[lit-ideas] Grice's Objection
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 17 Jun 2012 23:15:20 -0400 (EDT)
Never Object --.
Grice was fascinated with -ion. He chose to entitle his Carus lecures,
"the conception of value" -- "never 'concept' -- "the concept of value" sounds
dull". For what we need is a play on the object-process distinction: the
conception delivers concepts for us, not vice versa.
Similarly for Object and Objection, I would think.
Mind, Grice is for one not too consistent with his use of 'object'. He
sometimes uses the expression, "material object", which I dislike. Since
'object' belongs in gnoseology, and 'material' belongs in ontology.
To quote from Grice -- albeit from unpublished work, although there may be
evidence for his use of 'object' and 'material object' where I would mean
_thing_ elsewhere:
Grice is considering the advantages of perception in terms of survival. He
goes on to assess the possible support this might offer for common sense
against philosophers of sense data. If perception is to be seen as an
advantage, providing knowledge to aid survival in a particular word, Grice
writes:
"the objects revealed by perception should surely
be constituents of that world'.
It might be possible to say that sense data do not themselves NOURISH or
threaten, but constitute evidence of THINGS that do.
Note that the use of 'object' above is a subtle one: "objects revealed by
perception" -- Perception indeed reveals objects" AND perhaps reveal
THINGS: 'THNGS revealed by perception' may be philosophically more precise but
more pedantic and bearing less of a flow.
---
In "Re: Wittgenstein's Show", R. Paul is taking issue, if that's the
expression, with the, granted, cheap "Spark notes" that I quoted from:
_http://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/wittgenstein/section1.rhtml_
(http://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/wittgenstein/section1.rhtml)
and which reads, inter alia:
"Because logical form shows ITSELF and cannot be SPOKEN about, there is no
need for the so-called logical objects, the connecting glue between
different propositions that plays a central role in the logic of Frege and
Russell."
R. Paul writes:
"Wittgenstein nowhere says that there are no 'logical objects,' whatever
that may mean. (What is a logical object, such that 'philosophers' have no
need of them?). What he says, at 4.0312 is: "The possibility of propositions
is based on the principle that objects have signs as their
representatives. My fundamental idea is that the 'logical constants' are not
representatives; that there can be no representatives of the _logic_ of facts."
Thanks. It may do to reconsider, too, the other use of this (alleged)
expression by Witters, "mathematical objects", which McEvoy does use in his
exegesis.
"3"
would NOT refer to the mathematical object
3
-- since, well, mathematical objects don't exist.
So it seems we do have a key tenet here! I should check with the German,
but I am grateful to R. Paul for quoting direct from Witters:
"The possibility of propositions is based on the principle that OBJECTS
have signs as their representatives."
I have not done the history of this, but it seems that the idea of
'object' was confused in most of German philosophy. Even Grice, sometimes,
uses
'object' where _I_ would _certainly_ use 'thing'. My professor in Modern
Philosophy would, once and again, correct me (or us -- the students in the
seminar -- since I never made the gaffe) if we would say 'object' when we
meant
'thing'. My tutor had the bright, and correct, idea that 'object' belongs
in epistemics or gnoseology, i.e. the theory of 'knowledge', or belief --
philosophical psychology almost. Whereas 'thing' (Dinge-an-sich) belongs in
ONTOLOGY.
In a diagramme:
----- OBJECT -- objectum, Objekt -- Gegenstand -- jargon for the
theorist of 'knowledge'
----- THING, entity, DINGE ---------------------- jargon for the
ontologist.
Note that 'object' best contrasts with 'subject' (Subjekt), THE other term
of the theory of 'knowledge' -- the 'knowing agent', the perceiver, etc.
Witters writes (or says): "The possibility of propositions
-- And what kind of an entity is THAT? The whole point of Extensionalism
is to deny existence to abstract entities like PROPOSITIONS]
"is based on the principle that OBJECTS have signs as their
representatives."
"My fundamental idea is that the 'logical constants' are not
representatives"
Note that he must just as well challenged the 'principle'. The
'principle', it seems, is what Ryle called the
"Fido"-Fido
theory of meaning.
I.e. there is a thing (grant Germans will call it 'object'), Fido, and a
sign (I don't use the Latinism), i.e. the label, "Fido". Witters's use of
'representative' is a serious one. Grice thinks that 'represent' is best
understood in things like:
"The cricket team REPRESENTED England."
i.e. the cricket team does for England what England cannot do for herself,
i.e. engage in a game of cricket.
So, while Fido barks, "Fido" doesn't. Yet, if Witters is right (I don't
think he is), "Fido" is the representative, qua sign, of Fido.
"[T]he principle that objects have signs as their representatives", as
Witters, for once, rather clearly has it (if wrong). Witters goes on, for one
not changing the numbering of his thesis:
"My fundamental idea is that the 'logical constants' are NOT
representatives" -- This seems important for he is indeed, as R. Paul notes,
using
'logical CONSTANT', not logical "object" (even if some correspondence is
alleged
and then denied). And what _is_ a logical constant, anyway -- or anyways
as Geary prefers ('there is alway more ways than one way')
Note that we don't need to dwell on ALL TYPES of logical constants. We can
stick with
"(Ex)"
which Grice has as having, in the vernacular -- versus "in Russell" -- as
reading (cfr. Peacocke's essay on logical constants):
"at least ONE".
So Wittgenstein is saying that a logical constant -- such as "(Ex)" -- is
NOT (a) representative of anything. Here we could have that
"1"
is a representative of
1.
"One woman is obdurate". In symbols:
(Ex)Wx & Ox
The logical constants there are "&" (a truth-functor, and connective to
boot) _AND_ the quantifier, "(Ex)". Witters seems to be saying that if we
say, "Olga is obdurate", we may think of "Olga" as a sign for a represenative
of a 'thing' (or "object", as Witters misuses the word), i.e. Olga.
This is, again, the
"Fido"-Fido
theory of meaning. Similarly, for 'obdurate', or 'sincere', we can say,
"Olga is sincere" -- and define "sincere" as being a sign which is a
representative of the class of sincere things. So far so good.
Witters's point seems to be that the quantifier "(Ex)" -- AND ITS
VERNACULAR counterpart, "a" (as in "A woman is sincere") -- on the other hand,
unlike "woman", "Olga" and "sincere" -- "is not representative". Witters's
conclusion to the paragraph cited by R. Paul, "[My [other] fundamental idea is
that] there can be no representatives of the _logic_ of facts" -- whatever
he meant (never mind showed) by that. We have to recall that Witters wrote
most of his stuff in notes while he was in the trenches during the Great
War, so we have to allow for some 'contextual dependency'. It was perhaps
too rushed on the part of the Board of Doctorate at Cambridge to let Witters
get a D.Phil out of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, for it may be said
to contain some inconsistencies.
Witters needed to have expanded on a refutation, as per 'reductio ad
absurdum' that there is no way to provide a 'rule' for the introduction of
"(Ex)" that does not presuppose a referent (for which "(Ex)" will be the
representative). On top of that, the loose use of 'fact', by Wittgenstein, as
conjoined with 'logical' -- "there can be no representatives of the _logic_
of
facts" -- can only confuse, and it does. For I never met ONE logician
(never mind two) who said or showed or claimed or alleged that he was dealing
with _facts_. So, "logic of facts" or "the _logic_ of facts", as Witters
pretentiously puts it, is, again, another chimaera he thought he is showing
for us -- if never saying it. Or something.
Cheers,
Speranza
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