[lit-ideas] Re: Popper and Grice: Naturalism and its Enemies

  • From: "" <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> (Redacted sender "Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx" for DMARC)
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Sat, 15 Aug 2015 16:35:43 -0400

In a message dated 8/15/2015 3:26:57 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:
I haven't read this essay yet (I haven't even shaved yet)

This should interest Stanley, the contextualist (Jason Stanley). He notes
that utterances need contextual indexes -- all of them: so "I haven't even
shaved yet" implicates (but does not entail): "today". Whereas, "I haven't
read this essay yet" does not. Stanley calls this "marvellous".

McEvoy:

"but why would or should we "[move] to the construal of W3 as including the
logical content of the genetic code..."? The "genetic code" is a physical
code - as physical as how a key works to open a lock: just as we may
describe, in W3 terms, how a key may operate a lock so we may describe how the
"genetic code" works. We may call this description the "logical content": but
such description cannot move the "genetic code", or a key operating a
lock, into W3. The idea that we should "[move] to the construal of W3 as
including the logical content of the genetic code..." seems to be based on a
category mistake. One of the same order as were we to say that a W3 blueprint
of how a particular key operates a particular lock is the "logical content"
of that operation, that "logical content" moves the operation of the key in
the lock from W1 to W3. Well, it doesn't, does it? The truth is that we
can describe the "genetic code" in terms of some "logical content" but the
"genetic code" qua physical entity is not a form of "logical content" any
more than is a key operating a lock. Confusion may arise where people switch
from considering the "genetic code" qua physical entity to considering the
"genetic code" qua 'W3 "logical content" pertaining to that physical
entity', and think the "genetic code" means the same thing both times. These
are
the kind of the people who, were they to make a similar mistake outside of
intellectualising, might be asked to make sure they had the keys but, when
asked to produce them when needed, took a blueprint of the key's operation
out of their pocket instead.

Well, I'm not sure about keys, but it all reminded me of Kosuth, the
conceptual artist. One of his pieces is called "Three Chairs", and it may well
have been entitled, modifying an example by McEvoy: "Three keys".

i. There's the physical key in W1.
ii. There's the idea or concept of a key, in W2
iii. And would we need a W3-key?

McEvoy:

"These are the kind of people who, were they to make a similar [Rylean
category] mistake outside of intellectualising, might be asked to make sure
they had the key[...] but when asked to produce [the physical key' when
needed, TOOK a blueprint operation of the key's operation out of their pocket
instead."

Why not, alla Kosuth, a photo of a key? A photo of the key is still an
object of W1. He cannot produce a 'concept' of a key without manifesting it:
e.g. defining a key.

Perhaps once McEvoy reads the essay he may end up forgiving the author of
the referred essay as committing such a crass category mistake.

Because the keyword here is 'code' (I don't use the word). And a code is
not a key.

Although some safes need codes (not keys) to open them.

The fact that we are talking about DNA codes is reminiscent of a recent
reference by McEvoy to such stuff, when he concluded a post:

"We are going to die, and that makes us the
lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never
going to
be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who
will
in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia.
Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists
greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people
allowed by
our DNA so massively outnumbers the set of actual people. In the teeth of
these
stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here. We
privileged few, who won the lottery of birth against all odds, how dare we
whine at our inevitable return to that prior state from which the vast
majority
have never stirred?"

And I was wondering that DNA code seems a good example of some co-relate of
it to be in W3. It would seem that, to modify McEvoy's wording, "The set
of possible DNA codes" massively outnumbers the set of actual people ('so
far', as in McEvoy -- "I haven't shaved yet"). And if we accept that each DNA
code is a part of W3 we are doing something 'trivial' according to Popper
(if I recall McEvoy's wording alright).

Interestingly, 'trivial' is an underrated word in philosophy. It may be
that 'trivial' is an adverb, and it's short for "TRIVIALLY TRUE". But Popper
seems to dismiss 'trivial' as if the philosopher should get beyond
trivialities even when he finds them!

Cheers,

Speranza





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