[lit-ideas] Conceivably Unconceivable!
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2007 22:33:54 EST
"I don't care what the dictionary says"
"And that's where you make your big mistake"
(Austin to Grice)
Grice was confused about the role of dictionaries. After a Saturday morning
meeting, Austin suggested that he (Grice) analysed different collocations of
'feeling --'. Grice did use the dictionary here, but got tired when he got to
'Bizantine' and found that _most_ collocations (if not all) _did_ make sense.
R. Paul states in his reply to A. Ramos that the role of 'imaginability' has
not been 'clear enough (throughout the discussion)." Here some OED quotes.
We could go one by one and check in what ways all these English authors were
wrong!
I think it's Michael Della Rocca (of Yale) who has an essay on
'Conceivability' which can only be conceived, as it were, within a system of
Modal Logic
as Dummett's System S3"?
Meinong was my favourite here -- the lord and master of inconceivabilities!
Cheers,
JL
---------
1830 COLERIDGE Ch. & St. (ed. 2) 233
In order to the imaginability of a circular line.
1953 G. E. M. ANSCOMBE tr. Wittgenstein's Philos. Investigations I. 120
There is a lack of clarity about the role of imaginability in our
investigation.
[She was once at R. Paul's -- philosophical influence here?]
c1374 CHAUCER Boeth. v. pr. iv. 128 (Camb. MS.)
Reson..comprehendeth the thinges ymaginable & sensible.
1532 MORE Confut. Tindale Wks. 547/1
Hys worde, whych he by a meane to vs not imagynable continually speaketh
vnto them.
1638 SIR T. HERBERT Trav. (ed. 2) 265
Such a dreadfull noyse, as is scarce imaginable.
1651 HOBBES Govt. & Soc. x. §2. 150
Nor is it imaginable which way publick treasures can be a grievance to
private subjects.
1750 tr. Leonardus' Mirr. Stones 51
The human understanding extends itself to things intelligible and the
imagination to things imaginable.
1852 H. ROGERS Ecl. Faith (1853) 76 Miracles are, at least, imaginable.
1647 CLARENDON Hist. Reb. I. §23 Urged with all the artifice and address
imaginable.
1656-9 B. HARRIS Parival's Iron Age (ed. 2) 98 The People..held him still,
for the Authour of all imaginable mischief to the Kingdom.
1692 WASHINGTON tr. Milton's Def. Pop. v. M.'s Wks. (1847) 376/1 Guilty of
the greatest crimes imaginable.
1709 STEELE Tatler No. 41 9 The Elector of Cologne is making all imaginable
Hast to remove from hence to Rheims.
1711 ADDISON Spect. No. 123 4 He had all the Duty and Affection imaginable
for his supposed Parent.
1798 MALTHUS Popul. (1817) II. 379 Under the best form of government
imaginable.
1880 L. STEPHEN Pope iii. 73 ‘Ass’ is the vilest word imaginable in English
or Latin.
1884 Law Rep. 25 Ch. Div. 491 There is no imaginable reason why the Court
should not have power to sanction them.
1648 Scot. Mist Dispel'd 40 What can imaginably then be the meaning?
1685 BOYLE Effects of Mot. v. 61 A scarce imaginably little force may
suffice to impel them.
1894 HOWELLS in Cosmopolitan Mar., A waste and ruined field..which had
imaginably once been the grounds about a pleasant home.
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