[lit-ideas] Re: The Institution of Slavery and the Concept of Free Will
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 14:39:22 EDT
In a message dated 4/26/2011 6:31:25 A.M. , donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx
writes:
the assertion is ambiguous between "I shall resign in protest if you dare
examine the documents" (which is how it may have been taken) and "I shall
be forced to resign or be sacked if you dare examine the documents, which
expose my corruption". How is Epic making any analogously ambiguous statement
- ambiguous between "Continuing that action, master, shall cause my leg to
break" and...what?
I think Epictetus, who being a polite 'slave' (or 'servant', in Latin --
servus) would not tell or say, meant to say:
"It hurts"
"You are twisting my leg".
This seems to implicate: "do something about it -- i.e. to block that.
Notably, "stop twisting it".
----- For some reason, the master underestimated Epictetus's remark.
So we are speaking of the _CHOICES_ open to Epictetus's master. Since, for
Epictetus, there is FREEDOM in the world, and free-will exists ('eleuthera
prohairesis', 'eleuthera thelesis'), things are NOT prae-determined.
So the choice open to the master was
-------------------- EVENT Ph-1
-----------------------sub-events
--------------------- not yet 'realised' but
---------------------'potential'
-----------------------the forking of Event 1
------------------------------onto
Event Ph-2 ---------------vs . Event Ph-2'
Master --------------------------------- Master
stops------------------------------------- does NOT
twisting-----------------------------------stop.
Epictetus's leg
I agree that the analogy with Grice's Brecht case is perhaps far-fetched,
and thanks for the "I told you I was ill" epitaph.
----
Back to Brecht:
'If you inspect my books, I shall not continue to be your finance
minister.'"
"They retired in confusion, and only eighteen months later it was
discovered that the Finance Minister had spoken nothing other than the literal
truth."
-----
Grice's attending commentary is apt:
"This anecdote [...] exploits the modal ambiguity sans-implicature, in the
future tense, between (a) the future indicated or factual, and (b) the
future intentional."
Similarly for Epictetus's phrase,
You "break-FUTURE' my leg
Grice:
"This ambiguity extends beyond the first person form of the tense."
Indeed,
As used by Epictetus, genially, it refers to his MASTER.
Grice:
"There is a notable difference -- if wasted on most English speakers --
between
(a) Sit lux
There will-F be light'
which is what I call 'future factual', indicative' and
(b) Sit-b lux.
"There will-I be light', which is what Greek grammarians dubbed "future
intentional"".
Grice: "God might have uttered the second sentence while engaged in the
Creation."
Alas, he spoke Hebrew -- and in Hebrew there is no _CHOICE_. He meant it
'regally': "Light IS-future".
Grice:
"Sensitive English speakers (which most are not, alas) mark the distinction
by discriminating between 'shall' and 'will'"
You shall break my leg.
You will break my leg.
------ To use an argument by Judy Evans, if Epictetus had used the
abbreviated form:
"You'll break my leg" (or "Thou'lt break my leg") no paradox would have
been resulted, since the abbreviation's point is to allow you to 'hunt with
the hounds and run with the hare", or have "the best of both worlds," as it
were. (Similarly in the oratio obliqua report, "I told you you'D break my
leg'/'thou'dst break my leg')
But I want to say that if Epictetus says
"You shall break my leg"
he cannot express the 'literal truth': "I told you you WOULD break my leg",
because he said "shall", not "will" and "would" translates 'will'. By the
same token, had he said,
"You will break my leg"
he cannot, with a straight face, go on to report, "I told you you should
break my leg". This phrase sounds even clumsy in English, but not,
apaprently, in Greek.
It would be a lame excuse on Epictetus's part that he was _disimplicating_
free-will in the proceedings.
Grice:
"'I shall-I go to London' stands to 'I intend to go to London'
analogously to the way in which 'Oh for rain tomorrow!' stands to 'I wish
for rain
tomorrow'."
cfr.
"Oh for your stopping twisting my leg"
"Oh for you not breaking my leg"
The problem with Epictetus was his master:
Grice:
"Just as NO ONE *ELSE* can say JUST what *I* say when I say "I shall-I
go to London". "If someone else says, "Grice will go to London", he will be
expressing his, not my, intention that I shall go." (p. 11). Mutatis
mutandis Epictetus with
"You will break my leg."
The use of the imperative helps here, but surely Epictetus felt too much of
a slave to utter,
"Stop twisting my leg! You'll end up breaking it."
By disimplicating the 'protasis' of the conditional he is giving free rein
to his master to make a cripple (for the rest of his philosophical life)
out of the philosopher. Etc.
---
J. L. Speranza
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