[lit-ideas] Re: The Institution of Slavery and the Concept of Free Will
- From: jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 24 Apr 2011 20:53:47 -0400
Geary wrote:
Is the physical world strictly determined?
R. Paul comments:
One day Epictetus' master was twisting his leg. 'If you keep on,' said
Epictetus,
'you will break it.' His master did not stop, and eventually broke
Epictetus' leg. 'I told you so,' said Epictetus.
According to Suda, it was rheumatism, which should perhaps disprove
Geary´s point.
He should be able to provide the original Greek, though:
A story /is/ told by Celsus – as quoted by Origen (c.185–254) at
"Contra Celsum" (252 A. D.): 7.53 –
"And so it came to happen that, as Epictetus was still a slave
/doulos/, he was tortured by his master, who twisted his left leg.
Enduring the pain with almost complete composure, Epictetus however
managed to warn his master:
"If you continue twisting my leg, it should eventually break."
When Epictetus´s left leg did break, he confirmed the conditional -- by
modus ponendo ponens, by way of a loaded question ‘There! Didn´t I
predict you that it would break my leg if you kept twisting it?’
"From that day one, Celsus recounts, Epictetus was lame."
The Suda, however, while he goes on to confirm that Epictetus was
indeed lame, "that was possibly due to rheumatism /rheumatismus/ on
Epictetus´s part."
Grice comments that Epictetus should have said, "You shall break my
leg" rather than "will". "A prediction uses the future-indicative; but
surely Epictetus had the "future-intentional" in mind". D. F. Pears, in
"Predicting and deciding" -- Proceeding of the British Academy, 1964,
agrees.
The question, however, is a subtle one, and involves the usual contrast
entailment vs. implicature:
* You shall break my leg, but you won´t.
** You will break my leg, but you shan´t.
"Didn´t I tell you that you´d break my leg" -- manages to skip the
implicature by hiding the modal behind the "´d", which can stand for
both "would" or "should" (but surely not both).
"The Greek language," Grice continues, "offers many options to
speakers" -- and I don´t see why Epictetus should be exceptioned.
Cheers,
J. L. S.
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