[lit-ideas] Re: Geary's Philosophical Humour
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 11 Oct 2013 14:37:43 +0100 (BST)
>"Is it solipsistic in here, or is it just me?"
McEvoy wants to see this as a self-contradiction and thus trading on
Grice's maxim of quality...>
You know, I don't think he does...
D
On Friday, 11 October 2013, 14:27, "jlsperanza@xxxxxxx" <jlsperanza@xxxxxxx>
wrote:
It's good that McEvoy cares to comment, philosophically, on two of the
philosophical jokes provided by Geary: "entropy ain't what it used to
be" -- a joke which 'ain't what it used to be' in McEvoy's words --
cfr. Higgs' fields -- and, the 'solipsistic' joke:
"Is it solipsistic in here, or is it just me?"
McEvoy wants to see this as a self-contradiction and thus trading on
Grice's maxim of quality, "do not say what you believe to be false"
(since we can agree an utterer recognises a self-contradiction as such).
McEvoy focuses on the second part of the question, "or is it just me?"
In McEvoy's rewrite, " ... or does solipsism hold?"
Since the first part reads, "Does solipsism hold?", the addition of the
second part turns it into a self-contradictory question alla:
"Does Mary have a little lamb or doesn't she not?"
However, I will argue that it's _answers_ that are self-contradictory
("Mary has a little lamb, but then again she hasn't" -- cfr. "She had
her cake and she had it not -- and the adage it prompts: "she can't
have her cake and have it").
The logical form is the best way to approach this, with again the 'or'
to be taken truth-functionally as 'vel' ("p v q?") with some range of
quantifiers over both clauses.
And so on.
Cheers,
Speranza
----
McEvoy:
"'Solipsistic' could here "replace" many words besides 'hot' - e.g.
'cold'; and it is not really "meant to replace" any specific such word
but simply replace such a word in the phrase. And that we can hold a
conversation with ourselves does not mean the solipsistic question is
"appropriate". ... More importantly JLS' commentary misses the joke:
the joke is the play on the phrase "or is it just me" which is here
played with in the sense in which it might denote 'solipsism'
['solipsism' = "there is just me"] and the sense of this phrase in the
kind of question asked where it is usually anti-solipsistic in sense
[as it involves an appeal to the possibility that "just me" is not the
measure of all things, whereas "just me" is the measure of all things
in solipsism]."
------------------------------------------------------------------
To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
Other related posts:
