Clarity Is Not Enough

In the website held by S. R. Bayne on the history of analytic philosophy we were discussing, under thread this called, "Clarity is not enough", the old adage held by -- I forget who first -- that, well

clarity is not enough.

This became the title of a book, in the Muirhead Library of Philosophy, called, undramatically,

Clarity is not enough

And we discussed that cliche to tears.

Now revising Grice's "Candour", this blog -- we see that what he had in WoW:ii as

Category of Modus
(or "Manner", mistranslated)

Be perspicuous, i.e. clear

He has four maxims:

1. be orderly
2. avoid ambiguity
3. avoid obscurity
4. be brief.

Grice played with the idea, unfounded in the philo of Kant, or Aristotle, that this category, qua conversational, relates to FORM, rather than content (to the 'manner' of speaking, Grice plays).

Now, "Clarity" -- vide "Grice's Candour", this blog -- was present in the 1966 lectures which predated the William James.

But it seems then, and hence the irony of the header, Clarity is not enough, that it was never enough for Grice or anybody else.

In the title of the Muirhead book it is meant as a bad thing: we need philosophical insight, not just clarity of expression.

In Grice's pseudo-jocular reflection on Oxonian analysis, it means, 'there's clarity' -- but there are _other_ issues at play when we speak 'conversation'.

Etc.