utrum chimera in vacuo bombinans possit comedere secundas intentiones --
"a chimera buzzing in vacuity is able to devour second intentions".
In a message dated 10/19/2015 8:36:43 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
jejunejesuit.geary2@xxxxxxxxx writes:
"goats definitely will NOT eat anything" and previously: "Goats (which, of
course, are not chimera) do not eat "mostly everything""
Thanks. Note that the first statement rreads "goats ... do not eat MOSTLY
everything"; the second, "goats definitely will NOT eat anything" _sine_ the
'mostly".
It all boils down, metaphorically, to the implicature of 'mostly'.
In Ancient Greek, a 'chimera', ending in -a, and thus a feminine noun, was
indeed a goat. When D. P. Henry wonders, in his 'most subtle question',
whether a goat (or 'chimera', to use the Ancient Greek) will eat, in a vacuum,
'a second intention', I don't think Henry is listing 'second intention' as
Geary lists oats and ivy ("A kiddley divey too,/ Wouldn't you?").
I think D. P. Henry's most suble question was about a category mistake. A
second intention is not something that you (or even a goat, discriminating
as they can be) eat -- less so inside a vacuum.
Henry thought the issue was deep enough to dedicate a whole book to it --
which was reviewed in at least 14 professional journals of philosophy (since
some philosophers think they are "professionals of wisdom," it is reputed
that Martin Heidegger, allegedly once the greatest living philosopher --
until he died -- threw up when he heard this).
Lewis and Short's Oxford Latin dictionary has it:
Chĭmaera, ae, f., = Χίμαιρα (lit. a goat).
From Liddell/Scott's Greek Lexicon (yes, this is Liddell, the father of
"Alice in Wonderland"):
χίμαιρ-α [ι^], ἡ,
A.she-goat, Il.6.181, Hesiod, Th.322, PCair.Zen.576.3 (iii B. C.);
sacrificed before battle to Ἄρτεμις Ἀγροτέρα, Aeschylus, Ag.232 (lyr.),
X.An.3.2.12, HG4.2.20, Lac.13.8; “θαλλὸν χιμαίραις προσφέρων”
S.Fr.502; a young she-goat (cf. χίμαρος), Aristotle, History of Animals
523a1; “χ. ἐξ αἰγῶν” kid, LXX Le.4.28,29.
Grice speaks of how literal expressions can get figurative. His example is
i. You're the cream in my coffee.
"It would be absurd to take this utterance LITERALLY: first; cream has no
ears, so what would be the point to utter to something without ears that the
addressee is the cream in one's figure. Whereas if we take it
figuratively, to IMPLICATE, 'you are my pride and joy', the thing makes sense'.
Similarly:
ii. You are a chimera.
A goat does have ears, and knowing the Greeks (who spent some of their
Ancient literature talking and singing to animals -- usually to sleep) would
perhaps believe that a one-year she-goat would be able to understand. In
Hellenistic times (if not earlier), the expression had acquired an implicature
to it, to mean indeed a _STRANGE_ one-year-she-goat, and as the word kept
being used, the most important IMPLICATUM was the monstrosity, rather than
the one-year-she-goat quality that had originated the expression as first
used by that first Ancient Greek who invented the word (Note that chimero,
with an -o, is a masculine noun, and means a one-year MALE goat).
When Henry wonders if a chimera can eat a second intention, he is perhaps
focusing his implicature on 'second intention' as opposed to 'first
intention'.
Henry notes that the question was debated for ten weeks at he Council of
Constance, as it grappled with the schism in the Church and the Hussite
heresy. "Their results are all in the proceedings," he adds.
Cheers,
Speranza
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