[lit-ideas] Re: Russell's Theory of Relations
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2012 10:04:11 -0400 (EDT)
I think McEvoy found the way to Ritchie's puzzle.
In a message dated 8/8/2012 7:14:30 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:
"Yes, but is 'not being a relation' [or is the class whose members are
'not in any relation' a member of the class of 'relations'] a relation [as its
members are related by virtue of membership of the class whose members are
'not in any relation']?"
This, vis-à-vis:
In a message dated 8/5/2012 1:09:42 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
_profdritchie@xxxxxxxxxx (mailto:profdritchie@xxxxxxxxx) writes:
""Murray is the first British man to win the Olympic singles gold medal
since Josiah Ritchie in 1908."
David Ritchie,
(no relation)"
----
Not only does this axiom holds, "everything is in some relation with
anything else", but indeed, 'to be no relation' is a relation -- "whose members
are related by virtue of membership [to] the class whose members are 'no
relation'", as McEvoy expands it.
Given the above, we have to allow for a 'disimplicature' in the
colloquialism "no relation".
Note, too, that 'no relation' is used, as in 'no offence meant', 'no pun
intended', when it is OBVIOUS that there IS some relation:
"My name is Ritchie. And his name is Ritchie. But there is no relation."
---- It's different from:
"We were at the zoo and I saw an elephant; and my wife saw a monkey."
Or, "Peter likes grapes; and Helsinki is the capital of Finland."
In 1967, Grice played with the category of "Relation" that Kant used, and
fount it otiose. Yet, he used it to observe that in a few conversations, the
category seems to amount for implicatures like:
"She is a windbag".
"The weather has been especially delightful this summer, hasn't it".
"Breaches of 'relation'", Grice writes, "are rare," but they still exist.
Out of this, a few authors have found that "relation" holds regardless in
conversation which is not 'schyzophrenic':
Dascal, M. "Conversational relevance", Journal of Pragmatics.
Holdcroft, D. "Conversational relevance", Journal of Pragmatics.
and so on.
Now, Kant is drawing 'relation' (qua 'category') from Aristotle. Aristotle
found 'relation', Kant thinks, as the THIRD category:
a thing is a thing -- QUALITAS
a thing is a thing, and not TWO things -- second category: Quantitas.
a thing is red -- MODUS
a thing is related to some other thing -- RELATIO.
Note for the classicist amongst us that 're-late' is really related to
'bear' or 'refer'. For 're-lat', and 're-fer', are just two verbal forms (if
slightly unrelated, in terms of cognateness) of the same 'verbal' paradigm.
McEvoy is also right that to deny this axioms amounts, metaphorically, to
guano.
Russell's theory of relations explains a LOT of things.
Cheers,
Speranza
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