Okay, a part of the post is copy pasted, but anyhow it doesnt change 2.
On Wed, Nov 1, 2017 at 12:24 AM, Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
1. This is copy pasted from somewhere else
2. This is the last post I am replying to that has the name of Grice in
the subject line
Cheers,
Kusturica
On Tue, Oct 31, 2017 at 8:29 PM, Redacted sender jlsperanza for DMARC <
dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Fjeld was comparing Putnam with Bourdieu.
As it happens, Grice was familiar with Putnam. At Harvard, it was Putnam,
“of all people,” Grice adds, who told Grice that he was “too formal”! (As a
consequence, Grice started to feel content with being just formal).
While my reference to Putnam was motivated by Kenko’s ‘essay’ where he
divides society in ranks, and I take the groom’s response as implicating
that he disagrees with that division, Putnam takes the point of ‘linguistic
division’ more seriously. Indeed, more seriously than Grice would!
Fjeld sees a connection between Putnam’s division and Bourdieu’s
trichotomy of ‘knowledge’ into ‘esoteric,’ ‘practical’, and ‘scientific’.
But what would a Griceian say?
Fjeld refers to Bourdieu and ‘knowledge’ “as a social marker.” I’m not
sure we need that, do we? G. Mikes, for one, notes, in “How to be a Brit”,
that Brits (and Grice is a Brit) dislike the idea of cleverness, and
possibly ‘knowledge’ (There’s a whole chapter in that essay by Mikes where
Brits, at a dinner table, keep exchanging tidbits like, “I don’t know.”).
There may be OTHER markers, even social ones, which seem to be more
prevalent, even at Oxford, than a ‘knowledge’ ascriptions (vide Warnock,
“Claims to knowledge”). Granted, Grice allows to use ‘know’ in some
scenarios: the English schoolboy who knows that the battle of Trafalgar was
fought on Oct. 21, 1805 (The only example of ‘know’ he gives in “Logic and
Conversation”).
‘Esoteric’ knowledge seems to contrast with ‘exoteric’, and both
“depending on your point of view”. Consider Grice’s Play Group at Oxford.
It might be that hearing Austin ‘lecturing’ the group on ‘phatic’,
‘phonic’, and ‘rhetic’ acts consititutes an occasion of Austin imparting
‘esoteric’ “knowledge” to his disciples. (Grice cites this as an example of
an ordinary language NOT using ordinary language!). For some ‘within’ the
circle, that may be exoteric enough. It’s only an outsider who would see
the thing as ‘esoteric’. Strange, but true! (In their Greek Lexicon,
Liddell and Scott implicate that ‘esoteric’ is a back-formation from
‘exoteric’).
As for ‘practical’ “knowledge,” while Popper allows for trees to know,
seeing that Grice focuses in his “Logic and Conversation” to this schoolboy
knowing THAT the battle of Trafalgar was fought on October 21, 1805, Grice
seems to be implicating that Ryle’s use of ‘know how’ is abusive!
But it would seem it is with ‘scientific’ “knowledge” (in Bourdieu’s
trichotomy) that Grice would have more qualms. Grice spoke openly of the
‘Devil of Scientism,’ and would reminisce at length on Eddington’s Two
Tables. Bourdieu, on the other hand, seems to implicate that ‘scientific’
“knowledge” encompasses both ‘esoteric’ (but not exoteric) and so-called
‘practical’ “knowledge” – and I’m always using scare quotes when mentioning
‘knowledge.’ This is most evident in Grice’s notes on “The Vulgar and the
Learned,” where Grice is humble enough to count himself as one of the
vulgars! Oxonian and all, Grice was happy to compare the “Oxonian
Dialectic” with the “Athenian dialectic.” After all, as Grice notes, when
Aristotle spoke of ‘hoi polloi’ and ‘ta legomena’ he knew what he was
talking about. ‘Ta legomena’ are the expressions used by the many (if not
the wise). It is up to the wise (and the lovers of wisdom, if not the
wizards of love, as Heidegger would prefer) to provide conceptual analyses
of these ‘ta legomena’ – for the entertainment of both the Oxonians and the
Athenians, if not in that order!
Cheers,
Speranza
