Grice has one unpublication entitled, "Definite descriptions in Russell and in
the vernacular." Grice's point is with Russell's (indeed Whitehead's and
Russell's) treatment of "the". Sir Peter Strawson opposed Russell's view and
got a reprimand (Russell, "Mr. Strawson on referring" -- at the time, Strawson
had not been knighted).
On the whole Grice is Russellian, or Whiteheadian-Russellian: any apparent
divergence (between 'the' and the iota operator, say) is due to implicature,
not SENSE, as Strawson wrongly thought!
Helm writes in "A review of Ray Monk's Bertrand Russell Vol. II"
"In the May 17, 2001 issue of the NYROB is a review of Ray Monk's Bertrand
Russell: The Ghost of Madness 1921-1970. Years ago I read Monk's biography on
Wittgenstein and enjoyed it; so I was tempted by Monk's book on Russell"
Monk should write a biography of Moore. Cfr. "Some like Witters but Moore's MY
man." Oddly, monk means 'monaco' in Italian, and the city is so called because
it was founded by a monk!
"-- until I got into the review: Monk's first volume on Russell ends in 1921.
"Monk describes how Wittgenstein totally and finally destroyed Russell's
confidence in his philosophical program, and in effect expelled him from his
own Garden of Eden, which was mathematics and the philosophy of mathematics.
Wittgenstein had argued that there could be no complete foundation for human
knowledge, whether in mathematics or in other domains.""
Still, Baron Russell (as he was) always referred to Witters as "the Austrian
engineer" -- and Monk should wonder why Russell took Witters's criticism _so_
to heart, as Geary would put it.
Helm goes on:
"I bought a used copy of Volume one, partly because I like Monk, but decided to
pass on Volume II (even though a used "acceptable" copy is available for 96
cents from Amazon The reviewer, Stuart Hampshire,"
Ah, Sir Stuart -- Oxford aristocracy. Unlike Grice, Stuart was 'high class,' as
they say. He (Sir Stuart) met with Sir Isaiah Berlin and others on Thursday
evenings at All Souls. Grice was never invited: "because I had been born on the
wrong side of the tracks".
Grice does not specify which tracks he mean. I gather, as Geary would, that
Grice is using 'track' and 'wrong' implicaturally. Grice was from Harborne, and
while his family (and indeed Harborne) was affluent -- he was still regarded at
Oxford as a "Midlands scholarship boy" and thus ending at Corpus Christi (which
catered for middle-class Midlands scholarship boys). Whereas at All Souls, J.
L. Austin, Berlin, and Hamphire -- to name a few -- were having the good
parties. Berlin recollects on this in "Austin and the early beginnings of
Oxford ordinary language philosophy". It was only after the 'second world war'
that Grice got to socialize with Austin, in what we might call Austin's second
play group -- that met on Saturday mornings. Hampshire would attend.
Years later, Hampshire wrote with Hart an essay on intention and certainty.
Grice was so infuriated that when he became a fellow of the British Academy and
asked to give the annual philosophical society, he went back to Prichard (that
Hampshire and Hart ignore) and entitled his thing, "Intention and Uncertainty."
Only Grice.
Helm goes on:
"writes "Monk's disillusionment and disgust pervade the last three hundred
pages of the book, and many readers will feel that the long account of all the
legal squabbles within the family is wearisome and excessive."
The point is HOW MANY readers. I love Hampshire's implicature. Just because HE
felt the legal squabbles excessive may not implicate that McEvoy would. I think
actually McEvoy, who is a Popperian, delights in such legal squabbles.
It's also ironic Hampshire writes "many" when his best friend was H. L. A.
Hart, a lawyer, at heart -- and thus, one who is, to use Patsy's language,
"into" legal squabbles.
Hampshire goes on:
"Russell knew that he had totally failed as a parent when John became estranged
and finally went mad, and when his second son . . . was forbidden by his mother
to speak to him after a divorce. In Monk's family history the final horror
came when Russell's granddaughter, Lucy, who was first loved and then neglected
by him, burned herself alive after recording in detail the stages of her
despair.""
There are lots of references in a recent film (indeed originally a novel) by P.
Roth, "Indignation". Its protagonist is in love with Russell, and the dean of
his school is NOT! Lovely conversations ensue!
The actor who plays the protagonist said in an interview that the film director
FORCED him to read Russell. I enjoyed the dean's words on Russell: hyperbolic,
but interesting -- and of course not necessarily true! "Indignation" contains
FULL passages straight from Russell, the protagonist's hero. Still, Roth never
cared to see the film adaptation!
My favourite portraiture of Russell on film is in "Tom and Viv", which is
really about Eliot and his aristocratic wife, but Russell (and the actor who
plays him) sort of steal the film!
When Borges was once asked what book he would take to a desert island he said,
"Well, the 9th edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica; and if that's not
possible, Russell's two-volume "History of Western Philosophy"".
Hampshire goes on:
"D. H. Lawrence had told Russell that he was consumed by hatred and contempt
and only passed as a man of peace. Lawrence wrote early in the war: 'You are
really the super war spirit. What you want is to jab and strike, like the
soldier with the bayonet, only you are sublimated into words. . . . You are
simply full of repressed desires, which have become savage and anti-social. . .
. As a woman said to me, who had been to one of your meetings, "It seemed so
strange, with is face looking so evil, to be talking about peace and love. He
can't have meant what he said."'"
Well, Martin Gardner says that it is IMPOSSIBLE to describe the FACE of
Bertrand Russell unless by telling that it resembles to a T the head of the Mad
Hatter in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland -- the original illustrations. At
Cambridge, Moore, McTaggart, and Russell were described as the March Hare, the
Mouse, and the Mad Hatter -- and for for more than one reason!
The Mad Hatter would have loved that woman:
i. Russell can not have meant what he said.
Perhaps he only IMPLICATED!
"Can" is ambiguous -- although it only has one sense. Lawrence was not too
careful with language. When walking on the Tuscan fields he asked a Tuscan who
was his walking companion:
ii. LAWRENCE: What is this? (He made the question in Italian, trying to impress
the Tuscan)
TUSCAN: A flower.
The Tuscan is saying something true, but for Lawrence, violating Grice's maxim
("be as informative as is required"). The implicature behind Lawrence's
question is: "What is the NAME of this flower, chum?"
But back to (i), if it's a modal argument, the woman's implicature is that
since Russell can not have meant what he said,
iii. Either Russell is lying, or there is some implicature that explains the
divergence away.
As in the "Tea Party": to say what you mean and to mean what you say are the
same thing.
iv. Not the same thing a bit! You might just as well say that I like what I eat
is the same thing as I eat what I like.
v. It IS the same thing with you!
Helm goes on to quote from Hampshire:
""Lawrence again: 'It is not the hatred of falsity which inspires you. It is
the hatred of people, of flesh and blood. . . . Why don't you own it?"
and comments:
"In preparation for moving to Idaho (which will probably be delayed, but even
so) I've been rather ruthless in getting rid of books. There are certain
subjects and writers I expect never to return to -- for different reasons, but
I haven't gotten serious about the book case that contains my library of
philosophy. I don't think there is anything in there from Russell; so this
volume by Monk will be the only one but Monk will be writing about Wittgenstein
in it which I shall be more interested in, probably, than anything he has to
say about Russell."
Yes. There is even a film on Witters, by Derek Jarman. Jarman liked to base his
films on 'personality figures,' so called: Witters, Caravaggio, ...
Helm goes on:
"I'll keep the volumes I have by and about Wittgenstein. After spending time
with him I ended up with a view of his (or of my own developed after reading
him) I am comfortable with: there is the truth of the Tractatus, but there is
also a realm that one must pull a ladder up to -- if one chooses to do so. In
my case I choose it. I'm not sure I could ever again associate myself with a
branch of organized Christianity, but neither could I follow any particular
philosopher."
Witters's metaphor of the ladder is a good one. Oddly, lots of philosopher
associated themselves with a branch of organized Wittgensteinianism! Those who
loved both Witters and Saul Kripke created yet another target for a personality
cult: Kripkenstein!
Helm goes on:
"The philosophers I like best weren't looking for followers. I make take with
me to Idaho, Wittgenstein, Gadamer, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche (because of the
poetry), Plato, and several that have written about philosophers like Hayden
White, Joel Weinsheimer, and Ray Monk. My Irish Terrier, Jessica, chewed up a
volume by Spinoza: good girl!"
When Helm writes "Plato" I read "Socrates"! -- only the man (Socrates) could
not write!
Cheers,
Speranza
