[lit-ideas] Grice and Popper on Rationality
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2013 10:32:11 -0500 (EST)
Grice and Popper on Rationality
In a message dated 1/8/2013 6:09:41 A.M. UTC-02,
_donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxx.uk_ (mailto:donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx) entitled,
"Grice Deconstructed"
writes:
"[N]ot all possible worlds are knowable [to creatures of evolution (we can
leave God-knowledge aside)]"
I wonder if God is not a creature of evolution.
According to Thomas Aquinas, there is an order:
animal (beast, not rational animal)
man
angel
God
---- According to Aquinas, there is 'evolution' there. Similarly, Grice
sometimes embraced what is called in theory the 'ideal observer' theory: i.e.
the philosopher assumes he is god -- Grice calls this the 'genitorial
programme'. He takes two stands: a theoretical one, where the philosopher just
imagines to be on the peak of evolution -- god -- and an 'engineering' one,
where the philosopher provides the step that God took when 'creating' less
evolved creatures.
The topic of mortality/immortality, as discussed in a previous thread,
"Popper's Immortality" also touches on this. Witness the well-known Welsh hymn:
Immortal, invisible, God only wise.
---- It seems that in those terms -- to become invisible, say -- is an
evolutionary step vis-à-vis the less evolutionary step (or stage) -- cfr.
Wells, "The invisible man". (Of course, Popper would naively assume that 'an
invisible man' is not a potential falsifier -- because, as he tautologically
would put it, 'we cannot see him'.
Note incidentally, while we consider god's immortality, that Popper, while
agreeing with Quine, never considers
[] and <> -- where these are the modal symbols
[] (All ravens are black) --- Necessarily, all ravens are black.
[] Man is mortal
---
[] God is immortal
The way Popper dismisses modality is irrisory, for it is quite possible to
hold that scientifically
[] All men are mortal
is scientific in ways Popper would never have imagined.
---
McEvoy continues:
"[N]ot all possible worlds even give rise to life and to creatures with
'knowledge': so there is a link that may be conjectured between the universe
as it is [ontology] and the fact we can have knowledge of it and even the
character of our knowledge of it [epistemology]; but this link does not
amount to one being the founded on the other. The universe is emergent -
creative; its indeterministic and contingent evolution provides one aspect as
to
why 'foundationalism' is mistaken (a vain philosophical project derived from
the 'justificationist' approach that has dominated Western philosophy
since the time of Plato and Aristotle)."
Again, Grice, being an Anglican, would take more of a Berkeleyan approach.
The fact that there may be realms in the universe which are outside
knowledge is neither here nor there. We are concerned, as Grice would say,
with
US, philosophers, as 'knowledge agents'. Never mind craters on the surface of
the moon.
Note that 'know' is an English verb. So surely, the idea of knowledge
depends on the fact that a tribe of Jutes, Angles and Saxons, who settled on
the
Isle of Wight and environs, started to use this verb, 'knawian', to
represent something they were concerned with:
"Do you know who killed Cock Robin?"
for example. This is totally irrelevant to whether 'knowlede' is inexistent
on the burning surface of the sun.
Where Grice may agree with Popper is that 'to know' has an obvious
evolutionary value. But for Grice, since his "Causal Theory of Perception",
this
stems from the evolutionary value of
'sensing, perceiving, believing'.
"It would be otiose that all our sensations, perceptions, and beliefs" were
false. It would be anti-evolutionary that we are always mistaken. Hence
the need for some beliefs to be justified and true; or, in Platonic terms,
'knowledge'.
Note that, by the same token, a monkey never knows.
McEvoy continues:
"For such reasons I feel Popper would be sceptical of any attempt to
provide "ontological foundations for inherent communicative rationality",
though
of course we might find that behind this high-sounding jargon lies
something modest and acceptable as a proposal."
Indeed. The jargon is high-sounding and pretentious, and in the title of
the book under discussion, "Grice deconstructed." For Grice, communication is
psi-transmission:
A psi P --- i.e. agent A has a perceptual attitude towards a proposition p
that involves some object ('that apple is rotten').
A utters, "That apple is rotten'.
B recodes the psi as trasmitted by A and comes to believe, "That apple is
rotten". In the context of "That apple is rotten" being an advice or
warning, B will refrain from eating the apple.
Nothing high-sounding about it. But we have there the rudiments for the
ontological foundations for inherent communicative rationality. For it would
be irrational for A to want to HELP B by telling him "that apple is rotten"
when he knows it isn't -- or vice versa --.
In the context of cooperative rationality, A and B share an environment
where the truthful psi-transfer has evolutionary value. It is different if A
and B do not share an environment and are 'enemies'.
E.g. the Greeks to the Trojans:
"This is a beautiful wooden horse we have constructed because we love you.
Get it into the city, and celebrate with wine. And we'll forget about the
war, and you can keep Helena, the slut".
McEvoy goes on:
"But what about the claim that "we cannot give metaphysical reasons for
rationality"? Popper would argue that we can, but such reasons will always be
inconclusive and incomplete."
Well, as Grice says, the 'rednecks' (sorry, Grice's term) from Vienna,
would just take 'metaphysic' as a "term of abuse", so this rephrasing by McEvoy
would need some rephrasing. For Grice, 'metaphysic' is merely
theory-theory. So to provide a metaphysics for X is just to provide a
conceptual
analysis (alla Oxonian ordinary-linguistic conceptual analysis) for x, in this
case, "rationality". Grice attempts this in a set of lectures that Popper
never delivered: the John Locke lectures, which he entitled, "Aspects of
reason and reasoning" (a rewrite of his earlier Immanuel Kant Lectures at
Stanford, that Popper never delivered either -- note that it makes more sense
to
give a set of lectures on rationality under the auspices of the Immanuel
Kant Lectures schedule).
McEvoy continues:
"For example, Popper's _LdF_ is a text that seeks to explain the
rationality of science - and its explanation is not itself science but consists
of
""metaphysical reasons for [its] rationality"."
I'm surprised Popper uses the adjective 'metaphysical' and even so that it
uses the adjective (a term of abuse, Grice says, for 'rednecks of Vienna')
as applied to 'reason'.
A reason is a reason is a reason.
I don't think qualifying 'reason' with 'metaphysical' adds anything to it.
Suppose:
Joan: I have a headache.
Darby: Have an aspirin.
Joan: Is that a metaphysical reason?
People are interested in reasons qua reasons; not in reasons being
metaphysical. This begs the question (often unanswered) that there are
NON-METAPHYSICAL reasons, which is like saying that some ostriches are not
birds).
McEvoy continues in his interesting, constructive commentary:
"It is important to recognise that, from a logical and Darwinian POV, no
theory of rationality should seek too much - it particular it should not aim
to explain our incredible success [e.g. in science] as if that success is a
foregone conclusion given some ontological or epistemological
"foundations". For there are no such "foundations" and that success is/was not
a
foregone conclusion."
Grice would agree that 'foundation' is too strong of a word.
He would prefer "ground".
When Grandy/Warner were seeking for a title for Grice's festschrift,
Clarendon press objected to the use of "Grice" ("Who is going to buy a book
with
"Grice" in the title?", they objected). Instead, Grandy/Warner came out
with an genial acronym:
P
G
R
I
C
E
i.e.
* Philosophical (i.e. CONCEPTUAL, as per ordinary-linguistic analytic
conceptual)
* Grounds (i.e. foundations, or building blocks) of
* Rationality (i.e. our ability to use 'therefore' legitimately), that is,
these building blocks being three human elements -- for who cares for life
in Mars?
* Intentions: for to reason is a species of intending. We must INTEND to
draw a conclusion when we draw it. Unless we INTEND to conclude, we don't
conclude, and this intention is causally operative in our very reaching the
conclusion out of the premises.
* Categories: for we need to be able to provide a scheme of things:
knowledge, qua category, as a subcategory of belief, and reasoning as a
subcategory of concatenation of justified chains of logical consequences.
* Ends -- for we wouldn't be reasoning, for "no end at all"
The example Grice gives is
1. I have 2 hands
2. f I had 3 more I'd have 5.
3.Doubling that I'd have 10.
4. If 4 hands are removed, 6 hands would remain.
--------- Ergo I would then have 4 more hands than I presently have".
A 'valid' reasoning.
Rasoning which is "pointless" (i.e. is directed to no end, or more
specifically, not clearly directed to the evolutionary solution of a survival
problem we would hardly call the feat of a rational agent. But he concedes that
some appeal to some conversational maxim could explain why such things are
_odd_ (while still pieces of 'reasoning', if you mustn't).
And so on.
Cheers,
Speranza
--
BOOK REVIEW:
On the Beginnings of Theory: Deconstructing Broken Logic in Grice,
Peter Bornedal
In this exemplary essay, author Peter Bornedal promotes Deconstruction as
a cogent analytical method whose distinctive critical object is
foundational knowledge. In this, he wants to restore Deconstruction as a
rational
discourse, while continuing to emphasize it as a critique of metaphysics.
The essays discusses the works of Paul Grice and his theory on language
and communication.
In this essay, the author demonstrates that despite the attempts of Grice
to give ontological foundations for inherent communicative rationality,
his
endeavors are unsuccessful.
Ultimately, Bornedal argues that we cannot give metaphysical reasons for
rationality.
We can only decide to pursue these ideals, but there is nothing beyond the
decision that makes the pursuit necessary or inherent.
Peter Bornedal received his M.A. and Ph.D from the University of Chicago.
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