In a message dated 11/19/2015 3:04:32 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,
donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx writes: [I]n the case of the LSE rules [which
stipulate
their Professors must reside within 25 miles of LSE] no 'deeming' was used
i.e. LSE didn't deign to deem that should Popper live OUTSIDE the
residential radius that place would be deemed as WITHIN it."
That would also entail deeming what a 'mile' means. In any case, I'm not
sure how far OUTSIDE the radius Popper would have been willing to go.
It may well be worth studying the 'history' of that rule -- for conceptual
analysis of rules, regulations, stipulations, and the law -- has a
diachronic dimension to it. It might well be that when LSE was created (after
Oxford, incidentally), the limit was, say, 10 miles, and before that, 5 miles,
and before that, the rule merely stated that their professors reside WIHIN
LSE itself -- imagine Maggie Smith in "Lettice and Lovage": "This is the LSE
building: those old rooms behind the carriage room were the old rooms
where professors, who had to be bachelors, ought to reside. The rule was later
changed to stipulate that the radius be allowed to extend 25 miles from
here." And she could have add (tourist guide love to invent stories): "There
is a charming story of an English captain who was appointed professor, and
his conversation with the Director of LSE went something:
Director: 25 miles.
English admiral: You don't mean admiralty miles, do you?
(An admiralty mile is 1,852 metres; it contrasts with an admiralty mile is
1,853 metres (Up to 1970, an admiralty mile was longer: 1,853.184 metres).
The tourist guide goes on: "The admiral was not aware of Grice -- who was
Captain, R. N. -- for had the director MEANT admiralty mile, he should have
said it, and not just IMPLICATED it").
McEvoy goes on:
"Courts also engage in deeming-exercises of a sort ["An agreement for a
lease is as good as a lease"] but it is interesting that they rarely, if
ever, approximate to the case of the deemed cat."
Still, the way the governing body operated was Popperian. The
problem-solving scenario was: either change the college rules (anathema in
Oxford) or
deem the provost's little dog a little cat. Grice refers to 'pinko Grice':
Oxonians dislike rules (and hate regulations) "except college rules and
rules for cricket".
McEvoy goes on:
"The case of the deemed cat is a wholesale evasion of the prohibition on
dogs by taking a dog out of the prohibition by deeming it a cat."
This is a Popperian reading. Reading the resolution of the governing body
as a piece of conceptual analysis it reminds one of 'cabbages and kings'. A
'cabbage' and a 'king', and a 'cat', are all 'value-oriented' concepts.
There is no such thing, in nature, as a 'cat', but what deemers DEEM to be a
cat. And the governing body deemed that the provost's pet was a cat. And
that was that. The rule prohibiting dogs had a bloody history behind it, when
pitbulls WERE allowed! -- and UNtrained pittbulls too -- this was the time
of Henry VIII, who used pittbulls for all sorts of purposes. (Note
incidentally that a pit bull is deemed NOT to be a bull).
McEvoy:
"Only in a system that may be highly self-indulgent and lack the impetus
to ensure it works in a way that is accountable by normal standards, and
where dons lack for better amusement, might such a 'deeming-exercise' be
thought clever and sustainable - really, the honest policy would be to graft an
exception into the rules for the dog of the current provost."
This was indeed H. L. A. Hart's proposal. "The rule is 'ceteris paribus' in
nature," he said in his Yorkshire accent -- he was from posh Harrogate --.
"It does not mean -- Ryle was present --
(x) ⱵDx ⊃ ~!Dx
-- where "Ⱶ" stands for Frege's assertion sign and "!" is the imperative
mode operator -- and "⊃", the horse-shoe, is material implication. Rather, it
is a substitutional quantification, with a ceteris-paribus conditional:
(∧x) ⱵDx ͠ > ~!Dx
-- where "∧" now stands for 'substitutional' "all" and "͠ >" stands for
ceteris-paribus 'if'.
McEvoy goes on:
"But then the intellectual hoax that is "conceptual analysis" is thought
clever and sustainable only by an elaborate set of 'deeming-exercises'. Go
figure. In considering all this from a serious intellectual pov, we might
start by considering whether "conceptual analysis" plays any important role in
the advance of human knowledge."
-- or more modestly, in the analysis of a concept such as 'deem', that
people use without sometimes knowing what they mean (NOT for Witters: "Meaning
is use," he proclaimed, by which he possibly implicated that there could be
no misuses of the concept 'deem').
McEvoy: "The best case to start with is science i.e. what important role
has "conceptual analysis" (of a sort that can't be gainsaid) played in the
advance of science?"
Well, when Eddington (a scientist) coined 'wavicle', he was criticised for
not providing a proper conceptual analysis in terms of necessary and
sufficient conditions (He later told his wife, "They didn't seem to care that
it
was an obvious portmanteau for 'wave' and 'particle'". The wife cleverly
retorted: "But did YOU care to provide necessary and sufficient conditions
for the two elements out of which your 'blend' was coined? THAT seems to have
been your objector's implicature, sir" -- She called him 'sir' because he
_was_ "Sir".
McEvoy: "It was plain enough to Popper that the answer was none - that, on
the contrary, the antecedents of "conceptual analysis" had often held back
scientific advance by leading to definitional dogmas that held back the
reception of progressive ideas [for example, the notion of "species" etc. in
biology is derived from an Aristotelian approach that inhibited for
centuries the idea of the mutability of species that is central to the
Darwinian
revolution in biological thought]."
Well, this was one objection of one member (a minor one) of the governing
body: "A dog and a cat belong to different species". But he was suppressed.
The use of 'suppress' is Oxonian
------ INTERLUDE ON SUPPRESSION ----
"Here one of the guinea-pigs cheered, and was immediately suppressed by the
officers of the court."
As that is rather a hard word, I will just explain to you how it was done.
They had a large canvas bag, which tied up at the mouth with strings: into
this they slipped the guinea-pig, head first, and then sat upon it.
'I'm glad I've seen that done,' thought Alice. 'I've so often read in the
newspapers, at the end of trials, "There was some attempts at applause,
which was immediately suppressed by the officers of the court," and I never
understood what it meant till now.'
'If that's all you know about it, you may stand down,' continued the King.
'I can't go no lower,' said the Hatter: 'I'm on the floor, as it is.'
'Then you may sit down,' the King replied.
Here the other guinea-pig cheered, and was suppressed.
'Come, that finished the guinea-pigs!' thought Alice. 'Now we shall get on
better.'
------- END OF INTERLUDE -----
McEvoy:
"So some of us, while not blind to the amusing aspect of the deemed cat,
are also not blind to the way the story is symptomatic of a kind of thinking
still rife among the intellectual class and the less amusing fact that this
kind of thinking is a harmful hoax."
It may be worth considering in what practical way does McEvoy's proposed
solution:
"[R]eally, the honest policy would be to graft an exception into the rules
for the dog of the current provost."
"Really" tends to be an adverb that wears the trousers, so we may simplify
McEvoy's proposal _sans_ the adverb:
"The honest policy [is] to graft an exception into the rules for the dog of
the current provost."
The proceedings, that read, "Let the provost's dog be deemed a cat" may be
_Oxonian_ for "let an exception be grafted into the rules for the dog of
the current provost."
"For all (where 'all' is read substitutionally) practical purposes", the
provost would have kept his pet. In terms of Oxford act-utilitarianism (if
not rule-utilitaranism) that was the key problem addressed, and how the key
problem was solved.
It might well be that the 'proceedings' were re-transcribed with the use of
the word 'deem', while the actual decision involved the manoeuvre of
'grafting an exception'.
This, granted, poses a problem (but then for Popper, every solution to a
problem leads for a further problem, and so on ad infinitum) as to why the
provost's pet be deemed a _cat_ and not, say, a giraffe, or a rhinoceros.
"A certain Oxford college was once embarrassed by a situation in which its
newly elected Provost wished to house in his lodgings his old and dearly
beloved dog, but in the way of this natural step stood a college statute
forbidding the keeping of dogs within the college. The governing body
ingeniously
solved this problem by passing a resolution deeming the provost's dog a
cat."
Qua concepual anaysis of 'deeming', it might be said, wrongly, that the
provost's dog could ONLY be deemed [emphasis in the original] a cat if it
were in fact NOT a cat."
But this may well be an implicature (cfr. Witters, "A horse cannot look
like a horse" -- and the anti-Wittgensteinian move: "Of course a horse can
look like a horse, as a fork can look like a fork -- A fork does not have to
look like what it is not, although it may: a flower, for example").
This implicature (not entailment) of 'deem' is ignored by Davidson in his
analysis of 'events', 'actions' and 'action-surrogates'.
And it is because Davidson unpreparedly goes to "ontologise" action-talk
without the proper 'linguistic botany' behind it that some find attracted to
repel Davidson's theory _in toto_!
Cheers,
Speranza
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