McEvoy, if I recall aright, is using 'observation' in scare quotes to
disavow its strict 'empiricist' application. The current polemic, "cui bono",
may relate. For it's best to understand Popper's
"Observe!"
being absurd as an attack on various things, some Griceian, some not.
I would think that, given Popper's formation, he HAD to chose the
observation vs. theoretic distinction (much of a dogma like the two Quine
confronted -- if not the second one). People in the Vienna Circle that Popper
knew
-- who were not philosophers, originally -- had been used 'observation' (qua
protocol statement) vs. theory as terms of art.
Grice's situation is different since his pedigree is just philosophical, or
purely philosophical. His readings were in the philosophy of perception
alla British or Oxonian empiricism, and only later he got an interest in
Kant. In his "Causal theory of perception", he plays with 'implicature' as it
applies to "It seems to me that..." For what is, to use the Viennese term of
art, that we 'observe'?
Once in linguistic botanising with Warnock, Grice and Warnock came to the
idea of a visum. What is seen is a visum. What is observed is an observatum.
This may well be G. A. Paul's sense datum (with which he had no problem --
"Is there a problem about sense data?").
Much later still, Grice arrived at an evolutionary standpoint. If we see
apples, we don't see sense data of apples. We do, but we don't care. Grice
uses 'material object' rather inappropriately, for what he means is a 'thing'
in Kant's usage of "noumena" (Ding an sich). It is an apple that nurtures
us, not the sense datum of an apple. So our sensory apparatus is directed
towards the perception of _things_. This realist view is Kantian in nature,
but it was the fashion when Grice was writing, since Davidson and Putnam
were endorsing it too.
Meanwhile, Popper was perhaps still fighting with the
observational/theoretical distinction.
While non-Oxonian, the distinction can be traced back to Ramsey and his
"Ramsey sentence". But 'observe' does not seem to have been a term (less so
'theory') that even Cambridge philosophers were much into. It was more of a
Continental thing as practiced by non-philosophers like the members of the
Vienna circle and those who attacked them. When some of the members of the
Vienna Circle emigrated to the USA, this tradition perhaps merged with
American pragmatism, and the idea of the unity of science. Meanwhile, perhaps
Popper was feeling more dissatisfied with simplicities, and moving on.
The question, cui bono, remains, as to what "senses" other than the
empiricist, which seems like the only one, can be given to things like 'see',
'observe', and 'perceive'? Are Kand and the neo-Kantians like Popper giving
'observing', 'perceiving', 'seeing' and 'sensing' a NEW sense (and different
analysis)? How far from Grice would this lead them to?
Cheers,
Speranza
