Peter Geach: Philosophical Encounters

327 Pages·1991·5.263 MB·English

by  Peter Geach (auth.), Harry A. Lewis (eds.)

PETER GEACH: PHILOSOPHICAL ENCOUNTERS
SYNTHESE LIBRARY
STUDIES IN EPISTEMOLOGY,
LOGIC, METHODOLOGY, AND PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
Managing Editor:
JAAKKO HINTIKKA, Boston University
Editors:
DONALD DAVIDSON, University of California, Berkeley
GABRIEL NUCHELMANS, University ofL eyden
WESLEY C. SALMON, University of Pittsburgh
VOLUME 213
PETER GEACH:
PHILOSOPHICAL
ENCOUNTERS
Edited by
HARRY A. LEWIS
Department of Philosophy,
The University of Leeds
Springer Science+Business Media, B.V.
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ISBN 978-90-481-4072-5 ISBN 978-94-015-7885-1 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-94-015-7885-1
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE ix
PETER GEACH-A Philosophical Autobiography 1
WILLARD VAN ORMAN QUINE-Selected Correspondence
with Geach 27
PETER GEACH - History of Philosophy 45
DESMOND PAUL HENRY - Abelard and Medieval
Mereology 49
ANTHONY KENNY - Form, Existence and Essence in
Aquinas 65
BOGUSLAW WOLNIEWICZ-On the Discontinuity of
Wittgenstein's Philosophy 77
GEORG HENRIK VON WRIGHT - Possibility, Plenitude and
Determinism 83
PETER GEACH-Logic 99
J. E. J. ALTHAM-Plural and Pleonetetic Quantification 105
G. E. M. ANSCOMBE-On a Queer Pattern of Argument 121
JAAKKO HINTIKKA-Geach and the Methodology of the
Logical Study of Natural Language 137
JAMES D. McCAWLEY -Natural Deduction and Ordinary
Language Discourse Structure 151
Identity
MICHAEL DUMMETT - Does Quantification Involve Identity? 161
ANSELM W. MULLER - Conceptual Surroundings of Absolute
Identity 185
C. J. F. WILLIAMS-On Sameness and Selfhood 195
PETER GEACH - Philosophy of Religion 213
NORMAN MALCOLM - Philosophical Confusion and Sin 215
HUGO MEYNELL-On Improving Christianity 229
PETER GEACH - Replies 247
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF WORKS OF P. T. GEACH 307
INDEX 317
PREFACE
The present volume owes its existence to a proposal of Dr Esa
Saarinen. Our aim was to celebrate the work of a living philosopher by
presenting it both from his own point of view, through the medium of
a philosophical autobiography, and from that of his closest philo
sophical colleagues and adversaries. We felt that a philosophical career
lived through vigorous controversy was best reflected not by adulation
but in the spirit of that career - by open debate.
Contributors were not constrained in their choice of topic, but their
contributions fell naturally into groups linked with some of Peter
Geach's principal areas of interest, and we have so grouped them in
the book. There is an interweaving of biographical and philosophical
themes, not only in Peter Geach's philosophical autobiography, but
also in the introductions he has contributed to each section. Professor
W. V. O. Quine's contribution, which consists of extracts from his
correspondence with Peter Geach, has been set apart as it forms a
natural bridge between Peter Geach's autobiography and the contri
butions that follow. Their correspondence reproduced here throws new
light on many familiar themes from the writings of both philosophers:
among them, the objects of belief and other attitudes, issues in set
theory, the nature of causality, and evolution in epistemology.
A feature of Peter Geach's work for which British philosophers of
his generation have not all been noted is a scholarly, but also philo
sophically informed, concern for the writings of philosophers of the
past. (Indeed, his first two books were translations of writings of such
philosophers - from Frege, and from Descartes.) Our contributors
here write in the same spirit, whether of Aristotle and Diodorus on
time and necessity, of Aquinas, of Abelard, or of Wittgenstein.
Peter Geach, who crowned his career of university employment (his
philosophical career is still in progress) with his appointment to a Chair
of Logic at the University of Leeds, has been a vigorous proponent of
logic both within philosophy and as a subject of educational value. He
is also more aware than most that not all that goes by the honorific
title of 'logic' is worthy of the name. (He has built up a notable
ix
Harry A. Lewis (ed.), Peter Geach: Philosophical Encounters, ix-xi.
© 1991 Springer Science+Business Media New York or Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
x PREFACE
collection of Bad Logic Books.) His views are as pertinent as ever
when the line between good and bad logic is blurred, if not in the
name of 'rhetoric', then in the name of 'informal logic'. Philosophical
logicians will find much to please and to intrigue them here. J. E. J.
Altham moves forward the boundaries of formal study with his contri
bution on plural and pleonetetic quantification; G. E. M. Anscombe
questions the applicability of already familiar logical principles using
examples of actual argumentation. The relation of natural language to
formal argument is further explored in the contributions from Jaakko
Hintikka and James D. McCawley.
Readers are encouraged to read Peter Geach's replies (printed
together at the end of the book: pp. 247-306) with the articles to
which they refer. The sub-section of the group of papers on logical
topics that deals with identity receives close attention in the replies
(pp. 276-306). No discussion of Peter Geach's work would be complete
without mention of his views on identity, which have caused much
controversy; readers will not be disappointed. Anselm MUller and
Michael Dummett address these views directly, while Christopher
Williams considers the closely related topic of personal identity.
In Peter Geach's writings, logical themes are interwoven with almost
all the topics he has considered. But his writings on the philosophy of
religion, including now the two books of his Stanton lectures at
Cambridge (1971-72 and 1973-74) form a significant corpus that
nonetheless stands apart from his other work. He gives a hint of the
reason for this asymmetry, if we may so label it, in his introduction
(pp. 213-214) to the final group of essays. In those essays, Norman
Malcolm takes his lead from a remark in one of the Stanton lectures,
in which an analogy is offered between philosophical confusion and
sin. Hugo Meynell presents another possible analogy, between re
visionary metaphysics and revisionary theology, in the final contri
bution.
Practising professional philosophers will find their favourite topics
quickly in the book. But Peter Geach's writings, in their own clarity
and directness, to which the contributors respond in the same style, are
accessible to a very wide audience; undergraduates and general readers
will find much to interest and stimulate them here. Not least, the
historical and personal framework of a career of one of our most
distinguished senior philosophers is presented together with his ideas,
in a way that reveals how closely they are connected.
PREFACE xi
We expected when the book was first planned that it would be at
press very quickly; and our contributors were punctilious in producing
their work in good time. It is a pleasure to make a public acknowledg
ment of their expedition. However other difficulties supervened, and it
has been some ten years until the volume could be sent to press. In
defence of our long-suffering contributors, I must ensure that the
reader is aware of this delay. Readers will find hints of the passage of
intervening time in certain parts of the book, but the contributions of
authors other than Peter Geach himself have remained unaltered for
ten years. In graciously allowing us to proceed albeit after such a long
delay, our contributors have nonetheless wanted us to draw the reader's
attention to this background; they are not to be held responsible for
any failure to take into account here either more recent work on the
subjects of their contributions, or any latter-day modifications of their
own views.
Special acknowledgment is due to Peter Geach himself, whose work
inspired this book; to Esa Saarinen for thinking of it first; and to
Antoni Diller for assistance with the bibliography of Peter Geach's
works.
Leeds, July 1990
PETER GEACH
A PHILOSOPHICAL AUTOBIOGRAPHY
In this account of my life I leave much unsaid; I am concerned with
those facts and events that I see as having had a manifest influence on
my career as a philosopher and with the way I came to know, in person
or in their works, those philosophers who have most guided my
thought.
I was born in Lower Chelsea, London, on March 29, 1916. My
father, George Hender Geach, was at that time working in the Indian
Educational Service; he became Professor of Philosophy at Lahore,
and afterwards Principal of a training college for teachers at Peshawar.
On furlough he had met and fallen in love with my mother, Eleonora
Frederyka Adolfina Sgonina, the daughter of Polish emigrants: her
father, a civil engineer, had rightly judged that he would prosper in
England better than in his own country under the Prussian heel. My
mother came back to England for my birth after a short time in India;
the marriage had not been happy, and·. she never returned to my
father. My earliest years were spent in Cardiff in my Polish grand
parents' house; the novelist Doreen Wallace, an old friend of my
mother's, told me that my grandmother never learned English well, so
I must often have heard Polish spoken, though I lost all memory of the
language. When I was four years old my father secured a court order,
making me the ward of a Miss Tarr during his absence in India, and for
me all contact with my mother and her parents ceased; Miss Tarr, a
rather formidable elderly lady, had been my paternal grandfather's
betrothed and the guardian of his children after his death. I remained
in Miss Tarr's care until my father was once again in England,
invalided out of the LE.S.
The first philosophical reading I did was in this period. I could not
resist the impulse of curiosity that led me to take down some of my
father's books, stored in Miss Tarr's house, from the shelves. I made
little of them, but I remember in particular Bradley's Appearance and
Reality. The work bewildered me; there were hardly any words I did
not know, and the sentences were simply constructed, but I could not
tell what it all meant. However, I formed the general impression that
1
Harry A. Lewis (ed.), Peter Geach: Philosophical Encounters, 1-25.
© 1991 Springer Science+Business Media New York or Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht