[lit-ideas] Re: Cleopatra's Nose
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 14 Apr 2014 05:24:51 -0400 (EDT)
Bury speaks of Cleopatra's nose.
Carr speaks of historical determinism. And Berlin of historical
inevitability.
But we should elucidate if all counter-factual utterances are pieces of
fallacious argumentation.
Into the bargain, we could examine when we assert some necessity to a
historical event (as when some historians speak of the 'imperious necessity' to
expand the territory by the Ancient Romans) and how weak can a historical
claim be made that does not then dwell on mere contingencies and
accidentals...
In a message dated 4/14/2014 4:59:35 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, palmaa
driano@xxxxxxxxx writes:
"Occasionally, someone may consider whether David Hume was wrong. Consider
the idea of causation as conjunction (which is not *exactly* what Hume had
in mind, but so be it.) There is no necessity in the laws of physics (or
history). Hence assume, for the sake of argument, that there is a time-limit
to the life-span of human cells, then there is entropy, Dasein's boredom,
the curse of finitude, pick what you like. Now _IF_ there is a time-llimit
(assume it is in the range of 199-399 years) everyone will die within the
399th year from her birth. This Humean view claims that it is POSSIBLE that
she does not die. And anyone tell me which modality is the possibility
involved? Note that it must NOT be the case that 'death by the 399th year' is
a
natural, nomic metaphyisical etc. necessity, since there are no
necessity.... says doctor Hume.
Well, yes, there is Humanism and Humeanism.
I wonder what he would say about Cleopatra's Nose. The example comes
originally from Pascal. But Pascal does not develop it: He merely states as
CAUSE:
Cleopatra's nose
or rather the fact that
Cleopatra's nose was short enough (or long enough, I never know) to cast a
fascination on Marc'Antonio. The
EFFECT
is the raise of the Roman Empire.
--- (after the defeat of Antonio in the Battle of Actium by Ocativan aka
Augusto -- and Egypt becoming a Roman province).
Pascal as I say, does not complete the conditional or causation-claim. "If
Cleopatra's nose had been a trifle shorter, the face of the world would be
other" -- I think his original wording in the French Pensées is.
So it IS a bit convoluted, but since it applies to the Roman Empire I
thought it was appropriate. Also because it was an obsession with E. C. Carr
whose philosophy of history L. Helm was considering. Carr (a Humean? Hardly --
more like an Anti-Humean) calls it "the crux of Cleopatra's Nose" or the
"Cleopatra's Nose Problem".
But it was Irishman J. B. Bury who had made the point back in 1916, during
the Great War, in a RPA paper -- Rational Press Association. Bury, the
historian of the Roman Empire.
I think he refers to the 'famous dictum' by Pascal.
There are various versions of the expanded conditional/causation
claim/counterfactual utterance. One:
"If Cleopatra's nose had not been beautiful, Octavius would not have
founded the Roman Empire."
Another:
"The cause of the foundation of the Roman Empire was the length of
Cleopatra's nose."
Hume DID write a "History of England", so it may do to revise how he used
'cause' there, if at all. He was also pro-American during the Revolution, so
he may have something to say about intentions and volitions pro and
against mercantilism (the cause the 'decline' of the first British Empire in
that
stretch of the New World).
For the record, I have found two further publications that make use of the
phrase "Cleopatra's Nose". One is an essay co-authored by
Voight,
"Shortening Cleopatra's nose: the fallacy of counter-factual
argumentation."
which I think is rather brilliant as titles go since 'shortening' is indeed
what we need. It's the intervention on the part of the counterfactual
historian, as observation is said to be manipulative intervention in quantum
physics, say. The fact that the subtitle to Voight's essay makes reference to
'the fallacy of counter-factual argumentation' should NOT lead us to think
that ALL non-indicative conditionals are fallacious.
They may not be truth-functional (which is Grice's point in "Indicative
Conditionals") and thus beyond his interest in implicature to save a
truth-functional account of logical operators -- but that's another story.
People
(including J. L. Mackie) seem to use them!
Incidentally, Trevor-Rope (in "Fly in the Fly Bottle") criticises Carr
("it's a bad book"). And the reason why it's bad is that it ridicules the
opponents -- and Trevor-Rope choses the example of Cleopatra's Nose as a case
in
point. He was pretty brilliant, that Trevor-Rope. He says he is REVIEWING
Carr's book, and I'm sure there are myriad other references to Cleopatra's
nose. Perhaps what we need is a more or less exact expanded formulation and
a FORMALISATION using the horse-shoe ('if') of logicians, perhaps aided by
possible-world semantics (alla Kripke or Lewis), since it does touch on
the necessary/essential vs. contingent/accidental. It also touches on the
idea (criticised by Popper) of 'laws' or generalisations in history (there are
no such).
Thus, while an intention on the part of Romans to expand the limits of
their territory may be said to be the cause of the raise of the Roman Empire --
since this is generalisable? -- we can hardly generalise that noses of the
right size that Egyptian queens have cast a fascination on Roman generals.
The other essay I have come across is entitled:
"Cleopatra's nose and enlightenment historiography"
which should perhaps cover Hume's period.
Cheers,
Speranza
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