In an interview with The Telegraph, Dylan uttered:
i. Absolutely. If it is at all possible.
Now, the Swedish Academy informs us that they received a letter by Dylan
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/17/books/bob-dylan-nobel-ceremony.html?_r=0 ;
"a personal letter from Bob Dylan, in which he explained that due to
pre-existing commitments, he is unable to travel to Stockholm in December and
therefore will not attend the Nobel Prize Ceremony" [...]"
We can imagine the full utterance,
ii. Dear Academy,
I am sorry to inform you that, due to pre-existing commitments, I am unable
to travel to Stockholm in December for the ceremony,
Sincerely
Bob Dylan.
The use of 'commitment' is Quineian rather than Griceian. Quine's claim to fame
(one of them) is to realise that if you say
iii. Pegasus flies.
you commit to
iv. (Ex) x is Pegasus.
(For short, he uses 'pegasizes' as a word, for anything that x does to be
Pegasus). Dylan's use of 'commitment' is more standard, we hope. Rather than
ontological commitment (though Dylan does use 'pre-EXISTing') we may assume
that to the modal operator "<>", we have to add the deontic operator of
obligation "O". So the issue is not that simple. It may involve
w1 aspects -- the letter that Dylan sent to the Academy
w2 aspects -- Dylan's views on his pre-existing obligations or commitments
w3 aspects -- that Popper is interested in.
It may be argued that (ii) CANCELS (i), but since (i) is a conditional, the
onus probandi is of course on the Swedish Academy. Or not.
Cheers,
Speranza
