Gilbert Ryle Logic lane. Collected essays 1929 1968

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.).But it is applied (observed) in the statement by TheTimes leader-writer Frenchmen are. In an inferior journal it mighthave been contravened by the statement Frenchmen is..Rules of inference, like the rules of grammar, chess, etiquette andmilitary funerals are performance-rules.References to them are refer-ences to criteria according to which performances are characterised aslegitimate or illegitimate, correct or incorrect, suitable or unsuitable,etc.The point deserves emphasis for this reason.There is a third senseof application in which a police-description of a wanted man mayapply or partially apply to me.All or some of the attributes ascribedto him may belong to me.If the description fits me it applies tome (though in a fourth derivative sense it may not be intended toapply to me).Confusing apply (= fit ) with apply (= observe ) and perhapsalso with apply (= specify ) some people have worried themselves byspeculating how or why the rules of inference apply to the world; theyhave tried to imagine what an illogical world would be like.But the puzzleis an unreal one.We know already what an illogical man is like; he is thesort of man who commits fallacies, fails to detect the fallacies of others,and so on.The reason why we cannot imagine what an illogical worldwould be like is that a tendency to flout performance-rules can onlybe attributed to performers.The world neither observes nor flouts therules of inference any more than it observes or flouts the rules of bridge,CHAPTER 16: CALCULUSES OF LOGIC AND ARITHMETIC 239prosody or viticulture.The stars in their courses do not commit or avoidfallacies any more than they revoke or follow suit.The inclination to suppose that rules of logic are police-descriptions ofwanted facts is strengthened by some analogies between our ways oftalking about rules and our ways of talking about laws of nature.Someman-made rules are called laws , such as those which are made bylegislators; and rules of inference are sometimes called laws of thought.These usages suggest that logical rules come from the same basket as lawsof nature.Moreover some performance-rules, like rules of inference andrules of skill, are not results of convention or legislation as rules of gamesand rules of the road are.There is no M.C.C.which can amend the rules ofinference or the canons of style.It is vaguely felt, therefore, that these ruleswhich are not man-made are found by men in the ways in which laws ofnature are found.Further, it is convenient to express laws of nature informulae of the open if.then pattern as well as to express specifica-tions of those laws in formulae of the closed if.then pattern, syntax-usages which remind us of the formulae of logic.Finally, somewhat asparticular operations of drawing conclusions can be said to be governedby rules of inference, so particular happenings and states of affairs are saidto be governed by laws of nature.But of course the way in which rules of inference rule out certainperformances is not that they debar their happening; they show only whythey are incorrect if they do happen.Laws of nature rule out certainimaginable conjunctions of happenings or states of affairs in quite adifferent way.Hence while there can and do occur breaches of logicalrules, there cannot and do not occur breaches of laws of nature.It makessense to speak of someone obeying or disobeying a performance-rule,none to speak of things disobeying or obeying laws of nature.Certainly there are important differences between rules of inferenceand such other kinds of performance-rules as those of golf, prosody andinfantry-drill.The big difference pertinent to our problem is that it ispartly by inferences that we come to know the world.The sciences ofthings are theories and theories are the official locus of rules of logic.A theory which is logically faulty is a bad theory.If a scientist orhistorian who has produced an inconsistent or inconsequent theory laterrepairs the inconsistencies and strengthens the weak links, his grasp of hissubject has improved.Finding out about the world is hampered by badlogic just as success at chess is hampered by bad strategy and the feeding240 COLLECTED PAPERS: VOLUME 2of an army is hampered by bad arithmetic.But the avoidance and correc-tion of logical faults are not the discovery of new facts about the world.Efficient romancing also requires logical acumen, but the exercises of thisacumen do not dilute the resultant romances with veracious reports aboutthe real nature of things.In fine, there are two main senses, different from one another, in whicha rule of inference is said to be applied, but in neither sense is it significantto say that the rule applies to the world in the sort of way in which apolice-description of a wanted man applied to me or to him.IISo far I have spoken as if all logical rules are of the same type, but this isnot so [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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