[lit-ideas] Re: A Fine Distinction
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 26 Dec 2007 07:17:37 EST
We are discussing:
1974 Current Anthropol. 15 134
"There is a nice distinction between suicide, self-sacrifice, and
martyrdom."
from Current Anthropol. 1974, vol. 15, p. 134.
I wrote:
>>I would need credentials as to origin of author to see what she means!
McCreery replies as per ps., slightly offended that I would even _need_ that
(I learned the word 'credentials' in the US, and I realise it _is_ an
irritating word!). But I meant:
-- my irritation at the OED practice of sometimes, yes, but sometimes,
no,
quoting the author at all. Here we have a case of sometimes _no_. The
implicature being: the credentials -- not even Christian name and
patronymic
surname -- should MATTER! Imagine being _her_ and _not_ quoted.
Enough for a martyrdom, I would think.
-- Women tend to use 'nice' differently from men. I notice in America.
In America
they also use 'cute', but that's almost totally _female_. It's also
an age thing.
In England, 'nice' (as G. Mikes notes) was _over-used_ in post-war
years for
_anything_ (a 'nice explosion', 'a nice cuppa', a 'nice apartment', a
'nice palace',
etc. I was thinking of the credential of the author to check with
other of her
idioms to see if she's using 'nice' in the original anti-scholastic
sense of
'not necessary' and eventually 'disrespectful' (ne-scio', I do not
know, 'nice').
-- Note the nice distinction she fails to make in not recognising the
root
'two' in 'twee', as in 'between'. "Between" means between the two.
It's like
'twin'. Between the twins. To use is instead of 'among' is to blur
this
nice distinction. Self sacrifice, in her scale, may be between
sucide and
martyrdom; but the distinction, if it's so nice, should be among
suicide,
self-sacrifice, and martyrdom. But check the Current Anthropology to
be
too current (ah! the progress of science and scholarly research -- a
typical
case of publish or perish) to sweep a time-honoured distinction
generations
of gentlemen felt worth making like _that_. The ethics of the
professional!
-- The good distinctions are (in philosophy) mainly dichotomic.
analytic-synthetic,
primary-secondary (quality), a priori-a posteriori,
implication-implicature,
implicatures being conventional-nonconventional. imperatives being
hypothetical-categorial.
The human brain understands perfectly well a _dieresis_ as Plato
called it,
a bifurcation of a field following some clear criterion.
To justify a 'nice' distinction among three items imports a
different sort
of criterion. And which is that here?
-- It's not enough to offer a chestnut of cases. You should provide the
analysis
in necessary and sufficient clauses for each; and see how each case
shares with the other two some of the clauses yet add one that
distinguishes
from the rest.
-- In my PhD dissertation (deposited in the University of Buenos Aires,
Department
of Philosophy, on pragmatics and Grice), I offer (ch. 7) a
justification of rationale
for a tetrachotomic distinction among four Kantian categories (used
by Grice):
CATEGORY
I
QUALITITAS
(Aristotle, poion)
CATEGORY
CATEGORY
III
IV
RELATIO MODUS
(Aristotle)
(after Aristotle)
CATEGORY
II
QUANTITAS
(Aristotle, poson)
I had noticed that Grice uses them as sort of philosopher's
philosopher's joke ('echoing Kant')
in his consideration of the grouping of the conversational maxims;
and it had been a matter
of debate whether Kant (and ultimately Aristotle) should be given
so much credit at all.
-- Grice and I like the symmetry of the Kantian approach; but
realise the truth of the
matter is in Aristotle's original _ten_ categories. As it happens,
the maxims themselves
turned out to be "10" (and Grice would compare them to the 10
commandments -- and thus
in a publication I was able to refer to it as the "Conversational
Decalogue". In any case
my grounding of the four-fold division was complex and relied on
material from semiotics
so that each category had to be defined in such terms that the
totality of four would cover
the central aspects in the transmission of meaningful content.
The larger the number of divisions, the more (byzantine, and)
oriental we get. Recall Borges
and the Chinese encyclopedia -- cited by Foucault in "Les mots et
les choses".
Note also that a dichotomic distinction is usually enough for
philosophical purposes
seing that the lumpers are usually irritating the splitters in
finding the splitting a chasm
to be avoided in their monopanorama metaphysical landscape. "No
need for distinguishing
-- or nicely distinguishing, since we _know_ -- between the
alleged 'x' and 'y'. It's all
ultimately _x_ or else the criterion for the distinction is too
fine (and thus a metaphysical
excrescence) to bother
I hope you also shed some light on my previous, say, 6 posts on valid/true,
and the eels and the ditch, and the Moore paradox, etc. What's the point of
bringing in a topic if not considering its replies. I can see that Andreas will
ignore my posts, but he is the mere moderator; you are a _lister_! (Just
joking -- feel free when you have the time!)
Only stop insulting Oxford philosophers -- it's _nice_ but not nice.
J. L. Speranza
Buenos Aires, Argentina
"The anthropologist in me is curious how many of us are persuaded of the
need for the author's credentials to see what she means. I would have to
consult
the article in which the sentence appears to check the accuracy of my
reading. But, as a plausible first stab, I offer
Suicide= to escape one's own pain or despair
Self-sacrifice= for the sake of others, e.g., women, children, family,
members of the same fire brigade or military unit
Martyrdom=for the sake of a transcendent, religious or ideological, cause
As a prototypical case where which of the three is the most likely
explanation, I offer an anthropological chestnut, the Indian custom of suttee
(or
sati), in which a widow is burned alive on the funeral pyre of her husband. If
she willingly participates in this event, is the widow in question (1)
escaping
despair at the state in which the loss of her husband leaves her; (2)
sacrificing herself for the sake of her family's reputation; or (3) fulfilling
a
religious obligation in an extreme form for which the label "martyrdom" is
appropriate?
The author's credentials strike me as a red herring."
---
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