[lit-ideas] Re: Wittgenstein's Unpublications
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2014 06:09:32 -0500 (EST)
We are discussing the meaning of 'publish', and for that matter, unpublish.
You see, sometimes you see things like,
Grice, "The life and opinions of Grice", unpubl.
This 'unpubl'. is meant to stand for 'unpublished'. The idea is that Grice
did WRITE this.
There are various scenarios. In MOST cases, what Grice WROTE was READ as a
matter of course in a public setting. So they were 'published' in
Augustine's and Witters's original 'sense' (and true 'sense').
There is a different scenario, also existing, as when Grice had his
"Philosophical Eschatology", which he wrote but never published (or
unpublished)
UNTIL he decided to print it in "Studies in the Way of Words". WRITING
something for your self (or yourself, as Geary prefers) may NOT count as
'publish' (or not -- of course, because this trades on what we mean by 'mean'.
Does Emily Dickinson 'publish' her thoughts when she wrote her journal
entries, and locked the journal with a safe somewhere?).
Then there's the scenario of plagiarism, which is what Witters ended up
being involved with:
In a message dated 1/23/2014 5:04:37 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,
wokshevs@xxxxxx writes:
What objections could W possibly have to Toulmin's piggybacking
on his ideas?
I'm not sure where I read about this. But it DID strike me that Witters
would be so generous about his ideas about 'publishing' -- which I share --
("You publish if you share your ideas in a seminar") -- and yet was not too
happy when he found that Toulmin had 'used' his ideas in his doctoral
dissertation.
It may be that Toulmin never CREDITED Witters? I should re-read the preface
to "Place of Reason in Ethics" (manuscript), even if this disimplicates
that I should also read it in the first place or for the first time.
---- But then, it was all first started with Aristotle (if not Kantotle).
He was a master of crediting: Thales said this, and Pythagoras said that,
and Empedocles added this, and Parmenides refuted th'other. Never a
proposition, in Aristotle, is presented for its own sake, but as having been
utterered (or 'published') by someone. This can confuse and bore a reader.
I mean, we are mainly first and foremost interested in whether all is
composed of water, as Thales said; not in Thales having SAID so. And if we go
on
to write a doctoral dissertation: The aquatic composition of the kosmos,
WITHOUT crediting Thales, we should not be reprimanded too much.
Thus Aristotle:
"That from which is everything that exists and from which it first becomes
and into which it is rendered at last, its substance remaining under it,
but transforming in qualities, that they say is the element and principle of
things that are. …For it is necessary that there be some nature (φύσις),
either one or more than one, from which become the other things of the
object being saved."
Aristotle adds:
"Thales the founder of this type of philosophy says that it is water."
--- This, I assume, was one of Thales's unpublications -- or not (check
with Diogenes Laertius).
Note, finally, that there is a contradiction between Grice's use of
'unpublication' and Witters's liberal use of 'publication'. For, in this sense,
Grice's unpublications become publications. Or not.
I see that TOULMIN is NOT cited in the name index to Monk's bio of Witters;
so I wonder what the locus classicus or apparatus for the quotation BY
WITTGENSTEIN about TOULMIN is to be found. I tend to recall it was a letter by
Witters to Rush Rhees (again, one of his 'unpublications'). Or something
like that.
I think the implicature in Witters's remark is that he may have meant to
'publish' a book on the place of reason in ethics only to find that Toulmin
not only stated it all pretty clearly in his own doctoral dissertation (not
officially advised by Witters, though) which Toulmin eventually came to
'publish' officially (with Cambridge Universit Press). Or not.
Still, if someone has a handy reference of AUTHORS cited by Witters and can
check if Toulmin's name is mentioned there, one should be grateful!
Cheers,
Speranza
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