[lit-ideas] "Deemed Philosophicall" -- and a Splash in the Pool
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2007 17:02:18 EST
"If this means (as in the case in which the Supremes ruled, in PARENTS
INVOLVED IN COMMUNITY SCHOOLS v.SEATTLE SCHOOL DIST. NO. 1, that
2 + 2 = 5, this is absolutely true;"
R. Paul.
And I agree.
As Hobbes would say, "deemed philosophicall".
Grice, the well-known philosopher of language born in Holborne,
Warwickshire, first lectured publicly on this in Sussex.
The proceeding of the conference now published in WOW ("Meaning Revisited").
He is considering how important, "to deem", is:
And recollects the case of the Oxford college where a 'dog' was deemed to be
a 'cat' to avoid having to change the rule of the college disallowing dogs on
campus.
Ditto, "2 + 2" could be _deemed_ to be "= 5".
After all, as even Andreas Ramos (WHERE ARE YOU???) agrees, it's all a
matter of rules, and he has failed to provide the example of LOGICAL
IMPOSSIBILITY
that we were all expecting.
To judge is to deem, and H. L. Adolphus Hart was professor of JURISprudence
at Oxford, and possibly the smartest lawyer ever of them all.
Hart said that deemable stuff is also re-deemable. Defeasible stuff is
_feasible_.
I can say, Fido is a _cat_ unless it's on my bed.
H. L. A. Hart was possibly the only lawyer friend of H. P. Grice -- if we
don't count Alan Montefiore.
Hart used to discuss matters with Grice as early as 1938! Once Hart found
himself reviewing John Holloway's _Intelligence and Language_ (for the PQ,
1952,
available via JSTOR) and he had the jurisprudency (or decency) to credit
Grice on a foot (note).
They were discussing cases like
"That smoke means that Geary is having a barbecue".
GRICE. That surely is a case of _natural_ meaning.
HART. _Non-natural_ you mean.
GRICE. Whoa?
HART. Well, surely Geary is not strictly _natural_; he is full of
conscious and a free will. So why not call him 'artificial'?
GRICE. But surely that's begging the question.
HART. What question?
GRICE. Never mind.
HART. So I would think that any claim to what a word means is defeasible,
and ditto for smoke meaning fire or black clouds meaning rain.
GRICE. I see. But there _must_ be some criterion to distinguish cases.
HART. Why? After all, there's just one term in the English language,
"mean", not two.
GRICE. Dunno.
------ Grice had already written (but not literally 'published')
his "Meaning" (dated 1948) for a meeting of the Oxford Philosophical
Society, and it will be up to his tutee (or pupil) P. F. Strawson to submit it
to
the PR which accepted it for publication in 1957 -- and the rest is The
Peloponnese.
G. P. Baker, the American philosopher, who, with P. M. S. Hacker, succeeded
Grice as "Tutorial Fellows in Philosophy" at St. Jonh's, has an article in the
Hart festschrfit on "Defeasibility and meaning". Perhaps unsurprisingly
(since Oxford Academia do nothing but quote themselves to tears) he has much
the
same stuff in an essay for the _Grice_ festschrift.
Meanwhile, Argentine Gricean philosophers keep being ignored -- but beautus
ille, for his is the kingdom of heaven.
Cheers,
JL
At The Swimming Pool
Buenos Aires, Argentina.
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