The Epistemological Significance of the Interrogative Ashgate New Critical Thinking in Philosophy
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THE EPISTEMOLOGICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE INTERROGATIVE ASHGATE NEW CRITICAL THINKING IN PHILOSOPHY The Ashgate New Critical Thinking in Philosophy series aims to bring high quality research monograph publishing back into focus for authors, the international library market, and student, academic and research readers. Headed by an international editorial advisory board of acclaimed scholars from across the philosophical spectrum, this new monograph series presents cutting-edge research from established as well as exciting new authors in the field; spans the breadth of philosophy and related disciplinaiy and interdisciplinary perspectives; and takes contemporary philosophical research into new directions and debate. Series Editorial Board: Professor David Cooper, University of Durham, UK Professor Peter Lipton, University of Cambridge, UK Professor Sean Sayers, Kent at Canterbury, UK Dr Simon Critchley, University of Essex, UK Dr Simon Glendinning, University of Reading, UK Professor Paul Helm, King’s College London, UK Dr David Lamb, University of Birmingham, UK Professor John Post, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, USA Professor Alan Goldman, University of Miami, Florida, USA Professor Joseph Friggieri, University of Malta, Malta Professor Graham Priest, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia Professor Moira Gatens, University of Sydney, Australia Professor Alan Musgrave, University of Otago, New Zealand Other Titles in the Series: Matter, Imagination and Geometry Dmitri Nikulin Textual Narratives and a New Metaphysics Raymond T. Shorthouse Hume’s Scepticism and the Science of Human Nature Paul Stanistreet Communities of Individuals Michael J. R. Cross Hegel’s Metaphysics of God Patricia Marie Calton The Epistemological Significance ofthe Interrogative JAMES SOMERVILLE Department of Philosophy, The University of Hull First published 2002 by Ashgate Publishing Reissued 2018 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 711 ThirdAvenue, New York, NY 10017, USA Routledge is an imprint ofthe Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Copyright C James Somerville 2002 The author has asserted his moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Publisher's Note The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original copies may be apparent. Disclaimer The publisher has made every effort to trace copyright holders and welcomes correspondence from those they have been unable to contact. A Library of Congress record exists under LC control number: 2002022508 ISBN 13: 978-1-138-72759-5 (hbk) ISBN 13: 978-1-315-19028-0 (ebk) Contents Preface vii 1 Introduction 1 Interrogative Clauses Following Know 1 The Traditional Neglect o f Questions 6 The Propositional and the Interrogative 9 Types of Questions and their Formation 13 Stock Accounts o f Questions 22 2 The Interrogative 29 Interrogative Clauses 29 The Opaqueness o f the Interrogative 31 The Concept of What Answers a Question 35 Interrogative Concepts 41 Other Grammatical Forms 49 3 Questions and Enquiry 57 The Question What Is A Question? 58 The Questing Model 68 Questions as Quaesita 75 The Matching Model 79 4 A sking Questions 85 The Social Intellectual Acts 85 Asking Oneself Questions 89 Abstracting from Mental Acts 96 The Speech-Act Fallacy in Logic 98 5 Stating Answers 107 Answering 107 Explicit Performatives o f the Social Acts 109 What is Presumed of Speakers 113 Answering, Statement-Making and Testimony 115 The Addressee’s Part 119 vi The Epistemological Significance o f the Interrogative 6 Interrogation 125 The Notion o f a Response 125 What is Presumed of Interrogators Generally 131 More Specific Intentions o f Interrogators 137 Confusions o f Imperative Theorists 143 Idiomatic Phrases 149 7 Requesting 152 The Function o f Requests 152 The Wording of Requests and Invitations 156 The Interrogative Character o f Requests 161 The Requesting Account o f Questions 164 Requesting Information 170 8 Interrogative Form 175 Misconceptions of Interrogative Form 17 5 Word Questions 180 Frege on Yes-No Questions 186 The Principle o f Interrogative Opaqueness 194 Clauses Answering Questions 201 9 Logic and the Different Types of Question 206 Multiple-Choice Reformulations of Questions 207 Cook Wilson’s Examples 216 Four Distinctions Arising 222 The Overall Unity o f Questions 229 Appendix: The Logic of Questions 235 Epilogue 242 Bibliography 245 Index 256 Preface The epistemological significance of the interrogative is revealed in the interrog ative clauses following know and other verbs attributing knowledge to their sub jects — knowing who, what, where, whether, and so forth. The problem of how to account for such clauses is posed in the first section of Chapter 1. The book divides broadly into three. The first three chapters are concerned with scene setting, presenting some of the crucial arguments and justifying the approach adopted. The next four chapters each deal with specific areas in need of clarification because of prevalent views about questions. The last two chapters analyse the logical form of questions and logical relationships between types of question. From the perspective of so-called theories of questions the approach is unorth odox. What may be called the Aristotelian approach is followed. In general it has regard to the context thoughts are expressed in but specifically gives primacy to conceiving things interrogatively. Such a conceptual approach to logic rivals the Fregean tradition later theorists of questions are reliant on — even if they do not always acknowledge their debt. But a broader approach to the interrogative than a symbolic or formal one is required to draw out the lessons for epistemology. The Introduction (Chapter 1) begins with the argument that the occurrence of interrogative clauses after know shows that knowledge in particular and thought in general can be interrogative in form. Reid’s suggestion is then taken up that quest ions, while hitherto neglected by philosophers, are as suitable objects for logical study as propositions are. It is noted that Reid nevertheless confines questions to a social use of language — what may be called the speech-act fallacy. The third sect ion outlines the general features of propositional, as distinct from interrogative, forms of thought. The three main types of question are then described and their manner of formation in language reviewed. The final section briefly comments on stock philosophical approaches to questions. Chapter 2 is concerned to highlight some remarkable features of interrogative clauses. First a list of the kinds of interrogative clause and of the verbs and phrases governing them is given. The second section draws attention to the unique feature of what is dubbed the opaqueness of questions and interrogative clauses, their inability to say anything at all. Building on the finding of the previous chapter that interrogative clauses utilise an interrogative form of thought in abstraction from people actually asking or answering questions, the third section moves towards the concept of what answers a question — what people aim to elicit in asking a quest viii The Epistemological Significance of the Interrogative ion, but also what interrogative clauses following know succeed in doing. It is argued in the fourth section that a consequence of thought taking interrogative form is that concepts too can be interrogative in form, and a sketch is given of how interrogative concepts structure thought generally. A final section briefly surveys non-indicative grammatical forms other than interrogative. The aim of Chapter 3 is to challenge the feeling that questions must have some thing to do with knowledge — more particularly, the acquisition of knowledge in enquiry. The overall argument of the book is that things are the other way round: it is not that questions are concerned with knowledge; instead, knowledge can be thought of in relation to a notional question. The characteristics of enquiry in gen eral are approached, with the help of a famous passage from Plato’s Meno, through consideration of the peculiarities of philosophical enquiry. The first section considers the philosopher’s question, What is a question? The second argues against a questing model for questions, insisting on the distinction between asking questions in the course of enquiry and asking questions as such. Two further models, each of which aims to abstract questions as objects of logical attention from the asking of questions whether or not during enquiry, are found in the next two sections to fail: the first, the quæsitum model, because confusion between finding what is to be sought and finding out returns to the idea of enquiry; the second, the matching model, because it requires a direct as distinct from a relative notion of what answers a question so as to judge that it matches the question, contrary to the opaqueness of a question’s specification of what is required to answer it. Chapter 4 starts by reviewing Reid’s doctrine that asking questions is a social intellectual operation. The distinction between the asking of a question and the question asked is reinforced by the denial that a question must be addressed to somebody, even if only oneself. It is argued that as an object of logical attention a question can be abstracted from any acts of asking it. Accordingly, the view of idealist philosophers like Collingwood that questions are tied to acts of asking is rejected, as also the more recent assumption that asking a question is necessarily to perform a speech-act. While questions must be capable of formulation in language, there is no requirement that questions be put to anybody.