Cogency v2 n2

COGENCY Vol. 2, N0. 2, Spring 2010
a modification on the same plane, not a change of plane.// A sensitive
person who by suggestion becomes courageous hardens himself … [but]
Grace alone can give courage while leaving the sensitivity intact. (ibid.)
But how does Weil know that Grace alone (i.e., divine grace) can give
such “miraculous” courage? We suggest that, in spite of the “surface grammar”
of what she says, she is not to be understood as proposing a causal
explanation of that courage (on the model of, say, “Steroids alone could account
for that athlete’s performance”). Rather, she is explaining what it might
mean to speak of that extraordinary courage her something as “a gift of
God.” In other words we are suggesting Weil’s claim that Grace alone can
give such courage needs to be understood as “a grammatical remark,” rather
than as what it might seem to be–an empirically falsifiable hypothesis. Not
bound by the ordinary logic of “courage” her argument is a persuasion aimed
at extending our concept of courage to include “supernatural (God-given)
courage.” Her argument represents “a grammatical movement” in thought;
it expresses, not “a quasi-physical phenomenon” but “a new way of looking
at things” (Cf. PI §401). 24
Mathematics & Science
Wittgenstein speaks of ‘persuasion’ where what is
put forward has the power to induce one’s interlocutor
to accept a new concept-formation …
(Dilman, p. 17)
1
“Deep” seems an appropriate adjective to characterize disagreements that can
only be resolved through the kind of persuasion Dilman takes Wittgenstein
to be talking about. Resolving such a disagreement will consist, not in getting
one party to reject a false or improbable opinion, but in one party being
persuaded to accept a new concept-formation–i.e., to acknowledge a new
rule about what it does or doesn’t make sense to say and do.
24
The preceding is re-written version of Brenner (2009: 29-30).
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