Grice was a Fellow of St. John's.
Elsewhere, L. Helm was referring to Y. Kenko’s “Essays in Idleness,” which
reminded me of H. P. Grice – some colleagues at Oxford thought he was idle in
that he published ‘little’ – and J. K. Jerome, of “Idle thoughts of an idle
fellow” fame – and Eric Idle (whose real surname isn’t “Idle”).
Helm quotes from Kenko, “Buddha's law” and notes:
“I read some teaching of Buddha … but don't recall any of them being considered
"law."”
McEvoy might help! (He likes to quote from Hart, who wrote on the concept of
‘law’! I wonder, indeed, what Kenko means. Or Buddah, for that matter. I don’t
think of Buddha’s teaching as ‘legalistic’!
Helm keeps quoting from Kenko:
“At most before his fortieth year is full it is seemly for a man to die.”
Well, Kenko was probably born in 1283, and probably died in 1350 – which seems
unseemly for Kenko.
My father lived to the age of 76 and he was indeed decrepit and unsightly by
the time he died. 36 years past Kenko's "use by" date.
Helm goes on to cite from “Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell”, to the effect
that England “lost its ability to do magic.”
I wonder about the New World. It is promising that a film is soon coming with
Hackman playing Barnum, who always reminds me of “Paper Moon”:
It’s a Barnum and Bailey world/Just as phony as it can be/But it wouldn’t be
make believe/If you believed in me.
(I’m not sure how much Barnum, of Bridgeport, Connecticut, was involved with
‘magic’ per se!).
Helm goes on to quote from Kenko and Kenko’s reference to “a garden where
plants grow wild.”
This is possibly a semantic (as some call it) question, but one wonders if a
weed can be regarded as a wild plant. The ‘issue’ is actually brought by Milne.
He used to tell his son, “Weeds are flowers, you know – once you get to know
them.”
Strictly, like ‘cabbage’ and ‘king’ (to use Grice’s example), ‘weed’ seems to
be a value-oriented word.
Taxonomically, the term “weed” is not what philosophers call a ‘natural kind’:
it has no botanical significance: a plant that *is* a weed in one context is
not a weed when growing in a situation where it is in fact wanted, and where
one species of plant is a valuable crop plant, another species in the same
genus might be deemed a serious weed, such as a wild bramble growing among
cultivated loganberries.
Helm concludes his post by quoting Kenko on poetry:
“Although it is generally said that the art of poetry is the one thing that has
never changed since olden times, yet, with the same themes and words as are in
use today, look how different are the verses composed by the ancients. What
they wrote was simple and artless, pure in form and full of feeling.”
This reminds me of Homer and Virgil – it seems that Western civilization (“What
do you think of Western civilization?” Gandhi was once asked. “I think it would
be a good idea” – cited in “The Book of British Humour”) agrees with Kenko.
When Grice, back at the beginning of the 20th century, was made to learn whole
passages (in the original languages) by Homer and Virgil, I can imagine the
Clifton classics master telling Grice: “See how simple, lacking in artifice,
pure in form, and full of feeling what I have made you memorised is.”
On the other hand, J. K. Jerome’s “Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow” invites the
implicature whether an idle fellow can have non-idle thoughts – the title
cannot be a tautology, but it cannot be an oxymoron, either!
In any case, it wasn’t a success with the English. The fact that Jerome
followed it with “The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow” didn’t seem to help.
Jerome’s “Idle thoughts of an idle fellow” consists, like Kenko’s thing, of
independent articles arranged by themes:
1. ON BEING IDLE (where Jerome provides a conceptual analysis of this
tricky concept – cfr. ‘leasure’, and Grice's favourite, 'otiose') 2. ON
BEING IN LOVE. 3. ON BEING IN THE BLUES. 4. ON BEING HARD UP. 5. ON
VANITY AND VANITIES. 6. ON GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 7. ON THE WEATHER.
8. ON CATS AND DOGS.
9. ON BEING SHY. 10. ON BABIES. 11. ON EATING AND DRINKING. 12. ON
FURNISHED APARTMENTS. 13. ON DRESS AND DEPORTMENT. 14. ON MEMORY.
From his conceptual analysis of ‘idle’:
Jerome:
“It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to
do. There is no fun in doing nothing when you have nothing to do. Wasting time
is merely an occupation then, and a most exhausting one. Idleness, like kisses,
to be sweet must be stolen.”
Strangely, Jerome, but not Kenko, seems to be the inspiration for “Lazy
Thoughts of a Lazy Girl,” by one "Jenny Wren". The actual author is still
anonymous (and Popper might argue that it has not been falsified that she _was_
Jenny Wren?) “Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Girl” has the exact same form as Jerome’s
“Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow,” but is from the point of view (or
perspective, as Popper might prefer) of, as the title implicates, a female.
The foundation of bi-yearly magazine “The Idler” seems to have been influenced
not by Kenko but by the title and the ideas expressed in “Idle Thoughts of an
Idle Fellow.”
Unlike Kenko’s thing, Jerome’s “Idle thoughts” bears a dedication. Jerome
dedicated “Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow” to his friend and companion in
idleness: his pipe.
Cheers,
Speranza
