Grice was a rationalist. In "Logic and Conversation" he lists some ten
conversational maxims, such as
"Do not say what you believe to be false."
"I am enough of a rationalist," Grice says, "to think of maxims as these
not as things that people follow, but as things that people SHOULD follow."
When Grandy and Warner decided to compile a festschrift for Grice they
approached Clarendon with the project: "No way! Grice won't sell".
The idea came to Grandy and Warner (their first names are Richard and
"Reply to Richards" by Grice is meant as a reply to Grandy's and Warner's joint
introduction to the festschrift) to HIDE Grice's name in the title of the
festschrift but use it as an acronym
P
G
R
I
C
E
i.e.
Philosophical
Grounds of
Rationality:
Intentions,
Categories,
Ends.
So who can be more of a rationalist than Grice? Popper
In a message dated 4/16/2016 3:02:45 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:
"Btw, Sokal and Bricont misunderstand 'critical rationalism' and criticise
a straw man version:
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/philosophy/people/miller/miller_pli_9.pdf
Hope this helps."
It does. But the author quotes from the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary,
not the LONGER one, :(.
Anyway, to explore McEvoy’s link, I find an interesting opening reference
to a "radical disavowal of truth [which usually takes the form of
relativism, or sometimes nihilism" which I liked.
I wonder if Popper’s emphasis on ‘falsify’ can be counted as such a
disavowal!
But the link’s author is concerned with the characterization of Popper as “
fully” endorsing what he calls "radical skepticism."
"Radical scepticism", such as it is “fully endorsed” by Popper, is, of
course, the doctrine that, "at least for empirical statements, nothing can be
KNOWN with any positive degree of justification."
But how do reconcile this with Popper ceaselessly stressing his adherence
to Tarski’s absolutist [yet somewhat vacuously semantic – Speranza’s]
theory of truth?"
The author adds that "what Popper's critics mean when they say that one
need not be a strict Popperian to realize that any theory must be supported,
at least indirectly, by empirical evidence in order to be taken seriously"
This is good because I think I like a loose Popperian -- not a strict one.
The author adds:
"Only in Popper’s CRITICAL rationalism, the direct descendant of the
falsificationist philosophy of science of his "Logik der Forschung" (subtitled,
an epistemology of modern natural science") did a workable rationalistic
response to Hume finally fetch breath."
About time, too!
"Here, Popper replaces the traditional rationalist theory of positive
justification by a revolutionary rationalist theory of NEGATIVE criticism."
Negaholic!
"Popper states that no theory is justified by argument or by evidence, even
to the smallest extent, but, in so doing, releases the theory of
rationality from the deadly unspoken doctrine that a theory is held rationally
only
if it is justified, or supported by evidence, or backed by good argument."
"Provided that a theory is open to criticism it may be held rationally,
Popper maintains, for as long as it has not been damagingly criticized."
"For, unlike a theory that has been FALSIFIED, one that survives all
attempts at falsification and criticism remains a candidate for the truth."
-- i.e. one that would fit Tarski's and later Davidson's schemata.
"Popper was certainly not the FIRST to call for scientific theories to be
TESTED to destruction."
But the author of the link I don't think does give the first cite!
"Still less is Popper the only philosopher who enjoins criticism."
But who was the first?
"Where Popper does make an unprecedented advance is in proposing that
critical "testing" is sufficient as well as necessary."
This talk of sufficient and necessary "conditions", but the author of the
link does not specify to which 'necessary and sufficient applies -- seems to
fit a conceptual-analytic approach to something like a definition!
"Only NEGATIVE evidence *counts*."
As in
"There is no elephant in the room."
"Popper seems to have been the first... "
cfr. Grice's implicature: doubt-or-denial: That pillar box seems to be red
--
"... to grasp that rationality is a matter only of methodology, and has no
epistemological significance."
For one who thinks that methodology and epistemology are NEVER overlapping
keywords!
The link quotes from brilliant British philosopher Anthony O’Hear.
----- EXCURSUS ON O'HEAR.
Anthony O'Hear is a British philosopher.
O'Hear is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Buckingham.
O'Hear is Honorary Director of the very English Royal Institute of
Philosophy and editor of its very English journal "Philosophy".
O'Hear is also co-editor of The Fortnightly Review, that is published (as
its title implicates) 'fornightly' (an archaism for every two weeks).
O’Hear is a Government special adviser on stuff.
O'Hear was especially influential during the time of Margaret Thatcher and
John Major as Prime Minister when he was teaching at Bradford in Yorkshire.
(Bradford is David Hockney's birthplace, for the record).
O'Hear is active in Conservative circles -- not the Vienna Circle! --
especially in advocating social conservatism. This is what Brits call the
"Tory" movement.
---- SUB-EXCURSUS ON THE IMPLICATURES INVITED BY "TORY".
After 1689 only, "Tory" became the label of a British political party at
first composed of Yorkist Tories of 1680.
Superseded by neologists in 1830 by "conservative" -- though it continues
to be used by Tories, it became an adjective in 1680.
A British Tory should not be implicated with an American Tory.
In American history, "Tory" (also spelt "Torry", or "Torrie") was the
name given after 1769 to colonists who remained loyal to the crown.
The Torries represented their relative position in the pre-revolutionary
English political order in the colonies.
Thus we read in Jefferson's "Notes on the state of Virginia" (not
Virginia's State, of course, the reference being to the Virgin Queen):
"A Tory has been properly defined to be a traitor in thought, but not in
deed."
I.e. Jefferson is providing a conceptual analysis yielding a definition:
-- a tory is a tory if in thought, not in deed.
Someone who is a traitor in deed should get OTHER names.
Jefferson goes on:
"The only description, by which the laws have endeavoured to come at
Torries, was that of non-jurors, or persons refusing to take the oath of
fidelity to the state of Virginia -- not Virginia's state."
So the treason is towards Virginia.
---- END OF EXCURSUS ON "TORY"
CONT. OF EXCURSUS ON the author's link target of criticism, brilliant Brit
philosopher O'Hear:
O'Hear relationship with New Labour was understandable more troubled.
"Why 'new'?," O'Hear asks. "This seems like an insult to the Paleolithic
Man, who invented work, as we know it -- although they called it fishing and
gathering."
Tony Blair dismissed O'Hair as an "old-fashioned snob", forgetting Peter
Allen's song: "Everything old-fashioned is new-fashioned again."
O'Hair's publications include:
Karl Popper -- a study of an Austrian philosopher who emigrated to London
its suburbia.
What Philosophy Is -- implicating, "And what is not".
The Element of Fire -- a critique of smoking.
An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science -- including an extroduction.
Beyond Evolution -- a psychoanalysis of Darwin.
After Progress -- a conceptual analysis of disgress.
Introducing Christianity -- to Jews.
Philosophy in the New Century -- meaning Thales of Mileto's 'new century'.
Plato's Children -- were they adopted?
The Great Books: From The Iliad and The Odyssey to Goethe's Faust: A
journey through 2,500 years of the West's classic literature -- including "The
Faerie Queane".
References:
Gibson, Robert (April 1998). "Blair's Blast at the Diana `Snobs'". Sunday
Mirror (London, England).
O'Hair defends Diana criticism, BBC.
--- END OF EXCURSUS ON brilliant philosopher O'Hair.
The author's link continues:
"... depicts a reader of Popper at a table that is in the process of losing
its solidity; the implicature" (I'm rephrasing the author's link
slightly) "appears to be that, according to Popper, the laws of physics cannot
be
expected to hold, as far as tables are concerned."
Cfr. Grice on Eddington's two tables.
The author's link goes on:
"Although Popper often does says that there is not MUCH MORE (implicating
that there may be something more) to scientific method than the method of
trial and error, Popper is reproached for having tried to formalise the
scientific method."
This reminds me of the conversation between Strawson and Grice on
'formalise':
Grice: I like your point. You should formalise it.
Strawson: Why?
Grice: If it's not formalisable it's not worth saying.
Strawson: Excuse me? I rather think that if it IS formalisable it is not
worth saying.
And to think they were once friends!
The link's author continues:
"Few (implicature: but some will) would agree with Popper’s sceptical
refutation of any talk of justification in our system of knowledge."
"One also imagines that few of those scientists who derive inspiration from
Popper" as Helm may derive inspiration from this or that poet, "would
accept his claim that survival of severe tests by a theory adds nothing to its
probability."
The link's author goes on to explore the use of 'know':
"If the word ‘know’ is being used in its traditional sense (knowledge =
justified true belief), the answer to the recurrent question ‘How do you know?
’ is ‘I do not know: my assertion was merely a guess. … help me by
criticizing it as severely as you can’" -- as summarising Popper's position.
But back to O’Hear, O'Hear asks (the link's author is tired of O'Hear's
'rhetorical questions,' as he calls them)
"Popper often compares science to evolution, and in nature the fittest
survive only until they are proved unfit."
"But there is no absolute fit in nature, or, for that matter, in science."
O'Hear goes on on:
"Even falsification is an uncertain business."
"Scientists, not nature, say ‘no’ to discarded theories. The scientific
game is played, and what for practical purposes does Popper’s realism amount
to?"
Implicature: Nought.
I like the idea of science as a game -- but then most of the crucial
concepts in contemporary philosopher came out of the activity of a Play Group
('implicature', 'illocutionary', 'neustic', to name a few).
The link's author notes:
"It was precisely because it pointed out the possibility of talking about
TRUTH in the absence of any general *criterion* of TRUTH that Popper was so
much cheered by Tarski’s theory of truth when it was explained to him in
the Volksgarten in Vienna in 1935."
But how can a theory cheer? I thought only cheer leaders did that!
The link's author goes on:
"Neglecting the claims of Popper’s critical rationalism to offer just the
right mixture of absolutism and scepticism, Popper's critics have taken the
advice of the oligarchs, and have re-endorsed all those discredited
authoritarian principles whose hollowness irrationalists have so often and so
readily discerned."
I guess the oligarchs are what O'Hear calls Plato's children. It was
Aristotle who started to ask for a fee, and the snob oligarchs felt it took the
pleasure of it all.
The link's author concludes:
"It is really rather shocking of Sokal & Bricmont to suggest, as they do,
that ambiguities or inadequacies in Popper’s "The Logic of Scientific
Discovery" bear some responsibility for the rising tide of irrationalism in
the
philosophy of science."
"Shocking" can be subjective. I have been shocked by things compared to
which the suggestion that Sokal and Bricmont is shocking immediately ceases to
shock me!
Cheers,
Speranza
References:
Miller, D.W. "Popper & Tarski", in I.C. Jarvie & S. Pralong, editors,
"Popper’s Open Society After Fifty Years: the Continuing Relevance of Karl
Popper", Routledge, London.
O’Hear, A. "Popper & the Philosophy of Science", New Scientist, 22.
Popper, K.R. "Logik der Forschung" Julius Springer, Vienna
-- The Open Society & Its Enemies. George Routledge & Sons, London; 5th
edition, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London.
-- The Logic of Scientific Discovery. Hutchinson, London; expanded English
translation.
-- Conjectures & Refutations. Routledge & Kegan Paul, London; 5th edition,
Routledge, London.
-- Popper, K.R. Objective Knowledge. Clarendon Press, Oxford; 2nd edition
-- Popper, K.R. ‘Intellectual Autobiography’. Schilpp, repr. in Unended
Quest, Fontana, London.
-- Schilpp, P.A., editor The Philosophy of Karl Popper. Open Court
Publishing Company, La Salle.
-- Stove, D.A. Popper and After. Four Modern Irrationalists. Pergamon
Press, Oxford.
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