[lit-ideas] Re: Implicatures of "Feel"
- From: "Walter C. Okshevsky" <wokshevs@xxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2010 17:56:05 -0230
Yes, the following utterances seem possible:
"I feel I love you." (Also: "I believe I love you." and "I think I love you." in
deference to the Partridge Family.)
Other possible feelings include: envy, jealousy, being at peace with the world,
anger, lust, sorrow, elation, indignation, resentment, vindicated (not sure
about that one), fear, loathing, (but not awe or anxiety since these have no
specific object - Heidegger on "moods" as dispositions of In-der-Welt-Sein) -
sadness, love, infatuation. Does Aristotle's "munificence" count as a feeling?
Is his "magnanimity" a feeling or a disposition? Both?
"I feel it's hot." No problem.
"I feel I agree (disagree) with you." Well, "what are we to say about that"? If
the object of the (dis)agreement is a proposition, then one's feelings about
its truth or rightness are epistemically otiose.
Compare with: "We should stop doing moral philosophy until we get a handle on
the psychology of virtues and vices." Isn't that a category mistake?
Walter O
MUN
Quoting Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx:
> I agree with Walter O. that 'feel' is overused (especially by males).
>
>
> In a message dated 8/28/2010 12:48:30 P.M., wokshevs@xxxxxx writes:
>
> "Donal misconstrues what I'm saying. I proffer no judgement on her feelings
> and
> so her attribution of modesty to me is inappropriate. What I am doing, in
> perfectly legitimate philosophical terms I believe, is denying that she can
> "feel" what she claims to be feeling,"
>
> ----- I feel I love you.
>
> versus the more direct, more informative, more relevant (all Gricean
> constraints):
>
> "I love you".
>
> ---
>
> "and this not because of any psychological
> incapacity on her part but rather in virtue of the conceptual
> impossibility of
> her purported "feeling." My claim is that it is not possible to "feel" the
> truth of an empirical proposition"
>
>
> ----- "I feel it's hot"
>
> versus the more direct,
>
> "It's hot".
>
> ---
>
> (Cfr. Geary and other moderate leftists on what a 'drama queen' should NOT
> feel).
>
> "or the rightness of a moral judgement. (I
> have explained what I take to be genuine affective aspects of these in my
> previous post.) Moreover, I cannot "remind" Donal what her true feelings
> are in
> this context since no "feeling" has yet been displayed or felt."
>
> -----
>
> "I feel I have a headache"
> ---- "Ridiculous!" Answered Wittgenstein.
>
> "You cannot FEEL *my* headache.
>
> ---
>
> -- vide Speranza, "Wittgenstein's Dentist", Journal of Analytic Philosophy,
> vol. 54.
>
> Walter O.:
>
> "Donal's indignation raises an interesting matter regarding philosophical
> methodology. Could a philosophical argument show that what we believe to
> be the
> case about our mental states or truth claims is mistaken. "Yes, a private
> language is possible and I've had one all my life." Or: a philosopher
> claims on
> philosophical grounds that what I believe to be a categorical imperative is
> really a hypothetical imperative. Is indignation here a philosophically
> legitimate or fruitful response?"
>
> ----
>
> I feel it can't.
>
> "More to the point: could she be right? Some
> more examples:
> "I feel that 2+2=4"
>
> ---
>
> Exactly. The MOST we can say is
>
> *she* felt that 2+2=*5*
>
> ---
>
> but I disagree with Walter, in finding this IMPLICATURAL, rather than
> truth-conditional. Strictly, we CAN say that she felt that 2 + 2 = 4. For
> one, I
> may THINK that 2 + 2 = 5, and so I can surely ascribe, wrongly, a feeling
> of inappropriateness to what she 'feels'.
>
> Walter:
>
> "I feel that Toronto will win the Stanley Cup next year."
>
> -----
>
> Exactly. Note that the replacement with 'know' is just as nonsensical:
>
> "I KNOW that Toronto will win the Stanley Cup next week". It is said, of
> female intuition, that it is never wrong, but Donal has NOT proven female
> intuition, has Donal?
>
> Walter:
>
> "I feel that a paid annual holiday is a universal human right."
>
> ---- exactly. I "BELIEVE" is the right word, or to echo Lawrence Helm, "I
> opine" -- thinking for oneself.
>
> Walter:
>
> "I feel that freedom is a transcendental condition necessary for the
> possibility
> of moral judgement."
>
> ---- I feel I agree with you.
>
> I would distinguish with:
>
> I am FEELING I agree with you.
>
> ----
>
> "Yesterday, I spent the day feeling bored" -- seems an otiose thing to say.
>
>
> Speranza--Bordighera
>
>
>
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