[Wittrs] Die Welt is alles, was der Fall ist
- From: JL Speranza <Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx>
- To: CHORA@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2011 10:35:01 EDT
In a message dated 4/11/2011 1:48:46 A.M. ,
bobdoyle@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:
Die Welt is alles, was der Fall ist.
The world is everything that is the case.
In German, chance is Zufall. Can we see Wittgenstein pointing to the utter
contingency of the physical (and even the verbal) world?
---
Yes, since Sean is joining the discussion and he leads a Wittgensteinian (I
won't use "Witters") that should help. I think perhaps Wittgenstein (I
won't say "Witters") meant to say,
"Die Welst is alles, was der Zufall ist" but changed his mind?
One should check with Grice's colleague, D. F. Pears, who perhaps did the
wrong thing (but then Moore was already writing in English) when he decided
that Ogden's translation of Wittgenstein (I won't say "Witters") was dated.
He provided a new one with McDowell. I haven't checked it, to see if it
reads, 'the case', too.
But I wouldn't think since 'case' is such a glorious word:
--- from Etymology online:
"case (1)
"state of affairs," early 13c., from O.Fr. cas "an event, happening,
situation, quarrel, trial," from L. casus "a chance, occasion, opportunity;
accident, mishap," lit. "a falling," from cas-, pp. stem of cadere "to fall,
sink, settle down, decline, perish" (used widely: of the setting of heavenly
bodies, the fall of Troy, suicides), from PIE base *kad- "to lay out, fall
or make fall, yield, break up" (cf. Skt. sad- "to fall down," Armenian
chacnum "to fall, become low," perhaps also M.Ir. casar "hail, lightning"). The
notion being "that which falls" as "that which happens" (cf. befall). Given
widespread extended and transferred senses in English in law, medicine,
etc.; the grammatical sense was in Latin. In case "in the event" is recorded
from mid-14c. Case history is from 1912, originally medical; case study is
from 1933, originally legal."
----
This should combine, in a pro-exegetical manner, with Grice, when he
irritatingly writes,
"Any attempt to remedy this situation" -- whatever -- "by resorting to the
introduction of chance or causal indetermination [is that pleonastic? what
sort of indetermination could there be which is not causal?] will only
infuriate the scientist [some of them--not Doyle and the majority nowadays]
without aiding the moral philosopher [if you find one!]."
----
but 'chance' is already sort of introduced because 'case' is 'chance' and
we do say things like "is it the case that Mary did it?"
-----
Perhaps we can elaborate on:
--- stem distinctions:
'casus' "from L. casus "a chance, occasion, opportunity; accident", but it
seems 'casus' and 'chance' have slightly different implications. Perhaps
due to the fact that 'casus' derives from the stem of "what has fallen" while
'chance' may derive from the stem (same root, though) of something that
"_is_ falling" (the '-nt-') root. And there may be a distinction there. If
something HAS fallen or did fall, there's nothing much we can do about it, as
opposed to something yet falling -- we can move away from any forthcoming
'accident' as it were.
---- the redundancy of 'casus' constructions.
"it is the case"
The world is everthing that is the case.
---- That is some GRAND statement, and if I were a cosmologist I would have
it, inscribed in Greek, as my all-time motto.
But in small-letter uses of 'case', as in:
"It is the case that p"
the implications may be different. When would we use, "it is the case
that".
It seems the usages correspond to what Grice called Strawson's "ditto"
theory of truth (WoW:III)
A: It is raining.
B: That's true!
--
Or more interestingly:
A: It is raining.
B: That is _not_ the case.
"It is not the case that it is raining".
"Oh yes. It is the case that it is raining".
This may connect with what Grice discusses in "Actions and Events" re this
Reichenbach operator:
Reichenbach coined an operator -- sigma operator -- to be read:
"it is the case that..." -- discussed by Grice, op. cit., p. 5ff --.
Thus
Caesar was murdered.
becomes
"It is the case that Caesar was murdered."
----
Grice (and indeed Davidson) found Reichenbach to be slightly otiose (if not
contradictory), for one can prove with it that:
"any event which consists of [some case] also consists of [some other case]
and vice versa; that is to say, any pair of randomly chosen events are
identical." (Grice, p. 6).
-----
(Grice manages to retain the redundant operator, though, with a license, or
rather a prohibition to use "the 'co-referentiality principle' after the
'logical equivalence principle' has been used". But other issues may remain.
Or not.
Cheers,
J. L. Speranza
Messages to the list will be archived at
http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/archives/chora.html
Other related posts:
