In a message dated 5/17/2015 4:18:48 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:
The "such things" in my post concerned whether "rules", as to what is
"jarring" and "non-jarring", are "dogmatic" or "arbitrary".
But didn't R. H. make it clear that it was his exegesis or paraphrase. R.
H. adds 'sounds' -- "colours and sounds" -- which is nice since surely
'harmony' only has ONE SENSE -- and 'jar' also one sense. R. H. is
GENERALISING
from a remark by Witters.
It may do to revise Witters's German idioms, for 'rule', 'dogmatic',
'arbitrary', 'jarring' and 'non-jarring'. From what I recall, Witters is saying
that the rules could not be justified, but expresses it in such a way that a
Gœthian might argue that the rules are SELF-JUSTIFYING, as an axiom is,
and I'm not surprised that Gœthe's theory interested Gœdel (who was mighty
unimpressed by Witters).
In a way Gœthe (he of "Knowest thou the land were the lemon tree blooms"
-- +> implicature: Italy and "Ah non mi ridestar", from "Werther", the
Ossianic verse) is like Hogarth in "The line of beauty" (title of a novel by
Hollinghurst) in "Analysis of Beauty". Hogarth and Gœthe are providing 'rules'
for what provides æsthetic pleasure (vide Catherine Lord for a Griceian
account of æsthesis along these lines: something is more æshetic that
something else iff it provides MORE pleasure).
And, as W. W. Bartley, III, showed, Witters was a relativist so no wonder
he is going to find any rule by Gœthe (or any other of his countrymen --
I'm using 'countrymen' broadly) 'arbitrary' or 'dogmatic', because, 'de
gustibus non est disputandum', and 'jarring' is no part of the philosophical
lexicon.
Witters criticising Gœthe for not providing an 'experimentum crucis' is a
bit laughable (if you are into that sense of Germanic humour) and that, into
the bargain, he goes on to insult the great American psychologist William
James for being an introspectivist (when 'introspectivism' is the way to go
in philosophical psychology) shows that the "Remarks on colour" are
posthumous, and I doubt Witters would have enjoyed Anscombe double-publishing
them*
Grice distinguishes between an unpublication and a publication. Witters
didn't. Following Augustine (the saint) Witters said that if you SAY that p,
then you 'publish' that p. So in a way, his Remarks on colours were
published before Anscombe did anything with them. She at most RE-published
them.
That she provides an English translation is otiose (for the Viennese
community to which they were directed).
Cheers,
Speranza
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