[lit-ideas] Re: Geary and the Tin Pan Alley
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 17 Sep 2013 08:57:26 -0400 (EDT)
We are discussing one of Geary's creations for the Tin Pan Alley.
D. McEvoy proposes a re-structuring of Grice's Kantian well-known
categories:
modus
relatio
qualitas
quantitas>
McEvoy writes:
"Surely at least two of these should be 'felatio' and another four 'anus'
(the categories not necessarily being mutually exclusive)?"
I'm not sure about 'necessarily' (cfr. Gershwin, "It ain't necessarily
so"). But a sexual reading seems misplaced. The idea that sex is binary
(rather than trinitarian -- cfr. Freud: anal-genital-oral) has been superseded
by Grice's four-fold scheme and the need for reduction seems reductionist.
---
McEvoy goes on to relate to the lyrics of the Geary song, and explores
their truth-conditional dimensions -- the idea being that a song makes a
_claim_ (Grice's example -- of a metaphor -- "You're the cream in my coffee"
--
"surely insubstantial literally but poetical metaphotically").
McEvoy writes in connection not with truth-conditions (as Grice does) but
'false' conditions -- or, to be more technical (and pedantic),
"'quantity' 'falsifiability'"
McEvoy notes:
"can we falsify the claim that one is pissing in the river, for what
observation would falsify this?"
McEvoy fails to observe that the singer, as he sings the song, SHOULD
whether he (or she) is (or is not) performing the afore-mentioned action in the
afore-mentioned UNDER-specified locale.
It could be argued that while 'a river' remains, in Gricean terms,
'unspecific', we should grant the singer to KNOW (or assume) in _what_ river he
(or she -- or they) is (or are) performing (or it) the afore-mentioned action.
McEvoy continues:
"We might think the pissing prima facie observable:- but its likely
blending with the river would mean there would be no likely directly observable
difference between a person pissing and a person not pissing in a river
(strained facial expressions notwithstanding)."
Grice approachee the phenomenon 'phenomenologically'. "Surely an experience
should first be UNDERSTOOD (if not explained) from the experiencer's point
of view -- not the observer).
The collapse with Popper cannot be greater.
McEvoy continues:
"Popper proceeds to consider possible indirect tests of the pissing - such
as an observable, if slight, increase in river volume due to the additional
liquid being added by pissing. However the slightness of this effect, and
the way it might be cancelled out by loss of the same volume from the
pisser as the pisser adds to river by their pissing (and with the pisser's
volume having to be taken into account in calculating the precise river
volume:-
as the pisser's volume as it adds to the river's volume must then be
substracted to give the actual river volume) - led Popper, in a somewhat
startling series of papers, to conclude that 'Pissing in a river' is not in
fact
an empirical proposition."
But then again, neither is "You're the cream in my coffee" or "You're the
Tower of Pisa, you're the smile on the Mona Lisa". Most songs are not
_meant_ as literally empirical. Note that some 30% of the world's lyrics are
also
"imperative" in logical form. The classical exampe being:
"Let's all go down the strand!"
"Have a banana!"
It would be insipid to try a Popperian 'quantity falsifiability' upon
these. At most, a Popperian should question the sincerity (or truth) behind the
desires expressed in the lyrics: "Does the singer HAVE a banana to offer?
Is it feasible to _go down_ the strand -- _all_ of 'who'? What _exactly_ do
we mean 'strand'?", and so on.
McEvoy concludes:
"[Popper contrasts] ["I'm pissing in a river"] with "[I'm p]issing in a
public swimming pool" which he accepted, following criticism, had not lent
itself as yet as a title to a song, not even one by Patti Smith) where
chemical additives to the water might show up piss in a highly visible way, so
rendering that proposition (and, as Popper conceded to critics, also potential
song title) 'empirical' - indeed embarrassingly so sometimes."
The addition of 'public' seems irrelevant for testing procedures. Note
that, etymologically, a 'pool' is a natural geographical accident, as opposed
to a Roman 'natatorium'. A pool is originally just a pond. And surely,
'[pissing] in Liverpool' seems hard to verify -- _here and then_.
McEvoy draws a morale from this: "From this, later philosophers worked out
that pissing in public places generally was often observable and thus
'empirical', thus vindicating various prohibitions-against-such-pissing from
the
charge that they were merely unwarranted or even 'meaningless'
metaphysics."
Perhaps the key to all this is in the verse. While the verse indeed
includes the controversial (or 'metaphysical' if you prefer) "Pissing in a
river", the verse's reference to Heraclitus makes it all Etonian in character.
Cheers,
Speranza
--
The verse:
They told me, Heraclitus, they told me you were dead;
They brought me bitter news to hear and bitter tears to shed;
I wept, as I remembered, how often you and I
Had tired the sun with talking, and sent him down the sky.
And now that thou art lying, my dear old Carian guest,
A handful of grey ashes, long, long ago at rest,
Still are thy pleasant voices, thy nightingales, awake;
For Death, he taketh all away, but them he cannot take.
ps.
The philosophy of Heraclitus is summed up in his cryptic utterance:
ποταμοῖσι τοῖσιν αὐτοῖσιν ἐμϐαίνουσιν, ἕτερα καὶ
ἕτερα ὕδατα ἐπιρρεῖ.
Potamoisi toisin autoisin embainousin, hetera kai hetera hudata epirrei
"Ever-newer waters flow on those who step into the same rivers."
The quote from Heraclitus appears in Plato's Cratylus twice; in 401,d as:
τὰ ὄντα ἰέναι τε πάντα καὶ μένειν οὐδέν”
Ta onta ienai te panta kai menein ouden
"All entities move and nothing remains still"
and in 402,a[36]
"πάντα χωρεῖ καὶ οὐδὲν μένει" καὶ "δὶς ἐς τὸν αὐτὸν
ποταμὸν οὐκ ἂν ἐμβαίης"
Panta chōrei kai ouden menei kai dis es ton auton potamon ouk an embaies
"Everything changes and nothing remains still ... and ... you cannot step
twice into the same stream"
Instead of "flow" Plato uses chōrei, to change chōros.
The assertions of flow are coupled in many fragments with the enigmatic
river image:
Ποταμοῖς τοῖς αὐτοῖς ἐμβαίνομέν τε καὶ οὐκ ἐμβαίνομεν
, εἶμέν τε καὶ οὐκ εἶμεν.
"We both step and do not step in the same rivers. We are and are not."
Compare with the Latin adages Omnia mutantur and Tempora mutantur (8 CE)
and the Japanese tale Hōjōki, (1200 CE) which contains the same image of the
changing river, and the central Buddhist doctrine of impermanence.
[Note to McEvoy: mutatis mutandis for 'urinating']
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