[lit-ideas] Re: Hartiana
- From: Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 30 Mar 2015 12:28:02 +0200
Doesn't one always speak for himself. A stronger and more interesting case
is that, as a saying goes in these parts, "Whenever a man speaks, he speaks
TO himself." (Whoever the apparent interlocutors might be.)
I am sure that JL knows something about that - and by now all of us,
probably.
O.K.
On Mon, Mar 30, 2015 at 11:29 AM, Redacted sender Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx for
DMARC <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 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: