[lit-ideas] Re: The Triteness of Dispositional Talk/Implicature
- From: "Walter C. Okshevsky" <wokshevs@xxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 29 Apr 2010 12:15:48 -0230
Surely virginity is a state, not a disposition. (Though not a state of mind,
either.) The tendency to engage in behaviors and make decisions that promote
virginity, on the other hand, would legitimately be classed as a disposition.
Walter O
Gilbert Ryle Professor of Speculative Metaphysics
University of Oxford
Oxford, Ohio
Quoting Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx:
>
>
> In a message dated 4/29/2010 5:02:24 A.M., donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx
> writes:
> the upshot of prior dispositional states [or propensities or
> potentialities] is a metaphysical view, not based on "implicature" nor
> dependent on it.
>
> ---- You still have not replied to my other example:
>
> "She is a virgin. I deflowered her."
>
> If virginity is a disposition, then surely, by implicature theory, a past
> ascription of a future disposition would make sense, but it doesn't. So
> perhaps it's entailment, rather than implicature.
>
> Donal continues:
>
> ""The cd is breakable. I broke it." is not prohibited - for it may remain
> breakable as I snap the broken pieces a second time. [That is, only if the
> act of breaking something once means it is no longer further breakable,
> ought we reflect this by using the past tense: "It was breakable (but no
> longer
> any further is breakable) and I broke it.""
>
> --- Again, this does not really apply to '-- is a virgin'. In most human
> cases, some people say it's always possible to repeat the act.
>
> Donal concludes the paragraph:
>
> "But this is only a convention of language that in itself may be a poor
> guide to correct metaphysics]. As said in my post, the real clout of this
> metaphysics lies in its being able to be fleshed out with _specifics_ as to
>
> prior dispositions: a white couple who have a black child who matches their
> DNA, can be assured by science that it is their child and that the result is
>
> because there are 'black-skin genes' within the DNA of one of them. Who
> would have accepted that 200 years ago? Yet "implicature", with its paltrey
>
> explanatory power by comparison, would then have been easily accepted by
> many."
>
>
> ---- I cannot see how implicature has to do with this. Obviously if the
> parents SEE their black child, there is nothing an implicature can 'defeat'.
>
> Implicature arises in 'subtle' uses of language, as Grice has it: not in the
>
> 'gross' facts of life.
>
> J. L. Speranza
>
>
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