Re: from language to metaphysics

Speranza

This is a running commentary on Jones's recent post.

Jones writes:

"I think we have segued (not sure whether I like that word, but there it is) from vacuous names and truth value gaps at the Grice Club, via the notion of presupposition, with the assistance of Collingwood, into metaphysics here at The City of Eternal Truth. This I think, is a fine thing, and I thought I would just say why (I think its a fine thing) as a preliminary to milking it (at a leisurely pace). Why? Well, reflecting on the matter I concluded that "The City of Eternal Truth" should be, at its most profound, about metaphysics. The blog was invented by Speranza, though the phrase he took (of course) from Grice."

Indeed. Grice playfully quoting from "Pilgrim's Progress".

"And somehow this was supposed to involve Carnap as well. Speranza and I were at the time entering into collaboration on this essay called "a conversation between Carnap and Grice", which might possibly be about to move forward. This is how I now see it.
In the essay the idea was for Carnap and Grice to talk to each other and see whether their differences really were as great as they might at first sight appear.
First of all they have to try to understand each other so as to eliminate apparent, purely verbal, differences, and to work at the remaining apparently substantive disagreements to see whether a resolution of some kind might be possible.
So there is a bit of a focus on differences here. This gentle friction was to be a creative stimulus, a font of new ideas. The City of Eternal Truth is, as a Carnap/Grice enterprise, the other way up. It is a place where we focus on the fundamental issues on which Carnap and Grice might agree, a home for some of those new ideas. Apart from the Carnap/Grice angle, the idea of "Eternal Truth" does seem to push in the direction of metaphysics. It does seem to brush aside transient empirical accidents, including any features of language, natural or formal, which need not have been so. Of course, this still leaves natural laws, but they are for science, and that leaves us with metaphysics for the philosophers. But what hope would there be for a City built around a consensus between Carnap and Grice on metaphysics? At first glance there seems to be no common ground between them here.
I think however that a closer look might yield a more positive outlook, and that this might provide a nice way of moving forward for Speranza and I (Grice*! and Carnap*!, and anyone else interested) on both the "conversation" essay and the City blog. So here is my first take. We have to try to eliminate purely verbal disagreements, which are just obstacles, and then see whether, with some common terminology we can identify some common ground. Of course, we all know that Carnap completely and rather dogmatically rejected metaphysics in toto, whereas Grice was apparently much more liberal. Also we have Carnap quite keen on reductionist enterprises, which Grice calls minimalisms (or was it minimisms?)"

Minimalisms, I would think. "Minimism" is a minimal form of minimalism, if you mustn't. I think Grice refers to ONE Minimalism. I.e. all the -isms he cares to criticise (the 'betes noires' which Pilgrim Grice finds on his way to the City of the Eternal Truth) ARE variations on one single theme: the theme of minimalism.

----

"and thinks of perhaps as some grubby dogmatic empiricist nominalism. Grice on the other hand, is easy with metaphysics. We have him trying to understand Aristotle's metaphysics in a semi-formal way, and as an ordinary language philosopher he probably is OK with the enterprise which Strawson called "descriptive metaphysics" or even with Strawson's other kind (what was it?)."

I think he pretentiously called it 'revisionary'. Surely the antonym of 'descriptive' is _prescriptive_!

"To effect a reconciliation we have to work on both parties, in the first instance about language or terminology, for it seems to me that they really have quite different conceptions of what metaphysics is. There is also the difficulty about what "philosophy" is, but if we sideline value judgements about what philosophers ought to be doing, and bear in mind that Carnap at least was already, as he matured, softening some of his dogmas by refining his language (an example of which is to say "lacking in cognitive significance or content" instead of the bald and uncompromising "meaningless"). I'm going to pause there, to stop message bloat, and come back with some analysis of the different kinds of metaphysics at stake, before attempting to outline some ideas of metaphysics with which they might both be willing to move forward together (if they weren't dead!)."

Grice: "Try those who were great and dead as if they were great _AND LIVING_!" I know Jones did not mean any disrespect.

I love the idea of considering what we are talking about. Perhaps the blame is on Oxford. Back in the day, Collingwood, who wrote, "An essay in metaphysics", was appointed,

"Waynflete Professor of Metaphysical Philosophy" (there are only three Oxford philo chairs: all oddly starting with "W", White chair of moral philosophy, Wykeham chair of logic, and Waynflete chair of metaphysical philosophy.

I like to think that what _Waynflete_ was up to was the distinction between:

physical philosophy -- YES, most things were deemed 'philosophy' back in the day.
metaphysical philosophy.

In more Romantic (as per Latin/Italian, and the Romance languages) parlance, the distinction between:

natural ------------ physical
trans-natural ------ meta-physical

(It is true that this is reading too much onto Aristotle, who just meant, 'those things which lie _next_ to the physics -- 'ta meta ta physika'.

But I do find the idea of 'trans-naturalia', sort of interesting, if mystic.

----

Now, when discussing about Collingwood's idea of the absolute presuppositions (and metaphysics as the science (or doctrine or discipline) of absolute presuppositions, it may do to revise the scholastic terminology:

There was metaphysica proper (transnaturalia). But there was 'ontologia', and this was considered to be divided into:

ontologia generalis

ontologia specialis----- within the specialis we basically get a "Theory of Everything":

------------ The two branches of 'ontologia specialis' being:

(in that order):

cosmologia
anthropologia

----

Now, for some quotations from Grice's "eschatology" essay in WoW, which Jones can also consult.

Grice is interested in EXTENDING the range of 'metaphysics' qua discipline. He writes:

"Some time ago"

---- this was written in 1987, but knowing Grice's preference for meiosis/litotes, this can well be, "circa 1946":

"the idea occurred to me"

as opposed to somebody else

"that there might be TWO DISTINGUISHABLE
DISCIPLINES each of which might have SOME
claim to the title or, or a share of the
title of, Metaphysics. The first of these
disciplines I thought of as being

CATEGORIAL in character"

-- and comprising Strawson's 'descriptive' and 'revisionary' varieties.

"that is to say, I thought of it as operating
at or BELOW the level of CATEGORIES."

Grice's keyword par excellence.

"Following leads suppplied primarily by
Aristotle and Kant,"

Or Ariskant, as he also called him.

"I conceived of it as concerned with
the identification of the most general
attributes or classifications, the SUMMA GENERA,
under which the various specific subject-items
and/or predicates (predicate-items, attributes)
might fall, and with the
formulation of metaphysical PRINCIPLES
governing such categorial attributes
(for examle some version of a Principle
of Causation, or some principle regulating
the persistence of substances)."

Recall that Collingwood thinks of the Principle of Causation as an 'absolute presupposition'.

Grice continues:

"The SECOND discipline I thought of as being

SUPRACATEGORIAL

in character; it would bring together

DIFFERENT subject-items BENEATH single
classificatory characterisations, and perhaps
would ALSO specificy PRINCIPLES which would have
to be exemplified by items brought together
by this kind of supracategorial assimilation."

Where 'assimilation' is the keyword. A metaphysical sentence belonging to this 'eschatological' branch would have complex truth-conditions, say.

Grice goes on:

"I hoped that the SECOND discipline, which I was tempted
to label"

and he did label

""Philosophical Eschatology"", might provide for
the detection of AFFINITIES between

CATEGORIALLY DIFFERENT REALITIES

--- thus, protecting the principles associated with
_particular_ categories from _suspiction of arbirariness_."

(or vacuity, pace Carnap?)

Grice continues:

"In response to a possibly objection to the
effect that

IF A PAIR OF ITEMS
were REALLY [trouser-word. Speranza]
categorially DIFFERENT
from one another, they could ****NOT****
[on risk of losing 'the bounds of sense', echoing Kant/Strawson]
BE ASSIMILATED
under a single classificatory head (since
they would be incapable of sharing
any attribute [[Jones may like to consider a set-theoretical reversion of this]),

I planned to reply that

EVEN

should it be _impossible_

for categorially different items
to _share_ a single attribute, this
objection might be INCONCLUSIVE
since 'assimilation' might take
the form of ascribing to the items
assimilated NOT A _COMMMON_ attribute
BUT an _ANALOGY_."

Keyword: Greek 'analogia'.

Grice continues:

"Traditionally, in such disciplines as
theology, analogy has been the resort of
those who hoped to find a way of comparing
entities so radically diverse from one
another as God and human beings."

Or cream-in-one's-coffee and personal objects of affection:

"You are like the cream in my coffee."
"You are the cream in my coffee." (discussion under 'metaphor' as conversational implicature, in WoW:ii).

Grice goes on:

"Such a mode of COMPARISON would
of course require careful examination."

Davidson, for example, thinks that

"The moon is made of cheese" is true iff the moon is made of cheese. The uttering of an analogy, a comparison, and a METAPHOR, involve supracategorial floutings to truth-conditional semantics: it's not the uttering of what is literally _false_ that matters.

Grice goes on:

"Such examination I shall for the moment defer,
as I shall also defer mention of certain further
ideas which I associated with philosophical
eschatology"

back in the day -- 'some time ago'.

Grice goes on:

"For a start, then, I might distinguish THREE
DIRECTIONS as being ones in which a philosophical
eschatologist [treading the path towards the City of Eternal Truth, as it were]
might be expected to deploy his energies."

FIRST:

"The provision of generalised
theoretical accounts which UNITE
specialised metaphysical [and why not 'physical' or
scientific? Speranza -- what is _metaphysical_
about the Principle of Causation? Speranza]
principles which are separated from another
by CATEGORY-BARRIERS."

Grice must be amusing himself with what was specially the obsession of another Waynflete professor of metaphysical philosophy: Gilbert Ryle ("Category mistakes", 'category-barriers' -- the 'mind' and the 'body' as the ultimate 'category mistakes' -- the ghost in the machine).

Grice goes on:

SECOND:

"Fulfilment of such an undertaking
might involve an adequate theoretical
characteristation of a relation of

AFFINITY,

which, like the more familiar
relation of SIMILARITY [if a is identical to a,
is a similar to a? Speranza] offers a foundation
for the generalisation of specialised
regularities, but which, unlike similarity,
is sensitive, or has a high degree of INSENSITIVITY,
to the presence of category-barriers."

Ryle's example: "Saturday is in bed with Monday."

----

Grice goes on: "To suggest the possibility of such a relation is NOT, of course, to CONSTRUCT it, nor even to provide a guarantee that it CAN be constructed."

THIRD:

"An investigation of the notion of
analogy,"

a/b = c/d

A C
---::---
B D

"You are like the cream in my coffee"

"and a delineation of its links
with other seemingly comparable
notions, such as METAPHOR, and PARABLE. Can this
list be expanded?"

Yes: disimplicature. "You're the cream in my coffee" Grice has, elsewhere, as the epitome of the disimplicature. So, even in the descriptive realm of metaphysics of the analysis of ordinary language use, one has to provide for the fact that utterers _disimplicate_ by what they say, never mind _mean_!

Grice:

"At his point I turn to a paper by
Judith Baker, entitled, "Another Self": Aristotle
on friendship."

Grice:

"On the present occasion, my concern is
focused on METHODOLOGICAL"

rather than substantive

"questions; so I propose first to consider
the ideas about METHODOLOGY, in particular
Aritotle's methodology, ... and then to
inquire whether these ideas suggest any
additions to the prospective subject matter
of philosophical eschatology. ... Baker
suggests that Aristotle's philosophical
method, .... treats the existence of a
common consensus of opinions with respect
to a proposition as conferring at least
provisional validity (validity ceteris paribus)
upon the proposition in question."

---- "Implicatures happen."

Grice goes on:

"In general, no external [Carnap's sense? I think so! Spernza] justification
of the acceptance of the objects of universal agreement is called for. This idea
has not always been accepted by philsoophers."

... excursus on Moore.

"If my perception of Moore is correct,
he would in Aristotle's view have been looking for
an EXTERNAL justification for the
acceptance of the deliverances of common sense where
none is required."

--- Ditto for "science"

Grice on

Eddington's table (cited elsewhere in The Grice Club) in "Actions and Events". Why accept the atomic table as the _real_ table?, and so on.

Grice goes on:

"Though no EXTERNAL justification is
required for accepting the validity
of propositions which are generally or
universally believed, the validity
in question is only provisional. For a
common consensus may be undermined
in either of two ways."

FIRST:

"There may be a common consensus that
proposition A is true, but there may be
two mutually inconsistent propositions,
B1 and B2, where while there is a common consensus
that either B1 or B2 is true, there is no common
consensus concerning the truth of B1 or the truth
of B2; there are, so to speak, two schools
of thought, one favouring B1 and one favouring
B2. Furthermore (we may suppose) the combination
of B1 with A will yield C1, whereas the combination
of B2 with A will yield C2; and C2 and C2 are
mutually inconsistent. In such a tiatuion it
becomes a question whether the acceptability
of A is LEFT INTACT. If it is, a method will
have to be devided for deciding between B1 and B2."

SECOND:

"To cope with problems created by the apperance
on the scene of conflicts or other stumbling blocks
the theorist may be expected to systematise
the data which are vouched for by
common consensus by himself devising general
propositions which are embedded in his theory. Such
generalities will NOT be directly attested
by the consensus, but their

ACCEPTABILITY

will depend on the

ADEQUACY

of the theory in which they appear to yield
propositions which are directly matters
of general agreement. When an impasse ("aporia")
arises, the aim of the theorist will be
to ELIMINATE the impasse with minimal
disturbance to the material regarded as acceptable
BEFORE the impasse, including the
theoretical generalities of the theorist."

-----

Excursus on Baker's interpretation of 'amicus' = alter ego.

"... Baker mentions ... a certain kind of
criticism... by David Sachs." Changing the subject. Cfr. Quine, Duhem, Carnap.

----

Grice concludes the first section of his essay:

"The reflections in which I have just
been engaged, then, suggest to me

TWO FURTHER items which might

be added to a prospective subject matter
of philosophical eschatology."

---

"One would be a classification
of the various kinds of impasse or aproia
by theorists who engaged in the
Aristotelian undertaking of attempting
to systematise mterial with which they are
presented as LAY inquirers, together with
a classification of the variety of
responses which might be effective against
such impasses."

---

"The other would be a thoroughgoing
analysis of the boundary between
legitimate and ILLEGITIMATE imputations
to a theorist of the sin of 'having
changed the subject."

---- E.g. "I was talking legal 'right'; you are introducing MORAL right!"

----

Grice goes on:

"Beyond these additions I have at the moment
only one further suggetsion."

Grice's last suggestion:

"Sometimes, the activities of the eschatologist
might involve the suggestion of certain

PRINCIPLES

and some of the material embodied in
those principles might contain the potentialty of
independent life, a potentiality which it would
be theoretically advantageous to explore. This
further exploration might be regarded as
being itself

A PROPER OCCUPATION

for the eschatologist

[as opposed to the improper ones, alla pace Carnap!]."

"One example might be a further
examination of the theoretical
notion of [say] an alter ego..."

"Another example might be the
kind of abstract development of such
notions as

"MOVEMENT,"

that which moves, and what which is moved..."

-----

As from Section II, he proposes to analyse the tricky adjective 'right' in Neo-Socratic and neo-Thasymachean lines... (all quotations were as from WoW, pp. 304ff.)

Cheers.