H. P. GRICE E J. L. SPERANZA: LA CONVERSAZIONE -- I VERBALI: RAIO

 G.: Il problema dell’essere, 1923. I did not know it was a problem then. S.: It was a problem for Aristotle, G., not a solution. G.: Exactly. Aristotle gave us the multiplicity of being, and then left the rest to generations of Italians with titles. S.: Raio among them. G.: Yes. Il problema dell’essere. One wants to ask at once: what is Raio, what is a saggio, and what has being done to deserve this. S.: A saggio is an essay, and Raio is a philosopher with enough sobriety to know that “essere” has caused mischief for centuries. G.: Soberly, perhaps. But “essere” is already the trouble. Aristotle says τὸ ὂν λέγεται πολλαχῶς, and Cicero gives us esse, and then every schoolmaster behaves as if the question had thereby become manageable. S.: It did become a question. G.: Yes, but not a good answer. The Greeks give us εἶναι, the Latins esse, the Italians essere, and the confusion remains identical through excellent vowels. S.: Same lingo, same problem? G.: Same lingo, same absence of solution. S.: Until you come with your Izzing and Hazzing and solve it all. G.: Precisely. I propose I(a,b)I(a,b)I(a,b) and H(a,b)H(a,b)H(a,b): aaa izz bbb, aaa hazz bbb. Better than “essere” at once, because it distinguishes the predicative and the possessive without allowing ontology to lounge in the grammar. S.: Aristotle would have said that being is said in many ways, and you are simply pruning the shrubbery. G.: Exactly. Good pruning is half of analysis. S.: So I(a,b)I(a,b)I(a,b) is for predication? G.: In the broad first instance, yes. “Socrates izz wise,” “the rose izz red,” “man izz mortal.” One can allow oneself a general predicative relation without pretending it is all one metaphysical tie. S.: And H(a,b)H(a,b)H(a,b)? G.: Possession, having, perhaps exemplification in a looser vein, though one must not let it become a dustbin. “Socrates hazz courage,” “the rose hazz redness,” “the state hazz citizens,” and so on. S.: You have not yet solved the multiplicity of being; you have merely given it two workmen’s entrances. G.: Better two entrances than one collapsing portico. S.: Then let us ask about the properties. Is III reflexive? G.: A dangerous question at once. If I(a,a)I(a,a)I(a,a), does everything izz itself? One is tempted to say yes, but then one has smuggled identity into predication. S.: Which you promised not to do. G.: Exactly. So III had better not be simply reflexive by fiat. S.: But “Socrates is Socrates” sounds harmless enough. G.: That is identity disguised as predication, one of the oldest philosophical rackets. S.: Then III is not identity. G.: Certainly not. If III were identity, we should gain nothing and merely redescribe boredom. S.: Is it transitive? G.: Again, with care. If I(a,b)I(a,b)I(a,b) and I(b,c)I(b,c)I(b,c), does I(a,c)I(a,c)I(a,c)? “Socrates izz Greek” and “Greek izz human” tempt one toward “Socrates izz human,” but that already depends on the logical type of the predicates involved. S.: So your III is not one relation but a family under a discipline. G.: Precisely. Better a disciplined family than the indiscriminate promiscuity of “essere.” S.: And HHH? Is having reflexive? G.: Heaven forbid. H(a,a)H(a,a)H(a,a) is usually nonsense, unless one is writing theology or poor metaphysics. S.: “A hazz a” is not a natural language sentence, even after wine. G.: Quite. And transitivity is equally treacherous. If H(a,b)H(a,b)H(a,b) and H(b,c)H(b,c)H(b,c), does H(a,c)H(a,c)H(a,c)? If Socrates has a cloak, and the cloak has holes, does Socrates have holes? S.: In some schools, yes. G.: Exactly why one needs the distinction. S.: Then your whole scheme is less a doctrine than a prophylactic. G.: All good analysis is. S.: And where does Raio stand while you perform surgery? G.: In the old corridor of “essere” as if the corridor itself were not haunted. Il problema dell’essere already sounds like a title generated by grammar before thought has had a chance to object. S.: But Aristotle is not merely grammatical. The multiplicity of being matters because substance, quantity, quality, relation, potentiality, actuality, truth, and accidental predication all crowd under εἶναι. G.: Precisely. Which is why I object to leaving them there. “Being” becomes a great common lodging-house for distinctions too shy to separate. S.: Then perhaps Raio’s merit is only to remind you that the problem was older than your notation. G.: I grant him that much. Still, one wants to know what his “problema” amounts to. Is it a problem because “being” is equivocal? Because ontology and predication have been confused? Because Aristotle used one word where a hygienic philosopher would have used several? S.: Very likely all of those. G.: Then he is at least in honourable trouble. S.: You sound almost kind. G.: Temporary weakness. Let us consider Aristotle properly. Τὸ ὂν λέγεται πολλαχῶς. Being is said in many ways. It is not one genus over all categories, and yet not mere noise. S.: Which is what keeps metaphysicians employed. G.: Exactly. Had Aristotle simply said “there are many relations here, let us distinguish them,” the Middle Ages might have been much shorter. S.: And poorer. G.: Perhaps. But tidier. S.: You always want tidiness where civilisation wanted commentary. G.: Commentary is often what happens when a distinction is delayed. S.: Then Cicero’s esse? G.: Esse only perpetuates the difficulty under a Roman accent. One says “esse” and thinks one has Latinised the abyss. S.: Whereas “essere” in Italian at least adds theatricality. G.: Yes, and perhaps a little furniture. But no new clarity. Raio’s Italian title suffers from the old illness in a newer coat. S.: Yet one might say that “being” in Aristotle is not simply predicative and possessive mixed, but includes existence. G.: Ah yes, existence: the third lodger. Then we should need perhaps E(a)E(a)E(a), or E!(a)E!(a)E!(a) if one wishes to be expensive. S.: And then your system becomes trinitarian. G.: Better trinitarian than metaphysically baggy. S.: Then why only Izzing and Hazzing in your opening joke? G.: Because one must begin by splitting the most obvious conflation: “is” of predication and “has” of possession, before existence comes in with its own passport. S.: Very good. Then let us test examples. “The rose is red.” G.: I(rose,red)I(\text{rose},\text{red})I(rose,red), if one is willing to let predicates appear in object position for convenience, which is already a small scandal. S.: “The rose has thorns.” G.: H(rose,thorns)H(\text{rose},\text{thorns})H(rose,thorns). S.: “The rose is a flower.” G.: Again I(rose,flower)I(\text{rose},\text{flower})I(rose,flower), though now one sees that “izzing” covers species-membership or classification, not only attribution. S.: So III is already doing too much. G.: As all first repairs do. But still less than “essere.” S.: “Socrates is wise.” G.: I(Socrates,wise)I(\text{Socrates},\text{wise})I(Socrates,wise). S.: “Socrates has wisdom.” G.: H(Socrates,wisdom)H(\text{Socrates},\text{wisdom})H(Socrates,wisdom). S.: Are those equivalent? G.: Not always. That is exactly where philosophy becomes interesting. “Socrates is wise” may be true where “Socrates has wisdom” suggests a reified possession one need not grant. S.: So “hazzing” itself may be too generous to substantives. G.: Yes, but at least it makes the generosity visible. S.: And “Socrates is in the market”? G.: Ah. There you have locative being, which the old “is” hides under yet another use. S.: So your two relations have not solved Aristotle; they have merely improved the census. G.: Again, a census is an improvement over a riot. S.: Then what of Raio’s “saggio”? You asked what it is. G.: Yes. A “saggio” is the civilised word for not quite a system and not quite a pamphlet. It means, roughly, “I have thoughts but enough manners not to call them final.” S.: Which is already preferable to many modern books. G.: Deeply. “Essay” in the older sense: an attempt, a trial, a trying out of a problem. S.: Then Raio is at least modest in form. G.: Perhaps. Though “Il problema dell’essere” is modest only in Italian. In English it would sound like a monograph with delusions. S.: As most titles on being do. G.: Quite. But let us be fair. If one writes in 1923 on being, one is writing after enough Neo-Hegelian fog and before enough analytic disinfectant to feel both pressures at once. S.: Which gives you your opening: “I didn’t know it was a problem then.” G.: Exactly. I was at school, occupied with Greek accents and worse food. The problem of being had not yet been brought to Clifton. S.: And if it had been, the master would have called it either grammar or insolence. G.: Very likely both. S.: Still, Aristotle’s problem is not wholly silly. The same word εἶναι appears in statements of identity, predication, existence, truth, and perhaps location. G.: Yes, and that is precisely why one should not leave the matter with one word. S.: Then your quarrel with Aristotle is partly lexical. G.: Lexical and logical. He saw multiplicity but preferred to dignify it with a formula rather than dissolve it into distinct relations. S.: Because he was a philosopher, not a notator. G.: There you are wrong. A philosopher ought occasionally to be a notator when words become corrupting. S.: Then you would rewrite the Metaphysics in symbols? G.: Not all of it. Only enough to prevent “being” from seducing itself into a pseudounity. S.: “Pseudo-unity” sounds suspiciously like your objections to Einheit der Wissenschaft. G.: The family resemblance is real. Grand words thrive by failing to mean one thing. “Being,” “science,” “unity,” all are successful because they board many doctrines at once. S.: And your Izzing and Hazzing would evict some of the lodgers. G.: Precisely. S.: But would they not also destroy some of the philosophical pressure? G.: Only the false pressure. One should not preserve a confusion merely because it has had a good career. S.: That is a very un-historicist remark. G.: History has enough on its hands without being asked to worship old muddles. S.: Then what of existence? You hinted at E(a)E(a)E(a). G.: Yes. If one says “Socrates is” in the existential sense, one means something more like E(Socrates)E(\text{Socrates})E(Socrates), or if one prefers, ∃x(x=Socrates)\exists x(x=\text{Socrates})∃x(x=Socrates), though that opens another family quarrel. S.: So we now have predication, possession, and existence. G.: Exactly. Izzing, Hazzing, and existing. Aristotle could have been saved from centuries of piety by one sensible notational day. S.: You really think the whole matter reducible to syntax? G.: Not reducible, but clarified. Philosophy is often improved when syntax is no longer allowed to impersonate ontology. S.: And where does Raio’s title stand in this reformed world? G.: It would become, perhaps, Il problema degli izz, degli hazz, e dell’esistere, which would not sell but would save time. S.: It would certainly offend the right people. G.: A secondary merit. S.: Then let us examine the formal properties a little more. You denied reflexivity for III as predication, but granted that identity sneaks in through “a is a.” G.: Yes. One must separate III from ===. If a=aa=aa=a, that is identity. If I(a,a)I(a,a)I(a,a), one has either collapsed predication into identity or uttered nonsense. S.: So III is not reflexive. G.: Not as a general law. Some predicates may happen to self-apply, but that is not a property of the relation itself. S.: Transitivity, then, remains type-sensitive. G.: Exactly. If I(a,b)I(a,b)I(a,b) and I(b,c)I(b,c)I(b,c), whether I(a,c)I(a,c)I(a,c) follows depends on what sort of things bbb and ccc are. “Socrates is Greek” and “Greek is human” may licence “Socrates is human” only because one silently restructures the second as a universal statement about Greeks, not because III is a transitive dyad simpliciter. S.: So your neat dyad is already in danger. G.: Naturally. But the danger is visible, which is half the cure. S.: HHH seems worse. G.: Of course. Possession is a zoo. Ownership, part-whole, quality, relation, accompaniment, all get called “having.” One will need subdivisions if one is not to become scholastic in a new key. S.: Then perhaps “hazzing” does not solve the haves and have-nots after all. G.: It solves them socially, at least. One can say that the metaphysical haves and have-nots become grammatically inspectable. S.: That is almost Marx with capitals removed. G.: Heaven spare us. S.: You did mention “the haves and have nots.” G.: As a joke, yes. One should never let social vocabulary improve metaphysics too much. S.: But “having” in ordinary speech does cover both possession and predication by backstairs. “He has courage,” “he has a cloak,” “he has a fever.” G.: Exactly. Which is why I prefer to separate them rather than let being do all the work while having does half of it in the dark. S.: Then perhaps Aristotle’s multiplicity of being is really a symptom of linguistic economy grown metaphysical. G.: Excellent. Keep that. S.: Gladly. The language economises; philosophy pays interest. G.: Better still. S.: Thank you. G.: Do not become too pleased with your own ontology. S.: Never beyond the genus. Now, Raio’s “ermeneutica dell’io e del tu” in the later work seems very different from this 1923 “problema dell’essere.” G.: Yes, and in a way that only confirms my suspicion that titles are often the graveyards of transitions. A man writes on being, later on I and thou, and one sees that the problem of being may have been less a doctrine than a station. S.: That is ungenerous. G.: Only historically exact. One often begins with “being” when one has not yet decided what one actually cares about. S.: Which in Raio becomes the symbolic and hermeneutic constitution of self and other. G.: Exactly. A better problem, though still cursed by nouns. S.: Then perhaps Il problema dell’essere is young-man’s philosophy. G.: Very likely. A proper saggio title in the old way: large enough to be respectable, loose enough to admit later escape. S.: Escape into Cassirer and symbol. G.: Better there than in ontology without notation. S.: You remain cruel. G.: It is one of the few protections against “being.” S.: Then what of Cicero? You accused him too. G.: Only in the sense that esse sounds suspiciously like it has carried the Greek problem into Latin without properly localising it. Same lingo, same problem. S.: That was my line. G.: Then I borrow it with gratitude. Cicero gives us esse and thinks he has translated εἶναι; the problem survives in a better toga. S.: And Raio’s essere is merely the modern vernacular heir. G.: Yes. Which is why one must not mistake the modernity of the cover for any new clarity. S.: So your sympathy with Ramorino on language as system is absent here? G.: Entirely absent. “Essere” is where language as system becomes dangerous because a single word encourages false unification. S.: Whereas your own “mean” is triadic and therefore safer. G.: Safer, because it demands terms: utterer, sign, interpretant, content. “Being” usually arrives alone and then multiplies behind one’s back. S.: Then perhaps the true crime of “being” is monadic pretension. G.: Splendid. Write that down somewhere private. S.: Happily. One last question. If Aristotle is wrong, why did the formula τὸ ὂν λέγεται πολλαχῶς survive so well? G.: Because it is magnificent. It confesses multiplicity while preserving dignity. It tells every commentator that the matter is profound without requiring immediate distinctions. In short, it is rhetorically perfect and analytically insufficient. S.: A philosopher’s dream. G.: Exactly the problem. S.: Then your Izzing and Hazzing, for all their vulgarity, are anti-rhetorical instruments. G.: Yes. They are ugly enough to discourage worship and precise enough to reward use. S.: You almost make them sound English. G.: They are worse than English. They are Oxonian. S.: Dry enough? G.: Sufficiently Neapolitan by provocation, with just enough Greek to annoy Aristotle.