RT list: Earliest account of relevance

-- in the mists of Ancient Greek, as perceived by the Stagirite!
 
I'm glad Relevance has made it to Italian via the Bologna-based publisher.

And then this is an English-Speaking world!

The other day, De Saussure was using the Urmsonian parenthetical,

(words to the effect):

> unfortunately, that was written in French

-- I sighed!

I mean, unfortunately to _who_. Talk of relevance! I for one *applaud* that
De Saussure expresses in the language he feels most comfy. We were all ever
so lucky!

The Rumanian translator was asking about 'Romance' terms for this and that
cognitive effect. Provide the anglo and we may help you out. I'm especially
interested in our resident Italian native speaker Alessandro Capone would say
about it!

Rilevanza indeed is a _legal_ Scots term, I understand -- B. Clark, who
hails from Aberdeen may confirm or disconfirm this --- the OED cites from the
Reg. Privy Council Scot) -- and connects it with imaginary (or plain vulgar?)
Latin relevantia cfr. sperantia (I'm glad to hear he is contracted for "RT" for
the Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics).

Now, back to Chapman, I think she quotes at some length Aristotle's _Cat._
where 'relevance' (or 'relation', really) is first introduced as a category.
Kant will just adapt and adopt Aristotle, and Grice is 'echoing' Kant, as we
all know.

What is _relation_ for Aristotle. He couldn't have used that Latinate term.
I for one, when doing classics, was always sometimes annoyed that linguists
(Short/Lewis) have thought that fero relates to 'latum' like that! Surely they
are different _roots_.

For Aristotle is all _very_ *abstract*. We have first category of 'primary
substance' (you and me, and this and that, tode ti). Then we have the which
and the how-much, the qualia and the quantum -- these are nicely cognate in
Greek, both starting with 'p-'.

And _then_ there's 'relation'. So, if there is some ordering to the
categories, it could be that:

* 'relation' (or 'relevance') qua category, can only develop once the
reasoner (or the 'pirot' to use Grice's parlance retrieved by Allott in his
reference to the 'genitor' in Grice 1975) has grasped an ability to manipulate the
'what', the 'how', and the 'how much'. I would think that Aristotle is
thinking in what *I* would think if asked to define 'relation' (The term was very
much in vogue in fin-de-siecle philosophers like Russell and Bradley).

We would need _two_ atoms, as it were (borrowing from Wittgenstein). In
Fregean logic, we would have

(Ex) (Ey) Ax & Bx & A'y & B'y

where A indicates a 'qualium' and B a 'quantum'

_and_ then (and only then) can we, alla Principia Mathematica, add the "R":

(Ex)(Ey)Ax & Bx & A'y & B'y & R(x,y)

Now, Grice was perhaps being 'conversational' (it was, after all, the "Logic
and Conversation" at Emerson!) when he expanded the 'maxim of Relation' as
'be relevant' -- echoing Nowell-Smith, 1955? --. For surely 'relation' and
'relevance' are, shall we say, false friends really. Coming from the Rivëa de
Ponente
 
I can only guess!

"relevare" being the Latin formation re- plus '-levare', to raise up (as in
Levante vs. Ponente -- the non-pretentious one), and so the OED tells us:

"ad. mediaval Latin "relevantem" (1481 in Du Cange), present participle of
Latin re-levare to raise up, etc. (see RELIEVE v.): cf. Italian rilevante ‘
auailefull, of importance, of worth, of consequence’ (Florio), F. relevant (17th
c. in Littré)"
 
whereas on the other hand (the right one?) 'relation' has such a
philosophical pedigree it _hurts_! (Why is Chapman so obsessed with things having or
lacking pedigree! You can blame _her_ for keeping my mind on _that_ track) and
it predates indeed English. From Short/Lewis:
 
relatio: in philosophical language: "reference," "regard," "respect," [and,
uninspiringly. JLS] "relation".
Cites:
 
1.
 
"illud quoque est ex relatione ad aliquid"
 
        Any thing relates to some thing else -- but this is _not_ why a
breach of the relevance principle unbounds rationality!
        or, "that relates to t'other"
 
 Quintilianus Book 8, 4, 21 (English version in Loeb)
 
2. "relatione factā non ad id"
 
Dig. 1, 1, 11 .
 
-- Of course, the strict Greek equivalent would be 'ana-phoric' --
(Liddell/Scott: "standing in relation", relative. Adv. anaphorikos relatively,
A.D.Pron.5.20 , al., D.T.636.12; with a reference, Stob.2.6.6, Gal. [p. 126]
18(1).504. Also Medic., bringing up blood, phlegm, Dsc.2.171, cf. Eup.2.39, Androm.
ap. Gal.13.31.
III. anaphorikon, to, treatise by Hypsicles on the ascension of stars; a.
pragmateiai Ptol.Alm. 8.6.
 
But if the Romans had to relate the Aristotle's abstract idea of 'relation',
anaphorically, to anaphora, I can't say I blame them!

Grice is using Kemp-Smith's rendering of Kant when he has Category of Manner
(for Kant's MODUS -- yet another use of that trick, as Allott notes re:
Grice 2001, 'mode' vs. 'mood' -- but maniere?)
 
I was recently discussing the interface Aristotle/Grice on _other_ issues:
the two geniuses shared a love for 'ta legomena' by 'hoi polloi' while at the
same allowing that every now and then 'the wise' (as they saw themselves as
being) could introduce the occasional 'philosophical technology'. Like
Heidegger in Germany, they were _struggling_ with a language to make that language
talk _metaphysics_! And 'relatio' (and its Greek antecessor) is the result of
one such fight, I claim!
 
How _this_ developed into a principle of relevance I delay for a longer
day...

Cheers,

JL
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Received on Thu Feb 19 18:51:49 2009