[lit-ideas] Rule of Thumb
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 9 Jun 2012 18:28:21 -0400 (EDT)
As Grice observes, "the length of the thumb joint to the end of the thumb
is a fairly accurate representation of an inch. So rule of thumb is a way
to quickly verify the measurement before cutting for construction work rather
than search for a yard stick." ("Implicatures of Silly Idioms", section
6).
Grice and Wittgenstein on Scepticism
In a message dated 6/9/2012 2:19:54 P.M. UTC-02, donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx
writes:
But we should be careful not to assimilate W's position to some position
that is actually antithetical to his, and this is easily done: we must look
at the purpose of what W writes, which lies in what W seeks to show.
On my suggested interpretation of PI, it turns out that W is not trying to
say what a "rule" is, or to say how a "rule" demarcates sense from
nonsense, or to say what constitutes obeying or going against a "rule", or to
say
how the sense of language is set by its "rules" etc. (even though we might
expect that this is what a philosopher of language should be saying) - on
the contrary, it is central to W's POV that any attempt to say any of these
would be a misconceived attempt to say what can only be shown. For example,
it is actually an implication of the ‘key tenet’ that it would be futile
to try to say what counts as obeying a “rule” and what counts as
disobeying a “rule”, as what counts as either is like the sense of a “rule”
itself: something that can be shown but not said.
---
I think this may relate to an accusation regarding Witters of _scepticism_
(or skepticism as Noah Webster preferred to spell it). But we should
doublecheck for the use of the accusation of 'scepticism' vis-à-vis the
phenomenon, as per the title of an old Croom Helm book, of "rule-following".
Part of the problem is that Witters, unlike Grice, lacked a 'philosophy of
mind' (or philosophical psychology, as Grice prefers). So Witters was
_sceptical_ about rule-following considerations (behavioural manifestations)
being adequate or final evidence for a knowledge claim of the type: "Agent A
is following Rule R".
Granted, Grice fought a bit against various types of philosophical
psychologies -- he objected to Ryle's behaviourism -- and ended up a
functionalist. And in his "Method in Philosophical Psychology", Grice goes on
to quote
-- but not credit -- Witters in the Anscombe translation: No psychological
entity without the behaviour that it is purported to explain" -- and so on.
Since 'rule' has become a technicism in Witters -- even if he objects to a
definite answer as to "Agent A following Rule R", it is more dubious how
the application of this vague concept to the rather specific topic of the
philosophy of mathematics can provide evidence that Witters thought certain
things can only be shown but not said.
Note that Rules have a different 'direction of fit' (to use Austin's
parlance) than reports of observation of behaviour, which complicates things.
Thus, an agent (a mathematical agent, say) may know that the rule to calculate
the square root of n is to follow this and that step, and YET not do it.
There is notably an open-endness in mathematical and logical reasoning as to
what 'rules of inference' to follow to arrive to this or that conclusion.
--- This complicates things for Witters, never for Grice.
Cheers,
Speranza
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