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Contemporary Thought And Politics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 February 2009

Ernest Gellner
Ernest Gellner
Affiliation:
London School of Economics and Political Science
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Philosophy , Volume 32 , Issue 123 , October 1957 , pp. 336 - 357
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy1957

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References

page 338 note 1 Logical positivism may even formally have implications of a first order kind. Take a system of thought S which contains a number of metaphysical propositions m1, m2,. etc. and a number of valuations e1, e2, etc. and proposition n asserting that all constituent propositions of S are equally valid. The assessment which logical positivism necessarily makes of m1, m2,. etc., in conjunction with n, has obvious implications for e1, e2,. etc. There is no reason why we should abandon n. Many systems of thought are in fact complicated versions of the schema S.

page 339 note 1 Cf. A letter by Mrs. Mary Warnock in Encounter, January 1955, rebutting criticisms of contemporary philosophy by Mr. Philip Toynbee in the previous number of the same journal. Mr. Toynbee was technically quite wrong, and substantially right, in equating contemporary philosophy with logical positivism. From the viewpoint of what the general educated public wants to know, the differences are not great. The critic of linguistic philosophy faces the dilemma: either he will be accused of being out of date, or of not having substantiated his charges, for the latest and most typical representative of the movement doesn't publish much.

page 341 note 1 Cf. Mr. Quinton's contribution to “Philosophy and Belief” in The Twentieth Century, June 1955.

page 341 note2 Cf. “Philosophy and Belief,” The Twentieth Century, June 1955.

page 342 note 1 As for example in Professor J. L. Austin's “Other Minds,” especially the summary on page 158, in Logic and Language (2nd Series), ed. A. Flew. For expansion of my argument, see “Use and Meaning,” The Cambridge Journal, 1951.Google ScholarPubMed

page 344 note 1 I need hardly say that in either case, and especially with regard to the latter, linguistic philosophy, my diagnosis of what it ethically and politically entails or fails to entail is based on a simplified model which doesn't perhaps quite correspond to any individual thinker. With this qualification, I should claim to have captured by means of that simplified model the essence of a common way of thought.

page 344 note 2 “Philosophy and Belief,” The Twentieth Century, June 1955.

page 346 note 1 Though even this analysis may be questioned, for we have the opinion of no less an authority on first-order moral language than Lord Halifax that there are times in the lives of nations when expediency takes precedence over principles. Cf. Chaim Weizmann, Trial and Error, p. 406.

page 347 note 1 Cf. Acton, H. B., The Illusion of the Epoch, London, 1955, p. 109.Google Scholar

page 348 note 1 For a striking example of this kind of reasoning, see Professor H. L. Hart, Arist. Soc. Proc. Supplementary Volume, 1949, p. 79 et. seq. It is interesting to observe Professor Hart's obviously sincere conviction that the limpid clarities of Bertrand Russell's thought can be shown by this method to be in some deeper sense inadequately endowed with meaning. This type of linguistic philosopher finds depths of unsuspected lack of meaning, just as his metaphysical predecessor found most unsuspected significances. The common man on whose behalf these doubly sophisticated philosophers defend pristine usage would be even more surprised by their discoveries than he had been by those of the metaphysicians.

page 349 note 1 Even if, according to Mr. T. S. Eliot, it is a sound principle of classical Indian logic.

page 350 note 1 “Philosophy and Belief,” The Twentieth Century, June 1955, p. 519.

page 350 note 2 Cf. Wisdom, J. O., “Psycho-analytic Technology,” in The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, May 1956, p. 16.Google Scholar

page 351 note 1 To avoid misunderstanding, I should perhaps state quite explicitly that I am not criticizing Miss Macdonald's and Mr. Weldon's crucial premiss about valuations not being testable as factual assertions are. What I am criticizing is a certain evasiveness in facing the consequences of this position, and certain inconsistences that arise when this piece of positivism is incorporated in the broader linguistic philosophy of to-day. The unwillingness to face this issue, often disguised as an impatient and almost irritable unwillingness to admit that there is a problem that is being evaded, is characteristic of the movement's position on this question. It is found in the otherwise much subtler analysis of Mr. Hare. Cf. R. Hare, The Language of Morals, p. 195, and Universalisability, Arist. Soc. Proc. 1954–55. pp. 302–304.

page 352 note 1 Fewer people believe in sovereignty nowadays than believe in God. I imagine this is because the necessary combination of de facto and de jure characteristics can only be located with plausibility in a transcendental realm, and for some reason people are at present more disinclined to be transcendentalists about society than about the universe at large.

page 353 note 1 J. S. Mill, Utilitarianism. Chap. V.

page 353 note 2 Actually, Mr. Quinton strengthens his case by reducing retributivism to the minimal doctrine that guilt is the necessary but not sufficient condition of punishment, which he defends by pointing out the discretionary element in penal systems. Though technically correct, this misrepresents the spirit of retributivism, for “guilt” also entails the desirability of punishment, even if it does so with certain limiting conditions that may be vague. But in any case, even for this weak form of retributivism, my general point holds. Even this meaning of “punishment” embodies an ethical theory, and the meaning may be altered if the theory is abandoned. Consider the hilfsbegriff of “objective guilt” in Darkness at Noon, where a radically utilitarian attitude to punishment is squared with the old Quintonian meaning of the term by inventing a new sense of “guilt.” As far as logic goes the trick could have been brought off as well by a new sense of “punishment.”

page 354 note 1 The defects of philosophy may have something to do with the fact that there are too many philosophers whose favourite reading is Jane Austen, just as defects of economics may be connected with excessive dependence on Lewis Carroll. But the occasional quotations from Alice in philosophy show healthy cross-disciplinary stimulation.

page 357 note 1 This might be a fair comment on Professor Oakeshott, as Laslett seems to be implying at one place, but seems to me inapplicable to a great deal of political theory. But Laslett discounts this by declaring, flatly, that the key notion of such philosophy as avoids this criticism, namely representation, is a “typical muddle.” Why?