[lit-ideas] Re: Grice's Eighth Wonder

  • From: Adriano Palma <Palma@xxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2015 07:01:31 +0000

Dam, grice did not meet tarski, he was compassionate and granted his
brilliancy, which given the superior mind grice has was quite a feat

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Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Grice's Eighth Wonder

In a message dated 6/22/2015 2:26:48 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:
"Tarski's theory stands as a most important result. Popper introduced it into
British philosophy in 1936, having run through the theory with Tarski while
they were both seated on a park bench in central Europe."

Indeed. That was in what Popper calls, in "Unended quest", that McEvoy refers
to, as an "unforgotten bench" in the Volksgarten (of all gardens) in Vienna.

By "unforgotten" he means by Tarski. (Vide: "The Complete Correspondence of
Alfred Tarski"). There are many benches in the 'garten', and by calling that
particular bench 'unforgotten', Tarski means that he knew how to go and sit
again on the very same bench or give directions to that particular bench.
(Geary can provide a more specific description of which bench it is -- he
calls it 'unforgettable', rather than 'unforgotten' -- which invites a
stronger implicature).

The meeting lasted some twenty minutes, and it was conducted in German.
Tarski was feeling especially elated because the German translation of his
"Truth" essay had been accepted for publication and he went with Sir (as he
then wasn't) K. R. Popper over it.

Grice never met Tarski at Vienna, but Grice granted Tarski's brilliancy in his
(Tarski's) requirement for a theory of truth that it be able to provide an
account for uses of 'true' (or 'verum', in Latin) where the propositional
content is not mentioned:

i. What the policeman said is true.

According to Ramsey's and Strawson's alethic theories -- Ramsey's theory
predated Tarski's -- at least part of what the utterer of the sentence,

i. What the policeman said was true.

is doing is to assert whatever it was that the policeman stated.

But the utterer may NOT KNOW what that statement was.

The utterer may think that the policeman's statement is TRUE because policemen
always speak the truth, or that THAT policeman always speaks the truth, or that
THAT policeman, in those circumstances, could not but have spoken the truth.

Now, ASSERTION involves committing oneself, and while it is possible to commit
oneself to a statement which one has NOT IDENTIFIED (or interpreted) -- I can
commit myself to the contents of the Thirty-Nine Articles of the C.
of E., without knowing what they say --, it is not quite proper for me (or
Tarski) to say that I HHAVE COMMITTED MYSELF TO THE CONTENT OF THE POLICEMAN'S
STATEMENT, merely in virtue of having said that it was TRUE."

When, to my surprise, I learn that the policeman actually said was:

ii. Monkeys can talk.

the proper thing to say, as Tarski would agree, would be for me (or Tarski) to
utter:

iii. Well, I guess I was wrong.

But hardly:

iv. I withdraw that.

or:

v. I withdraw my commitment to that.

-- since I never was really quite committed to it.

Cheers,

Speranza

References:

Tennant, "The taming of the true".
Wright, Georg von. "Alethic modality".
Aristotle, on philosophical wonder
Plato, on wonder as the origin of philosophy.







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