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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 January 2009
Within the nice, sharp and narrow quillets of the law in Temple Hall where the lawyers' argument had been loud and long over a pedigree question between Somerset and Plantagenet, as within academic bowers, within the broad and rigorous questions of philosophy and jurisprudence, there is opportunity for the application and operation of “Ramsey's Maxim”. This maxim claims that where there is a prolonged and persistent dispute between two persons, it is often the case that the disputants, while they are at odds about the conclusions and arguments derived from or urged in support of premises, are really in agreement about an assumption, hypothesis, premise, fundamental to their argument, which is false. They share a common but false premise.
1 See Bambrough, Renford, Universals and Family Resemblances, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 1960–1961Google Scholar, and “Principia Metaphysica”, Philosophy (April 1964), pp. 97, 103.Google Scholar The reference is to Ramsey, F. P., Foundations of Mathematics, pp. 115–116.Google Scholar
2 [1963] C.L.J. p. 270.
3 (1956) 72 L.Q.R. 562.
4 Philosophy and Language (Oxford, 1960), at p. 24Google Scholar, reprinted in The Concept of a Person (Macmillan, 1963)Google Scholar, Chap. I, “Philosophy and Language”. For an analysis and criticism of Ayer's views see “Verbalism, Veracity and Validity”, by the author in Cambridge Review, Vol. 85, No. 2077, May 23, 1964, pp. 443–449. Further, see the critical review of Ayer's earlier book Language, Truth and Logic in Philosophy and Psycho-analysis by Wisdom, J. (Blackwell, 1957), pp. 229–247.Google Scholar Professor Wisdom's criticisms of logical positivism, read in conjunction with his remarks on the law, contained in his essays on “Gods” and “Philosophy, Metaphysics and Psycho-analysis” reprinted in Philosophy and Psycho-analysis, pp. 149–168, and pp. 248–282, bring out the philosophical nature of jurisprudential questions and the nature of philosophy as revealed in legal questions.
5 The Definition of Law (C.U.P., 1958), Chap. I.
6 The Meaning of Meaning (6th ed., 1944).
7 “Language and the Law” (1945) 61 L.Q.R. pp. 71, 179, 293, 384Google Scholar; and (1946) 62 L.Q.R. p. 387.
8 [1963] C.L.J. p. 270.
9 (1956) 72 L.Q.R. p. 556.
10 (1958) 4 Jo.S.P.T.L.(n.s.) 143.
11 (1945) 61 L.Q.R. pp. 71, 179, 293, 384; (1946) 62 L.Q.R. p. 387.
12 See above.
13 Language, Truth and Logic (London, 1936).Google Scholar
14 Ayer, A. J., The Concept of a Person (London, 1963)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Chap. 1.
15 As to the many meanings and different accounts of verification and verifiability, see Waismann, “Verifiability”, reprinted in Logic and Language (First Series) edited by Flew, pp. 117–144.
16 p. 278, n. 12.
17 (1956) 72 L.Q.R. 568. “Pushed to its logical conclusion the argument of the a priori theorists leads to the implication that there cannot be any empirical study, still less discovery, unless one is led by the hand: that one cannot understand any discussion about law or the concepts of law unless and until one has defined ‘Law’. Such an implication is refuted by the facts. Generations of students and practitioners have managed very well without elaborate a priori concepts”. Cf. King's attack on Hart in similar terms cited in text, and cf. also Dias' conclusion with King “familiarity with the law is not an illusion”, see infra, p. 271.
18 Ibid. 569.
19 (1963) C.L.J. p. 272, n. 5.
20 Ibid. 271.
21 Hart, The Concept of Law (Oxford, 1961), p. 208.
22 King, op. cit. 271.
23 Hart, op. cit., p. 5.
24 King, op. cit., p. 276.
25 Ibid., p. 277, n. 10.
26 4 Jo.S.P.T.L. 143 (1958).
27 Logic and Language, Second Series (ed. Flew), pp. 16–17.
28 (1956) 72 L.Q.R., p. 556.
29 Ibid. p. 557.
30 Ibid.
31 Ibid. p. 559.
32 See Hanson, Patterns of Discovery (Cambridge University Press, 1958), Chap. 2.
33 (1956) 72 L.Q.R. pp. 560–561.
34 Ibid. 561–562.
35 (1956) 72 L.Q.R. p. 567.
36 Ibid.
37 (1956) 72 L.Q.R. p. 569.
38 Ibid. pp. 567–568.
39 (1956) 72 L.Q.R. p. 568.
40 Ibid. p. 572.
41 (1956) 72 L.Q.R. pp. 562–563.
42 Ibid. p. 563.
43 Ibid. p. 562.
44 “How I See Philosophy”, reprinted in Ayer, (ed.), Logical Positivism (Allen & Unwin, 1959), p. 351.Google Scholar
45 Ibid. p. 351.
45a See Aristotle on Justice a Paradigm of Philosophy in New Essays on Plato and Aristotle edited by Renford, Bambrough, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1964.Google Scholar
46 It is true that some mathematicians have attempted to justify mathematical logic by the use of analogies and induction, but this is not Dias's point. Einstein did not discover new truths in mathematics by using it in theoretical physics (see: The Meaning of Relativity, pp. 1–10). An account of analogy and induction is contained in Polya Analogy and Induction in Mathematics. Some philosophers of mathematics have suggested that the foundations of mathematics rest upon our intuitive knowledge of reality; others upon reality itself. These also differ from Dias's point. See generally Wang Eighty Years of Foundational Studies. See too Waismann An Introduction to Mathematical Thinking, chapter on mathematical induction.
47 Einstein Meaning of Relativity, p. 7. The whole of geometry may be founded upon this conception of distance. In the present treatment geometry is related to actual things (rigid bodies), and its theorems are statements concerning the behaviour of these things, which may prove to be true or false.
One is ordinarily accustomed to study geometry divorced from any relation between its concepts and experience. There are advantages in isolating that which is purely logical and independent of what is, in principle, incomplete empiricism. This is satisfactory to the pure mathematician. He is satisfied if he can deduce his theorems from axioms correctly, that is without errors of logic. The question as to whether Euclidean geometry is true or not does not concern him but for our purpose it is necessary to associate the fundamental concepts of geometry with natural objects; without such association geometry is worthless for the physicist. The physicist is concerned with the question as to whether the theorems of geometry are true or not.
48 “Geometry and Experience”. An expanded form of an address to the Prussian Academy of Sciences, Berlin, Jan. 27, 1921, quoted from Einstein's Sidelights of Relativity (London, 1922) cited in Albert Einstein: Philosopher and Scientist (Tudor, 1951), p. 250.Google Scholar
49 [1932] A.C. 562.
50 [1963] 2 Q.B. 43.
51 [1964] A.C. 465.
52 See Wisdom, “Gods”, Philosophy and Psycho-analysis, and see also “Philosophy, Psychology and Metaphysics”, Ibid.
53 [1964] A.C. 465 at p. 516.
54 [1963] C.L.J. at p. 300.
55 Ibid. at p. 301, note.
56 Ibid.
57 Ibid. n. 42.
58 Ibid.