Everyone is Protreptic

Grice knew how to coin a word. "Protreptic" he says in WoW, v. Of course he was not coining it. It was already in the OED.

For what _is_ the purpose of communication. Consider Neale, the self-appointed Gricean of Griceans! (I love him!)

"One worry about the suggested revision is that it does not comport well with the commonly held view that the primary purpose of communication is the transfer of information about the world."

Grice's "exhibitive"-"protreptic" distinction comes in Lecture V (WOW, p. 111, published in 1969), it seems Grice's general comment on the 'goals that are central to conversation/COMMUNICATION' come earlier on WOW, p. 30 (he uses 'purpose' on p. 28):

"[A]nyone who cares about the goals that are central to conversation/COMMUNICATION (such as giving and receiving information, influencing and being influenced by others)must be expected to have an interest [...] in participating in talk exchanges that will be profitable only on the assumption that they are conducted in general accordance with the Cooperative Principle and the maxims." WOW, p. 30.

The exhibitive-protreptic distinction is aimed to cover some alleged counterexamples directed against the _necessity_ of the analysans ("the three-prong analysis too strong", WOW, p. 105), a different animal altogether, one may think?

Note that Grice's change is a subtle one: while proposing a distinction ("exhibitive-protreptic"), he is very careful to formulate the conditions such that 'protreptic' _ENTAILS_ 'exhibitive', as it were. Thus he writes:
"and (for some cases) (8) A, on the basis of the fulfilment of (6), himself to psi that p." WOW, p. 112

Those cases being, indeed, the 'protreptic' cases he just introduced. Cf. the very final re-definition:

II. (operative only for certain substituends for "asterisk-sub-psi") U uttered x intending that, should there actually be anyone who has phi, he would via thinking (4) himself psi that p. [...]

III. It is not the case that, for some inference- element E, U intends x to be such that anyone who has phi will [...] rely on E in coming to Psi + that p. WOW, p. 114.

Grice has a relevant note here: "psi +" is to be read as "psi" if clause (II) is operative, and as "think that U psi-s" if clause (II) is nonoperative." In other words, clause (II) is or is not operative in, respectively, protreptic and exhibitive 'utterances'.

For the record, 'protreptic' (as used by Grice, WOW, 111) is recognised by the OED (why would it not?) -- I append the entry below --. Perhaps someone should mailto:OED3 about the relevant Gricean usages, though).

Grice's 'exhibitive-protreptic' distinction comes out as a possible solution to deal with the alleged counterexamples 'directed toward shoing the three-prong analysans too strong' (examinee, confession, reminding, review of fats, conclusion of argument, and the countersuggestible man). He explicitly makes the distinction vis a vis the contrasting pair:

"Let us [...] draw a distinction between what I might call "PURELY [emphasis mine. 'Protreptic' utterances are _also_ exhibitive, if not purely so. JLS] exhibitive" utterances (utterances by which the utterer U intends to impart a belief that he [U] has a certain propositional attitude), and utterances which ARE NOT ONLY EXHIBITIVE [emphasis mine. JLS] but ALSO what I might call 'protreptic' (that is, utterances by which U intends, via imparting the belief that he [U] has a certain propositional attitude, to induce a corresponding attitude in the hearer." WOW, p. 111.

Interestingly, Grice reverted to the 'exhibitive-protreptic' distinction, without mentioning the terminological detail, in his second John Locke Lecture on Aspects of Reason. Grice gives "in full" two examples of actual 'mode' specifiers:

i. U to utter to A -[a] p if U wills (that) A judges (that) U judges p. ii. U to utter to A ![b] p if U wills (that) A judges that U wills that A wills that p. _Aspects of Reason_, Clarendon, p. 54.

In _Aspects of Reason_ Grice is interesed in the propositional attitude of 'accepting' (that p):

"Only judging that p and willing that p [rather than anything having to do with erotetics or the interrogative. JLS] are, in my view, strictly cases of acceptance that p [...] the ultimate purpose of my introducing this characteristion of moods [being] to reach a general account of linguistic forms which are to be conjoined, according to my proposal, with an 'acceptability' operator." p. 55.

Grice's 'characterisation of moods' involves the 'resultant procedures' which are conditional in nature -- the antecedent importing four different elements:

i. the preamble ii. the supplement iii. the differential iv. the radical.

"The antecedent clause consists of a sequence whose elements are a preamble, a supplement to a differential (which is present only in a [b] [protreptic. JLS] -type case), a differential, and a radical. The preamble, which is always present, is invariant, and reads

"U wills (that) [A, addressee] judges (that) U..."

The supplement, if present, is also invariant; and the idea behind its varying presence or absence is connected, in the FIRST instance [emphasis mine. JLS], with the Volitive Mood [...]. It seemed to me [when? JLS] that the difference between ordinary expressions of intention (such as "I shall not fail" or "They shall not pass") and ordinary imperatives (like "Be a little kinder to him") could be accomodated by treating each as A SPECIAL SUB-MOOD of a superior mood; the characteristic feature of the superior mood (Volitive) is that it relates to willing that p, and in one subordinate case (the Intentional case) the utterer is concerned to reveal to the [addressee] that he (the utterer) wills that p, while in the OTHER subordinate case (Imperative), U is concerned to reveal to [A] that U wills that [A] will that p. [...]. It also seemed to me that there is a corresponding distinction between two 'uses' of ordinary indicatives; sometimes one is _declaring_ or _affirming_ that p, one's itnention being primarily to get the [addressee] to think that the [utterer] thinks that p; while sometimes one is _telling_ the [addressee] that p, that is to say, hoping to get _him_ to think that p.

It is true that in the case of indicatives, unlike that of volitives, there is no pair of devices which would ordinarily be thought of as mood-markers which serve to distinguish the sub-mood of an indicative sentence; the recognition of the sub-mood has to come from context, from the vocative use of the name of [A], from the presence of a speech-act verb, or from a sentence-adverbial phrase (like "for your information"). But I have already, in my initial assumptions, allowed for such a situation. [...] The differentials are each associated with, and serve to distinguish, 'superior' moods (judicative, volitive) and [...] are invariant between 'A' and 'B' sub-moods [exhibitive and protreptic respectively. JLS] of the superior mood; they are merely unsupplemented or supplemented, the former for an 'A' sub-mood and the latter for a 'B' sub-mood. Aspects of Reason, p. 54. (cf. 'Intention and Uncertainty' quote below).

It's at this stage that Grice presents in a figure a "schema of procedure-specifiers for mood-operators", which in a simplified format (excluding 'erotetic' operators -- which he symbolises by "?" and which may be seen as a sub-type of the "!" operator) runs as follows:

Main clause: U to utter to A Op1 + p if Antecedent clause _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ mode preamble supplementdifferentialradical _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ a U wills A judges U [none] judges p _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ b ... wills A ... ... _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
!a ... [none] wills ... _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
!b ... wills A ... ... _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

"Note: If the differential is supplemented (as in a [b] [protreptic. JLS] case) the quantifier is 'dragged back', so as to appear immediately before [A] in the supplement."

Interestingly, Grice further explored aspects of English modality in his British Academy Lecture, "Intention and Uncertainty", where he quotes from Bertold Brecht's _Regufee Conversations_:

"Denmark was at one time plagued by a succession of corrupt finance ministers. [...] To deal with this situation, a law was passed requiring periodic inspection of the books of the Finance Minister. A certain Finance Minister, when visited by the inspectors, said to them 'If you inspect my books, I shall not continue to be your finance minister. They retired in confusion, and only eighteen months later it wsa discovered that the Finance Minister had spoken nothing other than the literal truth." Grice, 'Intention and Uncertainty', Oxford, p. 11

Grice comments: "This anecdote [...] exploits a modal ambiguity in the future tense, between (a) the future indicated or factual, and (b) the future intentional. This ambiguity extends beyond the first person form of the tense; there is a difference between

'There will-F be light'

(future factual) and

'There will-I be light'

(future intentional); God might have uttered the second sentence while engaged in the Creation. Sensitive Engish speakers (which most of us are not) may be able to mark this distinction by discriminating between 'shall' and 'will'. 'I shall-I go to London' stands to 'I intend to go to London' analogously to the way in which 'Oh for rain tomorrow!' stands to 'I wish for rain tomorrow'.

Just as no one else can say JUST what I say when I say "I shall-I go to London". If someone else says "Grice will go to London", he will be expressing his, not my, intention that I shall go." (p. 11).

For it's the exhibition that's basic, protrepsis only coming later, in the differential cases (only), you see, as Grice successfully led as (via protrepsis) to accept.

JL

"protreptic" a. and sb. [as adj. ad. Gr. protreptikos fitted to urge on, hortative, instructive, f. pro, pro-2 + trep-ein to turn, direct the course of; as sb. ad. late L. protrepticon (-um) = Gr. protreptikon, neuter of the adj.] A adj. Directive, instructive, didactic. 1658 Phillips, Protreptick, doctrinal, or giving instructions.
1850 Maurice Mor. & Met. Philos. (1854) I. 47 The discipline of the habit or character he [Clement] would call protreptic.
B sb. A book, writing, or speech intended to exhort or instruct; an exhortation, instruction.
1656 Blount Glossogr., Protreptick, a book of instruction, a doctrinal.
1678 Cudworth Intell. Syst. 125 To rank Anaximander amongst the Divine Philosophers, as he [Clement] doth in his Protreptick to the Greeks.
1678 Cudworth Intell. Syst. 371 That this Pythagorick Prayer was directed to the Supreme Numen and King of Gods, Jamblichus thus declares in his Protrepticks.
1899 A. B. Cook in Classical Rev. Nov. 418/1 In the mind of Ischomachus' wife the bear-dance.. bulked larger than the protreptics of her husband.
So protreptical a., of protreptic nature.
1667-8 Bp. Ward Serm. Infidelity (1670) 3 The means used..are partly Didactical, and partly Protreptical.
1895 R. G. Moulton Proverbs p. x,Early proverbs are philosophical, not protreptical.