[lit-ideas] Re: Rationality: Popper vs. Grice
- From: "" <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> (Redacted sender "Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx" for DMARC)
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2015 08:55:30 -0500
Is Rationality self-justifying?
How pancritical can one be?
Is being a pancritical rationalist being what Grice has as being "enough of
a rationalist"?
Was Popper's happy with pancritical rationalism?
The naming of cats, and editing, can be a difficult matter. It isn't just
one of your holiday games.
Bartley did a lot of editing of Popper's papers. Similarly, Warner edited
Grice's "Aspects of reason and reasoning" as "Aspects of Reason" for
Clarendon.
Warner spent HOURS with Grice, and oddly, Warner was crucial in Grice's
SECOND book ("The conception of value") and not just the third ("Aspects of
reason"). Warner would visit Grice at his house on the Berkeley hills, and
spend, literally, HOURS with him.
He later decoded Grice's handwritten notes into a legible document that was
published by Clarendon.
Warner makes the occasional brilliant footnote, as when he notes that this
or that idiom Grice borrowed (but as I say, 'never returned') from this or
that author. Grice had a way of words, and Warner knew it.
Warner also explains that the last lecture (on Happiness, now in "Aspects
of reason") was not delivered at Stanford Kant lectures nor at Oxford Locke
lectures, but since Grice loved that paper, and there IS a reference to
'eudaimonia' in Kant's idea of the maxims and the imperatives, Warner thought
it a very good idea (I agree) to include it in the Clarendon "Aspects of
reason".
In fact, Warner's contribution to "Philosophical Grounds of Rationality:
Intentions, Categories, Ends", is an expansion on the Aristotelian basis for
Grice's idea of happiness, and Warner has further original work on the
matter (He was a graduate student with Grice at UC/Berkeley).
On the other hand, there's W. W. Bartley, III, and Sir Karl Raimund Popper.
In a message dated 2/11/2015 2:04:38 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,
donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:
When I asked for sources I was hoping for something more specific by way
of reply than "writings". What specific "writings"? And what source says
Bartley added "passages" to Popper's work in his editorial role (as opposed to
adding footnotes etc. that are clearly marked as Bartley's own editorial)?"
Despite the restored friendship, W. W. Bartley, III's view was never
accepted by Sir Karl Raimund Popper, who criticised it even after W. W.
Bartley,
III's death.
References:
1. M. Artigas: The Ethical Nature of Karl Popper's Theory of Knowledge
(1999), First Part.
2. Kiichi Tachibana: Mails exchanged between Prof. Tachibana and Prof.
Agassi On the Kyoto Prize Workshop. Popper Letters 5:1 (November 17, 1992)
Both parts of Popper's "Realism and the Aim of Science", that W. W.
Bartley, III, edited, and the "Addendum" to the fourth edition of "The Open
Society and Its Enemies" contain passages that are commonly interpreted as
Popper's acceptance of Bartley's views.
However, M. Artigas holds that these were in fact written by Bartley
himself.
Reference:
1. Mariano Artigas: The Ethical Nature of Karl Popper's Theory of Knowledge
(1999), pp. 23–25, and p. 96.
Cfr.
D. Sepety, "Critical Rationalism, Comprehensiveness and Extra-rational
Judgements"
http://www.geocities.ws/sepety/cr-ccr.htm
"In a new, fourth edition of The Open Society and Its Enemies (the book
where he first introduced the conception of CR) Popper made only very slight
corrections to some formulations in chapter 24 (which was the target of
Bartley’s criticism). At the same time, he added an Addendum which is very “
Bartleyan”. The footnote on its starting page says: “I am deeply indebted to
Dr. William W. Bartley’s incisive criticism which not only helped me to
improve chapter 24 of this book (especially page 231) but also induced me to
make important changes in the present Addendum.” (Popper 1977, 399)."
M. Artigas, The Ethical Roots of Karl Popper's Epistemology.
http://www3.nd.edu/Departments/Maritain/ti/artigas.htm
"[S]omeone could ask whether Popper changed his mind or not during the long
period that elapsed after the 1962 edition of The Open Society. Probably,
the most important allusion to this subject is contained in several pages
of volume I of Popper's Postscript, edited by Bartley himself. These pages
were partly rewritten, as Popper tells us, in 1979 (87), and some people
think that they contain Popper's appropriation of Bartley's views. The pages
just mentioned contain a discussion of Popper's anti-justificationist
philosophy in dialogue with Bartley, and we can read in them several positive
judgments of Bartley's comments and a sharp negation of the relevance of
belief in the following terms: "Now like E. M. Forster I do not believe in
belief: I am not interested in a philosophy of belief, and I do not believe
that
beliefs and their justification, or foundation, or rationality, are the
subject-matter of the theory of knowledge" (88). Should we expect something
else in order to interpret definitively Popper's rationalism in a Bartleyan
way?"
Note:
Artigas: "Some people think that [these pages] contain Popper's
appropriation of [W. W.] Bartley [,III]'s views.
Which seems to implicate: "Some people, such as myself,..."
Again, same link: Artigas quotes from Popper:
"There also was an attempt to replace my critical rationalism by a more
radically critical and more explicitly defined position. But because this
attempt bore the character of a definition, it led to endless philosophical
arguments about its adequacy" (89)."
and comments:
"It is most difficult to interpret this last comment, although it does not
contain an explicit reference to [W. W.] Bartley [, III] (who by that time
was already dead), except as a denial of [W. W.] Bartley[, III]'s
pancriticism."
Cfr. Artigas referring to another publication by Popper:
"[O]n page 18 note 1, Popper refers to two of Barley's publications,
*Bartley* [emphasis mine] adds a third reference, and Popper notes: «The
present
section was partly rewritten in 1979».
Cheers,
Speranza
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