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

 G.: Prodi and his seconda cattedra have ruined my afternoon. S.: A very Italian way to spend it. G.: The phrase nags. We have chairs; they have a second chair. It sounds at once luxurious and faintly conspiratorial. S.: Or merely administrative. G.: Administration is always faintly conspiratorial. S.: You were trying to imagine the Oxford equivalent. G.: Naturally. A seconda cattedra of Patologia generale in Bologna suggests at once a second Waynflete Professor of Metaphysical Philosophy here. S.: Which would not be the Waynflete. G.: Why not. S.: Because Waynflete endowed one chair, not two. A second chair in the same subject would be a second chair of metaphysical philosophy, but not a second Waynflete. G.: Retrospectively, perhaps. S.: Not merely retrospectively. Properly. The title is not generic. It names a specific benefaction attached to a specific professorship. G.: Still, if Oxford, in a fit of late Roman prolixity, added another chair of metaphysical philosophy, common room speech would call it the second Waynflete. S.: Common room speech is not a constitutional instrument. G.: It is the only one that works. S.: Not in statutes. G.: Statutes are what survive after meaning has left the building. S.: Even so, the second chair would not be Waynflete. It would be second only by subject, not by endowment. G.: So your point is that adjectives of sequence do not simply stack onto proper names of benefactors. S.: Exactly. “Second chair of metaphysical philosophy,” yes. “Second Waynflete,” only loosely and after a fashion. G.: After a fashion is where Oxford lives. S.: And misnames things. G.: Misnaming is often the first form of truth. S.: Dangerous doctrine. G.: Productive one. Take the White’s Professor of Moral Philosophy. S.: The same answer. G.: Which is? S.: A second chair in moral philosophy would not be White’s. G.: Why not. S.: Because White endowed or sponsored one chair, and his name attaches to that one office. A further chair in the same subject would be another chair of moral philosophy, not another White’s, unless later usage stretched the point. G.: But later usage always stretches the point. S.: True, though not always respectably. G.: Respectability is not the point. I am after the pressure of the thing. If there were a second chair in moral philosophy, it would feel, in the air, like a duplication of White’s. S.: In the air perhaps, not in the calendar. G.: Calendars are merely the graveyards of air. S.: You are in one of your institutional moods. G.: Prodi induced it. A seconda cattedra suggests a faculty so confident in its pathology that it can afford pathology doubled. S.: Whereas Oxford prefers to conceal duplication under colleges, lectureships, tutorials, readers, and the general fiction that there is no system. G.: Precisely. Our proliferation is lateral rather than vertical. S.: Tutor’s world, not chair’s world. G.: Yes. Which is why the fantasy of a second chair sounds both alien and oddly healthy. S.: Healthy for moral philosophy perhaps. G.: Indeed. Think of White’s. Hare had Austin before him, and then Kneale. One can see the point of a second chair there. S.: You think moral philosophy was cramped by singularity. G.: Singularities usually cramp. A second chair might have allowed rival orthodoxies without requiring a blood feud over one armchair. S.: Adjacent pieces of furniture delivering opposed consciences. G.: Exactly. White’s Professor of Moral Philosophy and the other moral philosopher, both official, both disagreeable, both salaried. S.: Yet Austin was not White’s. G.: No, but he was the predecessor in the local weather before Hare. The point is atmospheric, not genealogical. S.: Atmosphere again. G.: Where institutions are actually lived. S.: Then perhaps a second chair in moral philosophy would have been good for Oxford, if only because moral philosophy was spread across tutors, ordinary language, Aristotle, intuition, utility, and whatever else the week required. G.: Precisely. The singular chair encourages the illusion that one man represents a subject. No one should represent morality alone. It is indecent. S.: Except to examiners. G.: Examiners are indecent by office. S.: And the poor learn at Oxford, so why bother. G.: Ah yes, your democratic sneer. S.: Not democratic. Economical. If only the poor learn, the rich merely inherit. Chairs are largely for the spectacle. G.: Nonsense. The poor learn under rich names, which is Oxford’s way of moral laundering. S.: White’s and Waynflete as educational detergents. G.: Very good. Keep that. S.: Thank you. G.: Still, with metaphysical philosophy the matter is hotter. S.: Hotter because the title itself is absurd. G.: Magnificently absurd. Waynflete Professor of Metaphysical Philosophy. It sounds like a challenge issued by one century to another. S.: Especially given who held it. G.: Ryle, for instance. S.: Who denied metaphysics, you always say. G.: He denied a great deal under that heading and seemed peculiarly fit to occupy a chair named for what he enjoyed dismantling. S.: Denying the ghost in the machine is not denying metaphysics. G.: No, but it is denying a kind of metaphysical upholstery. S.: Which is not quite the same as denying the room. G.: Very good. Ryle denied some furnishings, not the existence of the house. S.: So the Waynflete holder need not be a metaphysician in the old robustly furniture-filled sense. G.: Precisely. Oxford titles preserve historical intentions longer than doctrines preserve themselves. S.: Then a second chair of metaphysical philosophy might have been useful if only to represent metaphysics positively while the first was engaged in therapeutic demolition. G.: Exactly my thought. One Waynflete to unmask category mistakes, another to insist that being still matters. S.: You want ontological pluralism institutionalised. G.: At least ontological fairness. S.: Or your ontological Marxism. G.: Yes, if they work they exist. S.: That is not Marxism so much as don’s pragmatism. G.: All good ontology is practical before lunch. S.: Then the second chair would be what, in your scheme. G.: A professor extraordinarius, naturally. S.: Ah, we have reached the Italian part. G.: Straordinario is too delicious to ignore. S.: But it does not mean flamboyant. G.: More’s the pity. S.: It means outside the ordinary professorial establishment, or at least historically below or beside the ordinario in the older university hierarchy. G.: Yes, yes. Yet English ears cannot resist hearing extraordinary where the Italians mean structurally non-ordinary. S.: And then you make the inevitable pun with Austin. G.: Entirely inevitable. Austin gives us ordinary-language philosophy; Bologna gives us the professor extraordinario. One wants at once a professor extraordinario of ordinary-language philosophy. S.: Beyond ordinary ordinary language. G.: Exactly. The extraordinary ordinary philosopher. S.: Or the ordinary extraordinary one. G.: Oxford would have loved him and denied him promotion. S.: Because ordinary at Oxford is already extraordinary elsewhere. G.: Precisely. Which is why the pun is institutionally true. An ordinario is a full ordinary professor. Austin’s ordinary language would then seem almost to request an ordinario of ordinary language. S.: While your metaphysical second chair would be an extraordinario of metaphysical philosophy, beyond ordinary-language philosophy. G.: Beautiful. Beyond ordinary language, but perhaps not beyond language entirely. S.: Ryle would object. G.: Ryle objected professionally. S.: And Austin would ask what you mean by extraordinary. G.: At which point the appointment would lapse for want of a preposition. S.: Still, the Italian distinction between ordinario and straordinario tempts one because it names publicly what Oxford preferred to conceal under other titles. G.: Exactly. We had tutorials, lectureships, readers, and college powers, but no decent way to say: here is the official other fellow in the same subject. S.: The second chair names institutional dissent in advance. G.: That is what struck me in Prodi. A seconda cattedra feels as if the faculty has admitted that one pathology is not enough to keep pathology honest. S.: Or that there are too many students. G.: Students are always the dull explanation. S.: Usually the true one. G.: Truth is often the dull explanation, but one need not surrender at once. S.: Then let us test the White’s case more soberly. Hare occupies White’s. Austin had earlier occupied it, and then Kneale follows. G.: Yes. S.: So a second chair in moral philosophy might have permitted one holder more concerned with ethical theory, another with ordinary moral discourse, or another with ancient ethics, or jurisprudential spill-over. G.: Exactly. One can imagine the relief. No need for one office to bear Aristotle, Hume, intuitionism, ordinary language, utilitarian anxieties, and undergraduate conscience all alone. S.: Though Oxford often prefers one office burdened with too much, because burden is a sign of dignity. G.: Or of insufficient imagination. S.: The result being that tutors quietly do the real plurality. G.: Quite. Oxford’s secret second chairs are the colleges. S.: That is not bad. G.: It is true, which is why it is not bad. S.: Then why hanker after a formal second chair at all. G.: Because formal duplication has the virtue of honesty. It says publicly that a subject exceeds one incumbent. S.: While Oxford says privately that a subject exceeds the university. G.: Also true. S.: And with metaphysics. G.: Ah yes. There the singularity is even more theatrical. Waynflete Professor of Metaphysical Philosophy sounds already like two titles welded into one by a benefactor who did not trust the future. S.: Benefactors rarely trust the future. That is why they endow nouns. G.: Excellent. S.: Thank you. G.: A second chair there would therefore raise the question whether metaphysical philosophy is a field with internal plurality or merely a title under which Oxford stores its embarrassment. S.: You think embarrassment the deeper function. G.: Often. The title preserves an honourable relation to metaphysics while daily practice keeps metaphysics under surveillance. S.: Ryle as honorary constable. G.: Precisely. He patrols the title rather than abolishing it. S.: Then a second chair might have been useful as the authorised criminal. G.: Wonderful. One Waynflete constable, one metaphysical criminal, both salaried by the same university. S.: The criminal perhaps straordinario. G.: Naturally. Beyond ordinary-language philosophy. S.: Though not beyond language entirely, as you said. G.: One must leave some bridge back for salary. S.: Then what of the naming problem again. You insist that common room speech would call him the second Waynflete. G.: Of course it would. S.: Even if statutes would not. G.: Statutes are written by men who fear common rooms. S.: Not without reason. G.: True. But the common room captures retrospective usage better than the register. If the White’s is the salient chair in moral philosophy, another chair in the same subject will be heard as second White’s whether or not White would recognise the relation. S.: White is in no position to object. G.: Benefactors seldom are. S.: So your claim is about conversational economy, not legal propriety. G.: Exactly. We identify a later item by reference to the salient earlier one. The same way one says the second Rome while knowing perfectly well that only one city paid for the aqueducts. S.: That is a dangerous analogy. G.: All useful analogies are slightly dangerous. S.: Then let us add Bologna again. Prodi’s seconda cattedra of general pathology does not mean that pathology was split metaphysically into first and second substances. G.: A pity. It might have improved medicine. S.: It means simply two official chairs in one subject. G.: Yes, but “simply” does not do justice to the institutional imagination. To have a first and a second chair is already to have admitted a certain abundance. S.: Or bureaucracy. G.: Bureaucracy is abundance with minutes. S.: Very like your beloved verbali. G.: Quite. S.: Then your Oxford fantasy remains. G.: Entirely. A second chair of moral philosophy would have been healthy. A second chair of metaphysical philosophy would have been hotter. Oxford preferred instead to distribute excess vitality through tutorials and private heresies. S.: One don at a time. G.: Exactly. We managed our heresies privately. S.: Which may be the real difference between ordinario and straordinario. In Italy the distinction is named. In Oxford it is lived and denied. G.: Beautifully put. The extraordinary professor in Oxford is often merely an ordinary tutor with dangerous views. S.: Or an ordinary professor with extraordinary disclaimers. G.: Ryle again. S.: Naturally. G.: Still, I cannot resist the thought that a professor ordinario and a professor extraordinario of metaphysical philosophy would have improved the climate immensely. S.: One to say that metaphysics is nonsense, one to say that nonsense presupposes being. G.: Exactly. S.: And in moral philosophy. G.: One to analyse “good,” one to ask whether goodness survives the analysis. S.: Hare and his shadow. G.: Or his neighbour. S.: Then the final difficulty remains the names. G.: Always the names. S.: You want “second Waynflete” and “second White’s” because ordinary conversation identifies the later by the salient earlier benefaction. G.: Yes. S.: I object because legally and historically the benefactor named one office only. G.: Also yes. S.: So we are both right in different registers. G.: Which is why the university survives. S.: By equivocation. G.: By controlled equivocation. S.: A very Oxonian virtue. G.: One of our better ones. S.: Then perhaps Prodi has merely shown you that Bologna made explicit what Oxford preferred to imply. G.: Splendid. A seconda cattedra is what Oxford would have left as a conversational implicature. S.: And the punchline. G.: At Oxford there was no second Waynflete, because the first was already doing double duty and denying half of it.