[lit-ideas] Re: Every dogma has its day
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2011 19:32:53 EDT
>Discuss
With pleasure
In a message dated 7/12/2011 6:43:48 P.M. , donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx
writes.
It's odd that McEvoy fails to add that the name of the reviewer, from the
"Guardian", of all papers, is "Fox".
---
Continuing with his pun on 'dog', 'dogma' -- cfr. title of the book under
review, "In defense of a dog", and Grice, "In defense of a dogma". "Count to
me rally to the defense of the underdogma", Grice would say.
---
McEvoy adds without mentioning that
"Every dog has its day; and mine has been a fine one -- so far" is by
Borrow, "Lavengro".
---
"And the day of the dogma that dogs seek alpha or dominant status, or the
dogma that they have complex emotions like guilt, may be slowly passing:-
_http://www.guardianbookshop.co.uk/_ (http://www.guardianbookshop.co.uk/)
BerteShopWeb/viewProduct.do?ISBN=9781846142956"
"A Guardian review there begins."
My comments on Fox's sly way with words:
"If you were a dog just over 100 years ago,"
This is possibly otiose. Journalists should NOT be allowed (red: forbidden)
to use words like 'you'. Scott is learning the game. His latest review for
"Horrible bosses" with Jennifer Aniston goes, "Language: Rude enough to
get you (at least me) into trouble".
----
I am not a dog. Perhaps Fox thinks he can be.
---
"life would have been simple."
Oddly, 'simple' is cognate with "implicature".
"implicature" -- from Latin, 'in--', emphatic. "plicature".
"sim-ple" -- from Latin, sim-plicature.
----
cfr. Simplicity and implicity.
or complexature and implicature, if you mustn't.
---
As Geary notes,
"Happy?" ("cfr. simple life"). "Pigs are happy."
---
"You would likely have been gainfully employed perhaps hunting, herding or
guarding and provided you did your job, your owners would have accepted
that you were sometimes messy, loud or unpredictable."
Helm knows about this. He indeed claims that evolution in homo sapiens
sapiens (he sometimes drops the necessary second 'sapiens') is co-variant with
'canis familiaris'. But surely before canis familiaris was, if not the fox
(whose place in evolution is rather otiose) -- the wolf. Note that a common
element in European (if not Japanese) mythology is the werewolf. A dog
trained outside captivity becomes a wolf.
If people say, "the cats", the wild cats, etc. to refer to such disparate
things as tiger, lion, panther, we should allow people to say 'the wild
dogs' to refer to hyaenas, and wolfes, and foxes, of course (_pace_ Fox).
---
Fox continues:
"Most dogs today are never expected to work, even though they are often
still tuned into functions their breed has fulfilled for thousands of years."
This is plenoastic. What function is the Yorkie supposed to perform. Catch
mice? What when mice are ALL eaten? Some breeds are more functional than
others. Fox terriers, for example, have a connection to _terra_; setters set,
and the Italian grey hound catches hares (only, in Italian) -- hence his
blue colour. Grice's example, in "Conception of value" is
The old English sheepdog.
He gives this example as 'relative value'. The very name, 'sheepdog'
supposes (or implicates) a submission of the breed to a _task_ that a human
values, only. He pets his dog for his sheepherding ability. Fox's sly point.
---
Fox:
"Instead, they are expected to behave like small children, yet be as
independent as adults."
------ I should rewrite that.
"To make things worse, our culture is awash with myths that prevent dogs
being properly understood,"
McEvoy is right in making a point about the use of 'understand' in this
context. Oddly, in slang, 'understanding' is LEG. "She has beautiful
understandings". So one has to be careful. "Limb", for "leg" is a Victorianism
that
does not translate to Finnish.
---
Fox:
"in particular, the enduring idea that they harbour a powerful desire to
dominate their family pack. Put simply: dogs are on the brink of a crisis.
And as we have put them there, it is our responsibility to help them.""
Fox should consider animal right. I agree there is a co-responsibility. But
I'm sure the issue is so complicated that it does not belong in
"Guardian".
Now, for McEvoy's commentary:
"What the various research means for a 'doggie World 3', or even canine
grasp of human World 3 products [like human language], is arguably"
---- I'm not sure what McEvoy means by 'research'. He is of course a
Popperian (while I'm a Gricean, so I can't care less (or more) for 'research').
I can't see what research has to do with _stuff_.
"that there is no canine equivalent of World 3"
By the same token, dogs are not important because there is no canine
equivalent of 'conversational implicature'. The zoology should not be refuted
as
it fails to match the conception of a philosopher, I say.
"and they do not grasp the abstract content of human language higher than
its expressive and signalling functions [of which they have a sometimes
acute if partial grasp]."
By the same token, many small children and independent adults don't either.
Grice claims that there is NOTHING *over* and *above* what McEvoy
ironically refers to this 'acute partial grasp' of such excellent thing as the
'signalling' function is.
There is nothing to language (or lingo, as I prefer) but signalling.
Grice discovered this when he philosophised on verbs like
'segnare' (or Latin, 'signare')
or Latin, 'significare'.
Those spots signify measles
was his example. But spots, while they signal, only signal in front of a
human being. Hence, language trades on this signalling function of iconicity
and transplants it to higher reaches -- e.g. implicature.
"dogs do not grasp the power of human language to describe or to argue, and
their own 'language' lacks these functions. And if they do, they should
describe what they were feeling when they made mess and argue the case for
it, and not just skulk crypto-guilty. Discuss."
Indeed, the point of BUYING (let alone owning) a book, "In defense of my
dog" is otiose.
Oddly, 'dog' is not QUITE English. It should be 'hound' (as in German,
'hund') which describes what the dog does best. Note that female hund (Old
English bicc) has acquired such circumstantial implicatures to make of the
epithet one of the most otiose ones in American speech.
Etc.
Cheers,
Speranza
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