Grice speaks of Wollaston and Bosanquet as 'minor' (+> philosophers),
while Locke and Leibniz, and his favourite Kantotle are the opposite: 'the
greats'. (Matter of fact, Grice ranks _Witters_ along with Wollaston and
Bosanquet as 'minor', no doubt to irritate G. B. Baker who Grice knew was
contributing to Grice's festschrift).
"Mad about the boy
It's simply scrumptous to be mad about the boy
I know that quite sincerely
Houseman really
Wrote The Shropshire Lad about the boy"
------------- 'Schoolgirl' in Noel Coward's revue sketch.
In a message dated 10/16/2015 1:25:00 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:
If I understand your note, then I disagree. Had Bloom used "greatest,"
that would permit the implication that Whitman edged out T.S. Eliot,
Wallace Stevens, Emily Dickinson, and Ezra Pound and all the others.
There is no edging out for Whitman. He is America's [one] great poet in
the same sense that Shakespeare is England's [one] great poet. No other
poets qualify to be measured against them. No other poets qualify to be
grouped with them. That was how I took Bloom's use of the word.
Perhaps it might do to compare -- hey, since Grice was into what he called
'linguistic botany':
i. Whitman is one of America's great poets.
ii. Whitman is America's one great poet.
with
iii. Whitman is America's great poet.
_simpliciter_.
-- Re: Djordje's interesting note re the subject line:
"I do not feel that Grice actually made a
joke when he said that Heidegger is the greatest living philosopher. If
based on Speranza's own 'analitically' based appreciation of philosophy,
then it just might seem so. However, if based on one's own feeling
about the chiaroscuro of life, of the fuzzy essence of language and the
entropy we try to harness in practical day-to-day life (and death), then
the 'Sorge' and 'Dasein' make a contribution that could possibly be
greater than anything else in philosophy. Although I read about
property dualism and study David Chalmers nowadays, I find myself going
back to Heidegger's examination of life often."
Well, I should revise the context. It occurs on p. 18 of his "Logic and
Conversation Lectures". This -- the very first lecture which Grice rather
pretentiously entitled, "Prolegomena" -- echoing Continental philosophy? -- he
published for the first time only in 1989 (while the lectures were given in
1967).
In the latter part of those "Prolegomena" he is considering J. R. Searle to
such an extent that for a while I thought that the whole series of
lectures (there are seven of them) might be seen as a response to Searle.
Searle
had received his DPhil Oxon under Strawson (Grice's tutee) and he was
considered somewhat British -- Grice is commenting on Searle, "Assertions and
aberrations" that had appeared in a collection of "British analytic
philosophy".
Grice writes:
"To assert is (approximately) to make a claim. If I say that "[sic -- I
would never use double quotes here! Speranza -- but let's recall these
Prolegomena are written to be _heard_, and the double quotes are mute]
Heidegger
is the greatest living philosopher," [Grice did not care to update, since it
would have been in bad taste, the assertion to 1988, when he submitted the
lectures to the publishing house, and Heidegger was no longer living --;
as it happens, when the book eventually got published, in 1989, neither
Grice was living] I have certainly made an assertion (on the assumption, at
least, that I can expect you to take me seriously)".
Now the 'you', in "on the assumption, at least, that I can expect you to
take me seriously", should be "Harvard College", or rather (at least) "the
president and fellows of Harvard College" that hold the (c) of those
Prolegomena. More loosely, any reader of the prolegomena. And literally, the
attendees to Grice's first lecture. So I would think that by adding SERIOUSNESS
as a condition for a conceptual analysis of 'to assert', Grice, if not
making a joke, seems at least to be playing with getting his addressee engaged
on what counts as "taking Grice seriously".
Now back to 'great' and 'greatest'. It seems that in many languages,
phrases like
iii. Whitman is America's great poet.
there is like an underlying 'definite article' there somewhere (cf. "il
gran poeta Dante Alighieri"). But Bloom is speaking in English! Helm's
addition of a square-bracketed "one" is interesting. His version is (ii):
"America's one great poet". (i) seems to necessitate, in most languages, the
pluralisation -- with which this "one" contrasts:
i. Whitman is one of America's great poets.
-- cfr., since we are at it: i'. Whitman is one of America's greatEST poets
-- but cf. the apparent ungrammaticality of ii'. Whitman is America's one
greatest poet.
-- and we may not want that (I don't think _I_ want that). But then Bloom's
title carries the abstract noun "greatness" in the subtitle -- even if
qualified as "literary greatness". But I doubt he provides an analysis of when
a poet qualifies as 'great'. I am reminded of the British critic Edmund
Gosse, who I think, said that one good thing about A. E. Housman (one of my
favourite poets ever) is (or was) that Housman was a 'minor' poet -- "In
defense of the minor poet". But then, trust someone to come with the total
antonym of Bloom's book: "Literary Minorness and the Ridicule," or something?
"Literary greatness", "philosophical greatness":
Djordje:
"the 'Sorge' and 'Dasein' make a contribution that could possibly be
greater than anything else in philosophy."
This reminds me that Grice, elsewhere (in "Prejudices and predilections,
which become the life and opinions of Paul Grice") speaks of 'the greats'
(and he does not mean the great go, as Oxonians call the examination) but the
philosophical greats. "We should treat those who are great but dead as if
they were great and living, as persons who have something to say to us *now*"
He goes on to provide a few steps on how to do that, mainly interjecting
into the great's shoes.
We don't need to do that with Heidegger, but we know that at least Carnap
-- for whom Heidegger was a 'living' philosopher -- felt he couldn't! (and
Ayer soon repeated the impressions in the pages of "Mind").
I hope Grice's implicature of "We should treat those who are great but
dead..." (whatever it is) is not meant to invite the entailment that we should
treat those who are minor but dead any DIFFERENT! (since, hey, I love
Housman!). But if it's merely an implicature, Grice's remark about how minor
Bosanquet and Wollaston can be easily CANCELLED!
Cheers,
Speranza
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