L. Helm writes on a different thread: “It seems to be quite legitimate nowadays
to examine deep-seated beliefs from a mere sentence or two (who feels
comfortable writing more than that with a thumb?). I’m sure Speranza will
hasten to do it proper justice; so perhaps nothing more is needed here than a
few impressions: Dogs in my experience are not reflective, reflection being
necessary to philosophy, but reactive; which form of thought would be more
suited to chasing a rat. So, how do we reconcile the two? Do we do it with an
“implied” association in the mind of the poet, perhaps a subconscious
diminution of philosophy as an impractical enterprise – of no use unless it
enables one to act when necessary, much as a canine acts when a rat bursts
forth in front of it. And possibly there has been the steeping of a recent
discussion in which I made light of Popperism & Griceism when compared to
Canine politics and evolution -- until it popped forth in the subject
writing...”
I guess I like Griceism – and Popperism. Popper once said that –isms are a mark
of a closed society (“and they not always are formed from the adjective” – his
implicature was that while “Aristotelianism” is constructed out of the
adjective “Aristotelian”, “Platonism” is not). There’s also Griceianism and
Popperianism (But Popper found “Popperianism” “too long to be pronounced in one
single breadth”). Grice found implicatures not just in utterances by cats and
dogs – as Ritchie’s ‘conversations’ on the meaning of ‘road’ with Hamish – but
foxes. His (Grice’s, that is) favourite French book was “The Little Prince”,
which he read in French, but I won’t. And he (Grice, that is) delighted in the
fox’s implicatures.
It was then that the fox appeared.
"Good morning," said the fox. The implicature was of course, “I wish you a good
morning”. A Popperian might argue that “This is a good morning” is too
unverifiable to be true. "Good morning," the little prince responded politely,
although when he turned around he saw nothing. Not that he saw Heidegger’s
“Nothingness”. But the author of “The Little Prince” is no Heideggerian. "I am
right here," the voice said, "under the apple tree." According to the Grice,
the implicature is to the Andrews Sisters song, “Don’t sit under the apple tree
with anyone else but me.” This was popular during what Chamberlain once called
“the Phoney war” (vide Flanagan, “My Life”). The meaning of the Andrews’s
utterance is implicatural. The soldier is commanding his ‘sweetheart’ not to
sit under the apple tree with anyone else but his self” but since his self is
in France, there is an extra implicature that any of the three Andrew sisters
should not sit under the apple tree _simpiciter_. "Who are you?" asked the
little prince, and added, "You are very pretty to look at." Grice notes that
this is an implicature to Dodgson’s Caterpillar chapter in the Alice books –
notably the distinction between “who” are you and “what” are you.
"I am a fox," the fox said. This would possibly be analytic for Popper. Grice
is interested in the use of the indefinite quantifier (“a” rather that “some”
fox). "Come and play with me," proposed the little prince. "I am so unhappy."
Grice analyses this as a parody on Witters (“Some like Witters but Moore’s MY
man”). For Witters, our knowledge of other people’s minds is, alla Popper,
conjectural. By uttering “I am SO unhappy”, the little prince implicates that
Witters is wrong. "I cannot play with you," the fox said. "I am not tamed."
This is a very complex, implicature-laden implicature. “The use of ‘not’ makes
it even more complex.” “It especially comes a bit out of the blue”. Ritchie may
discuss whether Hamish can ‘play’ with him (Ritchie, that is) even if (to use
Kripke’s jargon), counterfactually speaking, Hamish were not tamed. And Helm
may elaborate on the ‘familiaris’ versus the ‘domesticus’. (Cfr. “The taming of
the shrew”, and its sequel, “The tamer tamed”).
"Ah! Please excuse me," said the little prince. But, after some thought, he
added: What does that mean--'tame'?" This Grice takes as a Socratic impicatural
question (“The little prince, like Socrates, is into the ‘idea’ of tameness.”)
"You do not live here," said the fox. "What is it that you are looking for?" "I
am looking for men," said the little prince. "What does that mean--'tame'?"
(Grice notes: “See how the little prince ignores the conversational moves by
the fox, otiose as they are, and goes back to the crux of the argument. Can the
fox supply a conceptual analysis in terms of necessary and sufficient
conditions, of the Platonic idea of ‘tameness’?). "Men," said the fox. "They
have guns, and they hunt. It is very disturbing. They also raise chickens.
These are their only interests. Are you looking for chickens?" (Grice finds
this a bit “out of the blue” – but then “he is a fox” – cfr. ‘sly as a fox’).
"No," said the little prince. "I am looking for friends. What does that
mean--'tame'?" (Grice: “The little prince’s insistence on the conceptual
analysis of ‘tameness’ is Griceian in nature.”). "It is an act too often
neglected," said the fox. It means to establish ties." (Grice: “The fox is here
acting as a Griceian philosopher as he should – only he is failing.”)
"'To establish ties'?" "Just that," said the fox. "To me, you are still nothing
more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys.
And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me. To you, I
am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame
me, we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To
you, I shall be unique in all the world.” Grice: “Note the use of the material
conditional in the analysis of ‘tameness’: “if you tame me…”. Grice argues that
the fox’s definition is circular if narrowed down to this conditional analysis
– cfr. Popper on the analysis of ‘fragility’. Grice: “But surely an analysis of
‘tameness’ along the lines of ‘establishing ties’ is surely the right one.”)
"I am beginning to understand," said the little prince. "There is a flower . .
. I think that she has tamed me . . ." (Grice: “This implicates that the little
prince has NOT understood, since a flower by any other name…”. Prince Charles
(another prince) who talks to flowers will disagree – and we may even say that
in his royal disagreement, Charles is being a Griceian. A flower may not be an
‘animal’, but still can establish ties. Grice sees this as a parody on Alice’s
‘mustard’ remark (“Is that a vegetable or an animal?”).
"It is possible," said the fox. "On the Earth one sees all sorts of things."
"Oh, but this is not on the Earth!" said the little prince. The fox seemed
perplexed, and very curious. "On another planet?" "Yes." "Are there hunters on
that planet?" "No." "Ah, that is interesting! Are there chickens?" "No."
"Nothing is perfect," sighed the fox. Grice sees this as a parody on the Pigeon
episode in Alice, “You are a snake!” “No, I’m not. I’m a little girl”. “You eat
eggs, don’t you?”. “I do”. “Then, for all practical purposes, you ARE a snake”.
The anti-symbiosis between the untamed fox and the Homo Sapiens is mediated by
the chickens, as the fox sighs.
But the fox came back to his idea. "My life is very monotonous," the fox said.
"I hunt chickens; men hunt me. All the chickens are just alike, and all the men
are just alike. And, in consequence, I am a little bored. But if you tame me,
it will be as if the sun came to shine on my life. I shall know the sound of a
step that will be different from all the others. Other steps send me hurrying
back underneath the ground. Yours will call me, like music, out of my burrow.
And then look: you see the grain-fields down yonder? I do not eat bread. Wheat
is of no use to me. The wheat fields have nothing to say to me. And that is
sad. But you have hair that is the color of gold. Think how wonderful that will
be when you have tamed me! The grain, which is also golden, will bring me back
the thought of you. And I shall love to listen to the wind in the wheat.” The
fox gazed at the little prince, for a long time. "Please--tame me!" he said.
Grice sees this as an implicit attempt by the fox of an implicit definition of
‘tameness’ (“Note that it’s the little prince who must start the process. It’s
not what Russell would call a ‘symmetrical relation’, taming isn’t.”). I want
to, very much," the little prince replied. "But I have not much time. I have
friends to discover, and a great many things to understand." "One only
understands the things that one tames," said the fox. "Men have no more time to
understand anything. They buy things all ready made at the shops. But there is
no shop anywhere where one can buy friendship, and so men have no friends any
more. If you want a friend, tame me.”
Grice sees this as a parody of Socrates’s idea of the friend as the ‘alter
ego’. “It confuses tameness with friendship, the fox’s analysis does.” "What
must I do, to tame you?" asked the little prince.
"You must be very patient," replied the fox. "First you will sit down at a
little distance from me--like that--in the grass. I shall look at you out of
the corner of my eye, and you will say nothing. Words are the source of
misunderstandings. But you will sit a little closer to me, every day.” The next
day the little prince came back. "It would have been better to come back at the
same hour," said the fox. "If, for example, you come at four o'clock in the
afternoon, then at three o'clock I shall begin to be happy. I shall feel
happier and happier as the hour advances. At four o'clock, I shall already be
worrying and jumping about. I shall show you how happy I am! But if you come at
just any time, I shall never know at what hour my heart is to be ready to greet
you . . . One must observe the proper rites.” "What is a rite?" asked the
little prince. "Those also are actions too often neglected," said the fox.
"They are what make one day different from other days, one hour from other
hours. There is a rite, for example, among my hunters. Every Thursday they
dance with the village girls. So Thursday is a wonderful day for me! I can take
a walk as far as the vineyards. But if the hunters danced at just any time,
every day would be like every other day, and I should never have any vacation
at all."
So the little prince tamed the fox. And when the hour of his departure drew
near-- "Ah," said the fox, "I shall cry." "It is your own fault," said the
little prince. "I never wished you any sort of harm; but you wanted me to tame
you." "Yes, that is so," said the fox. "But now you are going to cry!" said the
little prince."Yes, that is so," said the fox. "Then it has done you no good at
all!" "It has done me good," said the fox, "because of the colour of the wheat
fields."” Grice notes: “The conceptual analysis is reached via implicature.”
Grice implicates that, via EXplicature, the colour of the wheat fields is what
Aristotelianism has as a non-sequitur. And then the fox added: "Go and look
again at the roses. You will understand now that yours is unique in all the
world. Then come back to say goodbye to me, and I will make you a present of a
secret." The little prince went away, to look again at the roses. "You are not
at all like my rose," the little prince said to the wild roses. "As yet you are
nothing. No one has tamed you, and you have tamed no one. You are like my fox
when I first knew him. He was only a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes.
But I have made him my friend, and now he is unique in all the world." And the
wild roses were very much embarrassed. "You are beautiful, but you are empty,"
he went on. "One could not die for you. To be sure, an ordinary passerby would
think that my rose looked just like you--the rose that belongs to me. But in
herself alone she is more important than all the hundreds of you other roses:
because it is she that I have watered; because it is she that I have put under
the glass globe; because it is she that I have sheltered behind the screen;
because it is for her that I have killed the caterpillars (except the two or
three that we saved to become butterflies); because it is she that I have
listened to, when she grumbled, or boasted, or ever sometimes when she said
nothing. Because she is my rose."
And then the little prince went back to meet the fox."Goodbye," he said.
"Goodbye," said the fox. "And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It
is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible
to the eye." (Grice: “Is that analytic?”) "What is essential is invisible to
the eye," the little prince repeated, so that he would be sure to remember. "It
is the time you have spent with your rose that makes your rose so important."
"It is the time I have spent with my rose--" said the little prince, so that he
would be sure to remember. "Men have forgotten this truth," said the fox. "But
you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have
tamed. You are responsible for your rose . . ." "I am responsible for my rose,"
the little prince repeated, so that he would be sure to remember.
With cats, as Grice would say, and dogs, it may all be ‘different conceptual
stuff’. Cheers,
Speranza
