[lit-ideas] Geachiana
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2014 17:24:00 -0500 (EST)
In a message dated 1/22/2014 11:41:45 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,
donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:
Surely someone as logically acute as Russell did not open himself to this
kind of rebuttal? Would not Russell say that "being shorter than" is not a
true predicate but a relational variable (or some such)? I mean "there's
one born every minute" and that means every minute Socrates changes in his
relation to the numbers born after him - but surely only 'one born every
minute' in the colloquial sense would suggest each new birth changes Socrates?
Well, first of all, I should say that my uneducated use of "Oxbridge" (I
hate that word) comes from Philomena Lee (as portrayed by Judi Dench in
recent film). I don't have the exact quote to hand, but from memory, it went
something along the lines.
Philomena Lee is meeting this journalist.
"Oxbridge," she says.
The journalist is not amused. "This is a portmanteau for Oxford and
Cambridge; I actually attended Oxford".
----- The screenplay is pretty good and the thing was directed by S.
Frears, so the quote may be worth tracking.
Anyway, we ['we' is hyperbolic] are not supposed to _know_ who wrote the
obituary for Geach in the Daily Telegraph (now merely called "Telegraph"
implicating that it may come MORE THAN once a day).
But in The Guardian (on the other side of the political spectrum, as it
were), the following passage could be read:
"Geach was a wonderful lecturer and great stylist. He wrote in a direct,
pointed, elegant, almost Johnsonian way, and had a capacity to produce crisp
epigrammatic terms that entered the philosophical lexicon, such as
"pronouns of laziness" for pronouns that only commonsensically, not
grammatically,
refer to something."
So I am motivated to change this into "Geachiana", rather than the Oxbridge
subject-line. Sorry about that.
What is a Cambridge change?
Is McEvoy right in that Russell should not be infamously known for this
easy trick?
A Cambridge change can be arrived at by following the well-tried analytical
technique of re-casting philosophically important discussions and concepts
in the meta-language.
Thus, in this version, a "Cambridge change" (as opposed to what Grice and
Speranza call an "Oxford change") in a thing is a change in the descriptions
truly borne by the thing (where 'thing' is NOT used rudely: cfr. Porter,
"What is this thing called love?").
The phrase “Cambridge change” came to Geach one morning in Spring (1969,
71–2). He lived in Richmond Road, Cambridge, _for years_ and knew the
panorama.
The idea came to Geach (who was Oxonian, rather, and Balliol-educated, to
boot) to name the change "a Cambridge change" to mark its employment by not
just Russell, but OTHER great Cambridge philosopher: notably: McTaggart.
It is apparent that a Cambridge change includes all cases ordinarily
thought of as change, such as change of colour, from “red” to “non-red.”
But a Cambridge change also includes changes in the relational predicates
of a thing, such as when Geary changed from having “non-brother” true of
him to having “brother” true of me, just when Geary's mother gave birth to
a second son.
It might seem faintly paradoxical that there need be no (other) changes in
Geary (height, weight, colouring, memories, character, thoughts) in this
circumstance -- when he became a 'brother'. But it is simply a consequence of
the above piece of metalinguistic ascent.
The same may apply to one of Geary's heros: Elvis Presley -- if you want to
keep the topic neutral.
Geach's considerations, though do point up, though, that in attempting to
capture the object-language concept, one should take note of the distinction
between the monadic or internal or intrinsic properties of a thing, and
its relations or external or extrinsic features. Or not, of course.
Thus, the natural, Oxonian, good old Aristotelian view of change is that
real, metaphysical change in a thing would be change in the monadic or
internal or intrinsic properties of the thing.
Although Oxford change may be affected by Bradley's elaborations on the
unreality of relations, Geach's Cambridge change need not change. Or not.
McEvoy:
"Surely someone as logically acute as Russell"
--- but then note that Geach also had in mind McTaggart who possibly was
not as acute. I treasure this dictum by Geach, though, cited in the Daily
Telegraph obituary (of Geach):
"“Under God, I owe my very self to McTaggart, for it was knowledge of his
philosophy
that kept alight in me a longing for the infinite and eternal
that was not to be quenched by the noisy winds of the world.”
---
McEvoy continues:
"... as acute as Russell"
but perhaps not as acute as McTaggart --
"did not open himself to this kind of rebuttal?"
"Would not Russell say that "... being shorter than... " is not a true
predicate but a relational variable (or some such)?"
Well, one would need to revise the Whitehead-and-Russell's monster: the
Principia Mathematica. They spend quite some time (read: pages) on
'relations'. It is true that a monadic predicate is more of an accessible
idea. But I
think Whitehead and Russell (for the order of authorship is THAT) do
classify predicates into:
monadic
and
non-monadic.
More strictly
1-adic
and
n>1-adic.
These can be dyadic, triadic, and so on.
The idea is set-theoretical:
So we do have
"S" -- short. As in Socrates was short. Symbolised Ss.
But then we do have
"... shorter than..."
Socrates was shorter than his son.
Symbolised as
S(x, y)
Then we have 'shortest', which is possibly a relation, too -- as in "The
most beautiful girl in the world (if you happen to see)" (strictly:
'beautifulest').
Superlatives are a type of comparative, if that's correct grammar. In
symbols, we should need universal quantification, or the negation of an
existential quantifier: Christina is the most beautiful girl in the world if
there
is no such girl that is more beautiful than her (In symbols: ~(Ex)Gx &
B(x, Christina).
I say set-theoretical because we then have
S = {Socrates}
i.e. the set "Short" includes or contains Socrates as one of its members.
But
Shorther-than = {<Socrates, Socrates's son>}
the dyadic predicate, 'shorter than' contains the ordered pair "Socrates,
Socrates's son" as one of its members.
McEvoy:
>I mean:
>"there's one born every minute" and
>that means every minute Socrates changes in
>his relation to the numbers born after him - but surely only 'one born
every minute'
>in the colloquial sense would suggest each new birth changes Socrates?
Well, that possibly should include McTaggart who WAS born _a few minutes_
(meiosis) after Socrates.
Indeed,i it is said to have been the observation of one of the tribe of
Levi, to whom
some person had expressed his astonishment at his being able to sell
his damaged and worthless commodities,
'That there vash von fool born every minute,' he replied, cryptically.
According to David W. Maurer, however, there's a mark born every minute,
and "one to trim 'em and one to knock 'em," he added, in his dialect.
Here 'trim' seems to mean to rip off, and 'knock' to persuade away from a
scam. T
he meaning is that there is no shortage of new victims, nor of con men, nor
of honest men.
Note that there's more to a Cambridge change than a Socrates change, though
-- although it is true to say that each Cambridge change allows a Socratic
variant. Or not.
Cheers,
Speranza
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