[lit-ideas] Re: Reductive vs. Reductionist
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 4 Mar 2013 16:09:12 -0500 (EST)
In a message dated 3/4/2013 6:50:10 P.M. UTC-02, wokshevs@xxxxxx writes:
Why would we need a "metaphysical explanation" of the irreducibility of
moral
rightness to (empirical) facts? I ask this, in part, because I don't know
what
such an explanation would look like. I await edification. Isn't Hume's
version
of the naturalistic fallacy (NF) sufficient here? Zum beispiel:
"Lesbians cannot reproduce, therefore, they ought not to be allowed to
marry."
What can metaphysics offer here to show invalidity of inference that is not
already covered by the NF acc to Hume? (No "ought" from only an "is.")
I'll quote, below, what Grice says on the distinction.
"[Mrs Jack] reproves me for 'reductionism', in terms which suggest that
whatever account or analysis ... is to be offered, it should not be one which
is 'reductionist', which might or might not be equivalent to a demand that
a proper analysis should not be a proper REDUCTIVE ANALYSIS."
"But what kind of analysis is to be provided?"
"What I think we cannot agree to allow [Mrs. Jack] to do is to pursue the
goal of giving a _lax_ REDUCTIVE ANALYSIS ..., that is, a reductive analysis
which is unhampered by the onstraints which characteristically attach to
reductive analyses, like the avoidance of CIRCULARITY; a goal, to which, to
my mind, several of my opponents have in fact addressed themselves."
"In this connection, I should perhaps observe that ALTHOUGH my earlier
endeavours ... were attempts to provide a reductive analysis..."
-- cfr. "Personal Identity" --> mnemonic states -- Grice 1941, and
earlier, "Negation".
"I have never (I THINK) espoused REDUCTIONISM."
"Reductionism, to my mind, involves the idea that [... these or those]
CONCEPTS are UNSATISFACTORY or even UNINTELLIGIBLE, unless they can be provided
with interpretations in terms of some pre-determined, privileged, and
favoured array of concepts."
"In this sense of "reductionism" [they may be others but cfr. do not
multiply senses beyond necessity -- Speranza], a felt ad hoc need for REDUCTIVE
ANALYSES does NOT have to rest on a REDUCTIONIST foundation [or agenda, as I
prefer -- Speranza -- cfr. fundationalism]."
"Reductive analysis might be called for to get away from
unclarity"
[cfr. clarity is not enough. Lewis]
"not to get to some predesignated clarifiers."
"I shall for the moment assume that the demand that I face is for a form of
REDUCTIVE ANALYSIS which is less grievously flawed that the one which I in
fact offered, and I shall reserve until later considerations of the idea
that what is needed is NOT any kind of REDUCTIVE ANALYSIS but rather some
other mode of explication of [this or that concept]."
This relates to Witters, since, as Palma was quoting, he had no theory of
anything -- "as Palma was quoting", since I disagree about that!
Cheers,
Speranza
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