In “Is the dog as important as Popper and Grice?”, Helm makes some interesting
points.
“Is our knowledge of the symbiotic relationship between man and dog more
important than our knowledge of the teachings of, say, Popper and Grice? Many
would say that it is.”
The pleonetetic point is that the above:
A. Many would say that p is more important than q.
may be consistent with
B. But many won’t.
(In a party of 900 guests, many – say 300 guests – may think the lemon sorbet
is superior to the raspberry sorbet, but many – say another 300 guests) may
think that is not true and that in fact the raspberry sorbet is superior to the
lemon sorbet).
Helm goes on:
“Many like Gaston Phebus have argued that it is – at least I would assume
Phebus would say that if he had all the words that we have today. With genetic
research telling us that Canis Familiaris (the “familiaris” pertaining to its
being a familiar of Humans) mitochondrial DNA (peculiar to canis familiaris)
originated at about the same time as that of humans – with lots of pluses and
minuses, but long enough ago to demonstrate that we grew up together as
species.”
Well, I haven’t checked with the grice – Scots for ‘pig’ – but I wonder about
its mitocontrial DNA!
Helm:
“It isn’t hard to find articles on this matter, e.g.,
http://www.sciforums.com/threads/is-the-relationship-between-humans-and-dogs-classed-as-symbiotic.29993/
Dr. Lou Natic, the writer of this particular article (in one of the forums on
Sciforums.com)”
--- For the New York Times manual of style that would be Mr. Natic –
“presents one argument I hadn’t read before: “No other animal has the in built
peace of mind to sleep like they're in a coma for 8 hours, we can do this
because we evolved with dogs watching our backs.”
This may explain the implicatures of
“Let sleeping dogs lie.”
We usually don’t use “let” in cases like “Let the sun raise from the east”. The
implicature seems that unless we let them they won’t. Dr. Natic is not clear if
by what he later calls his ‘successful cities’ he means the Roman city (like
Rome) or the polis like Athens.
Aristophanes and his Roman translators should know. While he wrote on the birds
and the frogs, I don’t think he wrote about dogs.
Helm:
“How important is it that we as a species were able to sleep for 8 hours
unworried about a predator sneaking up on is while we did so? Natic writes
“The common misconception that is generally assumed with the historical
induction of canines in to human society, is that they started scavenging on
the fringes of our successful cities and we felt sorry for their puppy dog eyes
and let them join us. But we couldn't be more wrong. It’s more likely that we
owe these cities to dogs.”
I don’t think the dog features ‘large’ in the foundation of Rome, but I may be
wrong.
Or is Natic thinking of Anglo-Saxon boroughs (like Scarborough), rather. In
feudal times, these were protected by walls. Which would make things harder for
outsider dogs. (cfr. the implicatures of the overdog and the underdog).
Natic:
“It is only recently that dogs have been anything other than hard-working
partners helping us survive in countless ways. Who knows exactly how big a role
dogs played in our evolution? What would we be if we never had the time and
peace of mind to comfortably dream? Well I, for one, am not confident
sciforums would exist for starters, it seems unlikely the written word would
even exist.”
I think this is a bit of a hyperbole. It would assume that sciforums are global
in ways they are not.
Helm notes: “Natic concludes, “For many people owning a dog is more than a
decision they make, it’s an instinctual unexplainable urge. They feel empty
without one. Probably similar to the feeling a clown fish with no anemone to
rest in has, or the itch that the ox with no oxpecker's endures. Some people
don't want a dog at all, but are they really human according to the
Homo-sapiens standard? Well, not really, they are more like a modern off-shoot,
that perhaps could be referred to as the traitor-sapiens.”
I think the one to blame is the cat. Dorothy Parker (she of the Algonquin)
classified humanity into ‘cat’ Homo sapiens and ‘dog’ Homo sapiens. She gave as
an example of the former the ‘egyptians’ (or “gypsies,” as she preferred to
spell this). But her argument collapses on the assumption that
“Let sleeping cats lie.”
seems, to use a Griceianism, an otiose thing to say! Or not.
For the record, the English expression "let sleeping dogs lie" was a popular
proverb already by the 13th century. It apparently alluded to the fact that
waking "sleeping dogs" who were at the time trained to be fierce watchdogs,
would cause nothing but trouble.
Implicaturally, it has come to be used not to refer to the Canis lupus
familiaris, but as a way to enjoin to leave things as they are; especially, to
avoid restarting or rekindling an old argument; to leave disagreements in the
past. An example:
Eventually, they decided it would be best to let sleeping dogs lie and not
discuss the matter any further.
Oddly, while the idiom originated in England, it became popular elsewhere. Thus
we have,
In Dutch: slapende honden wekt men niet
In French: ne pas réveiller le chat qui dort
In German: schlafende Hunde weckt man nicht
And in Italian: non svegliare il can che dorme
Which shows how well versed in English literature the Dutch and the German and
the French and the Italian were!
Cheers,
Speranza
