[lit-ideas] Re: The Triteness of Dispositional Talk/Implicature
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 29 Apr 2010 20:41:02 +0000 (GMT)
--- On Thu, 29/4/10, Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx <Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> ---- You still have not replied to my other example:
>
> "She is a virgin. I deflowered her."
It's a poor example that did not merit a reply since it's quite off the point:
as WO says, for these purposes anyway, "Surely virginity is a state, not a
disposition." This is obvious if we consider the time when we were in a state
of virginity but very much disposed to end it. It may be she is in this state
because of dispositions - but that would not make her virginity a disposition
[which is not to deny that the state of virginity may have dispositional
affects; making one less disposed to pregnancy for example].
> If virginity is a disposition...
It isn't. Not for these purposes nor how JLS uses this example. Next.
> Donal concludes the paragraph:
>
> >"But this is only a convention of language that in itself
> may be a poor
> guide to correct metaphysics]. As said in my post, the real
> clout of this
> metaphysics lies in its being able to be fleshed out with
> _specifics_ as to
> prior dispositions: a white couple who have a black child
> who matches their
> DNA, can be assured by science that it is their child
> and that the result is
> because there are 'black-skin genes' within the DNA
> of one of them. Who
> would have accepted that 200 years ago? Yet
> "implicature", with its paltry
> explanatory power by comparison, would then have been
> easily accepted by
> >many."
>
> I cannot see how implicature has to do with this.
Read carefully, it is clear I was not suggesting "implicature" does explain
how or why "it is their child and that the result is because there are
'black-skin genes' within the DNA of one of them." If only it had that kind of
explanatory power. My point is that any sharp reader of Shakespeare or Jane
Austen would have no problem recognising "implicature" in some form or other;
indeed so would illiterates with an ear for the demotic. In addition to
suggesting it's old hat, I was suggesting its explanatory power is "paltry"
compared to an explanation by way of DNA of how genes for skin colour can skip
a generation - I was _not_ therefore suggesting "implicature" offers any
explanation of how genes for skin colour can skip a generation. If this was an
"implicature" JLS drew from my post, it perhaps shows how a fanatic about the
value of the concept can easily misapply it.
> Implicature arises in 'subtle' uses of language, as Grice
> has it: not in the
> 'gross' facts of life.
It seems "implicature" cannot prevent its adherents' gross distortions;
especially as I had clearly said that explaining states, events etc. as "the
upshot of prior dispositional states [or propensities or potentialities] is a
metaphysical view, not based on "implicature" nor dependent on it." Despite
this clear statement, JLS infers it is being suggested that "implicature" could
explain the 'particulate' character of genetic material.
What can one do but shrug with a perplexed expression?
Donal
London
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