[lit-ideas] How Folksy Grice Can Get
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2014 13:17:07 -0500 (EST)
In a message dated 1/6/2014 8:30:24 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,
donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx writes about what he (and for that matter, I) call
'folk-psychology'. I am reminded of a book by Stich: "From folk psychology to
cognitive science". Cfr. Grice, "From cognitive science to folk psychology".
Grice prefers 'folksy'.
We are concerned with 'how to tie the laces of one's shoes', and similar
expressions, and how it all connects (or fails, for that matter) with the
nature of 'knowledge' as 'justified true belief'.
Donal:
"There is a kind of sleight-of-hand in the comparison between being
courageous and knowing how to tie one's laces."
W. O. has now quoted from Aristotle on 'courage', which may be helpful.
Donal:
"I can KNOW how to tie to my laces but be unable to do so"
Oddly, in German, from what I understand, 'kennen' (as in "Do you keen John
Peel?") and 'can' are related, as they were in Old English, so I would
think, teasingly, that the logical form of Donal's
"I can know that p"
is
KKp
-- Or not.
---
Donal:
"say through physical disability: so my ability to perform the task
involves more than 'knowledge' about tying laces. Likewise I can know what it
is
to have courage but be unable to have courage: so my ability to have
courage involves more than 'knowledge' about having courage. Put this way there
is a parallelism of sorts: knowledge is necessary to tying laces but not a
sufficient condition of BEING ABLE to do so, and this parallels that "one
can't learn to be courageous ... simply through the acquisition of a form of
knowledge.""
Yep. And I think W. O.'s further quote from Aristotle emphasised that
point.
At THIS point one may wonder what use does it serve to KNOW to be
courageous, if you aren't going to be? But then I'm reminded of Socrates (and
for
that matter Plato) who possibly valued (contra Aristotle) that KNOWING the
idea of courage is more important than being courageous. Or not.
Donal:
"Note Walter's qualification "simply": his claim does not deny that
knowledge may be involved in 'having courage' but simply denies such knowledge
is
adequate to provide one with courage. But, as indicated, 'knowledge' as
such is not adequate to provide one with the ability to tie laces either."
Yes. However, if 'can' and 'know' ARE related (as in "Do you ken John
Peel?") then perhaps we should stick with "I _can_ be courageous". This seems
to
implicate (or entail even) that I have an idea as to what 'courage' is.
It's different in a third person: "He CAN be courageous" may be ascribed to
someone who has no idea (in the Platonic sense) of what courage or 'bravery'
as he prefers, is.
Grice's favourite example was:
Smith is an Englishman;
he is; therefore, courageous.
Incidentally.
Donal:
"Of course, it is not an exact parallelism in all respects - I might 'have
courage' without learning it or without having some 'courage-knowledge' on
which I base my courage: this may make 'having courage' different to tying
laces, where unless I have the right 'tying-laces-knowledge' I cannot tie
them."
True. Although of course, I may be able to know how to tie my laces without
having _learned_ about it. Vide Chomsky.
Donal:
"This difference may reflect the fact that tying laces is an ability to
perform an act whereas 'having courage' may simply be a state or attitude: a
physically helpless person facing death may 'have courage' even though they
cannot tie their laces or do anything."
Yes, there is a dispositional focus on 'bravery' (although I cannot see
much sense in saying that Private Smith has this habitual disposition to be
courageous (-- except in the field).
Similarly, one has a disposition to tie one's laces (implicature: provided
they are untied).
Donal:
"If we really want to see whether there is any conceptual difference
between tying laces and having courage we need to be much more discriminating
and not work from one or two examples as if these exemplify the whole field.
We may need to allow for a possible distinction between examples of 'having
courage' where no 'courage-knowledge' is involved and examples of 'having
courage' where 'courage-knowledge' is involved and may even be essential -
and we may distinguish even within these two kinds of examples. There may be
such a thing as untutored or instinctive or untaught 'courage' OTOneH, and
OTOtherH there may such a thing as 'courage' that is taught or learnt and
which can only be acquired by way of something like 'courage-knowledge'."
True. Unfortunately, there is much less written by philosophers on one's
ability to tie one's laces, from which the ignoramus should learn. (Grice's
favourite idiom however was: "one should be able to pull oneself by one's
bootstraps" -- metaphorically -- which relate, in a shoe-fashion way).
Donal:
"There is something perhaps to introduce here as a further thought, though
it is a thought that needs careful handling."
This is what Grice calls 'folksy' (in "Method in philosophical psychology:
from the banal to the bizarre").
Donal:
"When we use terms like 'knows' and 'believes' etc. we are often engaging
in a kind of 'folk psychology' that is at best a crude approximation to
accurate description of what is involved: hence the processes involved in
'knowing' how to tie laces may be in some respects analogous to, and in other
respects disanalogous to, the processes by which we might 'know' how to
identify a tree from a flower"
or, to complicate things,
a tree WITH a flower
a tree with FLOWERS
flowers
trees
One may truthfully say, of a flower, "This is all that's left of the tree".
(It seems more complicated to find a scenario for the utterance to the
effect that a tree is all that is left of a flower).
Donal:
"... not mistake our wife for a hat etc."
Again, to complicate:
my wife
my wife's hat
"This is all that's left of my wife" -- pointing to the hat.
Again note the oddity: "This is what is left of the hat: a wife".
Donal:
"And there may even be distinct processes by which different individuals
come to 'know' or learn how to tie their laces: we should not assume that
because the action-outcome is similar in two cases that means the process of
learning was identical. Beneath the world as described by 'folk psychology',
the reality is much more complex."
This, oddly, does not seem to be a general dictum (but then why should it
be?)
Cfr.
What is described by song is much more than what is described by folk-song.
----
"All music is folk music; I ain't never heard no horse sing a song."
To echo Grice:
"All psychology is folk psychology."
----
Donal:
"A 'belief' may be arrived at via a myriad of processes and complex
interactions: in Popper's terms a myriad of World 1, World 2 and World 3
interactions. Two individuals with the same apparent belief - that, say, the
earth
revolves around the sun - may have arrived at that belief by very different
sequences and combinations of processes (this is linked to the fact that
we do not generally investigate the truth of a claim like "The earth
revolves around the sun" by examining the genesis of such a belief or the
sequence
and combination of processes that produced it: we examine its truth by
seeing how the claim itself stands up to criticism, including how it stands up
to critical tests or experiments). There is something funny in the woodshed
in all this talk of 'belief' etc when it is used as basis for
philosophising in the kind of mode where we take examples like 'Jack believes
Mozart
was German' 'Jack knows how to tie his laces' etc."
Well, there are a few features that may make it 'odder' as we approach the
woodshed:
--- Philosophers have always been concerned, it seems, with 'folksy' ways
of talk. Socrates went to the agora to challenge judges as to whether they
knew what 'just' meant.
--- Since Frege, etc., the fashion has been to formalise.
Bap, for "a believes that p", Kap for "a knows that p". The philosopher in
this case selects a family of 'usages' from the folksy repertoire and tries
to come up with a few axioms or generalisations that will allow him (or
her) shed light on this (or that).
Donal:
"We should take 'belief' as perhaps a useful shorthand, in the way 'folk
psychology' may generally be a useful shorthand. But we should beware
talking 'belief' too seriously or too literally as a term: it is an everyday
shorthand denoting a kind of mental state or disposition, but the character of
that mental state or disposition may be only understood properly in terms
of complex W1, W2 and W3 interactions."
Well, and there's some sort of pedigree, too. In English, be-lief, from
what I understand, is cognate with 'love', as is German g-lauben. In the
Romance languages, it isn't: we have 'credere', as in 'credence (clearwater
revival).
So, if there's a variety of folks (there should be an idiom for this), so
is there a variety of folksy terms.
Roget possibly saw this, when he conceived of a thesaurus. Cfr. his entry
for 'belief'.
(The Thesaurus was created by Dr. Peter Mark Roget (1779–1869) in 1805 and
released to the public on 29 April 1852. The original edition had 15,000
words, and each new edition has been larger. The Karpeles Manuscript Library
Museum houses the original manuscript in its collection.)
J. L. Austin preferred to talk of 'botany' and would use the Concise Oxford
Dictionary -- but there is a famous sequence:
Grice: I don't give a hoot what the dictionary says.
Austin: And that's where you make your BIG mistake.
---
Donal: "We should beware thinking we can take everyday statements that
involve 'belief' ['Alf believes he is running late for his meeting but he won't
trip up running because he knows how to tie his laces properly'] and use
examination of these to extrapolate some philosophical truth or conceptual
necessity. There is much more involved in telling apart a tree from a flower
than we tend to believe, much more involved in tying laces than we tend to
believe etc. There is much more involved in arriving at any 'belief' than
we tend to believe. Certainly much more than suggested by 'folk psychology'.
Again, I would go with Grice for the time being with:
"All psychology is folk psychology."
After all, only folk can practice psychology.
Folk psychology (cfr. folk medicine) is often used to oppose the 'learned'
(scientific psychology) from the 'vulgar' or layperson's view of this and
that.
But the role of philosophy (if not folk psychology) may be, precisely, to
investigate, to use a term favourite with L. Helm, the 'presuppositions'
(even shared presuppositions) in a non-scientific, vernacular, vulgar, folksy
concept of 'x' (cfr. Ryle, The concept of mind) and OTHER. Or not.
Cheers,
Speranza
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