[lit-ideas] Rationality: Popper vs. Grice
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- Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2015 18:41:29 -0500
Popper, 1902-1994.
Grice, 1913-1988.
We are considering Popper's motivations in his trialism (as opposed to
Cartesian dualism and Smartian monism), and the other keyword was "rationality"
In a message dated 2/8/2015 3:35:19 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,
donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:
"Perhaps we should distinguish major and minor points, as it were, and
here ask the question in relation to major points (errors on minor points
being of secondary importance to errors on major ones)? The answer is yes: one
acknowledged major error is Popper's proposed definition of
'verisimiltude', which was independently shown to be be mistaken by Pavel
Tichy and David
Miller (the latter Popper's research assistant for many years)."
Thanks. I was thinking of Popper ever acknowledging that his trialism was
mistaken, but surely his mistaken view of verisimilitude falls on some of
those worlds!
I have to say that Short/Lewis's definition ("A Latin Dictionary") is not
of much Popperian help!
vērĭsĭmĭlis, vērĭsĭmĭlĭter, and vērĭsĭmĭlĭtūdo, more correctly
written separately, vērī sĭmĭlis, etc., v. under verus and similis, etc.
McEvoy goes on:
Another major example arises in connection with another part of JLS' post
[...] I think Popper did indeed relish the problem-generating nature of the
theory that (in addition to W1 and W2) there is a W3. But this is not so
"odd" when seen against a very important strand of Popper's theory of
knowledge, which might be described loosely as follows. There is a kind of
position that says for every genuine problem there is a solution [on one
interpretation, we might extract this view from W in the Tractatus - "The
riddle
does not exist"; or Hume, in the mode in which he was a forerunner of Logical
Positivism]."
I think this was best dealt with by philosopher Rush Rhees, in his
"Unanswerable questions", which motivated Geary. Geary thinks that there are
not
unanswerable questions. "Only unquestionable answers" -- and that, "only
mabbe".
(For the record, Rhees, who taught at Swansea, was born at Rochester, New
York -- only he would say "in Rochester" -- He thought that 'at' IMPLICATES
town or village, while 'in' ENTAILS city).
(Rhees's essay is collected in his book on Witters -- it is originally the
second part to a symposium with Australian philosopher R. Bambrough).
McEvoy goes on:
"This position is refuted, we might say, by the existence of insoluble
problems [though of course the refutation can always be evaded - either by
maintaining that presently insoluble problems will nevertheless prove soluble
or by maintaining an insoluble problem is never a genuine problem]. Against
all this, Popper does think it likely that there are genuine problems that
may be permanently insoluble, though we should not be dogmatic as to what
they are - for even problems that now appear insoluble may in time be
solved (as the history of ideas shows). But he also thinks problems typically
have depth. So much so we may say that for every genuine solution (to a
problem) there is a problem i.e. that even the most successful solutions
typically create new problems - problems that arise in the light of the
solution."
This is interesting. Perhaps we should start generalising and popularising
the use of the expression 'pseudo-solution'. We do hear philosophers (such
as Witters) overemphasising the idea that some philosophical problems are
pseudo-problems (i.e. not real problems, to use Austin's trouser word). But
surely, if there are pseudo-problems, there should be pseudo-solutions.
And there must be a reason (as there is, for everything) why Witters
focused on pseudo-problems rather than on pseudo-solutions.
McEvoy goes on:
"Thus Popper's schema of problems and (tentative) solutions, which he
applies to the growth of knowledge in all fields, does not lead to a point of
finality but to further problems requiring further (tentative) solutions.
There is a major error Popper made in his first work in relation to all this:
he at first wrongly identified the limits of rationality with the limits of
science i.e. took the position that only scientific problems could be
resolved in a rational way, whereas metaphysical/non-scientific problems could
not. This error was tied into some other errors, including the error of
thinking rationality could not ultimately be rationally based because it
always involved a prior non-rational commitment to rationality. This major
error
was admitted by Popper and its correction is important to understanding
his mature philosophy. He does continue to accept that metaphysical dispute
is typically less amenable to rational solution than the problems of
science, but contends that a more-or-less rational approach is possible even
to
metaphysical problems - and some would contend, on his behalf, that his own
work exemplifies the rational approach to philosophical questions."
Well, when Grandy and Warner thought of publishing this festschrift for
Grice they contacted Oxford's Clarendon Press. The reply was: "We won't have a
book with GRICE on the title. It wouldn't sell". So they came up with the
idea of an acronym:
P
G
R
I
C
E
i.e. philosophical grounds of rationality: intentions, categories, ends.
I think the keyword here is
self-entrenchment.
Rationality is self-entrenched.
Grice:
"[A] psychological theory [of rationality] [such as the one] I envisage
would be deficient as a theory to explain [rational] behaviour if it did not
contain provision for interests in the ascription of psychological states
otherwise than as tools for explaining and predicting [rational] behaviour,
interests (for example) on the part of one creature to be able to ascribe
these rather than those psychological states to another creature because of
a concern for the other creature."
"Within such a theory [of rationality] it should be possible to derive
strong motivations on the part of the creatures subject to the theory against
the abandonment of the central concepts of the theory [such as the idea of
'rationality'] (and so of the theory itself), motivations which the
creatures would (or should) regard as justified."
"Indeed, only from within the framework of such a theory [of rationality],
I think, can matters of evaluation, and so, of the evaluation of [rational]
modes of explanation, be raised at all."
"If I conjecture aright, then, the entrenched system contains the materials
needed to justify its own entrenchment."
"Whereas," he goes on, "no rival system contains a basis for the
justification of anything at all" (
Rational behaviour in argument, as Gaskins puts it (ps) is established as
conformity with putative preestablished norms. [Grice's] theory [of
rationality] "writes its own inference-ticket", which should be perhaps one
that
Popper might buy.
Cheers,
Speranza
References:
Burdens of Proof in Modern Discourse
https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0300063067 - Traduci questa pagina
Richard H. Gaskins - 1995 - Law
Grice even adds to Toulmin's nondialectical epistemology a matching theory
of ... If I conjecture aright, then, the entrenched system contains the
materials needed to justify its own entrenchment; whereas no rival system
contains a basis for the ...
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