On a different thread, McEvoy notes:
"If I [or the late Mr. Popper -- Speranza] were in the business of seeking free
advertising, the dropping of [...] Popper's into [Speranza's] posts might be
welcome."
The implicature seems to be that Mr. Popper is not looking for free
advertising. On this, cfr. Aristotle on happiness ('call a man happy after he
is dead, and not even dead, because the free publicity he might get once he's
'gone', if negative, may refute stuff' -- Eth. Nich.)
McEvoy goes on:
"[B]ut I often find [Speranza's Popper name droppings] hard to understand or
inaccurate [e.g. counterexamples were in (logical) use long before Popper, and
so I don't know what is is specifically Popperian about them - at least not in
the context of a post where JLS recently refers to 'Popperian counterexample']."
I believe this refers to this piece in the NYT, for which I provided the link,
about a possible 'native New Yorker' bald eagle on Staten Island.
It may do to revise the piece, and see if the author (one J. Rezza -- I'm
actually studying the implicatures of adding 'one' to a proper name) does use
counterexample. What is clear is that Rezza seems to be optimistic, as the
folks of New York Audubon, about the bald eagle BEING a native -- Yet, no nest
has been found.
Rezza mentions one person who makes a distinction between 'probable' and
'confirmed' which I thought Popperian in nature, and Rezza also mentions folks
which are 'sceptical' as to this bald eagle being a 'native New Yorker' (he
could have flown from New Jersey).
So, the point of my post was:
A) Is a conceptual-analysis alla Grice of the wording by J. Rezza going to
settle the issue? I think so. I'm particularly excited by the news, as New York
Audubon is, and as Rezza notes, it is 'undeniable' (i.e. irrefutable -- but
note below) that New York -- its five borroughs -- have become again good
habitats for these eagles -- Grice's eagles, let's call them; as Popper is
forever associated with another bird species, penguins -- The NYT uses "Mr."
even if we are talking of professor emeritus here).
It may be that to replace Rezza's 'undeniable' by a Popper 'falsifier' is to
confuse 'negation' with 'falsity' (for which vide Ayer), but this is a point
that requires conceptual analysis.
A 'falsifier', in the eagle scenario (rather than the scenario in "Mr Popper's
Penguins") may be equated with a counterexample. If I did use the qualifying
phrase, "Popperian" to refer to this type of 'counterexample' (qua
'falsifier'), that was because I found the Staten Island eagle piece to be a
good occasion to compare, yet again, Popper and Grice (I mention them in order
of seniority). It would seem that Rezza's piece is inductivism-biased, and
confirmationism-based; whereas Popper would look for counterexamples (Popperian
or not), or 'falsifiers'. The discovery of a nest, which birders in Staten
Island are trying to find, may NOT count as one. And I was wondering WHAT
would, for Popper. In this 'usage' of 'counterexample,' a "Popperian
counterexample," is one that POPPER would consider a counterexample, not
necessarily one that he 'coined' -- hence McEvoy's exegetical remarks,
"Counterexamples were in (logical) use long before Popper, and so I don't know
what is is specifically Popperian about them - at least not in the context of a
post where JLS recently refers to 'Popperian counterexample'".
while excellent from the point of view of the history of analytic philosophy,
may be not what Rezza is thinking about.
-- The thread can be found under "Natural Implicature".
If you think of it, 'counterexample' is perhaps something that Cicero (or
Cicerone, as the Italians call him) would not approve of. One thing is an
'example' ("One has to lead one's life following good examples."). It would
have been otiose for Cicero to say that "one should avoid leading one's life by
counterexamples." For he would have found the conceptual analysis of
'counterexample' -- Cicero was the creator of Ancient Roman conceptual analysis
of the ordinary-language variety) an impossible task. A counterexample is
surely NOT an example or illustration. Counter-illustration may work better,
but while it makes sense of Alice to complain to her sister,
"What's the good of a book without illustrations?"
it would be otiose to infer from this that Alice is implicating she would
prefer a book with counter-illustrations (but vide "Through the
Looking-Glass").
And so on.
For the record, here goes the text of Rezza's essay:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/06/nyregion/hopes-rise-that-staten-islands-young-eagle-is-a-native-new-yorker.html?_r=0
J. Rezza, "Hopes rise that Staten Island's young eagle is a native New Yorker".
"Three years ago, as Lawrence Pugliares searched for bugs and butterflies to
photograph within the Mount Loretto Unique Area, a 200-acre grassland along the
south shore of Staten Island, something not so tiny soared over his head. Mr.
Pugliares scrambled as an adult male bald eagle canvassed what would become its
new home.
“I had to change lenses and, of course, I missed him,” said Mr. Pugliares, 52,
a stenography instructor who has taken thousands of photos of eagles. “But we
met again and again and again.”
Once considered rare, bald eagles have become increasingly common along New
York City’s waterways over the last few years. Seven to 10 of the birds are
thought to live on Staten Island, including two adult eagles frequently found
at several coastal parks in three neighborhoods.
Recently, a younger bird has been seen consistently with the two adults,
leading many to believe that Staten Island’s bald eagles have achieved a
milestone this summer.
If the juvenile bird hatched in that borough, it would represent the first bald
eagle born in the city in more than 100 years, according to the New York City
Audubon.
Birders say the juvenile’s behavior suggests it was born to that pair of adult
eagles. Thick-billed but not yet white-headed, the young bird has been
photographed taking food from the beaks of the older birds, something that is
considered a sign of successful breeding.
“This behavior certainly indicates that it is a young bird that hatched
recently,” Debra Kriensky, a biologist with the Audubon group, said. “It’s very
exciting.”
Mike Shanley, a birder on Staten Island and the president of the Friends of
Blue Heron Park, said the feeding suggests “probable nesting,” meaning two
adult birds building a nest to try to have offspring. It is “not confirmed
breeding,” he added, “though it is a very good indicator.’’
Last year, two eagles tried but failed to breed near Mount Loretto. None of the
bald eagles are banded or tagged, which makes tracking them a challenge. But
the male spotted this year is believed to be the same male from last year and
the same one Mr. Pugliares first encountered in 2013.
Officials at the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation, which
administers the Mount Loretto area, expressed some skepticism that an eagle
could have been born on Staten Island, noting that the birds could have
wandered across Raritan Bay from nesting sites in New Jersey. Without a
confirmed nest, there is no way to be certain where the eagle was born.
But birders say there are plenty of remote places on Staten Island where a nest
could be hidden.
“There are a lot of thick woods,” Mr. Shanley said. “If they nested in the top
of a tall tree in the middle of those, nobody would have found them.”
It is not uncommon for eagles to fail to breed — meaning a nest was built and
eggs were laid but did not hatch — several times, said Ed Johnson, the former
director of science at the Staten Island Museum. “They need a few tries to get
it right,” he said.
There is mounting circumstantial evidence that they did so this year: The adult
birds and the juvenile, which is at most a few months old, have been spotted
perching on the same branch, communicating and feeding together, implying that
the young bird hatched in the area.
What is undeniable is New York’s place among urban areas to which eagles, once
threatened with extinction, have returned.
Widespread pesticide use after World War II had decimated their numbers. “In
1960, there was only one breeding pair in all of New York State,” Ms. Kriensky
said. But after decades of federal protection, the birds were removed from the
endangered species list in 2007.
Bald eagles have also become regulars in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in Queens
and along the Hudson River in the Bronx and Manhattan.
“The way I grew up,” Mr. Pugliares said, “we knew about the national bird but
we never saw it. Now they’re here. I mean, they’re right here.”
Since 2009, over 900 eagle sightings on Staten Island have been reported on
eBird.com, a website that tracks bird sightings and population trends. Most
have been of the adult male that Mr. Pugliares has seen so often that he gave
it a nickname: Vito, after the patriarch in “The Godfather.” The eagle often
flies over a church where parts of the movie were filmed, and perches
conspicuously on telephone poles throughout his sliver of territory.
Since his arrival, Vito has been the most popular attraction on a Facebook
group page devoted to Staten Island wildlife — a “rock-star bird,” as Mr.
Pugliares says.
The juvenile bird was easily spotted recently at one of Mount Loretto’s ponds.
Mr. Pugliares took photos as it spread its wings, exposing its brown belly, to
bask in the sun for several minutes. It certainly appeared at home.
“I’ve never seen any eagle act this way,” Mr. Pugliares said.
But the nest where the eagle was born still eludes him, as it does everyone
else.
“It’s hard to say exactly what happened with the nest,” Ms. Kriensky said. “The
fact that they are here in general is pretty amazing and a sign that these
birds are thriving.”"
-- end of quotation
Cheers,
Speranza
REFERENCES:
"Darwin's Finches"
"Popper's Penguins"
"Grice's Eagles"
"Reichenbach's Ravens"
Austin's Swans" (""All swans are white" is almost true, as "France is
hexagonal," is, for all intents and purposes, 'roughly' true" -- The William
James Lectures).
Warnock, "Austin on "I know it is a finch"" ("Austin was a purist, and for him,
the implicature, 'That's a finch', was NOT that he BELIEVED it was, but that he
KNEW it was -- vide his "Other Minds").
Speranza, "When did the owl become the symbol for Philosophy?"
Hegel, The Dove and Philosophy
Geary, "Everything you always wanted to know about philosophical ornithology
but were afraid to ask."
Skeat, "The etymology of bird, and its dialectal variant, 'brid'."
