[lit-ideas] Re: His name was Mudd
- From: "" <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> (Redacted sender "Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx" for DMARC)
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 23 Aug 2015 07:40:17 -0400
It all started when Ritchie suggested some Pillow talk ('about men')***.
In a message dated 8/23/2015 3:49:38 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:
see his adoption of a point made separately by Saul Kripke and J.J. Thomson
This is interesting. Of course in
i. May I suggest some Pillow talk?
Ritchie's 'sense' of "Pillow" is explained via Frege's "Sense and
Reference" as applied to proper names. Mill, previously, had used 'connotata'
and
'denotata', and claimed that while "London" has a denotatum, it lacks a con
notatum.
On the other hand, in
ii. May I suggest some pillow talk?
'pillow' gets explained standardly alla Frege: via sense and reference.
In Grice's example:
iii. His name was mud.
the implicature was that 'he' did something. Whereas, if we are referring
to a connotatum-less denotatum-ful item, like Samuel Mudd, indeed
iv. His name was Mudd*.
just reports a baptismal rigid resignation.
Interestingly, McEvoy refers to
J. J. Thomson
This should be distinguished from J. F. Thomson, of Christ Church, who
collaborated with H. P. Grice, and was indeed a member of the Play Group's
Saturday morning meetings at Oxford -- till he married Judith Jarvis and moved
to (of all places), the M. I. T. in Cambridge (Mass.). He wrote a lovely
defense of the material conditional that predates some of Grice's points in
"Logic and Conversation" -- and which was published posthumously by his wife
in the "Journal of Philosophy". Grice loved Thomson.
According to Mill ("Symbolic Logic") however, neither J. J. Thomson nor J.
F. Thomson have connotata: only denotata.
Cheers,
Speranza
References
Thomson, J. F. A note on truth. Analysis.
The argument from analogy and our knowledge of other minds. Mind.
Some Remarks on Synonymy. Analysis.
Symposium: Reducibility. (with Warnock, G. J. and Braithwaite, R. B.)
Aristotelian Society.
On Referring. The Journal of Symbolic Logic.
Tasks and super-tasks. Analysis.
Recent Criticisms of Russell's Analysis of Existence. The Journal of
Symbolic Logic.
What Achilles should have said to the Tortoise. Ratio.
On some paradoxes. Analytical Philosophy.
Is existence a predicate? Aquinas Society.
What is the will? in Freedom and the Will (ed Pears, D.F.) New York: St.
Martin's Press/
In defense of material implication. Journal of Philosophy.
Truth-bearers and the Trouble about Propositions. The Journal of
Philosophy.
Comments on Professor Benacerraf's Paper in Zeno's Paradoxes (ed. Salmon,
W.), Bobbs-Merrill.
In Defense of ⊃. The Journal of Philosophy.
* Samuel Alexander Mudd I (December 20, 1833 – January 10, 1883) was an
American physician who was imprisoned for conspiring with John Wilkes Booth in
the assassination of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln. Samuel Alexander Mudd
I is alleged to be the origin of the phrase "Your name is Mudd" (short for
"Your name is Samuel Alexander Mudd I') as in, for example, the film
"National Treasure: Book of Secrets", but a Wittgensteinian scholar objected
on
the ground that "Your name is Samuel Alexander Mudd I" would be an otiose
thing to say to Samuel Alexander Mudd I, in virtue of the fact that the
utterer should assume that his addressee already knew this and would thus be
breaking a conversational maxim, "Do not be more informative than is
required.").
** The reference provided by McEvoy ("The Self and Its Brain" by Popper and
Eccles) is to Popper's view that "one of the most important events in the
history of the self-transcendence of materialism was J. J. Thomson's
discovery of the electron which he (and H. A. Lorentz) diagnosed as a tiny
splinter of the atom." J. J. Thomson and J. F. Thomson were related and
ultimately (according to the Scriptures) to Adam (and Eve).
*** Some useful references to pillow talk are:
E. Raynor, The Happiest Woman.
Denes A. Talk: Exploring Disclosures After Sexual Activity. Western Journal
of Communication. Vol. 76.
Jump up ^ Denes A., & Afifi T. D. Pillow Talk and Cognitive
Decision-making Processes. Communication Monographs. Vol. 81.
F. A. Ramos, Enigma (2007) p. 70
R. L. Weagley, Wallace.
Terms used by spies. 2014
R. Taylor, Encyclopedia of Cold War Espionage.
J. H. Williams, Elephant Bill.
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