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<DIV>In a message dated 7/18/2009 3:44:11 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
rbj@rbjones.com writes:<BR>"As far as Aristotle is concerned I'm still a novice,
and the notion of a categorial concept has not yet come up. We have these two
kinds of predication (essential and accidental) which involve "terms", which, if
Aristotle's syllogistic logic is to be sound cannot be empty. However
syllogistic reasoning is not sound (it seems) for accidental (or inter
categorial) predication anyway so its not clear how much weight one can place on
Aristotle's logic when considering his metaphysics. [...] There is only one
category of substance. Do the others exist out there (rather than merely being
instantiated out there)? [...] But the individuals include individual attributes
(e.g. whiteness). If you don't want whiteness to be "out there" then you have to
stick to particulars (individual substances)."</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Excellent commentary, R. B. Jones. Indeed, "Particulars exists". I have to
refine my _finesse_! And we want the Greek terms here! 'tode ti' seems -- I
think Code (who cares perhaps slighlty more than Grice -- in published views --
on the equivalent Greek terms as used by Aristotle) seems to hit the mar, the
individual man, as it were. The particular individual man, that Socrates -- a
'spatio-continuant temporal' sometime in the past IZZ, or more properly, WAZZ.
--.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>What Grice and Strawson were somehow obsessed -- I guess one _gets_bored of
a landscape (?) and needs to move around? -- with two notions: it's the
substantiation. I think Strawson calls it in "Subject and Predicate in Logic and
Grammar" -- 'Her particular paleness filled the room as Marilyn Monroe entered
the room'. I know Grice, more eschatological, called it 'transsubstantiation' --
'metaphysical', he adds -- as opposed to 'physical', I expect, which was the old
philosopher's stone -- alchemy. And his examples are subtler: a 'human', for
example, transsubstantiates into a 'person' ("We are not hanging a human", the
Sheriff addressed the crowds gathering around the tree, "we're hanging a
_person_ -- and a bad'un at that!" -- Crowds cheer).</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>When Strawson wrote, "A logician's landscape" (PQ -- review of Quine, From
a logical point of view, really -- and which I don't think has been reprinted,
as it should -- because it contains some observations not found in the otherwise
large corpus of Strawson's writings) he was being _serious_, not just
metaphorical. We hope. I realise of the seriousness of the enterprise when
reading "Prejudices and predilections -- which become life and opions" by
you-know-who (in Grandy/Warner, PGRICE). After a long discussion of why we
_have_ to speak ordinary English (when talking with the ordinarily English)
Grice adds, words to the effect -- they are not expecting as to pegasise
constantly, or to treat propositional attitudes as monadic predicates. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>The landscape that Quine expected the logician to _paint_ was _not_ 'just'
a fine one of desert and empty plains. It was one that had been _impoverished_:
desert and plains when there are roses in bloom, I think.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>R. B. Jones who hails from the Heart of England, as H. P. Grice did (Grice
born in the 'affluent suburb', Chapman has it, of Harborne, Warwickshire) may be
warmed by the focus on the landscape. I LOVE landscapes (or rather engravings)
of the Heart-of-England little village landscape. Those lanes and stone walls,
and the cottage gardens, and the thatched trees, and the clouds, and the
haywain, and the church steeple, and the sheep, and the occasional human to add
a touch of 'transcendental' category to the picture (although cottage and
haywain may do for the imaginative ones). _That_'s the landscape we were grown
into. (I know Grice 'is' being metaphoric -- so don't satirise me!) That's the
landscape our eyes are prepred to see. That's the landscape we want to _talk_
about. That's the landscape people will ask us questions about. That's the
landscape we have ("This England!" forever!) to keep!</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>The scientist's landscape "is alright as a hobby", as Aunt Agatha said to
John Lennon, "but you'll never make a job off it". (I was told, for example,
that Einstein never _taught_ -- just did _science_. So the dialogue of
scientists and their landscapes is something they sometimes _feel_ they _have_
to keep for theirselves (sic). Unless you _ask_. But again, I think the eyes are
important. Microscopes allow us to see things in the landscape we would
otherwise not detect. As Hare said, if I say, "There is an animal in the back of
the garden", I don't expect you to treat me with a bacteria (or my Aunt
Matilda). With 'atoms' and 'quanta' is even trickier in that as Heisenberg's
indeterminacy principle shows (first quote by Eddington, in the OED),
'Eddington's table' (as Grice qualifies it) keeps changing as you observe it,
turning the 'observational' vs. 'theoretical' distinction Ramsified at
least!</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>When Grice wrote 'The Causal Theory of Perception' he gathered his amount
of criticism when he is describing</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> brain
red</DIV>
<DIV> man retina light
waves pillar</DIV>
<DIV>
box</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>(and the essay is kept by Bayne in his pages). Grice is merely interested
in the disimplicatures of</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> The pillar box is red</DIV>
<DIV> The pillar box seems red</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>-- the 'causal causal causal' (scientific) story is nice as a story but the
philosopher is free to _leave_ a blank here, he says (since perception is pretty
well understood anyway, and see if you can catch an Oxford philosopher uttering
an _empirical_ claim!)</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Ditto, in his more polemic last section on "From the banal to the bizarre",
with comments by Myro, he lectures us on "the devil of Scientism" that would
have us think that since we don't know that we know, we better appeal to the
scientist -- the 'neurophysiologist' in this case -- for help about our willings
and judgings!</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>The topic that D. Frederick and B. Aune are emphasising: the fallibilism
and corregibility of categorial schemes is nice, -- And the Oxonians may have
been a bit stern here (and appeal to Aristotle with a more provocative intent
than needed) but is it _mandatory_ to *be* Patricia Churchland? :)</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Cheers,</DIV>
<DIV><BR>J. L. Speranza</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV></FONT><DIV CLASS="aol_ad_footer" ID="d012f2721efa082bbafc5f43b38c2aa3"><br/><font style="color:black;font:normal 10pt arial,san-serif;"> <hr style="margin-top:10px"/><B>A Good Credit Score is 700 or Above. <A HREF=http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100126575x1222377099x1201454424/aol?redir=http://www.freecreditreport.com/pm/default.aspx?sc=668072%26hmpgID=62%26bcd=JulystepsfooterNO62>See yours in just 2 easy steps!</A></B></font></DIV></BODY></HTML>
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