[lit-ideas] Re: Hartiana
- From: "" <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> (Redacted sender "Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx" for DMARC)
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 24 Mar 2015 14:17:26 -0400
My last post today!
In a message dated 3/24/2015 10:44:18 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx writes:
Trying to milk the ordinary language for such insights seems rather like
trying to find out what a mechanic should do about a broken car by analyzing
the terms 'car' and 'mechanic.' Lingustic analysis may be expected to
render some grammar rules for talking about cars and mechanics, not
instructions
for repairing cars.
Well, we do expect the car mechanic to have a concept (or as Dworkin
prefers, 'a conception') of car, auto parts, mechanics, and general Newtonian
physics.
Omar K.:
"As to whether judges 'make the law,' there is no contradiction in saying
that they do so"
-- Well, it did worry Hart, but it does have a 'harsh' ring to it, and by
someone who is obliged, as it were, by the standards of linguistic botany
(or 'usage' if you mustn't) he had to consider the case very CAREFULLY (his
favourite adverb) especially noting that Dworkin (of all people!) had chosen
that turn of phrase, a judge 'making the law' as misleading -- forgetting
Grice's lesson that LOADS of things are misleading YET TRUE!
Oddly, in the compilation entitled "Hart's postscript", C. A. B. Peacocke,
professor of metaphysical philosophy at Oxford, makes an example with
Hartian implicatures. Peacocke notes that Newton, since we were talking about
him, had to use the concept of 'limit', even if he (Newton) was unable to
provide a conceptual analysis of it. So we have, to use Hart's favourite
adverb, to proceed "very carefully" here.
On a different, but related, note, McEvoy mentions biscuits as
refreshments:
"God is disappointed in Mike for thinking ... it is good enough to produce
a philosophy but have no biscuits left. ... to follow God's path you must
make sure there's always refreshments", and previously had noted that
something "has led God to think He must remove Hart from most of these
universes
as well".
Part of the reason for introducing Hart into the heart of lit-ideas had to
do with McEvoy's reference to Popper -- which to me, implicated: "Hart"
(the implicature is admittedly not a short-circuit one: it goes alla: Popper
is allegedly right, and linguistic analytical philosophers are allegedly by
definition wrong -- but Hart was an analytic philosopher and NOT ALWAYS
wrong -- perhaps never wrong!
It all started, then, or re-started, with a post by McEvoy entitled, "Re:
tense":
McEvoy writes:
"Though I did not bother to make explicit the importance of a case like
Pilcher for any viable 'theory of knowledge', I think anyone re-reading those
old posts might see they present a challenge to anyone who thinks 'law'
can be grasped via a Lockean kind of empiricism, or a Cartesian
'intuitionism' etc. Apologies
for not making this clear at the time but I did not get round to
developing this underlying point - and thanks to Omar for giving me this
opportunity
to clarify some things."
Note the reference to a "challenge to anyone who thinks 'law' can be
grasped via a Lockean kind of empiricism, or a Cartesian 'intuitionism', etc."
I especially loved "etc." (a very Hartian turn of phrase), which, to me,
logically implicated, "Hart" -- the man hisself!
Cheers,
Speranza
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