[lit-ideas] : Hartiana
- From: Adriano Palma <Palma@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 17 Mar 2015 06:48:54 +0000
Consider he blew grice and blew his nose at the same time. Is that a pragmatic
contradiction? Breach of maxim? Hiding the truth?
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Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Hartiana
He cooked a meal carefully.
He made the calculation carefully.
In a message dated 3/16/2015 6:15:58 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx quotes:
"In the "Retrospective Epilogue" to WoW (Way of Words), Grice speaks of
Athenian dialectics, which he compares to Oxonian dialectics. He does not
mention H. L. Hart, but he should!
Mmm. Let me check. Hart is quoted only ONCE in WoW (Way of Words), on p. 7:
"It seems a plausible suggestion," Grice says, "that part of what is required
in order that A may be correctly said to have performed some operation (a
calculation, the cooking of a meal) carefully is that A should have been
receptive to (on alert for) circumstances in which the the venture might go
astray (fail to reach the desired outcome), and that he should manifest, in
such circumstances, a dispositon to take steps to maintain the course towards
such an outcome. l have heard it maintained by H. L. A. Hart that such a
condition as I have stated it is insufficient; that there is a further
requirement, namely namely that the steps taken by the performer should be
reasonable, individually and collectively."
So, Grice is slightly having the cheek, as we might say, to quote an
'unpublication' by Hart. Strictly, Grice says that he as "heard it maintained
by Hart". This is in 1967, at Harvard, where Hart had lectured a decade
earlier.
But if you think of it ("or even if you don't," as Geary writes), back in
1952 (in the review to J. Holloway's "Language and Intelligence"), Hart was
citing an unpublication by Grice, and we have Hart having heard it maintained
by Grice that smoke means fire. So perhaps that is what Brits call 'tit for
that'.
Grice does NOT list Hart when he lists the members of the Play Group in
"Prejudices and Predilections". The most senior philosopher he mentions is
Austin, and we know that Hart was Austin's senior; so perhaps Grice as
following Austin's unwritten rule that nobody who was a senior to Austin could
be officially part of the Play Group)
In any case, my reference was having two other keywords in mind: Oxonian
dialectics, that some thought sound presumptuous on Grice, as a development
straight from Athenian dialectics. Grice's meaning is that both in Athens and
in Oxford, they were ALWAYS submitting EACH ITEM of the vocabulary to
'conceptual analysis', whereas in Rome, things were DIFFERENT. Granted, Cato,
who had Carneades back in Athens, later became more of a hellenophile, if
that's the word -- and actually would eventually enjoy reading stuff in Greek.
He famously criticised Albinus, and rightly so, for Albinus's apologising in
his "Preface" to his "History" "for any mistakes I might make in Greek, not my
native tongue". Cato took the implicature of this being that Albinus was
rather apologising for being Roman!
That famous Wednesday of 155 B. C. Carneades gave a lecture that Cato heard,
commending the virtues of Roman 'justice'. On Thursday, however, Carneades
delivered the second lecture (part of a series of two). The topic was
again: "Roman justice". ALL the arguments Carneades had made on the previous
day were refuted, in a very Grecian manner, as he persuasively attempted to
prove that the very idea of Roman "justice" -- remember that the Greeks were
subject to the Romans then -- was "inevitably problematic" (where the problems
were perhaps without a solutioj), and hardly "a given" when it came to virtue,
but "merely a compact device deemed necessary for the maintenance of a
well-ordered society".
Cato was rapid in recognizing the potential danger of Carneades's
'conceptual-analysis' of 'justice': the had provided a positive valuation on
Wednesday and a negative valuation on Thursday (and no new law had been
introduced in the interim -- but, laws, as you know, always change for the
better).
Cato was shocked.
He immediately moved the Roman Senate to send Carneades home to Athens -- where
what Grice calls "Athenian dialectic" thrived), to prevent the Roman citizenry
from the threat of re-examining all Roman doctrines, and notably the dangers
that a 'conceptual analysis' on the law could bring. This was all changed by
Cicero, who took good care in translating all useful Greek philosophical
terminolgy, until he was assassinated by the guards sent by Marcantonio. But
that's the commings and goings of Roman philosophy of law, for you!
Hart was a conceptual analyst. He was delighted to deal with tautologies, or
alleged tautologies, like
i. Law is just.
Hart had learned for his Classics degree at Oxford: "Lex iniusta non est lex"
(An unjust law is no law at all"), as uttered, perhaps with a disimpicature in
mind, by Augustine (Hart didn't call him a saint).
Hart's brilliant conceptual analyses were very influential.
Thus, F. Schauer tested his students:
I. Is the Common Law Law?
He gave his students a multiple choice:
i. The Common law is law.
ii. The Common law is not law.
Those students who chose for (ii) were asked to provide a justification in
terms of disimplicatures alla Hart. And some did it brilliantly!
Cheers,
Speranza
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