[lit-ideas] Implicatures of "Feel"
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2010 12:51:38 EDT
I agree with Walter O. that 'feel' is overused (especially by males).
In a message dated 8/28/2010 12:48:30 P.M., wokshevs@xxxxxx writes:
"Donal misconstrues what I'm saying. I proffer no judgement on her feelings
and
so her attribution of modesty to me is inappropriate. What I am doing, in
perfectly legitimate philosophical terms I believe, is denying that she can
"feel" what she claims to be feeling,"
----- I feel I love you.
versus the more direct, more informative, more relevant (all Gricean
constraints):
"I love you".
---
"and this not because of any psychological
incapacity on her part but rather in virtue of the conceptual
impossibility of
her purported "feeling." My claim is that it is not possible to "feel" the
truth of an empirical proposition"
----- "I feel it's hot"
versus the more direct,
"It's hot".
---
(Cfr. Geary and other moderate leftists on what a 'drama queen' should NOT
feel).
"or the rightness of a moral judgement. (I
have explained what I take to be genuine affective aspects of these in my
previous post.) Moreover, I cannot "remind" Donal what her true feelings
are in
this context since no "feeling" has yet been displayed or felt."
-----
"I feel I have a headache"
---- "Ridiculous!" Answered Wittgenstein.
"You cannot FEEL *my* headache.
---
-- vide Speranza, "Wittgenstein's Dentist", Journal of Analytic Philosophy,
vol. 54.
Walter O.:
"Donal's indignation raises an interesting matter regarding philosophical
methodology. Could a philosophical argument show that what we believe to
be the
case about our mental states or truth claims is mistaken. "Yes, a private
language is possible and I've had one all my life." Or: a philosopher
claims on
philosophical grounds that what I believe to be a categorical imperative is
really a hypothetical imperative. Is indignation here a philosophically
legitimate or fruitful response?"
----
I feel it can't.
"More to the point: could she be right? Some
more examples:
"I feel that 2+2=4"
---
Exactly. The MOST we can say is
*she* felt that 2+2=*5*
---
but I disagree with Walter, in finding this IMPLICATURAL, rather than
truth-conditional. Strictly, we CAN say that she felt that 2 + 2 = 4. For one,
I
may THINK that 2 + 2 = 5, and so I can surely ascribe, wrongly, a feeling
of inappropriateness to what she 'feels'.
Walter:
"I feel that Toronto will win the Stanley Cup next year."
-----
Exactly. Note that the replacement with 'know' is just as nonsensical:
"I KNOW that Toronto will win the Stanley Cup next week". It is said, of
female intuition, that it is never wrong, but Donal has NOT proven female
intuition, has Donal?
Walter:
"I feel that a paid annual holiday is a universal human right."
---- exactly. I "BELIEVE" is the right word, or to echo Lawrence Helm, "I
opine" -- thinking for oneself.
Walter:
"I feel that freedom is a transcendental condition necessary for the
possibility
of moral judgement."
---- I feel I agree with you.
I would distinguish with:
I am FEELING I agree with you.
----
"Yesterday, I spent the day feeling bored" -- seems an otiose thing to say.
Speranza--Bordighera
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