[lit-ideas] "In the bathroom"

From: jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Fri, 15 Jan 2010 10:16:10 EST

My last post today, but tomorrow I  hope to retrieve R. Paul's three  or 
four recent messages on things and comments. He is trying to reply to Julie  
Krueger,
 
>Where is Speranza?
 
I was in the bathroom, and R. Paul provided an excellent reply in the  
interim, with which I notably disagree, in every sentence, or even,  clause.
 
>Language first, logic third.
 
But cfr. Grice, "If you can't put it in symbols, it's not worth  saying"
 
cited in the obit for Sir Peter Strawson, to Strawson's credit, who is said 
 to have offended Grice by retorting:
 
  "If you CAN put it in symbols, it's NOT worth saying".
 
E.g. when R. Paul considers,
 
   "Horses run swiftly; ergo horses run. Try to put it in  symbols".
 
I thought he was actually suggesting that our A+ student, E. Yost, should  
put that in symbols. Instead, he was enthymematically suggesting, "And 
you'll  fail". Which is too authoritarian and pessimistic to even consider  
seriously.
 
R. Paul won't accept that Aristotle's logic is sillygistic.
 
He tried to bring in Descartes for good measure, "Cookies dough argue  
some". Try to put _that_ in symbols.
 
Cheers,
 
J. L. Speranza
   Author of "Author" of "Logic of Conversation" and "Logic and  
Conversation"

[lit-ideas] "In the bathroom"

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