[lit-ideas] A Finkish Implicature
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 29 Apr 2010 10:59:44 EDT
In a message dated 4/29/2010 11:46:46 A.M., wokshevs@xxxxxx writes:
Surely virginity is a state, not a disposition. (Though not a state of
mind,
either.) The tendency to engage in behaviors and make decisions that
promote
virginity, on the other hand, would legitimately be classed as a
disposition.
"NOT to engage"
the decision "NOT TO ENGAGE" in behaviours that
dismote virginity seems to me more relevant at this point.
In any case, Donal's vacuous claims regarding 'finkish virginity' stand as
they were: vacuous.
finkish:
Term due to the contemporary Canadian philosopher C. B. Martin, to describe
powers with the uncomfortable habit of failing to operate just as the
occasion for their manifestation comes about. Thus intuitively a glass might
be
fragile, but also be protected by a guardian angel, who steps in and saves
it when some accident is about to break it. So no normal manifestation of
fragility ever arises. The possibility of finkish properties (or finkish
situations) casts doubt on the plausible equation between an object having a
dispositional property, and it being true that if such and such a situation
arises, the normal exhibition of that property follows.
J. L. Speranza
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