[lit-ideas] Teleo-Functional

[Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx]

In a message dated 10/4/2004 12:01:22 PM Eastern Standard Time,  
donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:
>  While the Greeks spoke of that, Grice, too. In _Conception of Value_, he   
> talks of the function of a tiger to be 'to tigerise' -- and the same  for
> each  
> noun. This is the finality (ratio  essendi).
May it be inferred from this that the function of a burglar is to  burglarise,
of a motorist to motorise and of a bullshitter to  philosophise?
Donal
Rooting for anti-essentialism
London  


----
 
Sort of. It's rather more complex. Since you ask, let me quote you Grice's  
passage in full:
 
It's on p. 81 (Oxford: Clarendon Press):
 
"My idea would be that every sort of creature, and every _individual_  
belonging to any such sort, must, in virtue of the fact that it is a _sort_ of  
*living* creatures, or a sort of living creature, possess as an _essential  
propety_ an *active* finality. To be a tiger or to be a human being is to  
possess 
as an essential property the capacity to tigerise or the capacity to  humanise 
(in whatever those things may be thought to consist)."
 
----
 
Note that if we say:
 
   Donal McEvoy is a human
 
For Grice, it is not just
 
    Nec.(Donal McEvoy HUMANISE)
 
but:
 
   Nec. (Donal McEvoy DONALMCEVOYISE).
 
Where 'Donalmcevoyise' is the neologism constructed according Gricean lines  
to explain Donal McEvoy's _raison d'etre_ in this (or the third, as he'd 
prefer)  world.
 
Cheers,
 
JL
 
 
 
 
 


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