[lit-ideas] Re: Causal Theories alla Grice
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 12 Mar 2015 21:08:00 +0000 (UTC)
http://observer.com/2015/03/bob-dylans-sinatra-record-is-a-new-classic/
>Shadows In the Night is most definitely a Bob Dylan album, through and
>through, and a damn good one. It is also a deeply conceptual record: One of
>the most celebrated singers of the last century records an album entirely
>comprised of material associated with one of the only singers of his era more
>famous than him. That’s goddamn conceptual. But even deeply conceptual records
>have to be measured against some standard, specifically a yardstick that has
>scrawled on its side “Do I want to listen to the damn thing?”>
What are we to make of this? Does it validate the use of "conceptual" by
certain philosophers? Or should we perhaps apply Wittgenstein's therapy a la
"My aim is: to teach you by going from a piece of disguised nonsense to
something that is patent nonsense"*? [I.e. by the 'working back' from the
"patent nonsense" to see more clearly the "disguised nonsense": with the above
quoted passage an example of patent "nonsense" in invoking the "deeply
conceptual", and most of what many philosopher's say re the "conceptual" just
being disguised "nonsense"].
Btw, I recall I posted quite extensively on Grice's CTP and wonder whether the
criticisms then made could now be addressed here (rather than JLS, who iirc
failed to address them when they were made, simply thinking that, after a time,
normal Gricean service can simply be resumed).
DnlLdn*Have not checked exact wording but believe this is accurate to the sense.
On Thursday, 12 March 2015, 20:37, Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
If Grice's theory of intentionality has trouble to account for pushing against
the wall to build muscle, then there is a problem also with walking. Come to
think to it, in walking we are pushing against the ground without actually
intending to break it in. And in swimming we are pushing against the water
without actually intending to move the ocean. But I am sure that we can safely
exclude marginal occurences like this from our theory, the best of all possible
theories.
O.K.
On Thu, Mar 12, 2015 at 8:58 PM, Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
The example of pushing against the wall is confused again. Pushing against a
wall is a way to build muscles (isometric exercise) which has reasonable
effects, although due to the availibility of gyms these days it is no longer
very popular. One doesn't push against the wall in order to move the wall but
with other reasonable enough goals in mind.
I am beginning to have difficulty to understand what Grice or JL is saying, but
I gues that I'll ascribe it to the fact that I had a couple of beers.
O.K.
On Thu, Mar 12, 2015 at 8:47 PM, Redacted sender Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx for DMARC
<dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
My last post today!
Grice was, like Hobbes (or "Lord Verulam", as slightly snobbish Grice
preferred to call him), a causalist. It was only after Hume that 'causal' became
a term of abuse among philosophers -- fortunately, among Cambridge
philosophers, never Oxonian ones!
In a message dated 3/12/2015 2:42:51 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx writes:
Well, I suppose that A can still intend it even if he believes that the
probability is lower, cannot he ? If A is in the middle of the sea and the
only way for him to save his life is to reach the nearest island -i.e. to
attain the state of affairs p - then he may understandably undertake the
course of action of swimming toward the island even if he believes that the
probability of reaching it is very low. ... Grice may 'prefer' this, but one
wonders if he is not actually engaging in the fallacy of affirming the
consequent. To say that 'fire causes smoke' is reasonable enough because in
usual
conditions fire is sufficient to cause smoke. To say that smoke 'means'
fire is more suspect because smoke can have causes other than fire. Similarly,
face spots can be caused by measles but they can also be caused by other
diseases. That is why reasoning from effects to causes is much less reliable
than the other way around. Based on the 'signs' here, there is a suspicion
that Grice was not only not to be bothered with "the details for causal
chains" but with examining causality at all.
Grice's example in his "Lectures on Trying" at Brandeis was:
i. One might try to push over a wall in order to build one's arm muscles.
So I guess that in the swimming case, we would prefer to say 'try' rather
than 'intend' -- or even 'will' -- "he willed to swim" (Grice calls himself
a neo-Prichardian, because he thought (as he was) re-discovering Prichard
for a new generation of philosophers).
The causal analysis of intention does not seem to work with the case (i) of
one TRYING to push over a wall (and perhaps knowing that one will fail, if
this is, say, Hadrian's Wall, in Northumberland) -- Therefore, it's best
NOT to ascribe an intention.
Grice found that ordinary English makes a difference here: if the
probability is > .5, we use "probably"; if it's < 0.5 we merely say "possibly".
Of course 'probably' ENTAILS 'possibly' -- as Aristotle never realised
("The necessary is not possible" -- or perhaps he did -- vide Noel
Burton-Roberts, "Implicature and Modality", and "Greek Grice: a study of
proto-conversational rules in the history of logic").
Re:
ii. x causes y.
iii. Therefore, y means x.
in "Meaning Revisited", Grice speaks indeed of 'consequence': y being the
consequence of x, by which I hope he means 'causal consequence'.
In this, he was naturally following Hobbes, who in his analysis of
'significatio' (in his Latin works) speaks of 'consequentia' as something common
to both natural and artificial signs -- but Grice disliked Hobbes's
terminology (Hobbes, "Computatio, Sive Logica").
As far as we use scare quotes with 'mean', as C. L. Stevenson does, we can
always 'disimplicate' what we might otherwise mean.
Grice (1948), "Meaning" -- put published 9 years later, when Strawson
submitted it to The Philosophical Journal without Grice knowing this -- quotes
direct from C. L. Stevenson (1944), then more or less 'fresh' from Yale U.
P.:
iv. A reduced temperature may, on occasion, but then on another occasion
not, 'mean' that the patient (as we now may call her) is convalescent.
But surely
v. Temperature means this or that.
is figurative. Temperature cannot mean, at most merely 'mean' -- and
Stevenson was right in being scared and use scare quotes for 'mean'.
Recall then that scare-quoted "mean" should always be best replaced by an
ascription of some causation.
Thus, it was very appropriate of G. H. R. Parkinson, when reprinting
Grice's "Meaning" for the Oxford Readings in Philosophy to editorialise as a
type of 'causal theory'.
Cheers,
Speranza
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