[lit-ideas] Re: Grice on Explanations and their Implicatures
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 10 Mar 2013 13:11:42 -0400 (EDT)
Why did he do it?
Because he wanted to do it.
----- (ENTHYMEME: he does what he wants, as we all do).
---
In a message dated 3/10/2013 9:38:59 A.M. UTC-02,
donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx writes about Popper and explanation, and ontology and
metaphysics.
Thanks.
"[W]e might even conclude his beliefs, being irrelevant to a workable
explanation, do not exist. But we are nowhere near such an explanation
scientifically, and the difficulties in ever getting there may be insuperable -
and
this insuperability may be explained in terms of metaphyics, because
explanation purely in terms of physics is inadequate. And this inadequacy may
be
brought out by reflecting on the different levels - Worlds123 - that are
involved in explaining the act of calling for an ambulance."
Well, yes, because we need to add a few other keywords:
"BECAUSE" (Grice on 'because'), EPIPHENOMENON, and INTRINSIC IRREDUC
IBILITY.
In this respect, Popper's anti-reductionism may be thought to be grounded
on his belief that there is an intrinsic IRREDUCIBILITY. Consider McEvoy's:
"explanation purely in terms of physics is inadequate."
This can be taken as a matter of fact, as I do -- and thus DISALLOWING
intrinsic irreducibility.
Or it may be taken as MODAL, alla Kant: "There won't be a possible world
where explanation purely in terms of physics will ever be adequate."
----- It is this type of anti-reductionist trend that philosophers have
identified in Popper and which they think runs against Popper's alleged
scientism in other fields.
-----
I will try to locate Grice's answer to the neurophysiologist in "Method in
philosophical psychology", and further consider the debate on the ontology
and explanation involving levels which go beyond physics.
The Wikipedia entry on 'reductionism' is fun to read.
"Life is not just a physical phenomenon", it reads -- But to say this
involves some logical problems (of logical non-reduction as it were), since it
may end up ascribing life to things that don't live (VITALISM).
The Wikipedia entry also notes that it would be odd to reduce animal life
and vegetal life to some neutral sort of life.
At this point I would not know. Grice does speaks of a sort of
'development' in terms of 'soul' -- the soul of a cabbage, say, and the soul of
a man.
The fact that the Wikipedia entry does not have many developed references
doesn't help.
There is, however, a reference to an essay, by M. Ruse, "Do Organisms
Exist?". When I read the title of this essay, I was reminded of the rather
pedantic title of the essay by L. J. Cohen (an Oxford philosopher of
Anti-Austinian tendencies): "Do Illocutionary Forces Exist?". Ruse apparently
wants
to say that organisms don't exist.
This may relate to Popper's subtleties about denying 'ontological' status
to his scheme.
----
The reference by McEvoy to 'idle' predates the passage cited above:
"[W]e might say that talk of John's "beliefs" and of John's "mental events"
is simply idle talk."
This is of course different from saying that John's BELIEF is idle. (Who
cares for idle talk? Just joking). But Smart and other proponents of the
brain-mind identity thesis will never say that.
Belief MAY REDUCE to a neurophysiological process, and so, since it is
IDENTICAL to the neurophysiological process, it is NEVER idle.
----- Rather than 'idle talk' I would think is 'shorthand', for AT THE
PRESENT state of neurophysiology, it is just because we rely on Grice's
conversational maxim, "Be brief", that we prefer an 'idle' talk in terms of
"John
thought he had to call an ambulance", than describe his neurophysiological
processes at the time.
-----
In this sense, I would add another keyword:
LOGICAL CONSTRUCTION, and I note that Quine, in "Two dogmas of empiricism",
as cited perhaps by the Wikipedia entry, refer to reduction to LOGICAL
constructs, which is close enough (but no cigar).
Feyerabend, in discussion with Popper, has talked of MATERIALISM and
ELIMINATIONISM, or materialist eliminationism, which may relate. Since
Feyerabend is considering the logical networks involved in Popper's
anti-reductionism, rather than this or that current state of this or that
science.
Since morality has also been discussed here, we may add as KEYWORD Moore's
NATURALISTIC fallacy, which, of course, was hardly a fallacy.
----
McEvoy reminds us of Popper's self-descript
"as a "tottering old metaphysician""
and part of the problem indeed can be traced to Oxonianism. I don't know
about Paris, but in Oxford, at some point, it was decided that undergraduates
needed to attend a course in
"METAPHYSICAL PHILOSOPHY" -- the Waynflete chair.
I understand that at an earlier time, this was seen as a development from
another chair, perhaps on which Newton sat,
"PHYSICAL PHILOSOPHY".
If we translate "physical philosophy" as "natural philosophy" as I do, then
the Waynflete professor teaches "TRANS-NATURAL philosophy".
So Popper is saying that he is a "tottering old transnaturalist".
In other words, a different combo of words!
------
I will try to reconsider McEvoy's points that ONTOLOGICAL REDUCTION and
EXPLANATORY reduction are conceptually tied, and see what I can make of that.
Cheers,
Speranza
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