[lit-ideas] kreisel

From: Adriano Palma <Palma@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 2 Mar 2015 05:51:54 +0000
Georg was (aside from doing the subset spaces of dna and a few misunderstood 
contributions to philosophy givne the imbecils worshipping compatriot and 
friend Wittgenstein) the character behind murdoch's texts in  NUNS AND 
SOLDIERS, for those who read her books. Both Kreisel and Murdoch are dead, btw

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Sent: 02 March 2015 04:49
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Subject: [lit-ideas] Kreiseliana

In a message dated 3/1/2015 12:39:36 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, 
Palma@xxxxxxxxxx writes:
>Kreisel
 
Kreisel’s unwinding program was a reaction to Hilbert’s consistency  
program. It aimed to substitute clear mathematical results for what were said 
to  
be vague, misplaced, crude foundational goals.
 
But Kreisel was, perhaps, also a winding proof Emerson's dictum  that 
conversation without tropes is not permitted.
 
While teaching at the University of Reading, Kreisel would frequently  take 
a train into London. 
 
There was a particularly fast train that was timed just right for the shows 
 in London, and he liked that.
 
One day Kreisel showed up at the station, at the usual time, and a  STOPPED 
train *was* there.
 
He got into it. 
 
However, he ended up being accosted by the train conductor *just after* he  
had got on. 
 
"The train doesn't stop here sir!", the train conductor's conversational  
move was.
 
(The train, which came from Bristol, had only STOPPED at Reading to  get 
water -- but the train conductor surely had more complicated jobs to hand to  
provide an explicature to Kreisel). 
 
"In that case I didn't get on here." was Kreisel's counter-move in the  
conversational game, as he later reported it to his friend Irish Murdoch. 
 
Murdoch found the whole episode amusing and exploiting the ambiguity of  
"doesn't stop". Was the train conductor not being truthful, or was he being  
merely sloppy?
 
With Emerson, one may take the train conductor as indulging in a  'trope':
 
i. The train from Bristol to London does not, as a rule stop at Reading. We 
 are only getting water. This is not a stop stop. 
 
However, that clear meaning is expressed by the appropraite trope,  coming 
from a busy train conductor.
 
ii. The train doesn't stop here, sir!
 
Kreisel's response is similarly addressed to the trope, by involving a  
logical contradiction -- which coming from a famous philosophical logician is  
perhaps doubly irritating. 
 
Had Kreisel's remark been addressed at what the train conductor  MEANT 
(rather than 'explicated') a more polite reply would have been by way of  an 
apology?
 
But then Irish would possibly have added, "We are not amused."

Cheers,
 
Speranza
 
 
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[lit-ideas] kreisel

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