[lit-ideas] Re: Why is the Spanish Inquisition called Inquisition?
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 1 Nov 2015 21:02:37 +0000 (UTC)
Testing
Donal
On Friday, 30 October 2015, 14:26, Donal McEvoy
<donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Popper's importance as a thinker is partly measured by his effective
opposition to a series of prevalant intellectual impostures or hoaxes.
Induction is one. 'Scientific' Marxism or Freudianism, to name but two, are
another. Another is historicism (now largely out of fashion). Another is
totalitarianism (especially the belief that totalitarian organization is more
efficient than alternatives). On all these fronts, Popper's critiques have had
their impact, and for some have proved devastating.
Another hoax is "conceptual analysis". Here Popper's position has not made much
impact within schools of (academic, philosophic) thought inculcated to believe
their aim and purpose is to provide correct 'conceptual analysis'. It is almost
as if these schools carry on regardless, like a school of phlogiston-based
physics.
One way they carry on regardless is by claiming successes for their approach
that are in fact non-existent - non-existent because whatever of value they may
have produced has its value without vindicating the claim that its value
derives from it being a "conceptual analysis". The view it derives from
"conceptual analysis" is built on a kind of intellectual illusion or
legerdemain, akin to an optical illusion or a card trick.
JLS provides an example of this claiming of a success that in fact is
non-existent:
As for the title, 'inquisition' comes to 'inquire' and this has obvious
connections, as H. L. A. Hart would know, with English law (he brought
philosophical conceptual analysis to the elucidation of the sometimes sombre
area
of English law): >
My counter-thesis is this: nothing valid that may be extracted from Hart's
writings vindicates "conceptual analysis" (this is akin to the counter-thesis
that what may be valid in Marxism or Freudianism does not vindicate them as
general positions, because what it is valid can be accounted for in terms of
alternative general positions).
My counter-thesis is open to refutation by counter-example: JLS need only give
an example of something valid in Hart's work that vindicates "conceptual
analysis" because it cannot be accounted for except in terms of "conceptual
analysis".
For in order to defend themselves, the inquisitee had two possibilities:
(a) to find favourable witnesses, which is obviously akin, conceptually,
to so-called "substantive" evidence/testimony in English law
or
(b) to demonstrate that the witnesses of accusers were not trustworthy,
obviously akin, conceptually, to English law "impeachment" evidence/testimony.>
These two examples do not work because it is easy to explain how the effect of
supporting testimony, or cross-examination undermining testimony, may validate
a defence without that validation depending on any sort of "conceptual
analysis".
DL
On Friday, 30 October 2015, 11:18, "dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx"
<dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Back to the message dated 10/27/2015 5:54:21 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx writes that he "prefer[s]", when it comes to
Griceian
implicatural analysis, "the Spanish Inquisition."
As for the title, 'inquisition' comes to 'inquire' and this has obvious
connections, as H. L. A. Hart would know, with English law (he brought
philosophical conceptual analysis to the elucidation of the sometimes sombre
area
of English law):
For in order to defend themselves, the inquisitee had two possibilities:
(a) to find favourable witnesses, which is obviously akin, conceptually,
to so-called "substantive" evidence/testimony in English law
or
(b) to demonstrate that the witnesses of accusers were not trustworthy,
obviously akin, conceptually, to English law "impeachment" evidence/testimony.
But there was no Inquisition in England, unless broadly understood:
A) When the Catholics were in power -- vide the film "Lady Jane" with
Helena Bonham Carter and Cary Elwes. She ("Lady Jane" not Helena who is merely
acting) underwent some sort of inquisition.
B) In contexts other than religious trials where substantive testimony and
impeachment testimony are applied.
C) My favourite case has been recently studied by the brother of Princess
Diana. When those who revolted against the king of England (or UK, I
forget), they were inquired, and later found guilty.
As one reads at:
http://www.nhregister.com/arts-and-entertainment/20150227/princess-dianas-br
other-historian-charles-spencer-pens-grisly-killers-of-the-king
"Several men met their end in gory spectacle in mid-1600s England. They
were hanged until unconsciousness, revived, had their genitals cut off, were
disemboweled with a red-hot gouger and their innards roasted in front of
them. They were conscious until they bled out or their vital organs were
yanked out and held high for an excited crowd."
"It was a pretty unpleasant half an hour ... it could go on that long,"
Spencer said.
"But there’s more: An executed man was then "quartered" by the state’s
hooded executioner — cut into four pieces — and his head stuck on a pole."
Of course, this was for Spencer not just half as bad as what "the French
did" across the pond:
"We managed," he says, "to sort out what worked for us as a monarchy. And
it was a reduced one that gave continuity, tradition, a sense of history but
didn’t interfere too much in basic rights. This was NOT something done in
the rest of Europe. So when you had the French revolution, it was an
absolute chaotic bloodbath for the monarchy."
-- "with neither 'substantive' nor 'impeachment' testimony," as one
surviving friend of Queen Marie Antoinette later complained. "And she was a
good
Catholic, too."
Cheers,
Speranz
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