[lit-ideas] Re: Hartiana
- From: "" <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> (Redacted sender "Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx" for DMARC)
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 30 Mar 2015 05:29:56 -0400
O. Kusturica was suggesting that Witters is difficult to interpret (I'm
paraphrasing), and as R. Paul notes, O. Kusturica is speaking for himself. The
implicature, on R. Paul, seems to be that we can always give it a try!
In any case, Gordon Baker did! He ended up with what he called "criterial
semantics", which would have NOT pleased Grice much. Why? Well, because the
whole idea of the conversational implicature is to _SAVE_ truth-conditional
(or even truth-functional) semantics, rather than create a new variety of
it. But Baker was being serious: he is thinking that the idea of a
criterion (A being a criterion for B), usually represented in a conditional
form,
is a _logical_ relation that has a good pedigree in the history of logic and
which could well prove the keyword to semantics.
Years later, when Dworkin succeede Hart as chair of jurisprudence at
Oxford, he started using 'criterial sematnics' (without reading Gordon Baker!)
and the debate ensued!
If Rogers Albritton once wrote about the use of 'criterion' in Hart, one
could fill pages with the use of 'criterion' in Hart -- surely
Wittgensteinian, and one big contrast with Grice: Grice only quoted Witters to
CRITICISE
him, except perhaps once in "Method in philosophical psychology" when he
uses 'outward criterion' of manifestness of psychological predicates in
public behaviour.
As for Hart, let's just review a few instances. He speaks of the "ultimate
criteria of validity" for law. Also: "the criteria for identifying the law
are multiple". Also: "the statutory order provides the criteria". Also of
"the ultimacy of the rule of recognition and the supremacy of one of its
criteria."Also: "the status of a rule as a member of the system now depends on
whether it satisfies certain criteria." "The rule of recognition"
"incorporates" "criteria of legal validity". Also of "a unified consensus on
all
the original criteria of legal validity." Also: "We can simply say that the
statement that a particular rule is valid MEANS that it satisfies all the
criteria provided by the rule of recognition." Also: "an ultimate rule of
recognition provides authorative criteria for the identification" of primary
laws. "The rule of recognition SPECIFIES the criteria." "Legal PRINCIPLES
are identified by pedigree criteria." "Fact-based criteria may have partial
control over discretionary decisions." "Those rules of behaviour which are
VALID according to the system's ultimate CRITERIA of validity must be
generally obeyed." "There is no basic rule providing general criteria of
validity for the rules of INTER-national law." "Efficacy of a particular rule
is
part of the system's criteria of validity." "The rule of recognition
providing THE CRITERIA by which the validity of other rules of the system is
assessed is an ultimate rule." Hart speaks of "general obedience to the rules
which are basic according to the CRITERIA of validity in use in the courts."
"The beginnings of such a split over the ULTIMATE CRITERIA to be used in
IDENTIFYING the LAW was seen in the constitutional troubles of South Africa
in 1954." "The rule does this most often by SUPPLYING CRITERIA OF VALIDITY."
"Wherever a rule of recognition is ACCEPTED both private persons and
officials are provided with AUTHORATIVE [and not merely coercive] criteria for
identifying primary rules of obligation." Hart writes: "I ascribe the
general agreement found among Judges as to the CRITERIA for the identification
of
the sources of law to their shared acceptance of rules." "The rule of
recognition is a customary social rule that provides CRITERIA for assessing
the
VALIDITY of all the other rules in the legal system." Hart speaks "in the
case of legal rules" of "the criteria of relevance and closeness of
resemblance". "Enacted legal rules are identifiable as valid legal rules by
the
CRITERIA provided by the rule of recognition." Hart speaks of "the use made
by judges of GENERAL CRITERIA of validity in recognising a statute."
Hart sometimes speaks of criterion in the singular (that echoes the title
of Albritton's essay), when defining a 'supreme criterion', or rather a
'criterion of legal validity of rule' as being 'supreme'. Also: "The rule of
recognition is necessary if rules are to be identified by such a CRITERION."
Also: "The rule of recognition simply identifies enactment as the unique
identifying mark of CRITERION OF VALIDITY of the rules." Hart speaks of the
rule of recognition as "the ultimate criterion in identifying the law."
So it's not surprising that Dworkin should get slightly confused and refer
to 'criterial semantics', forgetting or not knowing that Gordon Baker was
using the sobriquet more formally -- But then, there is a justification for
Dworkin's usage. After publishing on Criterial semantics, Baker did
contribute to a festschrift for Hart with an essay on "Defeasibility and
meaning"
and so there IS an overlap (but other criterial semanticists were not
really into Hart: the early Crispin Wright, for example, or James Austin, and
his criteriology -- so one has, to echo Hart, to be 'careful'.
In "Meaning & Criteria" H. Khatchadourian refers to "Criterial
Semantics", and notes that, although Wittgenstein does not offer an explicit
definition of "outward criterion" in the Philosophical Investigations, he
suggests
that criteria for "p" are the circumstances which would justify one in
asserting that "p", and that could be a good starting point.
As for Baker, when H. P. Grice left St. John's, they (St. John's)
obviously needed a philosophy tutor. They engaged G. P. Baker.
Onto McEvoy's exegesis of Witters now -- after all the quote he chose does
mention 'criterion'!
Thanks to D. McEvoy for his further exegesis. I think it might be still
appropriate to have this under Hartiana since we can see Hart under Witters's
influence.
In a message dated 3/29/2015 5:13:18 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:
What W is getting at here could be rephrased as follows: "Now ask
yourself, how is it shown that one means the one thing or the other by "x!2"?
How
it is shown may be, for example, by the kind of way we always use it, by the
way we are taught to use it. How it is shown will reveal the sense in
which meaning it can determine the steps in advance."
I see. I was slightly confused by the grammar of the Witters passage --
notably the 'it': a very complex word if ever there was. As the Duck says in
"Alice in Wonderland": "I know what 'it' means when I see one: it's usually
a worm; the question is what the bishop saw it advisable." So we have
Witters:
"Now ask yourself: how does one mean the one thing or the other by"x!2"?
That will be how meaning it can determine the steps in advance."
And McEvoy's good rephrase: "How it is shown will reveal the sense in
which meaning it can determine the steps in advance."
The 'it' then is the OBJECT, grammatical, of 'mean': meaning _it_. One
problem with this, and Witters does use 'meinen' here, which is cognate with
English 'mean' (that obsessed Grice, but not Hobbes -- he preferred
'significare', but then he wrote in Latin) -- is that it's best to start with
"meaning that...", i..e. "mean" as followed by what J. L. Austin calls a
'that'-clause.
Let's see if we can rephrase the passage by Witters using "meaning
that..." (i) Witters's own phrasing:
"Now ask yourself: how does one mean the one thing or the other by"x!2"?
That will be how meaning it can determine the steps in advance."
I think it IS possible to rephrase Witters's use of 'mean' in terms of
'mean that...':
"Now ask yourself: how does an utterer mean that p, as different from his
meaning that q by uttering some imperative involving "x!2" (How does the
addressee UNDERSTAND the utterer as meaning, by uttering "x!2" that the
addressee is to provide the doubling of x or the squaring of x?)
Witters goes on: "That will be how meaning that p (rather than that q) can
determine the steps in advance." In more detail: "That will be how the
addressee understanding that by uttering "x!2" the utterer meant that the
addressee is to double x, rather than square x, can determine the steps in
advance."
Now for part of McEvoy's good rephrase: "How it is shown will reveal the
sense in which meaning it can determine the steps in advance."
Again, I would expand on the 'it': "How it is shown will reveal the sense
in which the utterer meaning that the addressee is to double x, rather than
square x can determine the steps in advance."
This is a mathematical example. And I don't know where Witters got the
idea of the "x!2", but in general, arithmetic formulae are NEVER ambiguous as
Witters claims to be. They are arbitrary, and today I'm feeling Hilbertian,
so I'll say that they are just tokens on a page. If the mathematician
taught his student to take "x2" to mean 'Please square x', it's OBVIOUS that
the only criteria that the mathematician has for saying that his student has
learned "x2" is by examples. "Give me the square of 4" (and the student
answering "16"); give me the square of 6" (and the student saying "36").
In a similar way, if the mathematician taught the student to restrict "2x"
to mean "Please double the value x", he will know the student has learned
it by examples: "double 7" (and the student answering "14"), "double 50"
(and the student answering: "100").
How does this relate to Hart. Via G. P. Baker. The keyword is CRITERIAL
SEMANTICS.
Dworkin hypothesizes that positivists insist on consensus because they
tacitly subscribe to a criterial semantics, according to which concepts may be
shared only if the criteria for the proper application of the
concepts are shared.
Thus, a criterial semantics for the concept of "law" would require that
community members can share the same concept of law – and hence have
meaningful dialogue about their law – only if they share the same criteria for
the
application of the concept.
Since the criteria for the application of the concept of, say, U.S. law
are just the grounds of U.S. law, a criterial semantics demands that
communities share the same grounds of law in order to share the same concept
of law.
Dworkin argues that criterial semantics is defective precisely because
criterial semantics is unable to
account for theoretical legal disagreements.
This is the semantic sting argument.
Notice that the semantic sting argument is no objection to positivism if
positivism is not committed to criterial semantics. See, for example, Joseph
Raz, "Two Views of the Nature of the Law: A Partial
Comparison", in "Hart’s Postscript" and Jules Coleman and Ori Simchen,
"Law" in Legal Theory 9.
There is another reason why positivists have misjudged the force of Dworkin
’s critique.
They may have conflated the objection from theoretical disagreements with
the semantic sting argument.
The thought goes as follows.
Since positivism is not committed to criterial semantics and since the
semantic sting argument is an objection to criterial semantics, the semantic
sting argument poses no threat to positivism.
This is true, of course, but given that the semantic sting argument is not
the same as the objection from theoretical disagreements, the failure of
the former is irrelevant to the success of the latter.
St. John's usually requires TWO philosophy tutors: during Grice's time, it
was Mabbott and Grice (Mabbott provides a lovely memorial of Grice in
Mabbott, "Oxford memories"). In Baker's time, it was Hacker. There is a
contrast: Mabbott and Grice never overlapped -- except when tutoring Strawson.
Baker and Hacker overlapped a lot! During the 1980s (and earlier) Baker (who
authored: "Criteria: a new foundation for semantics" for "Ratio") and
Hacker produced a massive commentary on Wittgenstein’s "Philosophical
Investigations: in which the notion of meaning was central. They also
attempted to
develop a stark alternative to Frege's mind style and Frege’s semantics, “
criterial” semantics (Baker's contribution to PGRICE is "Alternative mind
styles" on Frege vs. Witters).
There is of course much continued debate about this notion of a criterion.
A very influential and critical response to G. P. Baker (both as reading
of Wittgenstein and as philosophically worthy conception) is J. McDowell,
"Criteria, Defeasibility and Knowledge",
Proceedings of the British Academy 68 reprinted in J. McDowell, "Meaning,
Knowledge and Reality".(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
See also, more recently, Steven G. Affeldt,
"The Ground of Mutuality: Criteria, Judgment and Intelligibility in
Stephen Mulhall and Stanley Cavell" in the European Journal of Philosophy 6,
and
the response, Stephen Mulhall, “The Givenness of Grammar: A Reply to Steven
Affeldt,” European Journal of Philosophy 6.
In "Objectivity in Law", Nicos Stavropoulos notes that the truth that "CO"
is a contract iff CO is A, B, and C, -- where A, B, and C are the relevant
criteria, is a what Stavropoulos calls a 'degenerate truth'. He adds that
pragmaticists may argue against the idea that semantics is at all relevant
to law, assuming that semantics cannot but be criterial semantics.
In "Between Authority and Interpretation: On the Theory of Law", J. Raz
asks: "What is criterial semantics? It claims that 'we follow shared rules in
using any word."
"These rules set out criteria that supply the word's meaning".
"Later we learn by implication that the criteria set conditions for the
correct application of the words the meanings of which they define."
See also Baker, 'Defeasibility and Meaning', in the Hart festschrift where
Baker who suggests that Hart had better adopt the theory of criteria -- as
if he (Hart) hadn't used the concept enough times already!
I append below a sort of reference list for criterial semantics.
Cheers,
Speranza
References
Albritton, R. On Wittgenstein's use of the word 'criterion'.
Arrington, R. "Criteria and Entailment" Ratio 21
Austin, James. Wittgenstein's Criterial Semantics, University of Oxford,
1979
Austin, James. “Criteriology: A Minimally Correct Method.” Metaphilosophy
10
Baker, G.P. "Criteria: A New Foundation for Semantics", Ratio, 16.
Baker, G. P. Ludwig Wittgenstein and Friedrich Waismann, The Voices of
Wittgenstein, the Vienna Circle: Original German Texts and English
Translations /Ludwig Wittgenstein and Friedrich Waismann, ed. by Gordon P.
Baker
(London: Routledge).
Gordon P. Baker, Wittgenstein's Method: Neglected Aspects, Malden, MA:
Blackwell
Publishing.
Kahane, G. & Kuusela, O. Wittgenstein and his interpreters: essays in
memory of Gordon Baker, Oxford: Blackwell.
Kenny, A. Criterion, in Edwards, Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Levin, Y. "Criterial Semantics and Qualia". Facta Philosophica 6
Lycan, W. Wittgenstein's Criteria.
Strawson, Individuals -- on 'logically adequate criteria'.
Vorobej, M. "Criteria and conditionals", Southern Journal of Philosophy.
Wright, C. Anti-realist semantics: the role of criteria.
Wright, C. Second thoughts about criteria.
------------------------------------------------------------------
To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
Other related posts:
