one wonders what he'd say.
Chomsky would analyse this utterance:
i. Thornton on Grice one wonders what he'd say.
Chomsky asked his students at "MIT" (not a univ, but an institute of
technology, literally):
"Who's 'he'?"
The readings can be:
ii. Thornton on Grice one wonders what he, Grice, would say.
iii. Thornton on Grice one wonders what he, Thornton, would say.
This Chomsky teaches his students, "is called ambiguity."
On a different thread, McEvoy notes (in a reply on a post on Grice and material
implication and slips):
"I will use this post (btw, a while ago I really did slip in something as my
dry-cleaning shows)."
The utterance:
iv. I will use this post.
is what Chomsky teaches his students is 'incomplete'. "When we use 'use' we
need to specify the use to which the thing we are using we are using, if that's
not ambiguous."
McEvoy goes on:
"I received a [letter] yesterday that told me of Sir Paul Nurse's lecture of
months ago. It served as a useful reminder that I had missed it - or would have
if I had not been completely unaware of the lecture until the [letter]."
This reminds me of Geary who once said that he never reads an obituary "of
someone who I never was alive in the first place." Also Groucho Marx on not
wanting to belong to a club that would accept him as a member. It's what I call
McEvoy's paradox. A letter "reminds" him of something (proposition p), of which
(proposition p) McEvoy was unaware -- had he not received the letter. Almost
the plot for a Shakespeareian tragedy.
McEvoy goes on:
"You can listen to the lecture (at least I can)."
McEvoy is poking fun on French "on" -- "on peut" -- you can --. In English
'you' is what Chomsky would call 'ambiguous'. It can mean the second person
singular ('ye' is the plural) PERSONALLY, or IMPERSONALLY. Since it's illogical
for a personal pronoun to be used impersonally (there was recently an article
in the New York Times about a robbery on Park Avenue, "safe safes, only by
name"), McEvoy adds, "at least I can," where McEvoy's implicature is that you
(i.e. at least I) can NOT use "I" impersonally -- as I shouldn't.
McEvoy goes on:
"But that is not the point."
The use of "not" is 'ambiguous', for Chomsky. Cfr. "I'm not having an affair
with Prince Harry". Here, McEvoy's implicature is that GEARY might think that
the above is the _point_ when it ain't. This invites McEvoy to explain what the
point is.
McEvoy warns us:
"Before the point I wish to say one thing - I know many of you are hoping it's
"Sorry" but it isn't. It's that [letter] also alerted me to the fact that
Stephen Thornton's Stanford Entry on Popper has been "substantively revised" -
using the scare quotes. Rightly."
"Scare quotes" is of course a pun on 'square quotes', as when we say "[The king
of France exists and] he is bald."
Or not. Literally, it should be scary quotes, but that would kill the pun.
I wasn't expecting 'sorry', since, according to Sir Elton John (born Dwight,
literally), "Sorry seems to be the hardest word."
McEvoy goes on:
"I [once] had correspondence with [...] Thornton that ended acrimoniously, at
least on his part - I was more forgiving of myself. The criticisms of his entry
that I put to him I also put on the old list, the one before [L. J.] went to
"Theoria.""
It would be good to retrieve them.
McEvoy goes on:
"The criticisms are right btw - but right or not, I can assure you that the
relevant parts that I criticised have been "substantively revised" not one jot."
The problem here may be that the metaphysics (and substantiality) of a jot is a
difficult matter.
A jot is used in England, Ireland, Wales, and Scotland, as from the late 15th
century (as a noun): via Latin from Greek iōta, the smallest letter of the
Greek alphabet: see iota.
Since Thornton did not revise substantially his entry in Greek, it comes as no
wonder that he has NOT revised one iota.
McEvoy goes on:
"Thornton will go his grave"
providing he dies -- vide Parfit on personal identity in my "Parfitiana," THIS
FORUM. Parfit believes that as long as you remember him, he's never dead.
Parfit does not dwell on the fact that, metaphorically, people who are cremated
may be said to "go to their grave" (vide Keats, "Ode on a Grecian Urn.")
McEvoy
"giving a quite misleading picture of the problems with Popper's philosophy
(and there are many, it is full of problems). The only thing Thornton gets
right is that there is an ongoing problem in defining verisimilitude but it is
way premature to think this problem shipwrecks Popper's theory of knowledge and
even his theory of verisimilitude. Ignoring my criticisms, Thornton does
however have this to say - and I'm beginning to realise I'm digressing - on a
topic on which I never previously have said a bad word about Thornton's entry
(at least not that I remember)."
"Remembering" is a trick verb as far as implicatures go (not far, fortunately).
"I remembered my name," Grice said on checking in a hotel. "This sounds odd,
but surely it's true. The reason, against Benjamin [a "Mind" philosopher],
surely it is NOT a part of 'remember' that you have not forgotten."
McEvoy goes on to quote directly from good Thornton's substantial revision.
This reminds me of Hobbes's on the sculptor. "He revised his sculpture so
(implicature: substantially) that we could hardly say it was the same one."
"Popper holds, [in "The Open Society -- [open to who?] and its enemies -- "who
remain outside"?] is not a utopian ideal, but an empirically realised form of
social organisation which, Popper argues, is in every respect superior to its
(real or potential) totalitarian rivals."
"But Popper does not engage in a moral defence of the ideology of liberalism."
"Rather Popper's strategy is the much deeper one of showing that
totalitarianism is typically based upon historicist and holist presuppositions,
and of demonstrating that these presuppositions are fundamentally incoherent."
-- end of Thornton's substantial revision quote.
McEvoy's gloss:
"Well blow me down."
As opposed to "up"
McEvoy:
"You see afaik every form of social organisation that ever existed has been
"empirically realised", including that in Nazi Germany - so I am unclear what
the contrast might be between any social organisation in terms of it being
"empirically realised" or not."
I think Thornton is contrasting organisations that have existed, and mere
"utopian ideals" who have not (vide Meinong on 'irreal' thing).
"But do social organisations actually ever exist in terms of their ideal?"
This is so Platonic it hurts!
McEvoy:
"The truth is that there was a fact to Nazi Germany but also ways it did NOT
live up to the Nazi ideal, and the same is true of open societies - even where
they are some sort of fact or "empirically realised" they also always fall
short of their ideal, and in this latter sense are never fully "empirically
realised"."
It's hard to see what Plato meant by 'ideal'. "Idea" comes from a Greek verb,
'to see'. That's why it's hard to see. Urmson wrote on "idea" in his
Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Some philosophicalese (if that's the word) uses
"idea-L", to make it different from 'idea', when 'idea' should do.
Grice might wonder:
Is there a sense to 'idea' and a DIFFERENT sense to 'ideal'?
His answer would be, "I don't THINK so." His favourite example was the circle.
"Surely if I draw a circle, it won't be a perfectly Platonic ideal of a circle,
but then at least I'm not as gross as J. L. Austin was when he said that France
was hexagonal, roughly."
McEvoy:
"The term "empirically realised" is just academese really: can there be social
organisation that is "non-empirically realised"? (I think Wittgenstein, who
Thornton follows, would have a fit at this nonsense)."
Fits can be good. I think "Alice in Wonderland" makes that point. One has to
specify what _kind_ of 'fit', medically, Witters would have.
McEvoy:
"What is true, according to Popper, is that the open society is an ideal but a
significantly realisable ideal. So what? We kind of knew this."
"Ideal" is a technicism, or as McEvoy might prefer, an academese in Kant -- so
one has to be careful.
McEvoy:
"The question is why we should prefer an open to a closed society - and it's
not as simple as it looks."
Well, it's not simple because before that question, you (or at least I) should
question if I want to use a metaphor. Popper liked a metaphor: "open society".
I'm not sure 'open' has more than one sense. The literal sense is physical. The
membrane of an amoeba, say, is open -- osmosis -- The door is open -- A society
open? Reminds me of Thatcher: there are people, and families -- I guess that if
pressed hard, Thatcher would say that there are open people and open families.
McEvoy:
"To really understand Popper's view of the open society we have to understand
Popper's theory of knowledge - and Thornton doesn't."
Incidentally, "Thornton" is a very English surname -- vide "The English Place
Name Society" --: there was a place, somewhere, a 'town' (or tun, or -ton) full
of thorns. Possibly in the Midlands.
McEvoy:
"Btw, Popper is quite clear that there is a price to be paid for living in an
open rather than closed society and ... Thornton is again talking through his
chapeau when he asserts that Popper thinks open societies are "in every respect
superior" to closed ones. No, no, no. In fact, it would be possible to have a
closed society that was in many ways morally better than a possible open
society - and historically we may imagine there were relatively closed
societies which were morally better than parts of New York in 1973, though
those parts were in an open society. Thornton makes Popper sound childish in
his defence of the open society."
Perhaps Thornton is falling victim of a 'mixed metaphor' by Popper ("open" as
applied to society) in the first place!
McEvoy:
"But the biggest laugh is that Popper allegedly refutes totalitarianism as
"fundamentally incoherent" in its presuppositions. Only a professor of the
worst type would,"
-- where McEvoy is using "Type" as when Grice does alla Russell's Theory of
Types:
iv. My neighbour's three-year old understands Russell's theory of types.
McEvoy:
"I suggest, think the real problem with totalitarianism is NOT how it wastes
lives, leads to murder and torture and war, but that it is "fundamentally
incoherent" in its presuppositions. Thornton is on another planet to Popper,
intellectually and morally, in writing this rubbish. Popper does not argue that
historicism is "incoherent" but false. Nor is holism incoherent: it has many
coherent versions and some are even true - but "holism" as a form of social
explanation is mostly bunk."
Or debunked?
McEvoy:
"Again "incoherent" is just academese. Perhaps Thornton should "interrogate"
the "concept" of "incoherent" as part of his next substantial revision?"
Well, 'incoherent' derives from INCOHERENCE. Grice studied TWO types of
conversational anomalies:
A. conversational incoherence: as in
A: My birthday is tomorrow.
B: "The gull" is a play by Chekhov.
B. conversational incohesion: as in
A: My birthday is tomorrow.
B: "The gull" is a play by Chekhov.
So one has to be careful.
A conceptual analysis of 'incoherence' could run along the following lines:
v. x is incoherent to y iff
(a) x does not add to y
(b) x confuses Grice
(c) other
McEvoy goes on:
"Popper "does not engage in a moral defence of the ideology of liberalism"?
Well, yes and no. Popper does NOT defend the ideology of anything."
Unless Isaiah Berlin who hold the Oxford chair on the history of ideas, or
ideologies.
McEvoy:
"He's deeply against ideologies. But if he were to defend an ideology,
"liberalism" might be one: but it would not be the "liberalism" of 'market
fundamentalists' or of radical libertarians or anarchists - it would be the
liberalism needed to keep societies as "open" and non-violent as possible. And
that liberalism is as anti-ideological as any ideology gets."
Well, here Bartley, III, would come to criticize:
vi. Popper's ideology is not ideological.
very much sounds like the other paradox Bartley, III, discovered:
(C) Everything is controversial, including (C).
McEvoy goes on:
"But Thornton has just thrown me off my point and into depression. The point is
this: if you follow the link you will find that the guy that played George in
Seinfield is a Popperian. That's it. I'm off. I'm outta here. How Philosophy
Drives Discovery: A scientist's view of Popper [Audio]
How Philosophy Drives Discovery: A scientist's view of Popper [Audio]
----
I love Seinfeld -- but then I love Grice.
In the post McEvoy is commenting on, Omar Kusturica writes in: Intelligence,
emotional sophistication, and social interaction - move over, Rover
"I will use this post to slip in something. Sort of a material implication with
an epistemological twist. (Hopefully the Griceans will overlook this.)".
Underlook. Grice never learned how to overlook stuff. He was always
underlooking. Grice knew Greek (or "Grecian," as he preferred). "Material
implication" is a hybrid of Greek and Latin. "Material" is translating Greek
"hyle" as used by Aristotle, while "implico" is a very Ciceronian verb. Grice
was a defendant of the Stoic view of 'material implication'. When he travelled
from Oxford to Berkeley he was just fascinated that a member of the philo dept.
there was Benson Mates who was also defending Stoic material implication
without any epistemological twists of the type McEvoy things all Popperian
philosophy rests on, and that Thornton ignores. Or not.
Thornton on Grice can be read 'ambiguously': There are many Thorntons and there
are at least three Grices: Barbara Grice, the novelist; G. R. Russell, the
UEA/Norwich philosopher, and H. P. Grice, an Oxonian by trade.
Cheers,
Speranza
