McEvoy utters a couple of utterances, notably:
(i) I hope Grice's dog has *not* lost the ability to bark (+> up
the right tree), the cat has not got its tongue, etc.
and
(ii) You know Grice once said...
A note re: (ii): Oddly, Grice was obsessed, curiously, with the verb ‘say’
(which features in (ii)), which he found “Fregeian” (‘too Fregeian to my
taste”). (Grice invented “to implicate” to oppose to “to say”).
McEvoy’s implicature, in (ii), “You _know_ Grice once said” seems to trigger an
extra-implicature (implicatures triggering implicatures are called long-circuit
implicatures), to wit:
(iii) Whatever.
The implicatures of the initial utterance, (i), on the other hand, rest on the
fact that Grice owned cats, not dogs. So it is highly (or ‘mighty’ as Geary
prefers) possible that it (Grice’s cat – in fact any of the three he had:
Sausalito, Moraga, and Oakland) might have gotten the tongue to Grice’s dog, if
only it (Grice’s dog, and its tongue) existed.
It all started when Helm was mentioning the dog (not necessarily Grice’s), I
mean, in his (i.e. Helm’s) words, he was referring to there
“possibly […] has been the steeping of a recent discussion in which I made
light of Popperism & Griceism when compared to Canine politics and evolution.”
-which got me thinking: Griceism and Popperism, those are nice words! -- “Or
‘-isms’,” as McEvoy might prefer.
Now McEvoy surely wants the reference. In his words:
“Not being aware of Popper saying that, and for other reasons, I am curious
whether [Speranza] can supply a source/reference. I understood that Popper was
unabashed about "ism-ism" because frameworks are endemic and ism-ism (talk in
terms of isms) helps us be alert to this.”
Well, first, must say I love Popper’s unabashedness – the opposite of
Wittgensteinian abashedness, i.e. the state of being
“perplexed or embarrassed by suddenly exciting the conscience, discomfitted,
made ashamed," late 14c., from an earlier verb, "lose one's composure, be
upset" (early 14c.), from Old French esbaiss-, present stem of esbaer "lose
one's composure, be startled, be stunned." For the record, the first element
is es "out" (from Latin ex; see ex-). The second may be ba(y)er "to be open,
gape" (if the notion is "gaping with astonishment"), possibly ultimately
imitative of yawning.
So was Popper for or againsts isms?
The Oxford dictionary (one of the many) defines an ‘-ism’ as a distinctive
practice, system, or philosophy, typically a political ideology or an artistic
movement. And the dictionary provides an interesting example:
‘he loathed isms and any form of dogma’
-where the ‘and’ is perhaps NOT logical in that an ism may be referred to as a
dogma – cfr. dogmatism – and Grice, “In defense of a dogma.”
But McEvoy is being clever. He is using ‘ismism’. And indeed, it might well be
that ismism is a mark of an OPEN society (not a closed one) (Geary sometimes
finds this distinction otiose: ‘surely a door that is closed can be opened, and
vice versa” – Geary, “The unwritten doctrines” – appendix on Popper’s “Open
Society and its enemies”).
Ismism is the condition which stems from the attribution of an "-ism" to every
concept, that Grice loved to analyse.
Ismism is commonly seen in academia (if not Plato’s), as when Popperists
speaks of Popperianism or Griceists of Griceianism.
You believe, Grice once said (I find ‘you know’ too strong) that ‘ismists are
too focused on labelling everything to appreciate anything.’ But I trust he was
being hyperbolic.
Ismism is a clever noun. The suffix -ism, referring to the doctrine or common
set of characteristics associated with the root, is applied, alla Goedel, to
itself.
As in “Grice would not stop talking about the vague distinction between realism
and naturalism. He is the epitome of a practising ismist.”
Academia today is rampant with ismism, with too many isms to count:
#abolitionism#absenteeism#albinism#ageism#alcoholism#atheism#anarchism#altruism#americanism#animism#antagonism#antidisestablishmentarianism#archaism#athleticism#authoritarianism#autotheism
Back to Popper’s unabashedness, as expressed in McEvoy’s terms”
“frameworks are endemic and ismism helps us be alert to this.”
The implicature seems to be that Helm, by referring to Popperianism and
Griceianism, is representing, as he should ismism. Popperianism and Griceianism
would be each, in McEvoy’s parlance, a ‘framework’ – or conceptual scheme –
which (‘frameworks’ in general) are “endemic,” again in McEvoy’s parlance.
But is McEvoy’s ismism a paradox?
If, allegedly, as Bartley suggests, Popper is against isms,
(iv) All isms are dogmatic, including (iv)
this (iv) should surely including ismism (which is a type of ism – I’m using
‘type’ as in Russell’s theory of types).
Now, the paradox, if there is one, is resolved alla Grice: “be brief” being one
of the conversational maxims:
To call Grice a Griceianist (or one defending the dogma of Griceianism) seems
otiose.
To generalise that all isms are dogmatic seems gratuitous: scepticism doesn’t
look like a type of dogmatism (vide “Against the dogmatics”).
Scientism, scientists argue, is hardly a dogma, if an ism.
The air of paradox is implicatural: by cleverly applying the suffix to itself,
ismism is strangely enough, endorsing Griceianism and Popperianism (and
Popper’s defense of an open society into the bargain).
Or not, of course.
Cheers,
Speranza
