Grice thought that the word
i. The end
at the end of a film was otiose. ("Surely one does not need to be reminded").
"The end" relates to 'final', as in Italian cinema, "Fine" (pronounced /fiine/
and not /fain/. Italians know about this: up until Mozart's days, all operas,
for example, needed to have a 'happy ending', 'lieto fine'; but Puccini changed
that: see his "Madama Butterfly".
I wrote my previous without checking if there had been a reply to Helm's post.
Indeed, there was one by McEvoy, a Popperian (he can call me a Griceist), so I
am taking the liberty (or freedom, as Sir Isaiah Berlin would prefer -- vide
his "Two uses of 'free') to provide an exegesis of McEvoy's controversial views:
McEvoy focuses on that bit of the Weinberg quotation kindly provided by Helm
where Weinberg uses the Anglo-Saxon word, 'silly'. McEvoy writes about this
passage:
"This is small load of ill-informed old hooey."
Or "a" small load. Load can be countable, or a mass noun. I think that in
Weinberg's case, it it safer to take the hooey as being countable, and hence,
"a small".
The concept of 'ill-information' is medical in nature. For Grice, 'false
information' is no 'information'. So if Weinberg is ill-informed, that does not
implicate that he is 'ill', but implicates that he is uttering falsehoods, and
thus violating Grice's principle of trustworthiness: "Try to say things which
are or can be true".
McEvoy goes on:
"Popper's 'falsifiability criterion' had a complex genesis but it was not
applied to discrediting Marxism or psychoanalysis simpliciter but to
discrediting their pretensions as "science"."
It's interesting, though, that Heidegger (whom I mention) and Marx and Freud
all wrote in German, like Popper. So there is some truth in the more general
point that Popper's criterion was applied to discredit theories proposed by
German speakers. It might not apply, say, to Buddhism.
It is not clear that Marx saw his "The capital" as 'science'. We know that Mrs.
Marx criticized him:
"I wish he would bring some home, rather than spends all those afternoons at
the British Library reading room WRITING about it".
Freud might have used 'wissenschaft', but by that time, Dilthey had made a
distinction between:
naturwissenschaft -- cfr. the subtitle to Popper's book, 'natural science'
geistwissenschaft -- science of the spirit.
Snow, who did not speak German too well, translated this as the 'two cultures'.
McEvoy goes on:
"Further, Popper did not devise falsifiability by looking to discredit these
schools of thought - its primary drivers were the problem of induction and
trying to square the absence of any positive solution to it with the
rationality of scientific testing (with falsifiability being the answer, and
thereby a solution - "albeit a negative one" - to the problem of induction)."
-- if ever there was one.
Recall that the last chapter of Strawson's "Introduction to Logical Theory" is
that the problem of induction is a pseudo-problem. And recall that in the
Preface to that book, Sir Peter [Strawson] acknowledges "Mr. Grice, from whom I
have never ceased to learn logic, since he introduced me into the subject as
his tuttee at St. John's."
McEvoy goes on:
"Another driver was Popper listening to a lecture from Einstein"
Popper was a good listener, and not just of Bach. He listened to a whole
lecture by Tarski while both were seated on the same bench in Vienna's famous
park.
McEvoy:
"... where Einstein spelt out what test results would refute his theory (an
attitude Popper recognised as properly scientific, and in stark contrast to the
know-it-all unfalsifiable explanations of Marxism and psycho-analysis). Is this
"silly" of Popper?"
In a recent polemic between Judge Lynch and one Mr. H., or on some similar
occasion, he left the room uttering a variant in German of 'silly'. It means
'blessed'. Then there's Cleese's 'silly' walk. So one has to be careful about
what Weinberg implicates by 'silly'. Note that he notably does not use
'idiotic'. ("Is this idiotic of Popper?"). "Idiotic" actually means
'individual', so one has to be careful there too. Did Weinberg implicate
'stupid'? He should stick with 'true' and 'false'. But note that he is looking
(and finding) and adjective to 'criterion': "silly criterion" is Weinberg's
phrase and collocation. So, whether this is silly of Popper or not may not
address the point. What makes a criterion SILLY?
We need a piece of conceptual analysis.
i. A criterion is silly if it does not distinguish between A and non-A.
Or
ii. A criterion is silly if it DOES distinguish between A and non-A, but in a
'silly' way.
The latter is circular since it defines 'silly criterion' providing necessary
and sufficient conditions that use, again, 'silly'. This is 'silly'.
Russell criticised Grice for focusing on 'silly things silly people say," but
Grice took this as a compliment, since most of his friends _were_ silly,
especially when saying silly things ("and even when they don't," he added to
hurt Russell -- 'adding insult to injury').
Weinberg just implicates that Popper's criterion is not just false, but
'otiose' -- "silly" can implicate 'otiose'. Weinberg may also implicate that
Popper's criterion is 'nonsensical', which is different from 'silly'.
McEvoy goes on:
"Are the many scientists and Nobel laureates (not to mention American courts),
that have adopted the criterion, just being "silly"?"
Well, adopting a silly criterion does not make you silly. Same as: wearing a
Chanel pret-a-porter does not make you Chanelian. You need the whole style that
goes with it. "Silly" is used by Weinberg, again, to apply to 'criterion'. He
never mentions "just being silly" as applied to _people_ like 'many
scientists', 'Nobel laureates' or 'American courts'.
Note that 'criterion' is a very nice Greek word that is the neutral noun out of
a verb (for Geary, it all 'boils down' to 'verbing') that means, 'to seave'.
INTERLUDE ON "CRITERION":
-----
κριτήριον , τό,
A.
Usage 1. means for judging or trying,
Usage 2. standard,
freq. of the mental faculties and senses, “ἔχων αὐτῶν τὸ κ. ἐν αὑτῷ” Plato,
Tht.178b, cf. Republic 582a, Plu.2.448b, etc.; “τὸ αἰσθητήριον καὶ κ. τῶν . .
χυμῶν” Aristotle, Metaphysics 1068a3,
cf. Epicur.Ep.1p.5U. (pl.), Sent.24, al.; περὶ κριτηρίου, title of an essay --
"About the criterion" -- cfr. Chisholm, "The problem of the criterion" -- by
Epicurus (Diogenes Laertius, 10.27), Posidonius (Diocl. ap. D.L.7.54), and
Ptolemy: generally, χρόνον εἶναι μέτρον καὶ κ. τάχους
Usage 3: measure
Usage 4: test,
Zeno Stoic.1.26, etc.
2. LEGALESE (cfr. Hart, The concept of law):
Usage 5: court of judgement
Usage 6: tribunal,
Plato, De Legibus.767b; “καθίζειν κ.” Plb.9.33.12, cf. PHib.1.29 (a) (iii B.
C.), 1 Ep.Cor.6.2, IG14.951.20, Paus.2.20.7, POxy.2134.6 (ii A. D.), etc.
b.
Usage 7:
decision of a tribunal,
Usage 8: judgement,
SIG826 K9 (Delph., ii B. C.).
-----
Note that 'criterion' comes from 'krites', Hart's main lexical item in "The
concept of law," i.e. judge, as in Judge Lynch -- itself from "krinein" "to
separate, demarcate, decide, judge," from Indo-Arian root *krei-
"to sieve, discriminate, distinguish, discriminate" -- as in Grice, "all my
distinctions are fine") The root is also the source of Greek krinesthai "to
explain".
In Old English "hriddel" is used to mean, plainly, "sieve;" cfr. Latin
"cribrum" "sieve," "crimen" "judgment, crime," "cernere" (past participle
cretus) "to sift, separate;" -- and cfr. 'dis-cern' as in Grice, "I discern
implicature from implication."
In Old Irish criathar, and in Old Welsh cruitr both mean, physically, "sieve;"
Middle Irish -- what went between old Irish and New Irish -- had "crich"
"border, boundary" -- as "the crich between Ulster and Ireland -- "harder to
discern now after Brexit" -- The Irish are thinking of building a wall).
----- END OF INTERLUDE.
McEvoy goes on:
"We need not digress into this, but Popper's position is not that Marxism and
psycho-analysis could never be formulated in a falsifiable way: Popper's
position is that Marxist claims were initially formulated in a (potentially)
testable way but, when the tests failed the theory, the theory was adjusted to
escape falsification - and by this process Marxism rendered itself
unscientific."
If I may, the same happened to Groucho Marx: "I would not like to be a member
of a club that accepts myself as a member". This is possibly either silly or
irrefudiable. Marx indeed (Karl Marx, I mean) was trying his best to be
scientific. It was the post-Marxists that, as McEvoy rightly points out,
'adjusted' (in an 'ad hoc' way) the theory "to escape falsification".
This gave Lakatos the idea of a protective belt -- and Kuhn the idea of a
paradigm. Post-Marxism got itself a protective belt that allowed for evidence
only positive evidence, rendering the theory true 'regardless' -- or in
Popper's view, 'silly' and irrefutable or unfalsifiable.
McEvoy goes on:
"In the case of psychoanalysis its propositions were typically not at all
formulated in a testable way in the first place."
which is silly of psychoanalysis, since Freud thought he was contributing to
physical science and medicine -- By "Freud" I mean Sigmund, not Anna (who was
more on the practical side of things -- she lived in a posh neighbourhood in
London where she saw 'patients' or "clients" as she called them), not Lucien --
there was a reference to Lucien Freud in the NYT recently: he once declined an
invitation to a wedding on the grounds that he had slept with both the bride,
the groom, and the bride's mother -- NYT, review of "Rivalry in Art".
----
McEvoy goes on:
"Though Adolf Grunbaum might be taken to have shown some psycho-analytic
propositions could be formulated in a falsifiable way,"
Grunbaum is a variant of 'green beam', or green tree.
"this does not diminish the cogency of Popper's attack on the scientific
pretensions of these [two] schools of thought [along with astrology, and much
besides, including metaphysics -- all part of his W3, though, i.e. objective
knowledge] - bearing in mind these schools sought to persuade on the basis of
their scientific credentials."
Persuade is a perlocutionary act. Marx or Freud might intend to CONVINCE; if
they persuade, that's the fault of their addressee. So a school of thought
cannot literally seek to PERSUADE, but seek to convince. J. L. Austin noted
this:
iii. I hereby convince you that the earth is flat.
sounds harsh. But
iv. I hereby persuade you that the earth is flat.
sounds downright silly.
McEvoy goes back to Popper's lesson from Einstein:
"The importance of Einstein's lecture points up something that is very silly in
Weinberg's contention."
Again, recall, Weinberg is merely using 'silly' as applied to 'criterion' --
never mind contention.
"the idea that there is nothing falsifiable in Newtonian mechanics or quantum
mechanics. Weinberg manages to create a massive potential evasion/get-out
clause for this silly contention by indicating that by these he means "general
frameworks" and not "more specific theories"."
A terminological point if ever there was one!
I think perhaps Weinberg should read Davidson on 'conceptual schemes'. "Are
there conceptual schemes?". This was a hot controversy once between Davidson
and Quine. In general, Grice thinks that there are no conceptual schemes, and
thus, no 'general frameworks'.
"Framework" is an interesting word. As Geary notes:
v. That picture lacks a frame.
implicates that it does not look good.
But adding '-work' to 'frame' solves the paradox:
vi. That pictures lacks a framework.
is something Geary would say, non-otiosely, as an art historian.
McEvoy:
"But, if so, what he means is still silly:"
Or his implicature might thus be.
McEvoy:
"for both Newtonian mechanics and quantum mechanics are constituted by
falsifiable claims,"
-- well, if we understand quantum mechanics to include quark theory, Grice
thought he never saw one -- "Actions and Events".
McEvoy:
"rather than being merely a set of metaphysical claims within which we posit
"more specific theories"."
Metaphysics is what Weinberg may be having in mind. Recall Grice: Scientists
are into hypotheses -- but cfr. Newton, "Hypotheses non fingo" --; philosophers
into hypostases.
McEvoy:
"This is obvious, and its denial silly,"
Yes, it is obvious that some metaphysics need to be involved here.
Or ontology, strictly. "The final theory" may involve what Grice calls
'philosophical eschatology', a branch of metaphysics which is still different
from the better known one of 'ontology'. Recall that back in the day, cosmology
was considered a specific ontology. Philosophical eschatology is the theory of
trans-categorical barriers.
McEvoy:
"because what we teach people when we teach them Newtonian mechanics or quantum
mechanics involves teaching theories that are falsifiable by observation at
almost every turn."
of the screw. Recall that sometimes it's not what we teach that is 'important'
-- pace Grice, "'Important is not important' -- but what they LEARN. Popper
once uttered:
vi. Observe!
while at Princeton, and the students were surprised. ("They wanted me to tell
them WHAT to observe"). So one has to be careful here.
McEvoy, defending Popper, concludes:
"Weinberg"
whose surname means 'mountain of wine'
"belongs to that unfortunate large class of people who are proud to offer their
opinion, and use derogatory language to convey it,"
or 'holy language' as I prefer -- vide Ramsey, the ordinary-language theologian
-- since there is no 'hollier' lexical item than 'silly.'
McEvoy:
"despite being spectacularly ill-informed - and indeed silly."
'Ill-informed' should be distinguished from mis-informed. I believe McEvoy's
implicature may be that Weinberg is MIS-informed. That Weinberg is silly is
another matter. Most things are silly, since they are the products of the
Creator. There is an American colloquialism to prove this, "bless your little
heart" -- where 'bless' and 'silly' belong in the same realm. Also, after
sneezing, the proper thing to say is "Bless you" -- 'bless' is cognate with
'blood'; 'silly' isn't.
---- INTERLUDE ON "SILLY":
Old English had an apt word, "gesælig", which the Anglo-Saxons used freely to
mean "happy, fortuitous, prosperous". It is related to "sæl", "happiness"), and
it is from the Germanic "sæligas", the source also of Old Norse sæll "happy,"
Old Saxon salig, Middle Dutch salich, Old High German salig, German selig
"blessed, happy, blissful," -- as in Mr. H.s utterance on leaving the courtroom
-- Gothic sels "good, kindhearted"). The root is ultimately Indo-Arian, *sele-
"of good mood; to favour," from root *sel- (2) "happy, of good mood; to favour"
(source also of Latin "solari" "to comfort," cfr. 'solace' -- Greek hilaros
"cheerful, gay, merry, joyous" -- as in excrutiatinly hilarious.
"Silly" is one of the few instances in which an original long e (ee) has become
shortened to i.
-- "the reason for which being so far unknown to us," Geary adds.
The same change occurs, Geary, the prosodist, notes, in "breeches", and in the
American vernacular pronunciation of "been", with no change in spelling.
The word 'silly' considerable development of usage (but cfr. "Do not multiply
senses of 'silly' beyond necessity; that would be a silly thing to do) moved
from "happy" to "blessed" to "pious," to "innocent", to "harmless," to
"pitiable," "weak," to "feeble in mind, lacking in reason, foolish".
Descartes once said that he "felt sometimes all these things at once" -- which
is silly, since his mother tongue was French!
Further tendency toward "stunned, dazed as by a blow" as in "knocked silly," is
of further intereset to some.
"Silly season" is journalism slang (the month of August, when newspapers
compensate for a lack of hard news by filling up with trivial stories, about
silly stuff).
"Silly Putty" trademark claims use from some time ago
It is a widespread phenomenon that the words for 'innocent', apart from their
legal use, develop, through 'harmless, guileless', a disparaging sense
'credulous, naive, simple, foolish' and one might add 'silly'.
Note that what is a 'silly criterion' for Weinberg contrasts with what, for
Weinberg is "not" a silly criterion. His implicature is that the opposite of
what he alleges is Popper's 'silly' criterion would NOT be silly -- and would
give justification to his, i.e. Weinberg's, final theory.
Cheers,
Speranza
