[lit-ideas] Popper and Grice: The Divide
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- Date: Sun, 23 Aug 2015 17:20:17 -0400
In a message dated 8/23/2015 3:49:38 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
_donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxx.uk_ (mailto:donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx) was wondering
about
certain quoted material by Popper, and provides in turn an illuminating
account of what I see as the differences between him (Popper, that is, not
McEvoy) and Grice.
Popper was born in 1902; Grice in 1913, so there was a generational gap, as
they were. Since they were born one on an island (Grice) and the other in
a continent, there is a continental divide, too.
Referring to a point about their differing philosophies of language,
McEvoy writes:
may I point out this is partly false and partly crass.
The implicature seems to be that it is partly true and partly non-crass ("I
sometimes wonder what the antonym of 'crass' is" -- Geary).
McEvoy:
"The false part is that Popper never liked 'senses', with the false
implication that Popper somehow avoided them. Popper obviously uses language
and
uses 'senses', and a great deal of his thought involves what might be
regarded as clarification of 'senses' [e.g. the sense of democracy as
'majority
rules' or as a system where we can vote out the government]. When Popper
discriminates between 'senses' there is always an important substantive
dispute at stake, but it is false to imply Popper is against discriminating
against 'senses'."
The keyword here is a distinction: substantive vs. non-substantive, or
merely 'verbal'. On the other hand, philosophers of Grice's generation (if of
the Oxonian ordinary language garden variety) are (to use a favourite adverb
with McEvoy) 'merely' verbal.
McEvoy goes on:
"What Popper did oppose was the idea that 'clarification of meaning' is
the philosopher's be-all and end-all."
Oddly, this was also the view of a Brit: Lewis -- his book is called
"Clarity is not enough" -- the subtitle has to do with the essay being a
criticism of linguistic philosophy alla Grice.
McEvoy goes on:
"[Popper's] view [is] that it is at best a part (sometimes an unavoidable
part) of advancing substantive theses to be discussed for their 'truth'
(not merely meaning)."
There was once an influential symposium held at Oxford, around Donald
Davidson's thesis. It came out as entitled, "Truth and meaning": surely the two
notions are related, but they can be divided, too.
McEvoy goes on:
"[Popper] also opposed the philosopher's trick of defending their
positions by definitional arguments (a good example might be how JTB-theorists
defend their view of "knowledge" by using their stipulation as to the meaning
of
knowledge to reject alternatives)."
Rather than 'definitional' (or "verbal") arguments -- in the
substantive/non-substantive distinction -- Grice would speak of a keyword here:
conceptual analysis. The philosopher is concerned with the production of a
conceptual analysis in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions -- That's
different from a simplistic account alla "It depends on what "is" is."
McEvoy:
"[Popper] also thought many philosophers, especially after the 'linguistic
turn', adopted wrongheaded views of 'meaning' and its role in thought."
Well, for Grice, there is a way to approach THOUGHT without reference to
MEANING. Anita Avramides wrote her D.Phil Oxon. dissertation on that, but she
is careful (after all, her thesis advisor was Sir Peter Strawson): Grice
is seen and rightly so by Avramides as an asymmetricalist (if that's the
word) -- there is a priority of THOUGHT over meaning, since, after all '...
means ...' REDUCES to 'believes', and 'desires' (and 'intends'). Avramides
sees, and rightly too, Davidson, as providing an otiose symmetricalist
analysis (where thought and meaning are co-relative in that you cannot have
evidence for one without having evidence for the other).
McEvoy:
"But to say Popper disliked 'senses' is false."
Or Partly False. In general, it all depends on 'dislike' as McEvoy goes on
to elaborate:
McEvoy:
"The use of "disliked" here is belittling of a serious intellectual
disagreement: we would hardly say Einstein advanced his theories because he
"disliked" Newton's."
No. Huxley would, though. He thought that highbrows (his term) disliked
this and that, and that lowbrows disliked this and that. Nowell-Smith (in his
Ethics) tried to elucidate this sense of 'like' behind this misusage of
'dislike', but failed, even if he coined a 'contextual implication' into the
bargain!
Huxley: "I am a highbrow for the same reason as I am an eater of
strawberries. ... I am not a lowbrow, because I do not enjoy lowbrow processes
and
experiences."
McEvoy goes on:
"It is also false to imply that Popper thought meaning-analysis was
*always* a waste of time"
Well, here the argument seems to depend on 'waste' and -- whose time.
"waste of time" seems too general a descript, unless whose time we're talking
about. The implicature is of course that Popper did not think that conceptual
analysis was always a waste of HIS (i.e. Popper's) time.
McEvoy: "[I]n fact he recognised [meaning-anaysis or 'conceptual analysis'
as I prefer, since Grice spent most of his life in trying to provide a
'conceptual analysis' of "meaning", rather than being involved in
"meaning-analyses" per se] might provide useful service. In addition,
substantive
metaphysics of the sort Popper was interested in can be extracted from work by
philosophers who regard themselves as engaged in 'conceptual analysis'."
Which was good to learn, since I'm always interested in what philosophers
are interested in.
McEvoy exemplifies:
"[W]hat Popper would sometimes do is take a point made by a philosopher
engaged in conceptual analysis and accept it as a point that is correct not
'conceptually' but substantively [see his adoption of a point made separately
by Saul Kripke and J.J. Thomson, about how the mental cannot strictly be
'identical' with the physical: TSAIB]."
Well, there are subtleties here. Mrs. Jack, who taught at Somerville, once
wrote a draft, "The rights and wrongs of Grice on meaning". The bad thing
is that it reached Grice's hand (and later his brain). For Mrs. Jack, Grice
is providing a REDUCTIONIST conceptual analysis.
Grice was furious!
"Mrs. Jack should re-read what I wrote!" (These were the days when Oxford
was not co-educational).
Grice was clear:
"What I offer is a REDUCTIVE -- NEVER a reductionist -- conceptual
analysis".
Patricia Churchland, on the other hand (and on yet another continent) is a
good example of someone who provides reductionist ELIMINATIONIST conceptual
analysis. And the sad thing is that she is happy about it!
"To each his own," though.
So, we should see about J. J. Thomson and S. A. Kripke. Apparently, J. J.
Thomson was more of an enigmatic figure.
Kripke has tried to use some of Griceian terminology, but I don't think he
succeeded (implicature: he failed). This in connection with things like
'pragmatic' or speaker versus 'semantic reference'. In any case, Kripke's sort
of analyses produced a cottage industry: "Putting Humpty Dumpty together
again", and other stuff.
The case referred to by McEvoy is different. The keyword is: PHILOSOPHICAL
PSYCHOLOGY.
"[W]hat Popper would sometimes do is take a point made by a philosopher
engaged in conceptual analysis and accept it as a point that is correct not
'conceptually' but substantively [see his adoption of a point made separately
by Saul Kripke and J.J. Thomson, about how the mental cannot strictly be
'identical' with the physical: TSAIB]."
It may be good to see how Popper does this. To turn something from
'conceptual' to 'substantive' seems easier SAID than done!
(In the sense that a 'conceptualist' may still regard Popper's 'revision'
as 'conceptual').
McEvoy then goes on to doubt that Popper expressed his ideas about 'wasting
time' meaning _his_ (Popper's) or others'.
The crass part follows from the above.
Well, in Latin, "crassus", as Geary reminds me, meant 'solid'. And it may
be a good exercise to gather citations by Popper as to how otiose a
non-substantive 'meaning-analysis' (without a view to the truth of a conjecture
and refutation) can be!
And since we are talking about time, there's this lovely essay by Mellor
(of Cambridge, but with Oxonian influences) on "Real time"*. He thinks the
qualification is important, and that it was totally ignored by St. Augustine.
Cheers,
Speranza
* In "Real Time", Mellor presents us with a new and well developed
B-theory of time.
B-theories of time hold that there are no temporal properties of past,
present and future -- and that therefore, time cannot be literally 'wasted'.
Instead, there are temporal relations of later than, simultaneous with, and
earlier than.
"And surely to say that Jack has wasted his time later than Jill loses
some of the sarcasm of the original phrase."
Mellor argues that what makes “e is past” true at time t is the fact that
event e is located at some time earlier than t, while “e is present” is
made true at t by the fact that e is located at t, and “e is futur” is made
true at t by the fact that e is located at some time later than t.
Geary reviewed the book: "Algebra".
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