[lit-ideas] Re: Donnellaniana
- From: "" <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> (Redacted sender "Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx" for DMARC)
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2015 08:23:08 -0500
In a message dated 2/21/2015 8:14:03 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,
rpaul@xxxxxxxx writes:
of "[Speranza]'s account".
Further on Donnellan: he lived among good horses and fine wines.
His alma mater was College Park, Maryland, but was soon transferred to
Cornell. MA dissertation on The Platonic theory of negation, PhD dissertation
on the foundations of necessary truth (in the work of C. I. Lewis). While at
Cornell, Grice visited and gave a seminar with the material that would
become his implicature theory. Grice's stalking horse there was, not
surprisingly, Malcolm! -- and of course, Strawson. During the same semester,
Donnellan taught logic, using two textbooks: Quine's Method of Logic and
Strawson's "Introduction to Logical Theory". This is interesting because when
Strawson wrote the 'Introduction' to his "Philosophy of Logic" volume for G.
J.
Warnock's series of Oxford readings in philosophy, he only cared to quote
from that "Methods of Logic" _and_ Grice.
When Grice went back to Oxford, Donnellan started to criticise Strawson's
"On referring". Not long after, Grice would credit Donnellan, but instead
of 'referential' vs. 'attributive', Grice preferred to speak of the
identificatory/non-identificatory distinction. Grice proposes an informal
notation
for this:
THE Psi is Phi -- identificatory
_the_ Psi is Phi ---- non-identificatory
Grice had further doubts about the conclusions that Donnellan drew from the
existence of such distinction. Interestingly Donnellan's "Reference and
Definite Descriptions", like Grice's "Meaning", was submitted to "The
Philosophical Review". Grice's "Meaning" was submitted by Strawson (as typed
by
Anne Strawson). Donnellan's "Reference and Definite Descriptions" was
submitted by himself (Donnellan) in 1964, but rejected, and only published in
1966
-- but he also gave 1964 as the date of the thing (Similarly Grice always
gave 1948 as the date of 'Meaning', since it was only in 1956 -- after
co-authoring "In defense of a dogma" with him (Grice) that Strawson submitted
"Meaning" to PR -- coming out in 1957.
Interestingly, Donnellan's MA work was on the theory of negation;
similarly, Grice's very first essay was on negation -- with a nod to Plato,
too.
Donnellan's work was compiled in a volume with Oxford, along with a sort of
tribute, with essays by different philosophers. Donnellan's compilation
manages to quote Grice three times. The references are to "Putting Humpty
Dumpty together again". So, we can say that his account of implicature theory
was _first hand_ (dating from the Grice Cornell seminar).
Both Grice and Donnellan lived in 'northern' California, as we may call it.
And both have both first and middle interesting names: Herbert Paul Grice
(but he preferred to go by H. Paul Grice -- the "Herbert" he inherited from
his father), and Keith Sedgwick Donnellan. (Grice's mother's maiden:
[Mabel] Fulton; Donnellan's mother's maiden name: [Louise] Nucholls). One
hailed
from the heart of England (so-called); the other from Washington, DC. Both
have solid philosophical intuitions and an eye for examples.
Both Grice and Donnellan smoked -- as someone said, it seemed to have been
almost mandatory to make "Philosophers smoke" a necessary truth alla C. I.
Lewis (on whom Donnellan wrote his PhD dissertation).
When a colloquium was organised for Donnellan after he had retired, and to
which he drove from his paradise of good horses and fine wines, he was
surprised that the 'audience' was using high-tech terminology (like 'rigid
designation' -- vide Donnellan's polemic with Kripke), while he remained
faithful to ordinary usage, much alla Grice!
Cheers,
Speranza
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