[hist-analytic] The Immanuel

[jlsperanza at aol.com]

Reciprocal

-----Original Message-----
From: Baynesr at comcast.net
To: hist-analytic at simplelists.co.uk
Sent: Sat, Jan 9, 2010 9:31 pm
Subject: Re: Grice´s Highway Code
right now I'm taking a closer look at reciprocity;
oddly (?) it seems rooted in Biblical texts, at least insofar as it has
influenced the west. The nature of reciprocity is, of course, clear in 
Kant.
Alan Donagan supplies a basis I think for making a connection.

----

That would be the Golden Rule, right? I think I´ve read things about 
that in, of all journals, Philosophy. This journal was edited or still 
is by the Royal Society of Philosophy, or Royal Association, I forget. 
The old-fashioned shaped volumes always appealed me: and found that 
most of the articles published therein were particularly _English_, 
rather than aimed at a international audience like those in _Mind_ were.

I _think_ what Ayers calls the Lesbian Rule is a bit like the Golden 
rule, but I would have to revise that. If the Golden Rule, yes, indeed, 
I would think it has a base in the Old Testament (Don´t say ¨Biblical¨ 
unless you mean the whole thing! Just kidding). But on second thoughts, 
I think this thing is _New_ Testament stuff. St Matthew on do not do to 
others what you do not want to be done on you, or King James words to 
that perlocutionary effect.

I recall I was once exposing Grice´s "conversational maxims" regarding 
honesty or trustworthiness on this at a seminar with O. N. Guariglia -- 
he had my ¨German Grice¨ published in his journal, and cited by 
Habermas in his MIT collection --. And Guariglia would minimise my 
exposition by saying: That´s St. Matthew. Surely we need a stronger 
foundation than that.

Recall Grice (WoW) on not abiding by ´be trustful´. The one you are not 
letting down is yourself, not your reciprocal partner!

On the other hand, ´generality´ of application of a procedure, as Grice 
dubs it in "Method", _seems_ important. Recall that his pirots are 
really a Carnapian expression for

         persons

and that his ¨karulize elatically¨ may be translated as

        act rationally

-- So Grice is looking for a code, as it were, or "immanuel" as he 
charmingly calls it -- in a reference that is both Biblical and 
Kantian, as Chapman notes -- her _Grice_) where reciprocity somehow 
holds.

Now why would it?

This may relate to his second out of three concerns: generality of 
psychological predicates involved in these procedures. We do not want a 
moral or political (?) ´code´ to involve predicates which are specific 
to an office. So, for any pirot, we are discussing things that any 
pirot should expect any other pirot (including itself) would abide by.

Thus, "be trustful", once justifiable by these constraints can become a 
maxim or commandment (as I would prefer) of this immanuel. My Palacios 
paper I entitled, "The Conversational Immanuel", since I was interested 
in a moral -- or political -- grounding of the ten conversational 
maxims. I would also use the expression "decalogue", to mark the 
Biblical reference.

Oddly, when reading Chapman´s bio of Grice I was amused by this 
reference to Chapman to a note that Grice wrote on his bank statement 
of account. It read: "We may imagine that Moses brought something more 
than the 10 comms (sic) as he descended from Mt. Sinai", or words to 
that perlocutionary effect.

"Reciprocity" should be easy enough to formulate. It should involve 
"transitive" actions as it were with at least two arguments for at 
least two pirots. "X: Do not betray your friendship with Y". In Oxford, 
the polemic always was -- particularly I read about it in the online 
obit of S. N. Hampshire -- that one should rather not betray one´s 
friend than the Kantian, ´say the truth´. Grice pokes fun on this 
aspect of Kantian rigidity that he found difficult to digest, and as 
having itself attracted some criticism from Oxford quarters other than 
his own.

So it would be interesting how post-Kantian takes on reciprocity 
relate. You say it´s "clear in Kant". One thing that is not clear with 
me and Kant is his "apperceptual subject". In the case of the 
theoretical or alethic or pure as he prefers, reason, it´s always the 
"I think" of apperception. This is the Kantian "Subjekt" par 
excellence. In the case of his practical reason, I would think 
something ditto can be claimed for. In this case, the first step for a 
reciprocity constraint would be to extend the "I" of the Subjekt of 
apperception to something like a second person, the Thou. This is 
possibly done by Buber, but I´m not sure a Kantian would swallow such 
phenomenological load!

Etc.

Cheers,

J. L. Speranza
   for the Grice Circle