RT list: Kjøll, The content of content

Thanks Georg.

--- And not to sound 'cranky' (I would never use that word -- less so
about myself, but I have heard people use it and I can echo them, can't I?)
since, who am I to just look on the non-bright (and silly -- i.e. my inability
to download something) of a VERY bright website etc. you are creating!

--(I did try again and this time it abrupted with the 'adhoc' and then it
was running very fine and the telephone rang -- so I'll try again later).

I looked for the nice website and see that G. Kjøll has indeed his
research (M. A., UCL) on one of the notions I find most fascinating in analytic
philosophy of Oxford Griceanism: C. A. B. Peacocke's _content_.

------
(A minimal nothing: My cousins are Willemøs, I think -- They spell it
Willemoes, with an umlaut on the e, as in the 'e' of Noel Coward. I wonder if
the empty-set symbol on your o is similar, and thus rephrasable as "Kjoel"?]
-----

Anyway, I think that your titling your MA study "The content of content"
was brilliant, and I hope you can indeed research on non-perceptual things
like 'love' etc. in your PhD dissertation and beyond (The other day a friend
shared with me this rather sad view: "If vision and perception guided my
life, my life would have been meaningless, since none of the most
experiences I have shared have been perceptual" -- or words to that effect, "I don't
_see_ my feelings", he said).

----
But back to  'content'. In my own PhD dissertation, "A study in Gricean 
pragmatics", I did  use 'content', because I did NOT want to use 'proposition'.
My  inspiration was Grice -- and I like your viewing him as a 'cognitive' 
theorist,  or at least a 'natural' one, as I'd prefer, "science of mind in 
nature" --  philosophical psychology was his forte.
In 'Reply to Richards' he is  addressing the challenge by R. Warner and R. 
Grandy (the "Richards") as to  whether he (Grice) would commit to the 
existence of propositions -- a sport that  some philosophers have been seen 
practising on weekdays. 
He said, "No  way!".
But then, "on second thoughts, perhaps I do". Then he appealed to  his 
co-chess-player at UC/Berkeley, George Myro. Myro had provided a  transcendental 
(in the Kantian sense) justification for 'propositions' as  CONTENTS of 
propositional attitudes.
Even then, Grice says, 'that would  provide a justification for a 
propositional COMPLEX, not a proposition per se.  And there are other subtleties in 
the approach.
In any case for my thesis  I had to focus on at least _one_ proposition, so 
I was reminded of that nice  little drawing in S. E.  Toulmin,
(The uses of  inference):
^     ^
o o  
U                  &
+ + + + + +  + + + +
The cat is on the mat
(or the cat sat on the  mat)
So I said, _That_ could work as my 'content'. 
For us,  metarepresentations (alla Grice in "Methods in philosophical 
psychology") are  merely iterated propositional attitudes. Grice indeed uses 
subindexes alla  Hintikka:
F2(A, p)
means A frames that p, and frames  that he frames that p
G2(A, p)
means A 'goals' that  p, and goals that he goals that p.
(Grice prefers 'judges' and 'wills'  and defines indeed 'wills' in terms of 
judges -- and he uses the iteration or  meta-representativeness to account 
for alleged incorrigibility and "privileged  access").
----
I proposed, with Peacocke ("Content") that there's  no way to understand 
the logical form of
(ix)Cx & Mx
--- "The  cat [where i is the iota operator] sat on the mat"
without an account of  the percepta involved.
So, merging Myro-Grice-and-Peacocke I came out  with the 'content complex' 
and an A+ in my PhD dissertation, if you can believe  that!
-----
"The content of content" sounds delightfully like 'The  meaning of meaning' 
by Ogden/Richards. J. Constable (who subscribes to  RELEVANCE-L) has now 
cited Grice in his reprint of that seminal book thanks to  ... shall I say -- 
yours truly? Constable very finely cites from Russell Dale's  PhD for NYU 
where he criss-crosses Grice with Ogden/Richard.
Peacocke has  been obsessed with content since I met him (theoretically). 
His education is  strictly Oxonian, and he succeeded Dummett as Waynflete 
Prof. of Metaphysical  Philosophy -- although he has been seen on the other 
side of the pond as well.  He attended seminars with Grice in the 70s at 
Berkeley. His 'inaugural lecture'  with Oxford is a separatum on the 
transcendental justification of content. So he  _is_ the author, I find, to take 
seriously when considering 'content' from a  philosophical perspective, I hope.
Cheers,
J. L.  Speranza
The Grice Circle,
The  Swimming-Pool Library,
Bordighera.
In a message dated 7/10/2009 11:15:30 A.M. Eastern Daylight  Time, 
georgkj@gmail.com writes:
I've had feedback from one other person about  the talks ending
abruptly, but the sound files should all be at full length  (I just
checked). Please let me or Nick know if anyone else has this  problem
and it persists.
It might help to reload the page or download the  file and play it in
another program (WMA, RealPlayer,  Quicktime...).
Best,
Georg  
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