[lit-ideas] Re: Sacrifice
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2005 20:46:36 EST
In a message dated 2/10/2005 12:28:19 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,
nantongo@xxxxxxxxx writes:
I mean does the sacrifier really trot around going, ho, watch me make my
next sacrifice? It seems to me they (sacrifiers or whatever the active
participle is) mostly just go ahead and do what they think should be done at
the moment ie what makes them feel good, or, failing that, feel better. It
seems to me that any analysis of sacrifice would have to center on how it is
seen from the outside rather than how it is lived from the inside.
----
The OED defines 'sacrifice', among other things, as "to surrender or give up
(something) for the attainment of some higher advantage or dearer object.
Const. to." -- and I think that is the usage Marlena is mainly thinking of.
(Quotes given for that specific usage in the OED below).
Mirembe's distinction between the inside and the outside reminded me of the
late Kenneth Pike's distinction between the -etic and the -emic, which I'm
not sure I systematically follow.
If 'to sacrifice' is 'to surrender something for the attainment of some
higher advantage', it seems to me obvious that there is some level of
_relativisation_ already built up in there. Alla the way H. P. Grice analyses
things
like "Richard Nixon must get the Oxford Chair of Moral and Pastoral Theology"
in
_Aspects of Reason_ (p. 57, quote below)
If Agent A sacrifices x for the attainment of y", it is understood that (it
must be analytically true) that A must regard y as being higher than x -- to
follow the OED definition. What people other than agent A _think_ seems
precisely irrelevant when it comes to analyse if A is performing an act of
'sacrificing' or not.
Cheers,
JL
------
1706 PHILLIPS (ed. Kersey), To Sacrifice,..to quit or leave a Thing upon
some Consideration. 1710 SWIFT Jrnl. to Stella 23 Sept., Deuce take Lady D;
and if I know y, he is a rawboned-faced fellow..; she sacrifices two thousand
pounds a year, and keeps only six hundred. 1720 OZELL Vertot's Rom. Rep. I.
v. 298 The first Obligation which a Roman lay under..was to sacrifice his
Life in Defence of the Public Liberty. 1837 KEIGHTLEY Hist. Eng. I. 416 Henry
[VIII]..was never known to sacrifice an inclination to the interest or
happiness of another. 1875 JOWETT Plato (ed. 2) V. 126 Everything seems to
have
been sacrificed to a false notion of equality. 1879 G. C. HARLAN Eyesight
vii. 97 Generally, the only men who can be persuaded to wear protecting
glasses are those who have already sacrificed one eye to their objections.
Grice writes:
"Suppose someone were to say, ... "Richard Nixon must get the Oxford Chair
of Moral and Pastoral Theology". Depending on context, one might find three
different interpretations, all of them falling within the VOLITIVE zone. One
might mean that it is VITAL (perhaps vital to the world, or to some microcosm
which is momentarily taken as if it were the world), that Nixon should be
established in this position. On this interpretation, one would NOT be laying
on
any AGENT's shoulders an incumbency to see to it, that this happy state be
realised, unless it were on the shoulders of someone with a reputation for
total
ineffectiveness in mundane affairs, like The Almighty. On another
interpretation, one would be invoking a supposed incumbency, perhaps an
incumbency on
'us' (whoever 'us' might be) to secure the result. On what might be a
particularly NATURAL interpretation, one would be charging _Richard Nixon_
with an
incumbency to secure the his own election to this august chair. On both [these
two latter interpretations], one would be advancing the idea that it was
necessary RELATIVE TO SOME POTENTIAL AGENT ('us' or Richard Nixon) that Richard
Nixon obtain the chair. On the alethic side ["If he drinks the poison, he must
die"] no such SIGNIFICANT relativity is observable." (p. 57).
------------------------------------------------------------------
To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
Other related posts:
