[lit-ideas] Re: Heidegger: the greatest living philosopher
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 29 Mar 2014 07:08:52 +0000 (GMT)
>Such a comment must have been extremely offensive to the poor Heidegger>
Alternatively, "greatest living" may be a way of referring to H having the
highest standard of living of any philosopher - it might be a somewhat tortuous
way of saying this but perhaps no more tortuous than H's prose.
Dnl
Ldn
On Saturday, 29 March 2014, 0:14, Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Such a comment must have been extremely offensive to the poor Heidegger, first
in its assumptions that he was a being rather than Nothing, also in the
implicature that he might not have been the greatest philosopher of all times
but only 'the greatest living,' perhaps also that there could be philosophy
after he proclaimed its end, and not to enumerate the minor offenses.
O.K.
On Friday, March 28, 2014 3:12 PM, "Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx" <Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx>
wrote:
From: palmaadriano@xxxxxxxxx
Reply-to: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: 3/28/2014 5:47:27 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time
Subj: [lit-ideas] just in case heidgeger the greatest living philosopher
that
1. there is
him (false)
2. that he is living (false)
3. that he is a philosopher (debatable)
the sentences by grice are of the form
santa claus is the most generous immortal human with sleds
----
We have to recall that Grice uttered,
"Heidegger is the greatest living philosopher"
in Spring Term (Harvard, 1967). At that time,
ii. Heidegger is living.
is true.
I'm somewhat (but only somewhat) puzzled by 'great'. We have another great
philosopher, Grosseteste, or Greathead, as he was called in Oxford.
Robert Grosseteste (/ˈɡroʊstɛst/ grohs-test) or Grossetete (/ˈɡroʊsteɪ
t/ grohs-tayt; c. 1175 – 9 October 1253) was an English statesman,
scholastic philosopher, theologian, scientist and Bishop of Lincoln. He was
born of
humble parents at Stradbroke in Suffolk. A.C. Crombie calls him "the real
founder of the
tradition of scientific thought in medieval Oxford, and in
some ways, of the modern English intellectual tradition".
It may be argued that, in his day, Grosseteste was also the greatest living
philosopher.
Note that in this case, 'great' is 'ambiguous' (never polysemous). 'Great'
may apply to his head or that of his antecessor (in the family). With
Heidegger is the greatest living philosopher.
the adjective 'greatest' need be compared with the more colloquial version
of this:
Heidegger is the biggest living philosopher.
Note that in German, 'grossest' would be used, triggering yet further
implicatures -- or not.
Grice died in 1988. His Studies in the Way of Words was published in 1989.
The utterance, "Heidegger is the greatest living philosopher" occurs on p.
18 of the book. A point was made by Harvard University Press about
footnoting the point: "Grice is writing this when Heidegger is (still) alive",
but
it was "best left to be understood (as implicated). It was argued that
working the point could unintentionally trigger disimplicatures about the
meaning of [sic] "great" and "life".
Cheers,
Speranza
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