[lit-ideas] Re: Popper's Unsolved Problems
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 14 Mar 2016 07:00:00 +0000 (UTC)
That there may be a _typology_ of facts does not seem to entail (though
perhaps 'implicate' -- this was Grice's brilliant discovery as applied to
philosophicalese in general) that 'fact' has more than one 'sense'>
It depends what sense of sense is being used: but in at least one sense of
sense, the fact there may be a typology of different types of 'fact' is at
least suggestive that they are 'facts' in different types of senses (even if
there is another sense of 'fact' where they are all, in the same sense,
'facts').
D
On Sunday, 13 March 2016, 22:08, "dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx"
<dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
In a message dated 3/13/2016 5:47:42 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:
Excuse me if I leave St. Patrick and the snakes out of it.
Indeed. He merits a thread of its own, and there's still time for the 17th!
(But some parades were taking place today!)
We are considering the alleged various senses of 'fact' -- since McEvoy
used 'fact' when dealing with Popper's Unsolved Problems (of the head line):
McEvoy:
"Would [Speranza] assert that it would never make sense to say "It is a
fact that the murder of innocent children in that part of the war was not
justified as part of the military campaign and indeed hampered the military
campaign because it swung support to the other side"? If not, wouldn't
[Speranza] accept this 'fact' has quite a different sense to 'fact' in the
proposition "It is a fact that influenza cannot be spread telepathically"?"
That there may be a _typology_ of facts does not seem to entail (though
perhaps 'implicate' -- this was Grice's brilliant discovery as applied to
philosophicalese in general) that 'fact' has more than one 'sense' (his
modified Occam razor: "senses are not to be multiplied beyond necessity").
McEvoy:
"And that this last proposition, even if empirical/falsifiable, may differ
from a 'fact' like "There is no elephant in my living room""
or 'pink elephant' as Yogi Berra might prefer.
"or a 'fact' like "An elephant is a larger animal than a mole" or a 'fact'
like "The skin of an elephant is never green and pink polka dots" or a
'fact' like "This elephant has no tusks"? Even if all these 'facts' (except
the
wrongness of murdering children) are empirical/falsifiable by observation
they are not logically therefore the same kind of 'fact' - we may argue
that they are distinct kinds of empirical 'fact' because their logical
character differs, as may be seen by looking at differences in the (logical)
character of their class of potential falsifiers."
Well, etymologically, 'factum', as in Enn. ap. Cic. Div. 1, 31, 66 Trag.
81) is paraphrased by Lewis and Short in their Latin Dictionary (Oxford) as:
"that which is done, a deed, act, exploit, achievement" (syn.: res gestae,
facinus).
-- the 'deed' reminds me of Austin:
His lectures were called 'Sense and sensibilia' (to parody J. AustEn)
and "Words and Deeds" (later turned into "How to do things with words",
when at Harvard).
"Words and Deeds" became the title of Holdcroft's book on Austin. It
relates to the well known couplet:
a man of words and not of deeds
is like a garden full of weeds
(there is a continuation to this -- but I disgress:)
--- DISGRESSION
And when the weeds begin to grow
It's like a garden full of snow
And when the snow begins to fall
It's like a bird upon the wall
And when the bird away does fly
It's like an eagle in the sky
And when the sky begins to roar
It's like a lion at the door
And when the door begins to crack
It's like a stick across your back
And when your back begins to smart
It's like a penknife in your heart
And when your heart begins to bleed
You're dead, and dead, and dead indeed.
--- end of disgression.
Since 'factum' -- "that which is done, a deed, act, exploit, achievement"
-- derives from 'facio' -- as 'deed' derives from 'do' -- there must be
other lexemes that are better used when we mean things like 'snow is white',
etc. The fact (or deed) that this may be more transparent to Cicero may be
given due consideration, so I thank McEvoy for provoking some exercise in
linguistic botany, as it were.
It would be nice to explore Roget for this (or that).
Cheers,
Speranza
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