for the isms. It seems good to have them bi-forked, as it were, in pluralistic-pragmatic vs. dogmatic. The pluralismus is a good thing. It's indeed an ismus in some secondary biblio on Carnap I saw: Toleranz und pluralismus in the work of Carnap. The one goes with the other in Carnap, but not, it would seem, with Grice. We'll have to elaborate on 'dogmatisms' too seeing that good ol' Grice came to the defence of the 'underdogma' unpopularised by this Manx-surnamed philosopher. (I don't mean Quinton). >I don't say that [Carnap] makes that distinction [minimalism as either dogmatic or pluralistic/pragmatic]. >It looks to me like he thinks of them all pragmatically. Good point. Perhaps Carnap did not dwell extensively (and I bless him for that) on his antipathies! The less tolerant (permissive) Grice of the 1980s, and when provoked, only, :), could! Perhaps it was not good for his system. The man was oversensitive, and to think that he had Schiffer's Remnants of Meaning while he was in hospital makes you want to have brought him some Wodehouse or something (Nurses should be aware of this). I made a caricature of an unentire Mr. Puddle (referred to by Grice): "Oh, I'm a materialist in _metaphysics_, when since on Thursdays I'm also teaching the Ethics seminar (he is on sabbatical, Harry) I am a non-naturalist to appease the Moorean among by pre-pubescent students". neo-Carnap (you can call me neo-Grice anyday!) writes: >I don't think Carnap or I would talk quite that way. >It's not we put on different hats, it's just that we use >languages, methods and tools which are appropriate to the >problem at hand. Mmm. Good point, and a good Aristotelian pedigree to it (seeing that R. B. Jones rightly notes that most of neo-analytic philosophy is Aristotelian in nature). I recall my tutor O. N. Guariglia rejoicing in dogmatising us about that passage in Eth. Nich.: "This is NOT logic: don't expect me to be as rigid as I was when I wrote the Analytica Priora. This is _softer_ stuff". Etc. neo-Carnap: >Your Grice sounds worse than Carnap on the "unified language" >front, admittedly only in philosophy, but perhaps more >dogmatic. Yes, it IS paradoxical. I'll have to revise what he said AGAINST unified "lingo" (as I call it, when I have a headache as I have now! Sorry about that!) in WoW:ii. Perhaps the unifying 'unity' as it were was more of an exegetical thing. I do find or feel the sense of continuity, both in the longitude and the latitude of ... not philosophy, but Grice! There are changes in longitude (the early Grice, the middle Grice, the later Grice) but minimal (he maintained his spatio-temporal continuity, on the whole). The changes in latitude I may be more unable to detect because I _can_ be pretty unified, when not having a headache! R. B. Jones: >I don't think it's difficult to find a lateral unity in >philosophy without having to exorcise these demons. >The lateral unity is surely in analytic method, and this is >consistent with pragmatic minimalisms. Good. I'm glad you see METHOD as a latitudinal unity. Grice was, and self-advertised as being, _au fonde_, if that's the expression, 'deep down' but it sounds vulgar (or too blatanty metaphorical) in English -- a methodologist, so I like that. Here, incidentally, there IS a breach which is pretty apparent, and recognised by him. He says in RE:WoW that meaning is a matter of ANALYSIS, not THEORY. We follow him there. He is criticising Mrs. Jack (but I hope his point is more general). So if this is strictly interpreted, his loose uses of 'theory' etc. in things he wrote, have to be taken with that caveat in mind. On the other hand, his "Method in philosophical psychology" is NOT analysis; in that, at least, as I read it, I see Theory, and theory, and more theory. Notably the introduction of psychological attitudes as such, via Ramsification: not observational, but theoretical. So it seems that we may want to qualify 'analysis' or allow that there are sub-varieties of analysis for different 'sides' (for each latum) of the latitudinal unity of philosophy. This looks like a fascinating topic, thanks R. B. Jones for pointing it to me. Or take Grice's caveats about FL vs. NL. "You are too formal", Putnam told me, and it impressed him. But he adds, "But then," (or words), "I was turning my interests to areas where formalism is less relevant: ethics, notably". So your points are well taken. On the 'legality' of Mimimalism an whether Grice is right in wanting to call the Philosophical Trade Commission: >But not unless it's dogmatic minimalism. >And Grice's cure is itself a dogmatism. The dogmatism of the laissez-faire (Feyerabend's anything-goism) indeed! We don't want that! So neo-Grice will have his say as he looks back on his beloved mentor. R. B. Jones: >Mathematicians work in set theory because it suits them >best. >Should they be castigated for doing so? >They won't care if Grice does castigate them. Well, depends on the meaning or implicature of 'castigate'. Just joking! I think he is thinking that if a set-theoretical philosopher writes for the referred Gricean Studies Journal (NO! I'm NOT contributing!) he (the set-theoretical philosopher) may have to reply to Grice's queries such as: Why is the answer to "Why is that blue?" and "Why is Grice called Grice?" comparable? (his examples against Extensionalism), etc. Getting to grips with Hume (where the heart is): >So you want ethics to be a branch of logic? Yes! More Geometrico Demonstrata, as Spinoza dreamt about! But seriously, don't mention them: the logicians! (Just joking). Oxford has at long last got ridden of them (jocularly speaking) when instituting the "Chair of Mathematical Logic" which no longer depends on Merton-based Sub-Faculty of Philosophy! This is interesting because where I come from, "Mathematical Logic" is indeed a subject-matter in the Dept of Mathematics in the Faculty of Exact Sciences. So they won't hear about "ethics" on principle! --- R. B. Jones on Kant's Critique of Practical Reason: >Well, I'm not familiar with the story. >The odds are that we are talking to cross purposes, just as >in the case of Kripke's refutation of Carnap. I'll have to learn more about THAT! But Grice is pretty precise (and short, as it happens) on the logical foundations of morality. I wrote a precise precis of it elsewhere, and I may repost some of the more formal material here. The basic questions are pretty easy to swallow: that hypothetical imperatives follow a logic of probabilism and desirability and that to universalise them requires a 'one fell swoop', as it were. R. B. Jones: >But we will be stretched a bit thin if we take on ethics >right now! But we HAVE to keep the aspidistra and lateral unity flying! (I love that film with Helena Bonham Carter!) Re: ethics and reason: >I don't think there is any denial of that in Hume, or in >Carnap. Will revise. Will revise what I did say, too. The topic is the very validity of an inference for operators other than assertoric, or something. And of course the distinction between mere utilitarian ethics and the properly Kantian rationalistic variety that Grice endorsed. Unfortunately most of the work by Grice in this area is joint (c) J. Baker and she is taking her time to let the ideas out! (But I love her, and she has every right to do it!) >[I]t looks like the demons will be fodder for debate for >some time. Good. And I'll reply to your other when my headache subsides I hope! Take care. J. L. Speranza From Jlsperanza at aol.com Wed Feb 24 07:45:19 2010 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Wed, 24 Feb 2010 07:45:19 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Carnap and Grice Message-ID: <25b68.654a2291.38b6795f@aol.com> In a message dated 2/23/2010 5:47:45 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, rbj at rbjones.com writes: >We are heading for conflicts here between Grice and Carnap, >which fall outside Carnap's conception of philosophy, and >which I would suggest Carnap sidestep. >The first problem is with Grice's antipathy to -isms. >These are not disagreements about matters of fact, because >most of these -isms if you track them down to a proposition >it will be a proposition of metaphysics, and it will >probably be in that part of metaphysics which Carnap does >opt out of." Or in perhaps a more tolerated jargon (!), they would be proposals he'd not be ready to take up! This is serious because it does look like the minimal propositions for each -ism would not be in the object-language. I wouldn't say that "Every event has a mechanical cause" or something (for Mechanism, say) is an object-language proposition. It looks more like a MP (meaning postualate) surely sort-of-analytic and/or necessary. >The upshot would be that Grice would reject an -ism and >Carnap would fail to assert it, for it would be one of his >external questions. Yes. But of course he could find some proposals intriguing enough. I'm pretty sure he would reject most of the proposals of the TWIN -isms, that sometimes Grice fails to identity. Twin ism for Mechanism: Liberalism (qua liberum arbitrium free will). Twin ism for Functionalism? Etc. I'm sure Dualism (but perhaps not Monism) should feature somewhere. And we would think he would reject Dualism, Carnap would. If the correct twin for Scepticism is Dogmatism he may reject that, too. Surely the subtlety here is that we do mean 'internal', object language rejection. "It is not the case that every event has a material cause". It's not external-external negation, as when you negate nonsense, coming out as true: "It is not the case that Friday is in bed with Monday", or "It is not the case that the Absolute is Lazy", or to use Ayer's example (in intro to second edn. of his book LTL, "It is not the case that the Nothing nothings". >So we might find Carnap denying that he is a physicalist (in >Grice's terms) but continuing to use physicalistic language >when it suited him. >Possibly Grice would object to that practice, and hence >would be objecting to Carnap's principle of tolerance. Well, don't know. He has his Bootstrap. (This in google.books, "Reply To Richards") which is pretty convoluted, but fun to understand: the object-language and the meta-language have some correspondences, and it would be unreasonable to throw too much onto the meta-language if it's not going, "at the end of the day" (I hate that, and it's not used by Grice, but it does here, since we are heading with Carnap and Grice, at the end of the day, for the City of the Eternal Truth) to be expressible in the object-language. This way, Grice writes, irreverently, "you pull up yourself up by your own bootraps". Etc. He grants that he never proved the principle to be _valid_. >However, the principle of tolerance is not for Carnap a >proposition of philosophy, it is normative. >So if they had a debate about this it would not be for >Carnap a philosophical debate. >If I were him I wouldn't. I see. Metaphilosophical? Armen Marsoobian made his career on that! It's all metaphilosophy for him! He commissions papers, joins conferences, etc. And it's a Blackwell thing. It's a mixed bag, metaphilosophy, but it's out there --. Perhaps Carnap could be engaged to a round or two in metaphilosophical debate. I think, with Grice, that analytical metaphilosophy is all we need, but that's another thing. The thing is out there to join in, etc. -- The whole point is to AVOID the normative ring to it (and in this sense, metaphilosophy is an offspring of meta-ethics, but cfr. meta-logic, etc.). >Something similar happens in relation to the conflict which >you describe between Hume and Kant. >Whether you can derive an "ought" from an "is" depends on the >semantics of moral terms in natural languages. >This therefore falls outside of Carnap's conception of >philosophy, and he should have no philosophical axe to grind >with Kant. >He might well still disagree with Kant on whether than can >be done, but he could not do so as a philosopher according >to his own notion of philosophy, Well, that's a good one. As we discussed elsewhere, it may boil down to the judgement-cum-stroke sign in authors like Frege. There seems to be an element of ACCEPTANCE in the judgement stroke that SEEMS normative in character. Why would we judge what we judge? Recall that for Kant, in some interpretations, judgements feature large in areas like 'aesthetics': the 'judgement' of taste, for example, is objective in his view, and universal. So it's not totally beyond reach. The question of the 'realisation' of this or that lexeme of a, say, deontic operator -- alla Hintikka, Op, Pp, it is obligatory that p, it is permissible that p, as to "ought" or "may" may be yet another question. But there seem to be some recognised inferences in deontic logic that one should tolerate if one is minimally interested in analytic ethics, as it were. Or meta-ethics. The very interpretation of the operators is yet another animal. But the fact that if it's obligatory we can yield some other tenets, using two occurrences of the "not" operator in a sort of 'deontic' square of opposition, looks like basic predicate-calculus with just a stroke or two attached to the content formulae. But of course I'm speaking vaguely. >There are a lot of areas where we would find problems of this >kind, where Grice's views are considered by Carnap just not >to fall within Carnap's conception of philosophy (and >possibly vice-versa) and so one has to hope from the point >of view of their having a worthwhile conversation we would >have to hope that the residue would be of sufficient interest >and that each was prepared to leave alone the areas which >either considered out of scope. Don't know about Grice, but as JLS I'm more than ready and willing to look for the appropriate quotes. Not just to prove the points ad hoc, but, I wouldn't be negativistic. It boils down to find areas of common interest for Carnap and Grice. We shouldn't get to the highest heights at the beginning. Usually when you study philosophy, that's the last two questions in the sotto-voce (cross) examination. First you have to show that you understand and that you manipulate the symbols. I never was asked, for example, in my various examinations in ethics, "And you, JL, do you give a damn?". I would have thought the question appropriate external. This may relate to Oxford extra-mural thing where everything is more or less tolerated! >It is entirely possible that nothing would remain. >Analytic philosophy in the second half of the twentieth >century was almost engineered on the principle that anything >is OK (open to discussion) so long as it gives no quarter to >positivism. >This has been my experience by and large, that there really >is virtually no conversation which I can have with most >philosophers because they cannot accept my language or my >attitude toward language. >I was hoping that Grice would be more accommodating, but >perhaps not. Oh, he _will_. The man got ONTO philosophy because he found Ayer _cool_. Imagine Grice back in the 1930s in Oxford: Think BORE BORE BORE BORE BORE BORE. Imagine having to go to the War and be back 5 years after, grey hairs on you, almost, about to start a thing. TENSION, nervousness, energy. He felt he felt better with Austin and his ilk than Ayer and HIS ilk (All Souls meetings). But they often would meet or see each other, for tea at Blackwell's or something -- Oxford can be parrochial. The one to blame there is possibly RYLE: He gave a bad name to positivism and not by being one, precisely. But he belonged to an older generation. Recall Ayer 1911, Grice 1913. Almost twins. -- You know dons. You find the long lines of your tutees, you also find that you have to go to the meeting of the Aristotelian Society and eventually give a talk to the Oxford philosophy Society. You have to look for your style: for a style of prose that allows you to expand on what you think is vital. And Grice did that. You read "Remarks about the senses" early 1966, at ease, and he manages to mingle questions of analytic methodology (this was indeed in Butler's Analytic Philosophy), with concern with langauge, various types, with semantic and pragmatic notions (meaning, entailment, implication, implicature), with a view to the larger issues --. He was never a bore, technically concerned with thinking inside the box. So HE is the man to have a conversation, I'm telling you! Cheers, JL Sperana From rbj at rbjones.com Thu Feb 25 17:31:48 2010 From: rbj at rbjones.com (Roger Bishop Jones) Date: Thu, 25 Feb 2010 22:31:48 +0000 Subject: [hist-analytic] =?iso-8859-1?q?Grice=27s_B=EAtes_Noires=3A_the_Tw?= =?iso-8859-1?q?elve_of_Them=2C_and=2C_in_str?= In-Reply-To: <1e0e4.580f7e1.38b5e835@aol.com> References: <1e0e4.580f7e1.38b5e835@aol.com> Message-ID: <201002252231.48996.rbj@rbjones.com> On Wednesday 24 Feb 2010 02:25, J.L. Speranza wrote: > In a message dated 2/23/2010 5:47:46 P.M. Eastern > Standard Time, > > rbj at rbjones.com writes: > >I think my tone is consistent with his: "After a more > > tolerant > > (permissive) middle age, I have come > > >to entertain a strong opposition to them all..." > > But as we've discussed elsewhere (I'm sure, but now that > I think, not publicly!) we sort of agreed that the > paradoxical point, which perhaps Grice saw -- I would > add he did, for exegetical reasons -- is that he was > being less tolerant of intolerance! Well this is good, but I felt this ground slipping from under my feet. So long as Grice is only being intolerant of intolerance then a conversation with the later Carnap has a chance. Generally on the isms though we have to be clear about language. We have to understand Grice's -isms as what I call "dogmatic minimalisms", and as distinct from the pluralistic use of the relevant minimalistic language. I don't think Grice has to accept the fruitfulness of these languages, especially not for a reductionist analysis (in his terms) for I think Carnap has already conceded that point on phenomenalism and would be open to discuss other languages on a case by case. (and so might we). > Minimalisation, perhaps?! Sure. > So one has to be careful. If we say we minimise ethics, > say (e.g. Mackie, The Invention of Right and Wrong), we > may be meaning different things. For Grice, I think, > Hume minimised ethics. (Indeed he minimised the role of > reason in the practical realm). Well I'm not convinced, but I don't know enough about Hume. As far as Carnap is concerned, he was interested in scientific applications rather than practical ones. However. his general methodology for analysis is not specific to science (even in the broad sense in which positivists construe it), and could equally be applied in other domains. I like to talk about this in slightly different words than Carnap, but I think the end result is consistent with his methods. So I think nomologico-deductive, and the kind of logical analysis which a philosopher might do is undertaken by constructing a(n abstract) model of the intended application and then reasoning deductively about that model. The model captures the "nomololgy". Now this can be made to work just as well for ethics as for physics. In carnap's terms you define a formal language and give rules which are intended to capture the meaning of the ethical terms. Then you can reason about ethics in that language. When the philosophy does this for physics, he is not himself making judgements about the theory which he is formalising, he is just capturing some theory for the purpose of analysis. Similarly in ethics. In Carnap's scheme he could undertake logical analysis of any ethical system by such means, i.e. he can REASON ABOUT ETHICS. even though for him the truth of the ethical principles embodied in the language would be external questions. I appreciate this is not the emotive theory of ethics for which the logical positivists are famous. But that was not for Carnap a philosophical theory, and it was not something so far as I am aware that he ever did any work on. I think if he had been interested in logical reasoning about ethics then the approach I suggested above would be compatible with all that I know of his later philosophy. > >But I want [Grice] *not* [emphasis mine. JLS] to have > > appreciated the > > distinction, > > >because if he has appreciated it and has not qualified > > his antipathy then I would have to conclude that he is > > opposed to the -isms even if they are pluralistic > > and/or pragmatic rather than dogmatic. ... > >If that were the case then the prospects for concord > > would be much diminished, and even those for > > profitable conversation might be at risk. > > Excellent points. Yes, we'll have more to say about your > qualification for the isms. It seems good to have them > bi-forked, as it were, in pluralistic-pragmatic vs. > dogmatic. Yes. Possible a less pejorative term might be better. I thought "absolute", this would also work for a similar (and related) distinction between kinds of metaphysics. In terms of metaphysics that might possibly be the same as "revisionary" (in which case that's probably not a well chosen word). So for the metaphysics, Carnap's position would be better understood as abdication from "absolute" metaphysics, but pragmatism in relation to exegetical, and descriptive metaphysics. > >I don't say that [Carnap] makes that distinction > > [minimalism as either > > dogmatic or pluralistic/pragmatic]. > > >It looks to me like he thinks of them all pragmatically. But I do think that when he talks anti-metaphysics it is (what I'm now calling) absolute metaphysics. > R. B. Jones: > >I don't think it's difficult to find a lateral unity in > >philosophy without having to exorcise these demons. > >The lateral unity is surely in analytic method, and > > this is consistent with pragmatic minimalisms. > > Good. I'm glad you see METHOD as a latitudinal unity. > Grice was, and self-advertised as being, _au fonde_, if > that's the expression, 'deep down' but it sounds vulgar > (or too blatanty metaphorical) in English -- a > methodologist, so I like that. I was thinking only recently what a high proportion (relatively) of his writing is metaphilosophical. I think there is probably an interesting discussion to be had on extensionalism. Starting with "what is it?" in Grice's mind (or his words). RBJ From Jlsperanza at aol.com Thu Feb 25 19:48:20 2010 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Thu, 25 Feb 2010 19:48:20 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Carnap and Grice and Absolutism Message-ID: <3365e.7c12c465.38b87454@aol.com> In a message dated 2/25/2010 6:23:12 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, rbj at rbjones.com writes: I think there is probably an interesting discussion to be had on extensionalism. Starting with "what is it?" in Grice's mind (or his words). ---- Sure, and I'll defer comments on your brilliant post for later, I hope. I think there's some stuff on Extensionalism in hist-anal files already. Grice starts his discussion with things like A: Why is that pillar box called 'red'? Because it is red. B: Why is that man called "Paul Grice"? Because he is Paul Grice. --- but I'll have to revise. (especially the first; the second I'm pretty sure about). He wants to say that the answers may run along different lines. Then he proposes things like: daughters of a Pope an English queen I think is the example. The idea being: "none" -- null set. For this he proposes ways out, in terms of 'relations'. It should be all in google.books, "Reply To Richards", PGRICE. And it's then from his earlier 1984 or so, "Prejudices and predilections, which becomes the life and opinions of Paul Grice" by Paul Grice. ---- I loved your "absolute". For indeed we do have Absolutism! --- This reminds me of Gr91: Conception of Value, that is. This is indeed Gr82, the Paul Carus Lectures. In the first or second lecture he tracks Mackie and proposes some interesting dichotomies which I have elaborated on in posts to Analytic or when the thing was with Vanegas. E.g. absolute vs. relative monism vs. pluralism (dualism as pluralism) objective vs. relative --- etc. so one may need to be careful. ---Etc. As for a stricter def. of Extensionalism, this SHOULD NOT Be a problem for Carnap, since he was indeed famous for defending intensional contexts. His method of intensional isomorphism has been, I think, thus called, too, defended by Levinson _contra_ Grice. I will be brief, but the idea is that (I will work on predicate calculus, but if you add quantified formulae, the effect may be the same) p v -q p --> q are truth-functionally equivalent. So, in a way, in terms of 'what-is-said' (favoured use), one can think of a Gricean arguing that (especially is we are, as you are, into strict deductive systems) a person who is committed to the former will need, as it stands to reason, committed to the latter. The thing of course gets more complicated when we do use the vernacular NL, 'if', e.g. which some claim NOT to be truth-functional and Grice suspects it is NOT truth-functional for tenses other than those of the indicative (title of his WoW:iv, "INDICATIVE" conditionals). ---- But the _form_ of each is different. So it would be as if He said that p v -q He said that if p, q would report different things. Etc So, I have seen something like a pro-Carnapian into 'intensional isomorphisms' claiming that such a 'liberal' approach to 'what-is-said' is misguided. Grice uses 'intension' on occasion, as in WoW:v, last paragraph, vis a vis quantifying in, so he wasn't TROUBLED with a metaphilosophical or methodological account that quantifies-in, even if what he wants is an extensionalist, truth-functional approach of what is meant (at the level of what is said). This is starting to sound obscure. I like to quote Urmson, "Criteria of intensionality" on this front, too. To show that Griceans or philosophers of his ilk would not have been troubled at all by intensionalism. In terms of Extensionalism-qua-Minimalism, the past-middle age (less permissive) Grice of the betes noires would like to find the entity that Extensionalism rejects that philosophers have used in explanations. The very thing seems to be "meaning" no less! The anti-Extensionalist is saying that meaning DOES NOT reduce to 'extension': "daughter of a Pope and a queen of England" does not have the same meaning as "climbers of 24,000,000 ft mounts on hands and knees" (his other example). Hence the appeal to something more basic, a pellet, I think he calls it, a reference to 'relations', etc. Since I agree with you that most of the most recalcitrant terms in modal logic (Kripke's System S, eg?) can be given 'extensionalist' semantics in terms of metalogic quantification over 'states of affairs' or 'worlds', I can't see what's the big deal of this bete noire, or rather, what the big deal is with the opponents (or those who get scared or challenged) by this demon (or perilous place) on the way to the City of the Eternal Truth, as we may say. (quoting Grice, no doubt). -- So, here, the anti-bete-noirism should NOT be addressed to Carnap. I would think that extensionalism did not feature large with vintage logical positivism either. Aren't the early analysis of 'scentific' terms like 'fragile', in terms of counter-factual dispositions (funk) meant as 'intensional', too? So perhaps we have a case of a strawman. Perhaps Alonzo Church? Wouldn't know. Can't be defenders of Hintikka's logic of epistemic attitudes, etc. Casimir Lewy? I don't know, really. I enjoyed your opinion that Carnap would have joined in a game of 'deontics'. Oddly, few of the betes noires allow for this fact vs. value distinction. And Grice honoured Hume well enough to have a whole metaphysical routine named after him (Humean Projection, in Reply To Richards) and had furthered discussed Hume with Haugeland. So the exegesis of Grice may need a few points here, etc. Cheers, J. L. Speranza -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rbj at rbjones.com Sun Feb 28 16:10:37 2010 From: rbj at rbjones.com (Roger Bishop Jones) Date: Sun, 28 Feb 2010 21:10:37 +0000 Subject: [hist-analytic] Carnap and Grice and Absolutism In-Reply-To: <3365e.7c12c465.38b87454@aol.com> References: <3365e.7c12c465.38b87454@aol.com> Message-ID: <201002282110.37175.rbj@rbjones.com> JL liked my introduction of "absolute" instead of the previous "dogmatic" as a label for the kinds of "minimalism" which we imagine Grice in opposition to, by contrast with Carnap's pluralistic ontological pragmatism, in which some minimalisation is undertaken without prejudice, as a matter of convenience for some purpose in hand. However, since Speranza also spoke of "objective" I have to say that I think that a better term for the purpose, and am inclined to hold back "absolute" for some other more exotic purpose not yet exposed. It is the hallmark of the kind of metaphysical ontology from which Carnap abstains that it claims that certain ontological principles are "objective" rather than "conventional". i.e. in Carnap's language, that these truths are not internal to some "linguistic framework" but are in his term external. Passing to the matter of "Extensionalism", Google seems to think the term scarcely used, by contrast with "Extensional", which has quite a complex variety of uses. Three possible senses occur to me. The first is the creed that we can do without any kinds of entity which are not extensional. One might easily suppose from reading Grice that this was what he had in mind. However, I have to say that for my part I find this so implausible that I find it hard to believe that there ever have been such extensionalists, and am therefore lead to doubt that this could have been what Grice had in mind. The second is the creed that we can do without primitives which are not extensional, i.e. that such intensional objects as we require are reducible to extensional objects in some way. The third is the creed that in fact there are only extensional objects, together with what Russell would have called "logical fictions" constructed from extensional entities but having the characteristics of intensional objects. I think it probable that the second thesis is true, but I do not know how this can be demonstrated conclusively. It is not difficult to show how certain kinds of intensional objects can be defined in extensional languages, and I know of none which could not be so defined. But I don't know how one could formulate and demonstrate a general thesis to the effect that intensional objects always are definable in terms of extensional objects. Carnap argued in Meaning and Necessity that an extensional metalanguage would suffice for the intensional object languages which he deals with in that book, but I'm not aware of him having offered a more general argument. So I think Carnap and I would are probably inclined to accept the second thesis, but not dogmatic, whereas Grice might be disinclined, but possibly also not dogmatic. The third thesis is for Carnap and I in the domain of doubtful meaning. This is the strongest contender for an interpretation of Extensionalism as one of Grice's demons, but there is no conflct with Carnap here. It looks like Grice is not here intent on demonising any doctrine of Carnap, though there might still be a less demonic disagreement about whether a certain kind of pragmatic reduction is technically feasible. RBJ From Jlsperanza at aol.com Sun Feb 28 17:24:56 2010 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Sun, 28 Feb 2010 17:24:56 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Carnap's Bootstrap, Pulled Up By Grice Message-ID: <842fc.8371ae8.38bc4738@aol.com> In a message dated 2/28/2010 4:42:35 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, rbj at rbjones.com writes: Carnap argued in Meaning and Necessity that an extensional metalanguage would suffice for the intensional object languages which he deals with in that book, but I'm not aware of him having offered a more general argument. --- I would suggest we consider, somewhat seriously, the half page Grice devotes to Bootstrap, in "Reply to Richards" google.books. He never claimed to have _proved_ it, but surely neo-Grice can do that, 'at one fell swoop' as he'd say. The thing is _bound_ to please neo-Carnap (or not entirely displease him!) ----- historical note. When getting tired of people ab-using 'meta-', I took the time to consult the OED, and R. Hall may have been my benign demon, we find the first use to go to Lord Russell, which is VERY respectable indeed. He coined the thing, and he coined the uglier thing, the object-language My litmus test is: you know a philosopher is serious when he does use 'object-language'. By this Russell may have meant, language _as_ object or universe of discourse, or domain, of a meta-language (alla Boole, Jevons, etc.), rather than anything fancier -- i.e. that it is the language of _objects_! So back to Carnap and Grice. What "Bootstrap" states is that the meta-language can NEVER be so much richer than the object-language, because you may not, tomorrow, be able to pull up by your own bootstraps, and we don't want that. How this connects with Carnap: For Carnap: FL-1 Anything goes. Anything-Goism. Intensional isomorphisms, anything is pretty much tolerated. Surely his was not zero-tolerance. MFL-1 i.e the meta-language for FL-1 This HAS to be 'extensional'. None of your fancy intentional isomorphisms here, or, even 'meaning postulates' _intentionally_ conceived. ---- So that is totally consistent with Grice. What Grice may have found offense in would be: someone postulating: object-language: whatever. meta-language: whatever; intentionsional; intensional isomorphisms, etc. ----------- There are more applied aspects to this. E.g. Grice's theory of meaning! After all, it is the received (by Bennett), if wrong, view that we have some sort of historical development or crisis here: Carnap Meaning and Necessity 1947 . . Grice, "Meaning" . 1948 (You Know Who Thinking This Dogmatic) . . . . . . Grice/Strawson coming to defend the underdog(ma) 1956 I.e. Bennett sees Grice/Strawson as _needing_ a theory of 'meaning' to be able to defend the under-dog of the 'meaning' postulate. But Grice had said '... means ...' is INTENTIONAL. So: object-language: x means y metalanguage: A intends B And 'intend' is NOT extensional! But this would not be a problem for Grice his qualm is with a Meta-Language which is UNABLE to be reduced to the Object-Language. And "intentional" talk _is_ soluble in (more) "intentional" talk. ------ So much for the object-language/meta-language distinction, but more later, I hope. J. L. Speranza From Jlsperanza at aol.com Sun Feb 28 17:47:13 2010 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Sun, 28 Feb 2010 17:47:13 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Who Framed Carnap? (Was: Grice) Message-ID: <850ce.721af8c9.38bc4c71@aol.com> In a message dated 2/28/2010 4:42:35 _rbj at rbjones.com_ (mailto:rbj at rbjones.com) writes: "I have to say that I think ['objective'] a better term for the purpose ... It is the hallmark of the kind of metaphysical ontology from which Carnap abstains that it claims that certain ontological principles are "objective" rather than "conventional", i.e. in Carnap's language: that these truths are not internal to some "linguistic framework" but are (in his term) external. I love it! I would, of course, be careful with 'Objectivism', one of the blachest betes of all time (alla Moby Dick -- the _white_ bete). His twin, Subjectivism, is pretty vicious, they say, though. I'm using 'frame' because you do use it -- "framework" -- and this brought Carnap back to the fore when Davidson started to reconsider conceptual schemes -- cfr. 'conceptual-role semantics? R. E. G. -- in view of hot topics like Lakatos's incommensurability of 'paradigms', say. I get the internal/external (which I think it relates to H. L. A. Hart, of all people) distinction, but the 'conventional' may need some refining. Grice and Carnap indeed 'allow' for 'convention' to be a matter of just one individual. Bayne may object that one cannot hold a reciprocal convention with yourself, but that's _Lewis_'s problem! E.g. this bit by Grice Carnap WOULD ***SURELY**** dub 'conventional'. Grice says, "I can invent a language, call it "Deutero-Esperanto": I lay down what's proper; that makes me the master of it." He is, sadly, criticising the idea that 'meaning' HAS to do with 'convention'. But surely Carnap's take here is more in agreement with the etymology of 'convention', I would think. Utterer (user of language) CONVENES to use "glory" to mean "a nice-knockdown argument". There may be tweaks one may need to have utterer's intentions self-addressed to the utterer himself, etc. But those seem minor. So we may need a better antonym for 'conventional'. Since NOTHING is conventional in Grice's sense, I don't think we do! (But we can call it 'natural'!?) And then there's Putnam and zillions more on the objective-subjective distinction. ('inter-subjective' NOT ALLOWED, :)). For there is a way in which Grice, when constructing "Deutero-Esperanto", is the SUBJECT. So that "glory" means, subjectively, "a nice known-down argument". ---- Again, there may be a few refinements to tweak in here. As a matter of fact, I dwelt with them extensively in "Jabberwocky" (The Journal of the Lewis Carroll Society, vol. 5) This is not really "subjective", since the Egg is after all talking to Alice, but still. --- I owe the inspiration for this to D. Davidson's thing for the PGRICE festschrift, his "Nice derangement of epitaphs", which he sadly later reprinted in his own collection, making the festschrift less of a valuable thing. Festchrifters should SWEAR they are not going to do that!) Davidson writes of 'glory' (words). "The Egg cannot MEAN that there is a nice knock-down argument for Alice, because he says so. He says, when Alice confesses, "I don't know what you mean by 'glory'", "Of course you don't, until I tell you." Davidson analyses this transparently, naively enough: The Egg KNOWS or believes that Alice does NOT Know the T-(Tarski-disquotational scheme) "There's x for you!" iff "There's glory/a nice knockdown argument for Alice. --- Since he is however supposed to be intending that Alice will form that belief (i.e. that what she was told was that there is nice knock-down argument for her, rather than 'glory'), this is reductio ad absurdum. However, he later says, "Impenetrability!" --- I titled my paper to the Lewis Carroll Society: "Impenetrability" because glory bores me. When he says this, he has already a little ditty to offer Alice In the springtime, when the leaves are green I hope you tell me what you mean. "Thank you", says Alice. So, when he lectures Alice on "It was brillig..." in full, he concludes, "Impenetrability!" "What's that?", said Alice. Suspecting it was one of the Egg's little conventions. "'Atta girl!" He says: By impenetrability I mean (words), that "we have already talked quite a bit about this and that it's almost tea time, and I'm feeling both pretty thirsty and hungry, I would think we sojourn to a different scenario where we could at ease reconsider this or that in the more comfortable setting of a rendez-vous, or something." "Quite a few things for a word to mean." "Oh, when I have a word meaning _that_ much for me, I pay them extra." J. L. Speranza From rbj at rbjones.com Mon Mar 1 12:04:44 2010 From: rbj at rbjones.com (Roger Bishop Jones) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 17:04:44 +0000 Subject: [hist-analytic] Carnap and Grice and Absolutism In-Reply-To: <3365e.7c12c465.38b87454@aol.com> References: <3365e.7c12c465.38b87454@aol.com> Message-ID: <201003011704.44989.rbj@rbjones.com> Here's an observation I forgot to make earlier: On Friday 26 Feb 2010 00:48, Jlsperanza at aol.com wrote: >I enjoyed your opinion that Carnap would have joined in a >game of 'deontics'. I should mention that the rules I talked about in this connection were rules giving the meanings of moral terms, (these would be L-rules, as well as rules to capture any moral principles (M-rules?) which are not then analytic). The effect of this is that if Carnap did accept this application of his scientific method outside its intended sphere of operation, he would be able to engage in moral reasoning as a utilitarian (for example) as well as indulging in deontics. Strictly speaking, according to his delimitation of scope he would only be able to affirm the L-truths thus arising, and of the M-truths (supposing we call them that) he would have to confine himself to the observation that they are M-truths of the relevant languages. (He has to step up into the metalanguage). The situation parallels that in the physicalistic language. However, I confess that this is highly speculative. I am extrapolating his methods into application areas he did not entertain, and imagining that he could be persuaded that this is a reasonable application of his analytic methods. I would be surprised if he could not have been persuaded that there is more logic in moral discourse than is consistent with its interpretation as no more than expressions of emotion. RBJ From baynesrb at yahoo.com Mon Mar 1 13:37:38 2010 From: baynesrb at yahoo.com (steve bayne) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 10:37:38 -0800 (PST) Subject: [hist-analytic] Peter Vranas:Re: Carnap and Grice and Absolutism In-Reply-To: <201003011704.44989.rbj@rbjones.com> Message-ID: <781629.268.qm@web36501.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Sorry for my nonparticipation in this interest discussion. I'm approaching completion of my work on the book and then I can return. However, I thought something worth mentioning. A young philosopher out of U. of Wis. anticipated a point I was making in connection with R. M. Hare on deontic logic. I went to look at his main paper and it is so involved I had no time to spend a couple of weeks looking at it JUSST THEN. But it is a very good paper. It's by Peter Vranas. the URL is: https://mywebspace.wisc.edu/vranas/web/papers/implogicII.pdf The title is: NEW FOUNDATIONS FOR IMPERATIVE LOGIC II: PURE IMPERATIVE INFERENCE* Anyway, he's a gifted philospher whose work deserves wide attention. Regards Steve --- On Mon, 3/1/10, Roger Bishop Jones wrote: > From: Roger Bishop Jones > Subject: Re: Carnap and Grice and Absolutism > To: hist-analytic at simplelists.co.uk > Date: Monday, March 1, 2010, 12:04 PM > Here's an observation I forgot to > make earlier: > > On Friday 26 Feb 2010 00:48, Jlsperanza at aol.com > wrote: > > >I enjoyed your opinion that Carnap would have joined in > a > >game of? 'deontics'. > > I should mention that the rules I talked about in this > connection were rules giving the meanings of moral terms, > (these would be L-rules, as well as rules to capture any > moral principles (M-rules?) which are not then analytic). > The effect of this is that if Carnap did accept this > application of his scientific method outside its intended > sphere of operation, he would be able to engage in moral > reasoning as a utilitarian (for example) as well as > indulging in deontics. > > Strictly speaking, according to his delimitation of scope > he > would only be able to affirm the L-truths thus arising, and > of > the M-truths (supposing we call them that) he would have to > > confine himself to the observation that they are M-truths > of > the relevant languages. (He has to step up into the > metalanguage).? The situation parallels that in the > physicalistic language. > > However, I confess that this is highly speculative. > I am extrapolating his methods into application areas he > did > not entertain, and imagining that he could be persuaded > that > this is a reasonable application of his analytic methods. > > I would be surprised if he could not have been persuaded > that there is more logic in moral discourse than is > consistent with its interpretation as no more than > expressions of emotion. > > RBJ > From Jlsperanza at aol.com Mon Mar 1 14:05:50 2010 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 14:05:50 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Carnap And Grice Play Deontics Message-ID: <1f032.7f7b7b35.38bd6a0e@aol.com> In a message dated 3/1/2010 1:19:39 rbj at rbjones.com writes: "I confess that this is highly speculative. I am extrapolating his methods into application areas he did not entertain." Thanks, and thanks to S. R. Bayne, too, for the ref. to the work on Hare by Vranas. --. I enjoyed R. B. Jones's discussion of the Logical versus what he calls "M" for moral 'rules' in a game of 'deontics'. I would restrict the "M" for 'meaning'! Seeing that both Carnap and Grice use the "m" for meaning, too (Carnap's "meaning-postulates", Grice's "M-Intentions"). A few further points: i. I was looking online at various documents, and, I may have shared this with CarnapCorner.blogspot, but there was this pdf.doc by (I think) this contributor to recent work on Carnap, regarding the idea that "science" is usually _not_ a primitive, or 'datum' in Carnap. It is _usually_ understood that, e.g., the criteria (however practical) in deciding whether to choose this or that language _are_ such that 'science' is _meant_, but this author was pointing to the explicit lack, as it were, of such 'tag' in Carnap's discourse. Will see if I can retrieve it. ii. I am currently discussing Grice's taking up of this marvelous work by Carnap on "Ramsey sentence". And it may deal, as I hope it does, with R. B. Jones's point about the "M-rules", as Jones calls them -- but where it merely stipulates, say, the operator "P" -- it is permissible that... -- or "O" -- it is obligatory that... -Suppose "He who wills the end wills the means". Suppose we see it as somewhat "deontic". If A finds it obligatory to pursue end, A finds it obligatory to implement means. Surely caeteris paribus. But the point I was making has to do with this rule of "Empirical Psychology", Grice has it -- I forget the name of the 'law', but he says "is is (or was) a law of Empirical Psychology". You gotta love a man who writes of laws as being or having-been! Anyway, the point concerns the 'analyticity' (alleged) of this or that 'generalisation', call it empirical -- or observational (perhaps better). Ramsey and Carnap and Grice seem to be saying that for ANY 'observational-language', say, it may be held that any 'generalisation' yields --. Hence the need of Carnap to narrow the desiderata of Ramsey sentences to deal with 'hypothetical' cases. So, the choice of "He who wills the end, wills the means" _as_ 'analytic' will be part (and parcel) of what the _speaker_ of the language is establishing. And so: even in the realm _other_ than 'assertoric' logic as it were, it would not easy to distinguish between those claims we dub 'analytic' from those we don't. I'm speaking VERY vaguely! (Bear with me, till I can clarify, or as Carnap would have it, self-explicate!) iii. Carnap does explicitly argue, I would think, that Morals (or what would stand as such) would _be_ a branch of "Empirical Psychology" (phrase as we see, used by Grice), so the topic may have broader consequences. Consider Hintikka's doxastic claims (Bel(A, p) & Bel(A, p-->q)) ---caet.par.---> B(A, q) Grice wants to say this belongs to "rational" psychology, rather than "empirical" psychology, but there may be connections. Carnap did work extensively on the 'pragmatics' as he called it, of 'belief and assertion'. iv. Grice discusses at length Davidson's playing with "ATC" -- all things considered and caeteris-paribus generalisations which _are_ contingent and synthetic, but also with some which we 'entrench' as 'analytic'. Since Carnap did work so extensively on probability, I'm sure Grice would look for THAT work. Anything of importance that Grice wants to say about 'desirability' (which for him yields 'morality') he is careful enough to find an analogue in terms of 'probability'. In fact this amused me once, because Levinson, in his textbook of pragmatics ("Pragmatics", Cambridge University Press -- and Levinson has discussed Carnap extensively vis a vis Carnap/Bar-Hillel along with Atlas) quotes Grice 1973 as being, "Probability, Defeasibility and mood operators" where it is actually, the mimeo goes, as cited by Grice/Baker in Vermazen/Hintikka, "Probability, _Desirability_ and mood operators." Etc. Cheers, J. L. Speranza From Jlsperanza at aol.com Mon Mar 1 14:36:49 2010 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 14:36:49 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Vranas Message-ID: <215a0.2cde4f7b.38bd7151@aol.com> --- Good he cites Alchourron. I actually quote him too in my first paper ever! (published). He was out there when I was lecturing on conversational implicature. My example (in Buenos Aires) was: Searle: How do you like Buenos Aires? Davidson: I haven't been robbed yet. -- I was just being provocative! Alchourron was all the rage, as they say! ("Surely, if your implicature is that Buenos Aires is not safe enough, you should spend some time in Stockholm!" -- where the man had spent more than his share!). I loved Alchourron, and we'd participate in seminars together, usually in logic. He was a born philosopher -- even though the mandate from his family (the land-owing elite) was elsewhere! May he R. I. P. ---- Good Vranas quotes from DeRooy. He has worked extensively on formalising "conversational implicature" as nobody else has! iii. Vranas quotes specific references on 'disjunctive commands'. I love them! My favourite had to be: -- Post the letter, or burn it! Post the letter ------------- Don't burn it! --- as discussed by Hare 1967. The first (but let's not spread the word) collocation of "conversational implicature" in print! (The OED editor is having Grice 1967 (MS) instead -- and indeed there is now Grice 1964 to add to it). --- --- I am very pleased Vranas quotes the seldom quoted OXFORD vintage pedigree philosopher, AUSTIN DUNCAN-JONES (Univ. of Brum, indeed, but formerly Oxford). (I think his daughter married a famous writer, but why do we hear so little of this genius? Vranas quotes from an early 1952 paper, on "Assertions and Commands"). ---- --- Vranas quotes specific bibliography on 'alethic'. I was surprised to learn from the OED that the term was indeed coined by Wright. Not surprised about THAT, because he was a genius with words. But, still. The word, Greek and all, had not received, 'aletheia', has NOT given too many other derivatives. The Grecian Gricean, Grice, loved 'alethic' and uses the term often enough (in fact, too often enough) in his "Aspects of Reason". Sadly, he opposes it to 'practical', but surely he knows that the best antonym for 'practical' as per Anscombe et al, is 'theoretical'. Words! ---- --- The excellent Oxford connection here (that gave Atlas, etc.) is indeed Kenny. His seminal "Practical Inferences" paper which joins with Hare. A. J. P. Kenny, once of Wolfson. I once contacted him, regarding this or that topic, and I must keep his correspondence somewhere. I was amused that we were able to have a look at Grice's ref. to Kenny in "Intention and Uncertainty" (Proc. Brit. Ac.). (And I know Bayne regards Kenny very highly, as he should!). --- Vranas seems to share my (good, ha!) taste for historical, even obscure-historical research (Tapper says I'm the obscure historicist -- always looking for some 'obscure' historicist connection (In any case, Tapper should enlighten us more often!). Vranas cares to quote from very early -- earliest stuff --. I mean, who (else) is going back to Hare 1949! Lovely! -- (He quotes too from Gonzalo Rodriguez Pereyra -- I mean, he can combine the old with the new!). ---- Pity it's Grice for next round! --- Grice, H. P. 2001. Aspects of reason. -- for an extended treatment of deontic inferences. Vide "precis" of Aspects of Reason, elsewhere. At the level of specific analysis Vranas deals with, he can cope not only with Grice's _established_ theory per se (established to Grice, that is, :)), but with Grice's _exceptions_ in terms of his 'implicature'. Oddly, yesterday I was reading S. Yablo's rather too privileged-accessed opinion when he says (words): "Grice regretted his invention: the implicature. Because he didn't know what to do with it. I.e. how to use it NON-opportunistically." (Yablo has that passing comment at the end of a long discussion on fictionalism and figuralism. He is making the good analogy that 'figures' HAPPEN. Implicatures happen. So, while Yablo hypothesises (?) that Grice may have regretted that, "surely he never regretted that 'implicatures' happen!" or something. For Grice, for example, the 'crunch' as he says, with 'deontic' logic (I think he exaggerates) 'comes with 'negation''. He immediately provides such an elegant way out of problems of 'prohibitions' in terms of clashes with expectations in deontic discourse (alla his treatment of 'truth-value' (alleged) gaps in assertoric discourse) that one does not feel the crunch anymore -- and can move on! Genius! Anyway, many thanks, S. R. Bayne, for the reference! Truly enjoyable! Cheers, J. L. Speranza -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rbj at rbjones.com Tue Mar 2 03:49:06 2010 From: rbj at rbjones.com (Roger Bishop Jones) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 08:49:06 +0000 Subject: [hist-analytic] Carnap And Grice Play Deontics In-Reply-To: <1f032.7f7b7b35.38bd6a0e@aol.com> References: <1f032.7f7b7b35.38bd6a0e@aol.com> Message-ID: <201003020849.06437.rbj@rbjones.com> On Monday 01 Mar 2010 19:05, Jlsperanza at aol.com wrote: > I enjoyed R. B. Jones's discussion of the Logical versus > what he calls "M" for moral 'rules' in a game of > 'deontics'. I would restrict the "M" for 'meaning'! > Seeing that both Carnap and Grice use the "m" for > meaning, too (Carnap's "meaning-postulates", Grice's > "M-Intentions"). I've not seen Carnap using M in this way. His semantics is caputured by L-rules yielding L-truth all the way from logical syntax through the two editions of Meaning and Necessity until at the last in the Schilpp volume he concedes defeat to the Quine-Tarski conspiracy on use of the term "Logical Truth" and starts using A-true instead of L-true. In "Meaning Postulates" he seems to use the "L-" concepts throughout. > A few further points: > > i. I was looking online at various documents, and, I may > have shared this with CarnapCorner.blogspot, but there > was this pdf.doc by (I think) this contributor to recent > work on Carnap, regarding the idea that "science" is > usually _not_ a primitive, or 'datum' in Carnap. It is > _usually_ understood that, e.g., the criteria (however > practical) in deciding whether to choose this or that > language _are_ such that 'science' is _meant_, but this > author was pointing to the explicit lack, as it were, > of such 'tag' in Carnap's discourse. Will see if I can > retrieve it. I have the impression that he regards synthetic propositions as always belonging to science, He does not follow Aristotle in allowing "demonstrative science" (perhaps he thought this referred only to metaphysics). There is a fairly naive use of language with very clean lines, he feels no obligation (as scientists usually do not) to pay homage to ordinary usage, it would probably not occur to him as an objection to his use of the term "scientific" that it is not the same as "normal usage", > ii. I am currently discussing Grice's taking up of this > marvelous work by Carnap on "Ramsey sentence". And it > may deal, as I hope it does, with R. B. Jones's point > about the "M-rules", as Jones calls them -- but where it > merely stipulates, say, the operator "P" -- it is > permissible that... -- or "O" -- it is obligatory > that... -Suppose "He who wills the end wills the means". > Suppose we see it as somewhat "deontic". If A finds it > obligatory to pursue end, A finds it obligatory to > implement means. Surely caeteris paribus. But the point > I was making has to do with this rule of "Empirical > Psychology", Grice has it -- I forget the name of the > 'law', but he says "is is (or was) a law of Empirical > Psychology". You gotta love a man who writes of laws as > being or having-been! Anyway, the point concerns the > 'analyticity' (alleged) of this or that > 'generalisation', call it empirical -- or observational > (perhaps better). Ramsey and Carnap and Grice seem to > be saying that for ANY 'observational-language', say, > it may be held that any 'generalisation' yields --. > Hence the need of Carnap to narrow the desiderata of > Ramsey sentences to deal with 'hypothetical' cases. > So, the choice of "He who wills the end, wills the > means" _as_ 'analytic' will be part (and parcel) of what > the _speaker_ of the language is establishing. And so: > even in the realm _other_ than 'assertoric' logic as it > were, it would not easy to distinguish between those > claims we dub 'analytic' from those we don't. I'm > speaking VERY vaguely! (Bear with me, till I can > clarify, or as Carnap would have it, self-explicate!) Well this sounds interesting stuff, but it veers at the end too close to treating the analyticity as being something we decide upon by fiat, which is how Quine would have us think of it, but not how Carnap does and even less how he should! (You have to decide meaning and accept the extension of analyticity which flows from it, and its best to present the matter so as to make that clear, which Carnap often does not do). > iii. Carnap does explicitly argue, I would think, that > Morals (or what would stand as such) would _be_ a branch > of "Empirical Psychology" (phrase as we see, used by > Grice), so the topic may have broader consequences. > Consider Hintikka's doxastic claims > (Bel(A, p) & Bel(A, p-->q)) ---caet.par.---> B(A, q) > Grice wants to say this belongs to "rational" psychology, > rather than "empirical" psychology, but there may be > connections. Carnap did work extensively on the > 'pragmatics' as he called it, of 'belief and > assertion'. Well I would like to know where he does this. He says some very radical things early on which I can't imagine him holding to if we were to corner him later. In that he is making it a branch of science, which is fair enough, insofar as it does offer a way to make sense of it. However, it doesn't make the right kind of sense of it, and one has a better chance of getting a good analysis by treating it as a part of logic rather than science (in Carnap's terms), this is also more consistent his saying (as he does) that moral statements are like metaphysical ones, "cognitively" meaningless (another bad choice of word). > iv. Grice discusses at length Davidson's playing with > "ATC" -- all things considered and caeteris-paribus > generalisations which _are_ contingent and synthetic, > but also with some which we 'entrench' as 'analytic'. We can expect difficulties with Carnap if Grice leans toward Davidson. > Since Carnap did work so extensively on probability, > I'm sure Grice would look for THAT work. Anything of > importance that Grice wants to say about 'desirability' > (which for him yields 'morality') he is careful enough > to find an analogue in terms of 'probability'. In fact > this amused me once, because Levinson, in his textbook > of pragmatics ("Pragmatics", Cambridge University Press > -- and Levinson has discussed Carnap extensively vis a > vis Carnap/Bar-Hillel along with Atlas) quotes Grice > 1973 as being, "Probability, Defeasibility and mood > operators" where it is actually, the mimeo goes, as > cited by Grice/Baker in Vermazen/Hintikka, > "Probability, _Desirability_ and mood operators." You make Grice sound more like a utilitarian than a deontologist. (a deontological utilitarian perhaps). I fear I am straying outside my comfort zone. Roger From Jlsperanza at aol.com Tue Mar 2 17:31:10 2010 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 17:31:10 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] L-truth, A-truth: Carnap and Grice Message-ID: <7310.338c2feb.38beebae@aol.com> In a message dated 3/2/2010, rbj at rbjones.com writes: "at the last in the Schilpp volume he concedes defeat to the Quine-Tarski conspiracy on use of the term "Logical Truth" and starts using A-true instead of L-true. In "Meaning Postulates" he seems to use the "L-" concepts throughout." Interesting. So, in the new rewrite the "Meaning Postulates" would then become 'analytic'. Personally, I don't think it was a bad move at all: from "L" to "A". It does make you wonder about meaning, though. Suppose I say I use 'snow' to mean snow CONTINGENTLY, i.e. not really 'analytically'. I do it because my parents taught me to. I could have used "Arthur" (Harrison, Intro to the Philosophy of Language -- Macmillan, ""Arthur" we could use to refer to snow -- the idea that a natural kind should not be thus named is a convention we should sometimes _flout" (or words -- what a genius of insight Harrison is -- born Sussex, this his main work, a treasure in my Swimming-Pool Library). And suppose I use 'white' CONTINGENTLY too. So, 'all snow is white' is true iff all snow is white. "All snow is white" as ANALYTIC meaning postulate? Well, yes, but relying on a few contingent things, like my choice of labels... etc. So, I would think that L-truth vs. A-truth, may be read as a move towards a _stronger_ position? I'm speaking vaguely. I should revise what Grice did say about 'logical' qua adjective (we know what he said about 'analytic'). I would think he did not care much -- who DID care, and to boring tears, is Strawson in "Introduction to Logical Theory": all those introductory chapters before he gets to the gist of "and" and '.', "not" and "-", "or" and 'v' and "if" and '->', or the footnote on Grice -- are all about 'logical. Quine in fact has a good one here. He quotes from Tweedledum (see him as Sir Peter) and Tweedledee (see him as Paul Grice). Slightly adapted from The Alice Books -- see Alice as Quine, who met the pair in the spring of 1954: PAUL (to Q): If you think we're wax-works, you ought to pay, you know. Wax-works weren't made to be looked at for nothing, Nohow. PETER. Contrariwise. If you think we're alive, you ought to speak. Q. I'm sure I'm very sorry,' PETER. I know what you're thinking about. But it isn't so, nohow. PAUL. Contrariwise: if it was so, it might be; And, if it were so, it would be; But as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic." --- Quine has that as epigraph in "Philosophy of Logics". Cheers. JL Speranza From Jlsperanza at aol.com Tue Mar 2 17:55:26 2010 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 17:55:26 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Carnap and Grice on 'beyond science' Message-ID: <8f20.5e14d3bd.38bef15e@aol.com> In a message dated 3/2/2010 rbj at rbjones.com writes: "I have the impression that [Carnap] regards synthetic propositions as always belonging to science, He does not follow Aristotle in allowing "demonstrative science" (perhaps he thought this referred only to metaphysics). There is a fairly naive use of language with very clean lines, he feels no obligation (as scientists usually do not) to pay homage to ordinary usage, it would probably not occur to him as an objection to his use of the term "scientific" that it is not the same as "normal usage", Thanks. I was referring (I FOUND IT!) to footnote 1 on this essay indexed below. The phrase is "convenience for science". The writer says that this is so for QUINE. But he is unclear that 'science' has to be understood as 'implicated' as it were, by Carnap. The writer's argument: It is NOT clear, or Carnap does not make it explicit, that 'convenience' has to be ALWAYS 'convenience for SCIENCE'. What the author is trying to show is that the pluralism of Carnap, while not ontological, and not dogmatic, etc., is about the internal ontologies brought by the choice of this or that language. And that thus one can, say, introduce a language(*), say, as per below: Scenario: New England, circa 1600. -- a witch =df. a little old lady that keeps Bibles, black cats, and refuses to pay taxes. She is possibly also a lesbian. -- Meaning Postulate, "All witches should be burned." -- Elinor Whitebrimmingstone is a witch. "Either she is a witch or she isn't" "She SHOULD not be burned." "On what grounds?" "She has repented." "Formalise that". "If the assertion made by Elinor to the effect that she'll pay taxes is re-interpreted via correspondence rules into the Ramsified way of definition, she did not mean what she said." "Not mean what she said?" "No" "To the flames then!" ---- JL Speranza NOTE. * _www.usyd.edu.au/time/price/preprints/metameta.pdf_ (http://www.usyd.edu.au/time/price/preprints/metameta.pdf) p.7: "Quine 1966, 134. Note Quine's revealing use of the term 'for science'. It is far from clear that for Carnap the convenience of adopting a linguistic framework is always convenience _for science_" (emphasis the author'). From Jlsperanza at aol.com Tue Mar 2 18:32:15 2010 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 18:32:15 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Carnap and Grice on the pragmatics of belief and assertion Message-ID: In a message dated 3/2/2010 6:35:19 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, rbj at rbjones.com writes: "Well, I would like to know where [Carnap works on the pragmatics of belief and assertion]. He says some very radical things early on which I can't imagine him holding to if we were to corner him later. In that he is making it a branch of science, which is fair enough, insofar as it does offer a way to make sense of it. However, it doesn't make the right kind of sense of it, and one has a better chance of getting a good analysis by treating it as a part of logic rather than science (in Carnap's terms), this is also more consistent his saying (as he does) that moral statements are like metaphysical ones, "cognitively" meaningless (another bad choice of word)." Good. Perhaps we should stick to a few 'generalisations'. The internalisation of 'if' or MPP (modus ponendo ponens) may indeed be a trick (Loar wrote extensively on those). (BEL (A, p) & BEL(A, p --> q)) --> BEL (A, q) or consider "&", my pet: BEL(A, p & q) --> BEL(A, p) Toby likes nuts (Grice's example -- he is a squarrel, sic) Toby does NOT like nuts covered with poison. --- So that above is one type of thing. It's strictly THEORETICAL because the observational bits we are assuming or implicating. A different thing is when we get an input (perception) or an output (sensory output). In this case we just define 'assertion' in terms of belief: ASSERT (A, p) <--- BEL (A, p) Hence Moore's Maradox "I assert that it is raining, but I don't believe it". Carnap does say that 'assertion' is the pragmatic notion par excellence and he is citing Morris, etc. on the trichotomy of semiotics (syntactics, semantics, pragmatics). Grice WoW:iii notably (first two pages) is very critical of Moore paradox and he'd say that an assertion EXPRESSES belief. He sees this as almost a 'necessary' truth as it concerns the 'indicative mode'. But major issues emerge here, all fun, I'm sure. J. L. Speranza From Jlsperanza at aol.com Tue Mar 2 18:24:17 2010 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 18:24:17 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Carnap and Grice on (alleged) "necessary truth" Message-ID: In a message dated 3/2/2010 rbj at rbjones.com writes: "Well this sounds interesting stuff, but it veers at the end too close to treating the analyticity as being something we decide upon by fiat, which is how Quine would have us think of it, but not how Carnap does and even less how he should! (You have to decide meaning and accept the extension of analyticity which flows from it, and its best to present the matter so as to make that clear, which Carnap often does not do)." Necessary truths? Or rather at most 'empirical generalisations over functional states' that a philosopher may reflect on? Carnap and Grice on the Yerkes-Dodson Law. So, this is Carnap and Grice on empirical psychology versus rational psychology, say, and the role of 'necessary truth' or analytic truth, in things involving 'beliefs', etc. Re the 'form' of a psychological law, I think I was referring to things like this by Grice in "Conception of Value" Gr91 -- google.books, "But whether or not the Yerkes- Dodson Law is properly so-called, it is certainly 'law-allusive'; and the feature of being law-allusive is one which I would ..." This goes back to p. 124 of that book, where Grice wonders about such 'laws', i.e. postulates from a Theory -- Symbolise it by Theta. Some relevant quotes by Grice: "Are we go give them contingent or non-contingent status?" Consider "He who wills the end, wills the means" Is this NOT REFUTABLE? So it seems. We observe Toby, he wills the end, but does not will the means. Therefore, we conclude, Grice says, "Toby did not REALLY will the end". This, Grice says, means to treat the law as a "necessary truth" -- his collocation. But if it's "a psychological law" is SHOULD be 'contingent'. This is what he formulates as a problem. In general terms, "How (without a blanket rejection of the analytic/synthetic distinction) we [are] to account for, and if possible, resolve, the ambivalence concerning their status with which we seem to look upon certain principles involving psychological concepts." There are major issues here: the idea is indeed that '... judges...', "... assserts...", "...believes..." (to use the ones Carnap was more involved with) are _psychological THEORETICAL concepts". Thus their meaning is given by Theta, a theory. A theory comprises only 'contingent truths'. So what role is A-truth supposed to play there. If we formalise the language of psychology (empirical pyschology) no such truths seem required. It's only when it comes to what Grice calls "rational psychology" (or 'philosophical psychology' simpliciter). Because as such, it's a game (applied game) to see generalisations philosophers want to consider regarding desiderata, self-entrenched, if you wish, as to want count as having a 'rational belief'. Since Carnap did expand on 'rational choice' theory in his probability work on subjective probability that occupied his mind, they say, for most of the last decade or so of his life, if not more -- to the detriment of other topics that Carnpians and neo-Carnapians would have him rather treat) he may have said something on this, too, I hope. I woud think the compromise Carnap/Grice at this point would be to concede Carnap that NOTHING in empirical psychology is a necessary truth and that something MAY be a necessary truth (if pressed, but why would WE be pressed, since it's all so 'caeteris paribus' anyway) in _rational_ psychology. In fact, my leader in this is B. Loar in his "Meaning and Mind" where he has the lovely cheek to say that a Gricean maxim such as "Say the truth" boils down to merely (if you allow me the split) an "empirical generalisation over functional states"! (and right he is -- the point is that a philosopher -- or some of them, call them "Grice" in his best moments (?) may want to say it is _more_ than that? (The problem is so constructivist it hurts, but in a nice way!) Grice would, I would think, be happy with 'necessary truth' being 'alleged' in a case like "he who wills the end, wills the end'. It seems NOT a necessary truth. To add, 'necessary' brings a 'conceptual' ring to it that makes it immune to refutation. We don't want that. Rather, we want to elaborate on 'alleged'. If that's read as "rationally _deemed_" then it is surely compatible with the thing _being_ an "empirical generalisation over functional states" which "passes rational muster" (to use G/W's phrase in PGRICE). Etc. Cheers, J. L. Speranza books.google.com/books?isbn=0199243875... From Jlsperanza at aol.com Tue Mar 2 18:40:37 2010 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 18:40:37 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Carnap And Grice Play Deontics Message-ID: In a message dated 3/2/2010 rbj at rbjones.com writes: "We can expect difficulties with Carnap if Grice leans toward Davidson. ...You make Grice sound more like a utilitarian than a deontologist. (a deontological utilitarian perhaps)." Sure. He was there to _calculate_ things. Stalnaker does think Grice was an utilitarian at heart -- a closet utilitarian. By the 1980s, utilitarian had turned, as Grice said "metaphysics" in the 1950) a 'term of abuse'! I have discussed these things with Stalnaker face-to-face when we were both at Yale for a colloquium -- he teaches in Massachusets -- we were referring to his contribution to "The thought of Paul Grice", a symposium held at the A. P. A. (Eastern Division, in NYC, held by J. F. Bennett as Chair, and the comment by R. Warner on Stalnaker's contribution). ----- I would think Davidson is a pretty good guide to immerse in what Carnap said about probability-things. Davidson is more of (or was more of) a Carnapian than he was a Gricean, so do not fear! Grice could play the calculation game well, because he wanted to _refine_ calculatory (?) analyses. So he'll refine things like "ATC" (all things considered), basis for probability-ascriptions, and so on. The issues with morality proper we can defer. But in any case, the idea is to extend at least, for Grice, the 'probably,' to the 'desirably'. He wants to play the WHOLE game: not just theoretical rationality, "Probably, it will rain"; but the 'practical rationality' side to the game too, "Desirably, if agent A wills the end, agent A will will the means". What Carnap says about acceptance of 'rational' belief out of rational choce, as based on probability (subjective probability) judgements may relate in this area, as I hope it _will_! It should all be fun! You don't mind, never! Cheers. J. L. Speranza From rbj at rbjones.com Wed Mar 3 10:53:38 2010 From: rbj at rbjones.com (Roger Bishop Jones) Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 15:53:38 +0000 Subject: [hist-analytic] L-truth, A-truth: Carnap and Grice In-Reply-To: <7310.338c2feb.38beebae@aol.com> References: <7310.338c2feb.38beebae@aol.com> Message-ID: <201003031553.38960.rbj@rbjones.com> On Tuesday 02 Mar 2010 22:31, Jlsperanza at aol.com wrote: > In a message dated 3/2/2010, rbj at rbjones.com writes: > > "at the last in the Schilpp volume he concedes defeat to > the Quine-Tarski conspiracy on use of the term "Logical > Truth" and starts using A-true instead of L-true. In > "Meaning Postulates" he seems to use the "L-" concepts > throughout." > > Interesting. So, in the new rewrite the "Meaning > Postulates" would then become 'analytic'. Meaning postulates would always have been analytic, as (well logical) truths for Carnap. What's happening here is not that the meaning of either of these terms is changing as far as Carnap is concerned but just that he is coming to terms with the fact that he is the odd man out on what "Logical Truth" should mean and deciding to stop using the term. Quine and Tarski want it to be a narrower term than analyticity (a difficult position for Quine to coherently adopt) but can't actually make their minds up what it should mean. They want logical truths to be true taking account only of the meanings of the "logical" constructs but not of "non-logical" constructs, but they can offer no definite account of which constructs are and are not logical. It might be worth mentioning that this switch from L to A on Carnap's part is a small part of a rather larger reformulation of his semantics in the Schilpp volume, the primary effect of which is to disarm Quine's objection in "Two Dogmas" to the definition of analyticity for specific languages rather than in general terms. It is not plausible that Quine could not see that Carnap's semantics could easily be reorganised to meet his objection, but he made it anyway as if it were substantive, and it is something which Carnap should have done all along. I have only just carefully read through that short section (just a couple of pages 900-901), and it is not above criticism, but the points I could raise against it are also straightforward to correct. > Personally, I > don't think it was a bad move at all: from "L" to "A". > It does make you wonder about meaning, though. Suppose I > say I use 'snow' to mean snow CONTINGENTLY, i.e. not > really 'analytically'. I don't myself think this a proper use of the terms contingently and analytically. You are using them as qualifiers for actions or events, but they are properties of propositions or sentences in context. Also you are mixing your qualifiers here, unless you are conceding the coincidence of analyticity and necessity (which I would encourage!). Maybe that's not what you were doing. You want it to be contingently true that snow means what it does, and your wish is granted, it is! But it doesn't make any difference to the status of truths in the "object language", it only makes a difference to meta- theoretic claims. Thus, "snow is white" will be analytic, but that would normally be contingent. It depends how you say it, how you identify the language. If you say: "In the English language 'snow is white' is analytic" Then to discover whether this is analytic or synthetic you have to dig into the meaning of "English language", but I think it is likely to be synthetic. (assuming "English language" means something like "the language predominantly spoke in England". > I do it because my parents taught > me to. I could have used "Arthur" (Harrison, Intro to > the Philosophy of Language -- Macmillan, ""Arthur" we > could use to refer to snow -- the idea that a natural > kind should not be thus named is a convention we should > sometimes _flout" (or words -- what a genius of insight > Harrison is -- born Sussex, this his main work, a > treasure in my Swimming-Pool Library). And suppose I > use 'white' CONTINGENTLY too. So, 'all snow is white' > is true iff all snow is white. "All snow is white" as > ANALYTIC meaning postulate? If it is a "meaning postulate" (a term I deprecate, since to call it a postulate suggests something more speculative than one expects in a prescription of meaning, and to use "meaning postulate" as the name of a definition invites improper definition and encourages this wayward idea that analyticity is an attribute which we can arbitrarily assign to whatever propositions we would like to be necessary) then It will be analytic and necessary. It makes no definition how we know that it is a "meaning postulate" or how it came to be one, these are meta-theoretic, and it is the truth and status of the sentences/propositions of the object language which concerns us. > Well, yes, but relying on a > few contingent things, like my choice of labels... etc. > So, I would think that L-truth vs. A-truth, may be read > as a move towards a _stronger_ position? No, its a purely verbal adjustment. The issues you are raising are not real problems in Carnap's position they just need explaining. Which possibly I might have done? I liked the tweedledum stuff. RBJ From rbj at rbjones.com Wed Mar 3 11:23:46 2010 From: rbj at rbjones.com (Roger Bishop Jones) Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 16:23:46 +0000 Subject: [hist-analytic] Carnap and Grice on 'beyond science' In-Reply-To: <8f20.5e14d3bd.38bef15e@aol.com> References: <8f20.5e14d3bd.38bef15e@aol.com> Message-ID: <201003031623.46738.rbj@rbjones.com> On Tuesday 02 Mar 2010 22:55, Jlsperanza at aol.com wrote: > In a message dated 3/2/2010 rbj at rbjones.com writes: > "I have the impression that [Carnap] regards synthetic > propositions as always belonging to science, He does > not follow Aristotle in allowing "demonstrative > science" (perhaps he thought this referred only to > metaphysics). There is a fairly naive use of language > with very clean lines, he feels no obligation (as > scientists usually do not) to pay homage to ordinary > usage, it would probably not occur to him as an > objection to his use of the term "scientific" that it > is not the same as "normal usage", > > Thanks. I was referring (I FOUND IT!) to footnote 1 on > this essay indexed below. The phrase is "convenience > for science". The writer says that this is so for > QUINE. But he is unclear that 'science' has to be > understood as 'implicated' as it were, by Carnap. The > writer's argument: It is NOT clear, or Carnap does not > make it explicit, that 'convenience' has to be ALWAYS > 'convenience for SCIENCE'. What the author is trying to > show is that the pluralism of Carnap, while not > ontological, and not dogmatic, etc., is about the > internal ontologies brought by the choice of this or > that language. And that thus one can, say, introduce a > language(*), say, as per below: This doesn't sound to me like quite the same issue. It sounds like a discussion of the kinds of pragmatic criteria which are involved in acceptance of a "language framework" (just guessing). If so, and it he is correct, then that is good for the possibility of Carnap being happy with formal discourse about morals. However, even in that case, and supposing that he allowed P- rules in that context (P-rules in science capture synthetic truths), or rather let us say E-rules (for Ethical), then Its moot whether he would count them as synthetic. I think he would still want to deny "cognitive context" subject to possible change of words, and actually synthetic might be a better word to use (synthetic content). So the possibility here which I am contemplating (modulo changes in concept names) is that Carnap would admit moral reasoning in two possible ways. First, if one can give meaning to moral terms, then one can reason to analytically true moral claims by capturing those meanings in A-rules and then deducing results from them. This is all within his very strict conception of philosophy as logic, and the only issue is whether these languages are pragmatically acceptable (on which I would expect Carnap to allow us to make up our own minds). The second method would allow A-rules capturing the meanings of moral terms, and also E-rules capturing moral principles over and above those which are analytic. In this case the results are not philosophical or scientific in Carnap's conception, and lack cognitive content. But the meta- theoretic claim that such and such a principle is provable in that context will be analytic and might possibly count as philosophical. I am puzzled by the reluctance to call Carnap an ontological pluralist. If this is because it is thought that this would make him a metaphysician, then I think this is mistaken. A metaphysician should hold that ontological truths objective (rather than conventional) and therefore cannot be a pluralist. Either some entity exists or it doesn't there's surely no two ways about it for a metaphysician? I note here, though it really belongs somewhere else where Grice is in the picture, that "conventional" as here contrasted with "objective" is a very weak term and does not carry much of the usual ordinary connotation of "convention". One thinks of the many case where there are different ways of describing the same thing, and notes that this shows that some features of the description cannot therefore be known to be features of the object described. One seeks to distinguish between what is an "objective" feature or reality from what is just a feature of the language with which we talk about reality. (I think this is the distinction which Strawson draws when he talks of descriptive and revisionary metaphysics, possibly; the one just exhumes the language, the other purports to reveal the reality) To talk about something as being "conventional" in this sense says nothing about how the language got its structure and meaning. It just says that the thing under consideration comes from the language rather than some aspect of reality. RBJ From Jlsperanza at aol.com Thu Mar 4 01:32:12 2010 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2010 01:32:12 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Carnap and Grice on "analytic" Message-ID: <47981.457f2b60.38c0adec@aol.com> In a message dated 3/3/2010 12:12:04 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, rbj at rbjones.com writes: to the definition of analyticity for specific languages rather than in general terms. It is not plausible that Quine could not see that Carnap's semantics could easily be reorganised to meet his objection, but he made it anyway as if it were substantive, and it is something which Carnap should have done all along. I have only just carefully read through that short section (just a couple of pages 900-901), and it is not above criticism, ---- Good! Yes, the idea of analytic-in-L is very clever. I wonder if you are familiar with the work of R. M. Martin. I'm NOT, but I've seen some of his stuff. You often express the view that positivism was sort of not so well considered after this or that, but there ALWAYS was a strong semantic tradition, as Coffa would call it (He is or was an Argentine philosopher!) and Martin seems to be in the best of it. He would often cite Carnap, I can google. I wouldn't know if Grice would share that 'analytic' is 'analytic-in-L'. But as I was browsing some blogs recently. There's one language-log, and they were saying, "Grice has the same right to talk about language as Chomsky has to talk about ontology!". I commented, but I'm not getting feeds on all the things! I can now say: But isn't Ontology ALL that Chomsky ever speaks? Grice is particular here. I was recently studying his use of "berth", deep berths of language. Something like the seas of language of you know who (Kripke). But Grice wants to say -- the quotes from archival material as cited by Chapman -- that SYNTAX is deeper than Chomsky wants us to think it is. Bayne will agree. So, the analytic-thing may be a matter of the syntax of the lingo. And since Grice only spoke English (the same language log says, "I'm sure Grice quote for fewer lingos than Chomsky) was it true-in-English for Grice is true-in-any-language-you-care-to-think-about. And I agree! J. L. Speranza From Jlsperanza at aol.com Thu Mar 4 01:25:24 2010 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2010 01:25:24 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Carnap and Grice on "logical" Message-ID: <47781.1ba801b9.38c0ac54@aol.com> In a message dated 3/3/2010 12:12:04 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, rbj at rbjones.com writes: he is the odd man out on what "Logical Truth" should mean and deciding to stop using the term. Quine and Tarski want it to be a narrower term than analyticity (a difficult position for Quine to coherently adopt) but can't actually make their minds up what it should mean. They want logical truths to be true taking account only of the meanings of the "logical" constructs but not of "non-logical" constructs, but they can offer no definite account of which constructs are and are not logical. ----- I see, in a way, I was going to say it relates to Grice (That's what I _always_ say, right?). But on second thoughts, I realise Grice speaks, somewhat irritatingly, but I love him, of -, &, v, ->, (x), (Ex), ix as "formal devices" -- not "logical devices". I always thought the correct is "constant", but you may teach me out of that! ---- When retrieving some stuff on Toulmin, who died last year, I was re-reading bits of his "Uses of Argument" -- not our type of Carnapian or Gricean there -- but he does say something witty regarding what he calls the "non-logical goats". This phrase is so clumsy (I love Toulmin!) that it gets few hits in Google, which is good. He wants to say that there are goats which are logical -- all the constants above -- and some which are not (he lists, "but" and "most"). Odd, no? J. L. Speranza From Jlsperanza at aol.com Thu Mar 4 01:46:33 2010 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2010 01:46:33 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Tarski, Carnap and Grice on "snow is white" Message-ID: <47d20.74af4c5f.38c0b149@aol.com> In a message dated 3/3/2010 12:12:04 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, rbj at rbjones.com writes: "I don't myself think this a proper use of the terms contingently and analytically. You are using them as qualifiers for actions or events, but they are properties of propositions or sentences in context. Also you are mixing your qualifiers here, unless you are conceding the coincidence of analyticity andnecessity(which I would encourage!).Maybe that's not what you were doing.You want it to be contingently true that snow means what it does, and your wish is granted, it is!But it doesn't make any difference to the status of truths in the "object language", it only makes a difference to meta-theoretic claims.Thus, "snow is white" will be analytic, but that would normally be contingent. It depends how you say it, how you identify the language. If you say: "In the English language 'snow is white' is analytic"Then to discover whether this is analytic or synthetic you have to dig into the meaning of "English language", but I think it is likely to be synthetic. (assuming "English language" means something like "the language predominantly spoke in England".If it is a "meaning postulate" (a term I deprecate, since to call it a postulate suggests something more speculative than one expects in a prescription of meaning, and to use "meaning postulate" as the name of a definition invites improper definition and encourages this wayward idea that analyticity is an attribute which we can arbitrarily assign to whatever propositions we would like to be necessary) then It will be analytic and necessary. It makes no definition how we know that it is a "meaning postulate" or how it came to be one, these are meta-theoretic, and it is the truth and status of the sentences/propositions of the object language which concerns us. It's a purely verbal adjustment. The issues you are raising are not real problems in Carnap's position they just need explaining. Which possibly I might have done?" --- SURE! And magisterially! I'm keeping your wording above for further reference. For now on, I would comment on the somewhat irritating literature I have had to read on the topic! You see, Griceians (I'm following my friend Jason Kennedy and using, like Dennett did, and Fodor, "Griceian" as the adjective, cfr. Argentinian) have to be careful. Perhaps the first here was Loar, in his DPhil Oxon (under Warnock), "Sentence Meaning". They are at odds in defining what "snow is white" _means_. The Gricean complications are galore. But on the whole there is this consensus -- among all Griceians except Grice -- but then he is no Griceian, necessarily -- that we do need a reference to a "population" so your ref. to "language spoken by people in England" is just on spot. M. K. Davies has also considered this. So this will relate to Carnap's idea that at the meta-language level it is ALL synthetic and contigent. Never mind the object-language. A related item here may have to do with Putnam's somewhat irritating idea of the division of linguistic labour. I have not checked your reply to the 'science' post, but I will after I send this. The idea that maybe "snow is NOT white" from a scientific point of view. Is it? I don't think so. It's not I've heard any scientist _say_. White is not a colour, is it? Is it not, rather, a 'value'. What purpose would a silly sentence like the one Tarski used (and Carnap heard form Tarski's lips) have? None! H20 may be the write thing to say when we say 'snow' -- frozen water, that is. Water itself is NOT white. So how can frozen water (ice, snow) be? Odd! ----- In any case, what I'm getting at is that some cautious speakers of English may subscribe to _Nature_ or _Science_, and if the next thing they read tomorrow is that 'snow is purple, really' they may be changing a segment of English, since they would be dropping a meaning-thing (what word to use instead of postulate) and acquiring another. Odd! It's good nobody (almost) could beat Carnap and Grice with _analysis_! Otherwise, this would be the end of analytic philosophy, almost! --- I am reminded of Sellars/Yeatman, 1066 and all that. The final sentence goes: "And this is the end of our little history. For then, America became top notion which means that the history of our country reached a .. -- where '.' means a final point, or something. Cheers, J. L. Speranza From Jlsperanza at aol.com Thu Mar 4 02:01:07 2010 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2010 02:01:07 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Carnap And Grice Outside The Box Message-ID: <48117.2706457c.38c0b4b3@aol.com> Carnap and Grice on 'arbitrary,' 'conventional', and 'synthetic' In a message dated 3/3/2010 12:12:04 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, rbj at rbjones.com writes: "It sounds like a discussion of the kinds of pragmatic criteria which are involved in acceptance of a "language framework" (just guessing).If so, and it he is correct, then that is good for the possibility of Carnap being happy with formal discourse about morals. However, even in that case, and supposing that he allowed P- rules in that context (P-rules in science capture synthetic truths)" --- Sorry for naivete. "P" standing for ... physics? "or rather let us say E-rules (for Ethical), then Its moot whether he would count them as synthetic. I think he would still want to deny "cognitive context" subject to possible change of words, and actually synthetic might be a better word to use (synthetic content). So the possibility here which I am contemplating (modulo changes in concept names) is that Carnap would admit moral reasoning in two possible ways. First, if one can give meaning to moral terms, then one can reason to analytically true moral claims by capturing those meanings in A-rules and then deducing results from them. This is all within his very strict conception of philosophy as logic, and the only issue is whether these languages are pragmatically acceptable (on which I would expect Carnap to allow us to make up our own minds). The second method would allow A-rules capturing the meanings of moral terms, and also E-rules capturing moral principles over and above those which are analytic. In this case the results are not philosophical or scientific in Carnap's conception, and lack cognitive content. But the meta-theoretic claim that such and such a principle is provable in that context will be analytic and might possibly count as philosophical." I think I prefer your first suggestion. One qualm here would be with views like Blackburn, so-called "anti-realism" -- perhaps a good bete noire, if ever there was one, or 'quasi-realism'. I.e. the idea that moral claims are not true, but not because they fail to be true, but rather because it's a satisfactoriness (in Tarski's sense) other than 'alethic', or 'assertoric', or 'theoretical' or 'factual' which is at play? Roger Bishop Jones continues: "I am puzzled by the reluctance to call Carnap an ontological pluralist. If this is because it is thought that this would make him a metaphysician, then I think this is mistaken. A metaphysician should hold that ontological truths objective (rather than conventional) and therefore cannot be a pluralist. Either some entity exists or it doesn't there's surely no two ways about it for a metaphysician? I note here, though it really belongs somewhere else where Grice is in the picture, that "conventional" as here contrasted with "objective" is a very weak term and does not carry much of the usual ordinary connotation of "convention". One thinks of the many case where there are different ways of describing the same thing, and notes that this shows that some features of the description cannot therefore be known to be features of the object described. One seeks to distinguish between what is an "objective" feature or reality from what is just a feature of the language with which we talk about reality.(I think this is the distinction which Strawson draws when he talks of descriptive and revisionary metaphysics, possibly; the one just exhumes the language, the other purports to reveal the reality). To talk about something as being "conventional" in this sense says nothing about how the language got its structure and meaning. It just says that the thing under consideration comes from the language rather than some aspect of reality." ---- I see. Good points. I see Carnap calls, incidentally, Strawson (and maybe Grice, since he was usually pigeonholed as one too) a "linguistic naturalist" or "naturalist" for short. So the idea of 'conventionality' as you attach it to 'language' per se is pretty central. For where would WE be without a language or lingo as I prefer? So I will consider those points. There must be perhaps a better term. "Arbitrary" maybe. I'm thinking of passages by Grice, -- his ref. to "Deutero-Esperanto" in WoW:Meaning-Revisited, where he wants to be totally disassociated with the idea of language being conventional. As a Griceian the least I can do is follow his usage or recommendation as to use! But I see what you mean. It's not like Grice is thinking of a characteristica universalis as you yourself have done in your rich X-logic projects! But will keep thinking about these things. Thanks for input. Cheers, J. L. Speranza From rbj at rbjones.com Thu Mar 4 07:08:47 2010 From: rbj at rbjones.com (Roger Bishop Jones) Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2010 12:08:47 +0000 Subject: [hist-analytic] Carnap and Grice on "logical" In-Reply-To: <47781.1ba801b9.38c0ac54@aol.com> References: <47781.1ba801b9.38c0ac54@aol.com> Message-ID: <201003041208.47533.rbj@rbjones.com> On Thursday 04 Mar 2010 06:25, Jlsperanza at aol.com wrote: > I see, in a way, I was going to say it relates to Grice > (That's what I _always_ say, right?). But on second > thoughts, I realise Grice speaks, somewhat irritatingly, > but I love him, of > > -, &, v, ->, (x), (Ex), ix > > as "formal devices" -- not "logical devices". > > I always thought the correct is "constant", but you may > teach me out of that! No, not at all. It was Witters who was adamant that the logical constants aren't constants. Actually whether the terminology is appropriate depends on the particular formal language you are talking about, since most of them make use of the concept "constant" but they differ in what things are constants. So in HOL all the usual suspects really are logical constants (names which denote entities), So you can say things like: (Ex)(x = $/\) Where the "$" is use to suspend the usual lexical status of conjunction and allow you to use it (not mention it) without supplying two things to conjoin. However, in first order logic, none of the logical operators are constants. In natural languages, who knows? RBJ From rbj at rbjones.com Thu Mar 4 07:40:34 2010 From: rbj at rbjones.com (Roger Bishop Jones) Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2010 12:40:34 +0000 Subject: [hist-analytic] Tarski, Carnap and Grice on "snow is white" In-Reply-To: <47d20.74af4c5f.38c0b149@aol.com> References: <47d20.74af4c5f.38c0b149@aol.com> Message-ID: <201003041240.34568.rbj@rbjones.com> On Thursday 04 Mar 2010 06:46, Jlsperanza at aol.com wrote: ...(jumble omitted) > Perhaps the first here was Loar, in his DPhil Oxon (under > Warnock), "Sentence Meaning". They are at odds in > defining what "snow is white" _means_. The Gricean > complications are galore. But on the whole there is this > consensus -- among all Griceians except Grice -- but > then he is no Griceian, necessarily -- that we do need > a reference to a > > "population" But I wouldn't myself say that came into the meaning of "snow is white". It does come (possibly) into the meaning of: "Snow is white" (as a sentence of English) is analytic. But only because it comes into the meaning of English, not because it comes into the meaning of "snow" or "white". And, by the way, I do think its mostly false (possibly not it some "idolects"). > so your ref. to "language spoken by people in England" is > just on spot. M. K. Davies has also considered this. So > this will relate to Carnap's idea that at the > meta-language level it is ALL synthetic and contigent. > Never mind the object-language. That sounds very intemperate. How about: "snow" means the same as "snow"? > A related item here may have to do with Putnam's somewhat > irritating idea of the division of linguistic labour. I > have not checked your reply to the 'science' post, but I > will after I send this. The idea that maybe > > "snow is NOT white" > > from a scientific point of view. Is it? Not necessarily. > I don't think so. But often. > It's good nobody (almost) could beat Carnap and Grice > with _analysis_! Otherwise, this would be the end of > analytic philosophy, almost! It would be a pyrrhic victory. RBJ From rbj at rbjones.com Thu Mar 4 09:30:16 2010 From: rbj at rbjones.com (Roger Bishop Jones) Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2010 14:30:16 +0000 Subject: [hist-analytic] Carnap And Grice Outside The Box In-Reply-To: <48117.2706457c.38c0b4b3@aol.com> References: <48117.2706457c.38c0b4b3@aol.com> Message-ID: <201003041430.16995.rbj@rbjones.com> On Thursday 04 Mar 2010 07:01, Jlsperanza at aol.com wrote: > --- Sorry for naivete. "P" standing for ... physics? Yes. > I think I prefer your first suggestion. Which method applies depends on your view about the meanings of moral terms, If you are prepared to defy Carnap, Moore and Hume then you can commit the naturalistic fallacy and define your moral language entirely using A-rules. (however, I should not have implicated that the moral truths would then all turn out to be analytic, for most of them would be synthetic) This would be the right method for utilitarians. Carnap would disagree with your opinions about the meaning of moral language, but not qua philosopher, since these fall outside his narrow conception of the scope of philosophy. A moral realist who agrees with Hume and Moore would have to adopt the second method. Carnap would presumably be pleased that you agreed with him on the lack of "cognitive" content (which you would do if that term were understood correctly in this context, "empirical" would be better). As a moral realist the moral terms might possibly be understood in terms of some platonic realm of ideal entities, but so long as you follow the method I think he would be bound to accept that "internal" questions involving this realm were meaningful, and save his reservations for pragmatic discussion of the merits of the language thus defined (which would again be extra-philosophical for Carnap). > One qualm here > would be with views like Blackburn, so-called > "anti-realism" -- perhaps a good bete noire, if ever > there was one, or 'quasi-realism'. I.e. the idea that > moral claims are not true, but not because they fail to > be true, but rather because it's a satisfactoriness (in > Tarski's sense) other than 'alethic', or 'assertoric', > or 'theoretical' or 'factual' which is at play? I don't know enough about this to have an opinion about whether they fall under my second case. > So I will consider those points. There must be perhaps a > better term. "Arbitrary" maybe. The trouble with "arbitrary" is that is sometimes only means that a choice in involved, but sometimes suggests that the choice involved is not a considered choice made for good cause but rather more like the tossing of a coin, or not subject to any kind of influence or rationale. Conventional does not carry this anarchic connotation, and is therefore better in that respect. However, Grice wants it to have its own connotations which I don't want (in this context). Can't we persuade Grice that "conventional" has these connotations only most of the time? > I'm thinking of passages > by Grice, -- his ref. to "Deutero-Esperanto" in > WoW:Meaning-Revisited, where he wants to be totally > disassociated with the idea of language being > conventional. But I want to talk of something being conventional just to say that it is rooted in language, without wanting to say anything about how the language gets its structure and meaning. Both Carnap and I want to distinguish some core of genuine metaphysics (which he wants to jettison, but not I) from things like descriptive metaphysics, which we might characterise as the metaphysical prejudices built into our language, and which we might suspect are just part of the way we happen to talk about the world but do not correspond to objective features of reality. I'm hard pressed for a word for these if we cannot call them conventional, and arbitrary doesn't fit the bill for me. RBJ From Jlsperanza at aol.com Fri Mar 5 01:37:03 2010 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2010 01:37:03 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Carnap and Grice on the "myth" of 'language' Message-ID: <8bfca.3176f792.38c2008f@aol.com> In a message dated 3/4/2010 9:39:30 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, rbj at rbjones.com writes: I want to talk of something being conventional just to say that it is rooted in language, without wanting to say anything about how the language gets its structure and meaning. ------ In his new book with Cambridge University Press, T. Wharton quotes _me_, but that's hardly important. He quotes Grice at length. I have been fortunate to correspond with him, and indeed I'm pleased he took up some of my bibliographical suggestions. Tim, a very serious reseracher, traced my references and _studied_ them! In any case, his closing section of his book on _Pragmatics_ -- he has a second in his agenda -- is entitled 'myth' and it's basically a retelling of the story in Grice WoW:Meaning-Revisited. But I will here excerpt from the last phase where we get to what you may be meaning by the 'full languge framework' that still needs not be 'conventional' in Grice's term, nor 'arbitrary' in that unwanted implicature the term has. Here is Grice then on the evolutionary account of something like 'a language': It's the middle passage of that vademecum that WoW is, p. 296. Grice writes: "In some cases -- "Logiclandian" as it were -- "the ARTIFICIAL communication devices MIHGT have certain other features too, over and above the one of being artificial: they might, for example, involve a FINITE number of fundamental, focal, elementary, root devices [vocabulary. JLS], and a finite set of modes or forms of combination (combinatory operations, if you like [syntactics. JLS] which are capable of being used over and over again. In these cases, the creatures will have, or be near to having, what some people [Carnap? R. M. Martin? JLS] thought to be characteristic of a _language_ [emphasis mine. JLS]: namely: a communication system with a FINITE SET of initial devices, together with SEMANTIC provisions for them, and a FINITE set of different syntactic operations or combinations, and an understanding of what the functions of those modes of combination are. As a result, they can generate an INFINITE number of sentences or complex communication devices, together with a correspondingly infinite set of things to be communicated, as it were" This is a lecture he delivered in Sussex in 1982, got repr. in N. V. Smith's _Mutual knoweldge_, with a reply, and it's now repr. in WoW. Cheers, JL From Jlsperanza at aol.com Fri Mar 5 01:57:39 2010 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2010 01:57:39 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Tarski, Carnap and Grice on "snow is white" Message-ID: <8c489.e708e07.38c20563@aol.com> In a message dated 3/4/2010 7:42:57 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, rbj at rbjones.com writes: That sounds very intemperate. How about: "snow" means the same as "snow"? ---- I see. And we can also play with "snow is white or it isn't" (L-analytic) or "if snow is white, snow is white (L-analytic) "if snow is white and grass is green, grass is green and snow is white" (L-analytic). Indeed, there are various analytic things one can say with something that, at the meta-language may be synthetic. Interesting. One bit where neo-Carnap might like to consider Grice is in the specification of 'sentence' ('snow is white') to _utterance_ ('snow is white', token, rather than type). Grice must have inherited this from his pupil Strawson, who couldn't stand a sentence! Grice writes in section on Truth in WoW:iii, p. 56 "My sympathies don't lie with Strawson's Ramsey-based redundance-theory of truth, but rather with Tarski's theory of correspondence" (he had just cited on the previous page). (or words). He goes on to claim his trust in the feasibility of such a theory: "it is possible to construct a theory which treats truth as (primarily) a property, not 'true' but 'factually satisfactory'." I see that point above as merely verbal and not involving any serious threat. "Let me ALSO assume that it will be a CONSEQUENCE [theorem. JLS] of such a theory that there will be a class K of utterances (utterances of affirmative subject-predicate sentences -- [ snow is white JLS ] ) such that Every member of K "(1) designates [or refers to. JLS] some item and indicates [or predicates. JLS] some CLASS (these verbs to be explained within the theory)." and "(2) is factually satisfactory if the item belongs to the class." "Let me finally assume that there can be a method of introducign a form of expression, 'it is true that ...' and linking it with the notion 'factually satisfactory', a consequence of which will be that to say 'it is true that Smith is happy' will be equivalent to saying that ANY utterance of class K which designates Smith and indicates the class of happy people is factually satisfactory (that is, any utterance which assigns Smith to the class of happy people is factually satisfactory." Cheers, J. L. Speranza From Jlsperanza at aol.com Fri Mar 5 02:08:49 2010 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2010 02:08:49 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Carnap and Grice on "logical" Message-ID: <8c737.26214105.38c20801@aol.com> In a message dated 3/4/2010 7:25:30 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, rbj at rbjones.com writes: in first order logic, none of the logical operators are constants. ----- Excuse me, again, my naivete. You mean they are not non-logical constants? I can see that 'constant' has these two uses: non-logical constant (of individual): a, b, c, ... n non-logical constant (of predicate): F, G, H, ... but there would be logical constant for 1-ary truth-functor: - logical constants for 2-ary truth-functors: &, v, -> logical constant for quantifier: (x), (Ex), (ix). --- And what Toulmin seems to be saying as per you above, that the choice of the logical constants in a language is a matter of choice. Modal logic alla Kripke, for example, has the Nec. operator as a logical constant. Hintikka's doxastic logic may have "Bel" as a logical constant -- although it looks like a common-or-garden dyadic predicate to me. Etc. Grice is most technical here in his contribution to the festschrift for Quine. This came out in 1969, "Dordrecht: Reidel -- ed Davidson/Hinikkta). All the contributors had the essays ready by 1968, I think and it was all published in a special issue of Synthese. Grice's contribution appeared, fortunately -- better late than never -- in the book form. Seeing that Grice was so busy with his 'implicature' stuff just fresh from Harvard -- although there are quotes for 'implicature' dating back to 1964, as cited from archival material by Chapman --, one is warmed up by Grice's interest in having a second round with Quine. Grice was possibly upset that Quine did not take the "Defense of a dogma" seriously enough, as coming from two 'ordinary-language philosophers'. This must have hurt Grice quite a bit -- especially since he would remember his own polemics with Strawson on this -- and the next thing he was mixing with all the possible logicians in the area -- both East (Boolos, Parsons) and West (Myro, Mate) to get to see if he could provide a better definition of 'logical', inter alia. Cheers, JL Speranza -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rbj at rbjones.com Fri Mar 5 08:56:35 2010 From: rbj at rbjones.com (Roger Bishop Jones) Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2010 13:56:35 +0000 Subject: [hist-analytic] Tarski, Carnap and Grice on "snow is white" In-Reply-To: <8c489.e708e07.38c20563@aol.com> References: <8c489.e708e07.38c20563@aol.com> Message-ID: <201003051356.35877.rbj@rbjones.com> On Friday 05 Mar 2010 06:57, Jlsperanza at aol.com wrote: > In a message dated 3/4/2010 7:42:57 A.M. Eastern > Standard Time, rbj at rbjones.com writes: > That sounds very intemperate. > How about: > "snow" means the same as "snow"? > > ---- > > I see. And we can also play with > > "snow is white or it isn't" (L-analytic) > > or "if snow is white, snow is white (L-analytic) > > "if snow is white and grass is green, grass is green and > snow is white" (L-analytic). But my example was a counterexample to your observation that the meta-linguistic propositions are synthetic (which they often are) and my example was offered as an analytic proposition in the metalanguage, whereas yours are analytic propositions in the object language (apart from the parenthetical claim as to their status). > One bit where neo-Carnap might like to consider Grice is > in the specification of 'sentence' ('snow is white') to > _utterance_ ('snow is white', token, rather than type). > Grice must have inherited this from his pupil Strawson, > who couldn't stand a sentence! I suspect he wouldn't be keen, because we have moved in the direction of the physically concrete, and this I would regard as a bad think for a logician. "Sentence" is problematic because you need more, so "statement" is better, but then that is also at risk of being thought an event. One needs a nice term-of-art for a sentence together with sufficient context to disambiguate the proposition it expresses. > Grice writes in section on Truth in WoW:iii, p. 56 > > "My sympathies don't lie with Strawson's Ramsey-based > redundance-theory of truth, but rather with Tarski's > theory of correspondence" (he had just cited on the > previous page). (or words). He goes on to claim his > trust in the feasibility of such a theory: I think that's pretty much where Carnap's semantics ends up. > "it is possible to construct a theory > which treats truth as (primarily) a > property, not 'true' but 'factually satisfactory'." > > I see that point above as merely verbal and not involving > any serious threat. Yes, the significance of the move escapes me. But the move away from considering propositions as merely truth bearers is taken very seriously in my notion of "epistemic retreat". > "Let me ALSO assume that it will be > a CONSEQUENCE [theorem. JLS] of > such a theory that there will be a class > K of utterances (utterances of affirmative > subject-predicate sentences -- > > [ snow is white JLS ] > > ) such that > > > Every member of K > > > "(1) designates [or refers to. JLS] > some item and indicates [or predicates. JLS] > some CLASS (these verbs to be > explained within the theory)." > > and > > "(2) is factually satisfactory if > the item belongs to the class." > > "Let me finally assume that there can be > a method of introducign a form of > expression, 'it is true that ...' and linking > it with the notion 'factually satisfactory', > a consequence of which will be that to say > 'it is true that Smith is happy' will be > equivalent to saying that ANY utterance > of class K which designates Smith and > indicates the class of happy people is > factually satisfactory (that is, any utterance > which assigns Smith to the class of happy > people is factually satisfactory." That sounds OK to me. RBJ From rbj at rbjones.com Fri Mar 5 08:42:29 2010 From: rbj at rbjones.com (Roger Bishop Jones) Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2010 13:42:29 +0000 Subject: [hist-analytic] Carnap and Grice on "logical" In-Reply-To: <8c737.26214105.38c20801@aol.com> References: <8c737.26214105.38c20801@aol.com> Message-ID: <201003051342.29676.rbj@rbjones.com> On Friday 05 Mar 2010 07:08, Jlsperanza at aol.com wrote: > In a message dated 3/4/2010 7:25:30 A.M. Eastern Standard > Time, rbj at rbjones.com writes: > > in first order logic, none of the logical operators > are constants. > > ----- > > Excuse me, again, my naivete. You mean they are not > non-logical constants? I can see that 'constant' has > these two uses: > > non-logical constant (of individual): a, b, c, ... n > non-logical constant (of predicate): F, G, H, ... > > but there would be > logical constant for 1-ary truth-functor: - > logical constants for 2-ary truth-functors: &, v, -> > logical constant for quantifier: (x), (Ex), (ix). > > --- And what Toulmin seems to be saying as per you above, > that the choice of the logical constants in a language > is a matter of choice. Modal logic alla Kripke, for > example, has the Nec. operator as a logical constant. > Hintikka's doxastic logic may have "Bel" as a logical > constant -- although it looks like a common-or-garden > dyadic predicate to me. Etc. Well we are talking about usage here, usage of the term "constant" which is not uniform across different disciplines and contexts. Let me be more explicit about the contexts in which the claims I made are normally accepted. First there is Wittgenstein's denial in the Tractatus that there are logical constants. What do we suppose he meant by that? My guess is that he was denying that the operators such as \/ and /\ are names of existent entities. So his denial is a little bit of dogmatic nominalism. The logical system in the Tractatus is quite precisely identifiable as what logicians call first order logic (in its simplest variety, without functions, without equality). Its precise delineation can be seen because Wittgenstein's defective apercu which he is keen to press, is that logic is truth functional and that logical truths are tautologous. He has Hume's fork in mind here, he wants there to be just the logical truths and the empirical ones, and so he wants the non-tautologies to have real empirical content (which he later discovers to be not the case because of things like colour exclusion principles, "~(red x /\ green x)"..). He also excludes equations as propositions because they don't fit this picture, which gives him a pretty naff account of the status of mathematics. Anyway if we come to first order logic, which belongs to mathematical logic rather than philosophy, and consider the language they use, it is pretty similar to Wittgenstein's. They don't make the metaphysical pronouncement, but what they mean by constant is very specific. It is a name denoting a fixed value in each interpretation of a first order language, and which may only occur in certain places in the syntactic structure of the language. The places you can put such a constant are distinct from the places in which you can place a logical operator. Mathematical logicians in the context of talking about first order logic, simply do not count "and" "or" etc. as constants. However, sticking to the "constant is a name" paradigm, when logicians talk about higher order logic (at least in Church's formulation) then the situation is entirely different. In Church's STT (on which HOL is based) the logical operators are bona-fide constants. They name certain functions in the domain of discourse. However, going back to the philosophers, thinking again of Tarski and Quine debating the relationship between logical truth and analyticity, here it is not constants which are at issue, even though they may talk about "logical constants". The issue at stake is how much of the semantics of the language can be taken into account in determining whether a sentence is a logical truth. If we insist that only the "logical" features of the language can be taken into account then we get a narrower conception of logical truth than of analyticity, but we also get one which must surely be language relative, and therefore does not really warrant (in my opinion) the very nice label "logical truth", which should go to something really important, like Hume's "Truths of Reason" or Aristotle's "Demonstrative (or intuitively certain)" (which is one of the ways Hume explicates "truth of reason"). RBJ > Grice was possibly upset that Quine did not take the > "Defense of a dogma" seriously enough, as coming from > two 'ordinary-language philosophers'. This must have > hurt Grice quite a bit -- especially since he would > remember his own polemics with Strawson on this -- and > the next thing he was mixing with all the possible > logicians in the area -- both East (Boolos, Parsons) and > West (Myro, Mate) to get to see if he could provide a > better definition of 'logical', inter alia. What Grice failed to understand was what Quine had learned by observing the attitude of the Viennese rednecks (excepting Carnap) toward Wittgenstein. Viz. that the ultimate token of respect for a philosopher, and what a philosopher must aspire to inspire in others if he is to be of the first rank, is From Jlsperanza at aol.com Fri Mar 5 12:26:05 2010 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2010 12:26:05 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Carnap and Grice on "logical" Message-ID: <148ba.5666e781.38c298ad@aol.com> In a message dated 3/5/2010 9:29:36 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, rbj at rbjones.com writes: If we insist that only the "logical" features of the language can be taken into account then we get a narrower conception of logical truth than of analyticity, but we also get one which must surely be language relative, and therefore does not really warrant (in my opinion) the very nice label "logical truth", which should go to something really important, like Hume's "Truths of Reason" or Aristotle's "Demonstrative (or intuitively certain)" (which is one of the ways Hume explicates "truth of reason"). ----- Thanks v. much for the explanation. I guess I won't be using 'logical constant' for a while. Grice does speak of 'device' in various contexts: They seem to be "logical devices" but he just says "formal devices" in WoW:ii, first page. and he has both the turth-functors (monadic, -; dyadic: &,v, ->) and the three quantifiers ((x), (Ex) and (ix)). This gives the list as comprising, let's see _seven_ formal devices. He does not mean to be complete, because his point is about "some of the formal devices". And he is not into the mathematic, as you say, first-order predicate-calculus (we agree there that's the stuff of mathematics) BUT of what he calls, vaguely, 'philosophical logic' (as opposed to 'philosophy of logic'). I think Grice and Strawson were in this informal campaign of highering the status of what they were doing, from "philosophy of logic" -- where they would be philosophers doing logic -- to "philosophical logic" where they would be logicians philosophising. Matter of style -- Similarly, he saw himself as a philosophical psychologist, rather than as a philosopher of mind. So it's the 'devices'. Other people indeed have used 'operators', and indeed the abstract idea of an 'operation' may be the best or more faithful to what we are wanting the 'devices' for. While in "Retrospective Epilogue" he sticks to the 'connectives', I take his point to be generalised to 'devices' -- so that it can comprise what he says about the Square of Opposition, e.g. as involving the quantifiers, say -- and not just the monadic truth-functor ('not' -- that we need to define the "E" and the "O" forms) and the dyadic truth-functors (that we need, qua "&" and "->", to define "A" and "I"). I agree with you that 'logical' should be given a higher status and that it cannot be dependent on the choice of a linguistic framework like that. And so I see very well Carnap's point in changing from "L" to "A". It seems authors who have spoken of the 'logical constants' have confused the things. I take your point very well that these devices can indeed be referred to in the meta-language, but since by Grice's Bootstrap (Principle -- don't have a richer metalanguage than you'll ever regret) and since the meta-language CAN be English, one need not have to go there -- yet. I'll revise for other uses of 'logical', with Grice. Cheers, JL Speranza From Jlsperanza at aol.com Fri Mar 5 12:59:33 2010 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2010 12:59:33 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Tarski, Carnap and Grice on "snow is white" Message-ID: <1712a.6fac0507.38c2a085@aol.com> In a message dated 3/5/2010 9:29:36 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, rbj at rbjones.com writes: and my example was offered as an analytic proposition in the metalanguage, --- Oops, thanks for that. So if I'm following. Since English can be the Meta-language, we don't really need a formal proof, as it were that something is analytic _in_ the meta-language. But I guess the idea is to proceed, _informally_, as we have proceeded, _formally_, in the construction of the object-language. I suppose the mere _examination_ of a claim (in the meta-language) would be enough for the analyst to judge whether it is analytic or not. My procedure would be to refer to something like the corresponding object-language tautology, i.e. the meta-language analytic sentence _sans_ quotation marks, as it were. But there may be more complications. Where would philosophy be without them?! From Jlsperanza at aol.com Fri Mar 5 13:19:54 2010 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2010 13:19:54 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Tarski, Carnap and Grice on "snow is white": designate and indicate Message-ID: <188de.1fe26bc9.38c2a54a@aol.com> We are considering Grice's analysis of 'true' in terms of two conditions: In a message dated 3/5/2010 9:29:36 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, rbj at rbjones.com quotes (me quoting from) Grice 'it is true that Smith is happy' will be > equivalent to saying that ANY utterance > of class K which designates Smith and > indicates the class of happy people is > factually satisfactory (that is, any utterance > which assigns Smith to the class of happy > people is factually satisfactory."" and writes: "That sounds OK to me." Good. So we see that we are sort of 'bi-secting' the '... is true' onto two more approachable notions: -- the "designate" and -- the "indicate" ---- This seems a viable way. This, while meant for subject-predicate things, should be adapted for proper quantificational formulae. In which case we need to think (as many have thought, and Grice does in "Vacuous Names") for -- 'designate' and -- 'indicate' as it applies to things like A E I O propositions in predicate-calculus dress. And this will entail a choice as to the interpretation of the quantifiers. Since he is being an extensionalist in the quote above -- notably in the 'indicate' as "set-theoretical" inclusion or membership, we may start with the so-called 'substitutional' (i.e. truth-valued) account to quantifiers. Grice WoW:v -- what I have elsewhere referred to as his "Shaggy Dog Story" proposes to analyse in some more detail what is involved in designating and indicating --- and more relevantly, in the "Definite Description" bit in "Vacuous Names" which has been reprinted in MIT, Definite Descriptions, he goes on to provide extensionalist treatments (as it were) of Donnellan's referential/attribute distinction. Grice prefers 'identificatory' versus 'non-identificatory'. This has to do, as R. B. Jones say, with a clear view of what the context is offering us. Grice feels he needs to appeal to what he calls a 'dossier'. When designating and indicating, the 'propositional complex' gets "expanded" in terms of what the user of the 'formula' can be held committed to. Etc. J. L. Speranza From Jlsperanza at aol.com Fri Mar 5 13:10:38 2010 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2010 13:10:38 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Tarski, Carnap and Grice on "snow is white": truth-bearers Message-ID: <17e26.370dd0b8.38c2a31e@aol.com> In a message dated 3/5/2010 9:29:36 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, rbj at rbjones.com writes: "Sentence" is problematic because you need more, so "statement" is better, but then that is also at risk of being thought an event. One needs a nice term-of-art for a sentence together with sufficient context to disambiguate the proposition it expresses. ---- Exactly. The idea of 'truth-bearer'. I suppose one does a search in philosophy literature, and 'truth-bearer' HAS to come up as a 'keyword'. I mean, what is 'truth-bearer' BUT a keyword!? Such a bit of jargon. Of course it's the most natural English, only convoluted. And a 'bearer' is possibly, in Canada, a breeder of bears, so one has to be careful. There must have been a good study of this. Indeed, 'sentence' is wrong. Tarski never used those. Satz, at most, I would hope, and we may need to see what Polish (Slavic Language) he used for that. The Satz is cognate with the "Saw" of Archaic English, and thus cognate with "Say". Grice was enamoured with "Say". Hare 1945, I think -- his thesis for Oxford -- could NOT use such Anglo-Saxonism, so he uses DICTIVE which is very good. So we may do to revise some of Hare's subatomic particles of logic. I have, elsewhere, and noted the Gricean connections. Hare disliked the dictive/dictor distinction -- which he meant to translate Frege, and opted for Greek roots: the phrastic and the neustic. While Grice recognises these he is going back to the dictive in Retrospective Epilogue. "Dic-" has a good Grecian root to it. I would submit, for example, that when they say, "master dixit", it's not merely that he (the master) _said_ it, but that he _showed_ it, indicated, inDIC-ated, and thus the master cannot, on risk of logical contradiction on the part of the reporter, have been wrong. (How can he indicate something if what he indicates is not out there, somewhere -- the objection may go that he indicates a mistake, though -- but surely we should be able to disimplicate that, or the master will!). So I would think it's the phrastic or the dictum that are the truth-bearers. But there are crucial problems. Grice played with the idea of a 'radix', too -- as in chemistry -- and exegesis has it, apres Wittgenstein and Black. But in any case, a radix CANNOT be the bearer of truth, because it's PART of a propositional complex, not the whole hog. Perhaps going back to Frege's analysis of the assertion sign should do here. I would think Frege would have the judgement as truth-bearer. Grice would allow for both judgings and 'dicta' to be truth-bearers. His maxims conjoining 'truth': Try to make your contribution one that is true. Do not say what you believe to be false -- are charmingly vague -- but you see where he is leading! Warnock has a nice piece on this, "Bristol Revisited", seeing that that big moment was when Austin and Strawson discussed these issues -- later taken up by Grice -- back at the Joint session of the Mind Association and the Aristotelian Society in that charming town on the Severn. ---- Cheers, J. L. Speranza From Jlsperanza at aol.com Sat Mar 6 17:25:19 2010 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Sat, 6 Mar 2010 17:25:19 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Carnap, Grice, and the Infinity Message-ID: <5e2f1.76ccaca1.38c4304f@aol.com> In discussing ways to narrow down the use of "language" in both Carnap (R. B. Jones's task) and Grice, I quoted from Gr89:296 -- to the effect of 'infinite'. I am reminded that mention of infinity may do, too, with Davidson's arguments against 'learnability'. I would address the Gricea point from yet a different perspective. This is aleph-numerable infinite, so pretty learnable (to me, I hope). But is such a notion necessary for Grice's big target, utterer's meaning, or should we just agree with S. Yablo, that, "implicature happens"? Grice writes: "In some cases ["Logiclandian" as it were, I owe the term to L. J. Kramer. Elsewhere. JLS] -- "the _ARTIFICIAL_ [emphasis mine. JLS] communication devices _MIGHT_ [emphasis mine. JLS] have certain _other_ [emphasis mine. JLS] features too, over and above the one of being artificial: they might, for example, involve a FINITE number of fundamental, focal, elementary, root devices [vocabulary, lexicon, including constants and other. I am reminded of MacFarlane -- student with Grice at UC/Berkeley -- and his excellent entry on l. constants in the Stanford Ency. JLS], and a FINITE set of modes or forms of combination (combinatory operations, if you like [syntactics. JLS] which are capable of being used over and over again. In these cases, the creatures will have, or be near to having, what some people [Carnap? R. M. Martin? Chomsky surely. Davidson -- vis a vis his learnability constraint. JLS] thought to be characteristic of a _language_ [emphasis mine. JLS]: namely: a communication system with a FINITE SET of initial devices [constant, but not variable, for those would be 'infinite'?. JLS], together with SEMANTIC provisions for them, and a FINITE set of different syntactic operations or combinations, and an understanding of what the functions of those modes of combination are." The grasp with the infinity, which perhaps did trouble Carnap too, cames in the next passage: "As a result," Grice writes, "they [the pirots. JLS] *can* [empahsis mine, for no one _will_ under their finite circumstances. JLS] generate an INFINITE number of sentences or complex communication devices, together with a correspondingly infinite set of things to be communicated, as it were" ----- When Grice delineates the six stages of his programme or grand plan or grand project (WoW:vi -- first two pages) he starts, logically -- but cfr. compositionalists -- with utterer's meaning and proceeds to expression meaning. In principle it is VERY possible to attain the level of the 'implicature' or at least utterer's meaning, _sans_ recourse to this denumerable infinity that a 'language' involves -- formal or not --. It's only stages 4 or 5, as I recall, which deal with a specification of what it means for an item _in_ the system to mean this or that. It would seem that if pirots are language-destitute, but can still _mean_ this or that, they may not and perhaps should NOT have recourse to such a (pretty unintuitionistic) infinite. For they will rely on procedures in each other pirot's (including themselves') repertoires. In any case, I thought the credit to Davidson and his stress on these issues was pretty relevant to bring to the forum, even in a discussion of Carnap and Grice. A final point by now: the entry for 'constants' by MacFarlane, incidentally, referred to above, includes gems like this (He regularly teaches "Grice" at Berkeley and I met him at Yale -- _very_ clever philosopher -- he likes Greek philosophy, too). "While it is generally agreed that signs for negation, conjunction, disjunction, conditionality, and the first-order quantifiers should count as logical constants, and that words like "red", "boy", "taller", and "Clinton" should not, there is a vast disputed middle ground. Is the sign for identity a logical constant? Are tense and modal operators logical constants? What about "true", the epsilon of set-theoretic membership, the sign for mereological parthood, the second-order quantifiers, or the quantifier "there are infinitely many"? Is there a distinctive logic of agency, or of knowledge? In these border areas our intuitions from paradigm cases fail us; we need something more principled." This actually should lead us to the other bit of that pair: the Yablo-Haslanger, for I'd need to revise what Haslanger let me have re: Myro's System G -- for it includes, I think, pretty detailed things on 'chronometrics' -- to formalise the Grice-Myro theory of time-relative identity. But if MacFarlane is right, as I think he is, the System G would not be just formal under that guise, and we may need to specify the introduction of the chronological modality in terms which does not clash with a more regimented first-order predicate calculus, the Canon. If only to play with it, and perhaps, flout it? -- Cheers, J. L. Speranza -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rbj at rbjones.com Sun Mar 7 16:28:01 2010 From: rbj at rbjones.com (Roger Bishop Jones) Date: Sun, 7 Mar 2010 21:28:01 +0000 Subject: [hist-analytic] Carnap and Grice on "logical" In-Reply-To: <148ba.5666e781.38c298ad@aol.com> References: <148ba.5666e781.38c298ad@aol.com> Message-ID: <201003072128.01772.rbj@rbjones.com> On Friday 05 Mar 2010 17:26, Jlsperanza at aol.com wrote: > Thanks v. much for the explanation. I guess I won't be > using 'logical constant' for a while. I hope you don't take me to be prescribing how you should use that term. It was my intention to clarify my own usage and connect it with some of the other usage with which I am familiar, and in particular with what was said by some important players in the run-up to Carnap's (purely verbal) shift from using L- to A- concepts. The more general usage which yours exemplifies is just as well represented (if not better), but since you questioned my observation about first order logic, I sought to connect it with the usage of mathematical logicians in that context. > Grice does speak > of 'device' in various contexts: > > They seem to be "logical devices" but he just says > > "formal devices" in WoW:ii, first page. > > and he has both the turth-functors (monadic, -; dyadic: > &,v, ->) and the three quantifiers ((x), (Ex) and > (ix)). This gives the list as comprising, let's see > _seven_ formal devices. He does not mean to be complete, > because his point is about "some of the formal > devices". And he is not into the mathematic, as you > say, first-order predicate-calculus (we agree there > that's the stuff of mathematics) BUT of what he calls, > vaguely, 'philosophical logic' (as opposed to > 'philosophy of logic'). I think Grice and Strawson were > in this informal campaign of highering the status of > what they were doing, from "philosophy of logic" -- > where they would be philosophers doing logic -- to > "philosophical logic" where they would be logicians > philosophising. Not convinced that that is the correct delineation. "Philosophy of logic" surely must be philosophy, whereas "philosophical logic" must be a kind of logic; doesn't that jump out from the grammar?? > Matter of style -- Similarly, he saw > himself as a philosophical psychologist, rather than as > a philosopher of mind. That's interesting. An expansion would be too. But don't we get a similar problem. Surely Grice should be a philosopher of psychology, and a philosophical psychologist someone approaching the similar problems from the opposite direction? > I agree with you that 'logical' should be given a higher > status and that it cannot be dependent on the choice of > a linguistic framework like that. And so I see very > well Carnap's point in changing from "L" to "A". I think you may have mistaken me there. I think also that I put myself badly. I did intend firstly to opine that Carnap's change was a purely verbal concession and did not reflect his agreement with Quine and Tarski on the use of the term "Logical". Second when talking about whether Logical Truth is language dependent, we have to bear in mind that it must be in one sense, that it depends upon the semantics of the language which sentences of the language express logical truths (just as in the case of analyticity). However, in the case of analytic, once one has the truth conditions, one needs no further information to determine analyticity. But if logical truth is taken to be narrower, then you do need something extra to determine logical truth. You have to have the truth conditional semantics split into two parts just for this purpose, and this is quite artificial. > It seems authors who have spoken of the 'logical > constants' have confused the things. I don't know that I would say that myself. I think it is legitimate to use "logical constant" just to refer to certain features of language, and the distinction which is captured by a narrower usage may not be relevant to what they are saying. It is arguably not relevant to the description of logical truth in these narrow senses, since whether the sentential constructors of first order logic are constants or not is immaterial to this point, one needs their semantics to be taken into account (in determining logical truth). On the other hand, though legitimate, it is a hostage to fortune because of the narrower usages, and another term might be less likely to result in confusion. RBJ From rbj at rbjones.com Sun Mar 7 17:36:39 2010 From: rbj at rbjones.com (Roger Bishop Jones) Date: Sun, 7 Mar 2010 22:36:39 +0000 Subject: [hist-analytic] Tarski, Carnap and Grice on "snow is white" In-Reply-To: <1712a.6fac0507.38c2a085@aol.com> References: <1712a.6fac0507.38c2a085@aol.com> Message-ID: <201003072236.39470.rbj@rbjones.com> On Friday 05 Mar 2010 17:59, Jlsperanza at aol.com wrote: > In a message dated 3/5/2010 9:29:36 A.M. Eastern Standard > Time, rbj at rbjones.com writes: > and my example was offered as an analytic > proposition in the metalanguage, > > --- > > Oops, thanks for that. > > So if I'm following. Since English can be the > Meta-language, we don't really need a formal proof, as > it were that something is analytic _in_ the > meta-language. But I guess the idea is to proceed, > _informally_, as we have proceeded, _formally_, in the > construction of the object-language. I suppose the mere > _examination_ of a claim (in the meta-language) would be > enough for the analyst to judge whether it is analytic > or not. My procedure would be to refer to something > like the corresponding object-language tautology, i.e. > the meta-language analytic sentence _sans_ quotation > marks, as it were. But there may be more complications. > Where would philosophy be without them?! If you are trying to decide the status of a claim in the metalanguage about the status of a claim in the object language (as to whether it is analytic) then the key consideration is whether your knowledge of the meaning of the claim in the object language comes from your knowledge of the meaning of the metalanguage or not. When your metalanguage is informal that may be hard to determine, even if the object language is formal. For example, if I said "0=0" is analytic in the language PA you have a problem in settling what the scope of the definition of PA is. If the meaning of PA (not the meaning of "PA") is part of its definition (i.e. of the definition of "PA") then that statement is analytic. But is it? If you look for definitions of PA, you will get some precise definitions of the formal system, and its not hard to figure out from the associated narrative what is the intended semantics, But as to whether the semantics part of the definition, I don't know how you could decide that, I don't think the literature would be sufficiently explicit. Some of the time it would be clear that PA is just a formal system and encompasses only the syntax. (in which case the claim would be synthetic, possibly, or possibly would fall down a crack). If you set out to use your informal language more precisely, and in it you actually do offer a definition of PA and include in it the definition the semantics, then you would be able to assert that the above claim is analytic. But I have never seen that done. The whole area, using natural languages as metalanguages for formal systems, is a case of pushing natural languages into new territories, and when you do this you are likely to find that unless you make the meanings definite by careful stipulation, they will not be sufficiently definite for judgements to be possible about this kind of issue. RBJ From Jlsperanza at aol.com Sun Mar 7 19:37:21 2010 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Sun, 7 Mar 2010 19:37:21 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Carnap, Grice: "philosophical logician" versus "philosopher of logic" Message-ID: <94145.518aa91.38c5a0c1@aol.com> In a message dated 3/7/2010 4:50:54 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, rbj at rbjones.com writes: Not convinced that that is the correct delineation. "Philosophy of logic" surely must be philosophy, whereas "philosophical logic" must be a kind of logic; doesn't that jump out from the grammar?? --- Right -- but recall: grammar is only a "pretty good guide" to logical form! :) But I am wondering. When I did teach logic, I felt so _guilty_. All those faces, looking at me for me to provide inference rules! Before the springbreak they are already convinced that horseshoe does some things! ---- So I am thinking: Lit.Hum. programme, Oxford. They should take a course as provided by The Wykeham professor of logic. -- _He_ is not a logician, or a philosopher. He is the Wykeham professor of logic. So the student, let's call him Tom (or Tommy) takes notes: "The professor said that the horseshoe, together with the squiggly makes for a turnstile". (the squiggly is the sign for "-", and the turnstile is the Frege assertion sign). What the Wykeham professor of logic is saying is not logic. Why, he is no logician. It's not philosophy of logic either. Why he is a professor, not a philosopher. So... ----- I would think that one may compare this with "prof. of mathematical logic", Oxford. St. Giles, Department of Mathematics. What he says is no logic. Why, he is only a "professor of" mathematical logic. Etc. ---- So I would think, --- there's LOGIC. That's a system. System G. Say. It's even rude to call it 'logic' because System G may incorporate 'temporal variables' which are not really part of the "logic" of it. That is something that exists: it's a PRODUCT. The process is what anyone who submitted is has done: a person or a machine. That would be a LOGICIAN. Plus, there are people called philosophers (machines, less likely) -- but if Noel Coward is right that 'probably we'll live to see machines do it, let's do it, let's fall in love' you never know. And if a philosopher philosophises on logic, he is doing, as you say, "philosophy of X", philosophy of logic. I claim that is what Grice is doing. But he is (I love him) pretentious enough. Similarly, when he has the sections of PGRICE separated, it's "Philosophical Psychology" -- but the work of the editors is relevant here --. Rather than, say, "philosophy of mind". So, in the same vein, or by the same token, one would say that "a philosophical psychologist" is a psychologist. But NONE of the psychologists I met will endure, bare, afford, tolerate, that! They are so narrow minded and myopically concentrated on Wundt, that whatever Aristotle said in "De Anima" (Peri Psycheos) goes over their narrow-minded heads. I would expect, on a bad day, the same from logicians! --- Think keywords: LOGIC PHILOSOPHY OF LOGIC PHILOSOPHICAL LOGIC PSYCHOLOGY PHILOSOPHICAL PSYCHOLOGY --- And now let's be reminded of Grice's 'casual' wording in the second William James lecture. Grice _is_ 'causal' by nature: all he said, and rightly so, is within this context of convivial philosophy: the talk, the conversation, the open class, the seminar, etc.: The first sentence from this thing that linguists have learned almost by heart -- some of them without understanding the gist of it! :( -- "It is a commonplace of philosophical logic that..." 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 --- the 6th and 8th word: "philosophical logic" "... there are, or appear to be, divergences in meaning between, one the one hand, at least some of what I shall call the formal devices" (never logical constants) "-, \/, /\, (Ax), (Ex), (ix) (when these are given a standard two-valued interpretation) -- and, on the other, what are taken to be their analogues or counterparts in natural language" -- he'll never say English! "such expressions as 'not', 'and', 'or', 'if', 'all', 'some' " "(or "at least some") he adds in a bracket indicating that he is NOT onto the counterparts but the original devices, rather. ----- So, if one presses the use of "philosophical logic" there, Grice is implicating that --- there are practitioners of such a thing, 'philosophical logic'. --- that those practitioners should perhaps not inappropriately be called 'philosophical logicians". I once was wedded to linguistics, but did not want, of course, to say, that Grice was one. (Imagine the 'treason' one may feel if one starts a programme in philosophy and comes out as a linguist!). So I found some expressions, in I think Allwood, or other, to the effect that there possibly is such a thing as "philosophical linguistics". in which case, this woud be practiced, no doubt, by the "philosophical linguist" -- but I never met one! --- With "pragmatics" it's even more aggravating. "Pragmatics", as promoted by the IPrA (quite a few euros per month they desire!) is _the_ truly interdisciplinary discipline. But there's "philosophical pragmatics" -- Grice no doubt, and the rest. And then there's -- I recall my local mentor on this, Thomas Moro Simpson, "philosophical semantics" -- "semantica filosofica" in the THICK book of his compilation that included a vernacular tr. of Strawon, "On referring" by my PhD thesis director, the late E. A. Rabossi. And a practitioner of which would be a "philosophical semanticist". We were discussing those things with Horn, and to his horror, if I may say so, we found that the OED recognises perhaps the first use of 'pragmaticist' as coming from his colleague at Yale, Harold Bloom. But I forget if we found, or they found, an earlier use of 'pragmaticist' to mean otherwise. I have found "pragmaticist" a bit of a mouthful. I find "philosopher" a bit of a mouthful, but my use of 'foolosopher' (c) by Hobbes, (OED) did fall flat in some quarters ("Surely we deserve some respect!", someone said, I recall him alright -- but I wasn't meaning all philosophers were such, of course). What bothers me about 'pragmaticist' is that it looks quite like the more venerable, 'pragmatist' -- after all it was a Peirceian, Morrisian invention, Carnap was pretty familiar with. Etc. And we don't want to say that a metaphilosopher _is_ a philosopher. Having seen who contributes to A. Marsoobian, "Metaphilosophy" (I love him) I HOPE he will accept contributions by, say, sociologists on serendipity and such. In fact, it may be claimed that to do true metaphilosophy it's best to leave the Emperor's clothes behind, or something. Cheers, J. L. Speranza From Jlsperanza at aol.com Sun Mar 7 19:43:07 2010 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Sun, 7 Mar 2010 19:43:07 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Carnap and Grice on "logical" Message-ID: <945f5.177146e9.38c5a21b@aol.com> In a message dated 3/7/2010 4:50:54 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, rbj at rbjones.com writes: did intend firstly to opine that Carnap's change was a purely verbal concession and did not reflect his agreement with Quine and Tarski on the use of the term "Logical". ---- Point very well, indeed gladly, taken. I wonder if you can provide the Tarski ref. This Polish scholar (logician?) did interact profusely with Carnap, but less so (even at the cross-citational level) with Tarski. By Quine I take we mean "Two dogmas" and Quine's contribution (the cheek! :() to Schlipp. Perhaps we can expand on Carnap on reply to Quine therein. Are we meaning the very early 1930s thing by Tarski on his failed attempt at formalisation of natural languages? -- in which case perhaps we do need a specific meaning-thingy (what to use instead of 'postulate') to specify the Carnap(ian), neo-Carnapian (and perhaps Gricean, neo-Gricean) use of 'logic', and 'logicAL'? JLS From Jlsperanza at aol.com Sun Mar 7 19:53:44 2010 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Sun, 7 Mar 2010 19:53:44 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Carnap and Grice on "meta-language" Message-ID: <94ee0.f879c79.38c5a498@aol.com> In a message dated 3/7/2010 5:36:47 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, rbj at rbjones.com writes: The whole area, using natural languages as metalanguages for formal systems, is a case of pushing natural languages into new territories It was my understanding that Carnap was pretty happy with English (or German) as the metalanguage. Seeing that he was a student of Esperanto, I wouldn't be surprised if he thought the latter too would do. As for Grice, while he seldom uses "English" -- he uses English all the time --, I would have less of a doubt. His formal System Q -- which later Myro relabelled System G, has even the syntax and semantics (we don't need the pragmatics -- we are assuming that Logiclandian is implicature-free, to echo L. J. Kramer, elsewhere) (and where does 'lexicon' or 'vocabulary' fit in? minor question) specified in English. With the aid of Greek signs like phi and psu as variables for propositions, etc. And references to 1 and 0 to indicate truth-value. So it's regimented English, as you write, for which English was possibly never deviced. But I wouldn't know. Think Boole on "nand" and we assume that he was no Martian! ('nand', 'nor' -- and if I may add, the 'nor' of English, but the 'nif' of your lovely "Boolean operators" pdf, at rbjones.com, and the 'neall' or 'nall' of Old English (OED), so I wouldn't know. So let's assume that we have FL (formal language) and MFL (meta-formal-language). Incidentally when you say 0=0 in PA I understand A to stand for arithmetic, right? And the P for pure, perhaps, I assume. So we have FL, formal language and a meta-language for FL which is also formal. So rather than just "MLF" we may use "FMLF", right? Finally, the incissive, I hope not, since it's silly: regressus ad infinitum. Do we need a FMLFMLF, or is the Bootrap to be of some use. Would a formal melanguage just do for our decision to deem this 'analytic' or not, or are we relying or trusting that our meta-language is self-entrenched, as it were? Cheers, JL Speranza From Jlsperanza at aol.com Sun Mar 7 20:37:58 2010 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Sun, 7 Mar 2010 20:37:58 EST Subject: [hist-analytic] Carnap and Grice on "psychology" ('assertion' and 'belief') Message-ID: <9722b.2512ebad.38c5aef6@aol.com> In a message dated 3/7/2010 4:50:54 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, rbj at rbjones.com writes: Surely Grice should be a philosopher of psychology, and a philosophical psychologist someone approaching the similar problems from the opposite direction? ---- Guess so, but as I said in post on 'philosophical logician' -- without having read the above, hence reply in this one -- I did claim that I had not heard of a psychologist dubbing himself (or his-self, as I prefer -- on risk) a philosophical one. Ditto, Carnap. Both Carnap and Grice seem to think that 'belief' and 'assertion' -- more the former, i.e. 'belief' or 'consent' -- seems to be a psychological notion, or a concept, a theoretical one, non-observable, of the theory or one theory of psychology. Grice's caveats with Intention-Based semantics would have him carefully analysing how one could define '... believes that...' in terms, as apparently Carnap (Church, early Quine, some Davidson) had as "... is disposed to assent to the utterance of the statement "p"". For Grice, it would seem, 'assert' is sort of reduced to terms of '... believes...'. He, in the non-symmetricalist picture of him, painted by Avramides in her book on Grice, is one. (Unlike, she holds, and rightly so it seems, Davidson). I'm less sure about Davidson. This relates to the holism Davidson inherited from Quine. It's the _same_ evidence that has us saying, "he asserts that p", "he believes that p". I doubt that. Plus, Grice would say, a cat may believe that the fridge is full, but hardly _assert_ _that_ the fridge is full (what kind of miaow would _that_ be? -- the regular one? Wouldn't that be more of an assertion that he, for one, cannot open it, i.e. the fridge?) --- There are problems with Carnap's physicalist reduction of psychology, perhaps. In that he would be more concerned than Grice would, on the very elements of a theory of psychology. In any case, these things seem to belong to the area where both Carnap and Grice were good at. It would be very BORING for me to have to read how a PSYCHOLOGIST defines his field of expertise. This has a curious consequence that I may share in full elsewhere, I hope. Grice's qualms, as per archival material by Chapman, that he never quite understood why people who are NOT philosophers are always ready to say what philosophy is. I don't see the problem. After all, philosophers are ALWAYS, or most of the time, talking about other things. Grice would say that that doesn't compare, because a philosopher is a man, and a man can speak of things of general concern, or interest. And indeed he seldom inquired onto the _particulars_ of a discipline other than his own (philosophy). But one still wonders. It's a strong statement by Grice cited by Chapman 2006, on the very early p. 5 of her book. Grice writes: -- and it's note 13, so let me check with Bancroft: Just: Grice, H. P. Misc. notes. H. P. Grice Papers, BANC MSS 90/135c. The Bancroft Library, University of California Berkeley. My marginal note reads: "Grice's examples! I never met one! Also "Chomsky, Quine, etc. psukhe." Grice writes: "It repeatedly asonishes me that people who would themselves readily admit to being devoid of training, experience, or knowledge in philosophy, and who have plainly been endowed by nature with no special gifts of philosophical intelligence should be so ready to instruct professional philosophers about the contents of the body of philosophical truths." ---- a close analysis, to make him less of the authoritarian he seems to be being. I should re-read the Chapman for the context -- but anyway: "It repeatedly" one, two, buckle my shoe? "astonishes me" is that good or bad? I hope it's good. Wonderment and astonishmet is the source of philosophy for Socrates according to Aristotle. It's not 'appalls me'" "that people" this reminds me of George Michael, "Kissing a fool", "People, you can never trust they way they'll feel, for they'll do" -- "if you let them, break your heart" (or something). "People" the early Grice -- Meaning, 1948 -- had as "vague": "a word means what people (vague) mean by it". "who would themselves readily admit to being devoid of training, experience, or knowledge in philosophy," This is inverse snobbery or snobby inversion, I'm never sure. It's usually the athetic types. I know that when I was in Harvard I would NEVER display an interest in training, experience or knowledge of philosophy". All I cared for was the history of rowing along the Charles of which I found some excellent books, too, in that second-hand booshop in downtown Cambridge! "and who have plainly been endowed" --- plainly. Nobody blinder than he who won't see. Or something. "by nature" how can Nature endow NO GIFT? "with no special gifts" Don't look at a gift horse in the mouth, I say! "of philosophical intelligence" where the idiom is perhaps unhappy (infelicitous) unless Grice is in one of his private little 'angry' (presumed 'disgusted Tunbridge Wells' persona) modes -- never moods. Surely there's more to intelligence than philosophical intelligence, even for Cicero -- who possbily did coin 'intelligence' so we shouldn't worry, those entre nous who have been endowed by Nature with such no-gifts. "should be so ready to instruct professional philosophers" That may be their problem. There was a discussion in CHORA-L recently on that. Justine Johnstone was reporting views of 'non-professional' philosophers, who S. Clark, who also runs PHILOS-L seems to have called "unwaged" philosophers. Or the other way round: the waged philosopher the professional one. But cfr. Sir Cecil Vyse: Hello. Emerson. Hello. So you are willing to marry my daughter. Sir Cecil Vise: Yes. Emerson: And what's your profession, if I may know? Sir Cecil (utterly disgusted -- played by genial Daniel Day Lewis): --- Profession! Perish the thought! I am a _gentle_ man! --- Maurice, A Room with a View. Let's recall the cricket context: Professionals versus Gentleman at Lord's, and the insiduous obit Grice got for the Times (anon. -- should THAT be legal?) "Professional philosopher and amateur cricketer". Grice refers to the profession of philosophy ironically in another post. I shared this with a professional philosopher, Walter Okwewsky (of Memorial University in Canada), and he said, "butter yes, but no bread please" Grice writes, in PGRICE with the passage I ended my PhD philosophical dissertation with: (by heart, hence a mistake or too, in words): "those who look to philosophy for their BREAD AND BUTTER should praise that the flow of problems never dries up; for otherwise, it's not like philosophy would _stop_; it's more than that: it would never have gotten (sic) started!" (words to that perlocutionary effect). "about the contents of the body of philosophical truths." --- Do we _need_ 'philosophical' truths. In "Aspects of Reason" he wonders about fish. Suppose Empedocles is right and we are all, after all, fish -- evolved ones, of course. Oddly, Grice would have marvelled at the fact that a "pirot" as defined by the OED, is a type of fish. Grice wonders about ichtyhological. Surely, he says, "it's dubious that there's a type of ichthyological necessity." "Necessity" he wants to say, is focal: there is just ONE type of 'necessity': physical necessity, logical necessity, etc. are the different species of the same genus, or perhaps there is a gradual series. But in any case. With 'truth' the same may hold. "Oh wait -- that is a _philosophical_ truth". I would be ready to engage in the informativeness (or quantitative, as L. J. Kramer lovingly puts it) maxims: to add ANY qualification of 'truth' is to disparage the notion, even if we, with Tennant(*)may perhaps agree uit _is_, on occasion, in need of some taming or two. Etc. J. L. Speranza *Tennant, The Taming of the True From aune at philos.umass.edu Mon Mar 8 09:33:19 2010 From: aune at philos.umass.edu (Bruce Aune) Date: Mon, 8 Mar 2010 09:33:19 -0500 Subject: [hist-analytic] L-truth, A-truth: Carnap and Grice In-Reply-To: <7310.338c2feb.38beebae@aol.com> References: <7310.338c2feb.38beebae@aol.com> Message-ID: <7692856C-C780-4119-BA2B-CBFD0D0C4010@philos.umass.edu> As I see it, the following quotation from RBJ, though true, is misleading: "at the last in the Schilpp volume he [Carnap] concedes defeat to the Quine-Tarski conspiracy on use of the term "Logical Truth" and starts using A-true instead of L-true. In "Meaning Postulates" he seems to use the "L-" concepts throughout." In "Meaning Postulates" Carnap did use "L-true" in relation to meaning postulates, but he never considered a meaning postulate L-true or L-false simpliciter. His idea was that a sentence S is analytic in L just when P L-implies S, P being the conjunction of the meaning postulates for L. He extended this harmless way of talking by associating with L a language L' in which sentences of L can loosely be described as L-true: they are L-true in L' if they are L-implied by P. The so-called L-truths of L' are thus the consequences of L's meaning postulates. Some of these consequences are L-truths in a narrow sense, since L-truths, narrowly understood, are L-consequences of anything. But describing other P-consequences as L-true in L' is bound to produce confusion in careless readers. For this reason, Carnap began to speak of P-consequences as A-truths. Since L-truths (narrowly understood) are, trivially, consequences of P, they too can be described as A-true, but this is unlikely to cause the kind of confusion prompted by his earlier terminology. Bruce Aune -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rbj at rbjones.com Mon Mar 8 12:52:36 2010 From: rbj at rbjones.com (Roger Bishop Jones) Date: Mon, 8 Mar 2010 17:52:36 +0000 Subject: [hist-analytic] L-truth, A-truth: Carnap and Grice In-Reply-To: <7692856C-C780-4119-BA2B-CBFD0D0C4010@philos.umass.edu> References: <7310.338c2feb.38beebae@aol.com> <7692856C-C780-4119-BA2B-CBFD0D0C4010@philos.umass.edu> Message-ID: <201003081752.36620.rbj@rbjones.com> On Monday 08 Mar 2010 14:33, Bruce Aune wrote: > As I see it, the following quotation from RBJ, though > true, is misleading: > > "at the last in the Schilpp volume he [Carnap] concedes > defeat to the Quine-Tarski conspiracy on use of the > term "Logical Truth" and starts using A-true instead of > L-true. In "Meaning Postulates" he seems to use the "L-" > concepts throughout." Yes, I was on my way to confessing my error, when I found your message. Its true (as I had said) that Carnap does use only L- concepts in "Meaning Postulates", but he has already fallen into line, at least for the purposes of this exposition. with Quine, and is now using L- concepts for the narrow notion of logical truth. Carnap talks here, JL, of logical "particles". > In "Meaning Postulates" Carnap did use "L-true" in > relation to meaning postulates, but he never considered > a meaning postulate L-true or L-false simpliciter. Yes, I agree. Though it would have been under the previous meaning for L-true (had he not made an error in this respect which this paper is correcting). The correction of the error in his definition of analyticity (which mirrors one in the Tractatus) does not depend on the shift in terminology with which here here concedes on terminology to Quine. (i.e. the use of L-true for "the narrower conception" of logical truth). > His idea was that a sentence S is analytic in L just > when P L-implies S, P being the conjunction of the > meaning postulates for L. Yes, this he gives as the explicandum of "L-true with respect to P". > He extended this harmless way of > talking by associating with L a language L' in which > sentences of L can loosely be described as L-true: they > are L-true in L' if they are L-implied by P. This is an odd little alternative, he would have been better not to mention it. > But describing other P-consequences as L-true in L' is > bound to produce confusion in careless readers. For this > reason, Carnap began to speak of P-consequences as > A-truths. That's an interesting explanation of the introduction of the term. But I don't see how it helps to reduce the confusion arising from that manner of defining analyticity, which can only be fixed by dropping the alternative definition. > Since L-truths (narrowly understood) are, > trivially, consequences of P, they too can be described > as A-true, but this is unlikely to cause the kind of > confusion prompted by his earlier terminology. So which earlier terminology is it that you consider confusing? My understanding is that the primary purpose of the "Meaning Postulates" is to correct an error in "Meaning and Necessity" which Carnap had inherited by following the Tractatus too closely in its definition of logical truth. (this is definition 2-2). For this purpose a change in terminology is unnecessary, and does not help, though in the circumstances it was an understandable concession. RBJ From rbj at rbjones.com Mon Mar 8 16:21:34 2010 From: rbj at rbjones.com (Roger Bishop Jones) Date: Mon, 8 Mar 2010 21:21:34 +0000 Subject: [hist-analytic] Carnap and Grice on "meta-language" In-Reply-To: <94ee0.f879c79.38c5a498@aol.com> References: <94ee0.f879c79.38c5a498@aol.com> Message-ID: <201003082121.34424.rbj@rbjones.com> On Monday 08 Mar 2010 00:53, Jlsperanza at aol.com wrote: > In a message dated 3/7/2010 5:36:47 P.M. Eastern > Standard Time, rbj at rbjones.com writes: > The whole area, using natural languages as metalanguages > for formal systems, is a case of pushing natural > languages into new territories > > It was my understanding that Carnap was pretty happy with > English (or German) as the metalanguage. Seeing that he > was a student of Esperanto, I wouldn't be surprised if > he thought the latter too would do. I think it matters what purpose you have in mind. His main interests would have been in the status of judgements in the object language, rather than the status of judgements in the metalanguage, i.e. the status of judgements in a formal language rather than an informal language. However, he did want all his philosophical judgements to be analytic, so there is a presumption that that would be the case. In relation to my expressed reservations on this, arising from doubt about the meaning of names of object languages, I think one can possibly get out of this by invoking context. Even if the meaning of the name of a language did not encompass the semantics of the language, one would expect that when judgements about analyticity of judgements in the object language are involved the context would suffice for us to know what semantics is at stake. But I do think we are outside Carnap's sphere of interest (and mine really). I think if these issues became significant we would either be more explicit in making sure that our notion of language, and the definitions of specific languages we offered did include the semantics. Or else we would switch to a formal metalanguage. The latter is certainly my preference, I would normally want to formalise a definition of a language and its semantics so that these fine points about the semantics of natural languages are not significant. There is a general strategem here, which Carnap and I adopt, which is, because our subject matter almost never is a natural language, we side step as far as possible difficulties in the semantics of natural languages by stipulative definition, either of concepts or languages. > So let's assume that we have FL (formal language) and MFL > (meta-formal-language). Incidentally when you say 0=0 in > PA I understand A to stand for arithmetic, right? And > the P for pure, perhaps, I assume. So we have FL, > formal language and a meta-language for FL which is also > formal. So rather than just "MLF" we may use "FMLF", > right? Sorry, that's Peano Arithmetic, but the "PA" usually refers specifically to first-order arithmetic (Peano's original axioms were higher order). But I don't think it matters, any arithmetic will give you "0=0". > Finally, the incissive, I hope not, since it's silly: > regressus ad infinitum. Do we need a FMLFMLF, or is the > Bootrap to be of some use. Would a formal melanguage > just do for our decision to deem this 'analytic' or not, > or are we relying or trusting that our meta-language is > self-entrenched, as it were? In his syntactic phase Carnap thought he could get away using the same language for object and metalanguage (because that's what Goedel did). Even if you are doing semantics (or at least abstract semantics) you can use set theory all the time, because its easy to find for any set theory as object language a slightly stronger one which will do for a metalanguage. There is a problem of regress in the foundations of abstract semantics, which corresponds to the problem of the infinite heirarchy of metalanguages, and this is an interesting problem which I havn't actually noticed anyone (apart from myself) taking much interest in. But even for me, its a bit academic. The problem of regress is not practically significant. RBJ From rbj at rbjones.com Mon Mar 8 16:42:16 2010 From: rbj at rbjones.com (Roger Bishop Jones) Date: Mon, 8 Mar 2010 21:42:16 +0000 Subject: [hist-analytic] Carnap and Grice on "psychology" ('assertion' and 'belief') In-Reply-To: <9722b.2512ebad.38c5aef6@aol.com> References: <9722b.2512ebad.38c5aef6@aol.com> Message-ID: <201003082142.16702.rbj@rbjones.com> On Monday 08 Mar 2010 01:37, Jlsperanza at aol.com wrote: > --- There are problems with Carnap's physicalist > reduction of psychology, perhaps. In that he would be > more concerned than Grice would, on the very elements of > a theory of psychology. In any case, these things seem > to belong to the area where both Carnap and Grice were > good at. It would be very BORING for me to have to read > how a PSYCHOLOGIST defines his field of expertise. I've not read anything about this kind of reduction, and I don't recall that Carnap talks about it in the Schilpp volume. There is a paper there by Feigl which is about physicalism and the foundations of psychology, but Carnap's response, in which he mostly agrees with Feigl, he omits the mention of psychology, and it looks like he just addressed general questions about physicalism without specific reference to psychology. > This has a curious consequence that I may share in full > elsewhere, I hope. Grice's qualms, as per archival > material by Chapman, that he never quite understood why > people who are NOT philosophers are always ready to say > what philosophy is. I don't see the problem. Nor me. I'm not really a philosopher so far as academics are concerned. > After all, > philosophers are ALWAYS, or most of the time, talking > about other things. Grice would say that that doesn't > compare, because a philosopher is a man, and a man can > speak of things of general concern, or interest. And > indeed he seldom inquired onto the _particulars_ of a > discipline other than his own (philosophy). Well I think philosophers should dig into other disciplines, to whatever depth suits them. Of course there is a risk of getting egg al over your face. And of being ignored. RBJ