Grice, Be Relevant: The Appeal of Terseness

A cottage industry has flourished out of Grice's terse maxim, "Be relevant", in WoW, ii. What did Grice mean?

My take is that he is, as he says he is, 'echoing Kant'. Kant had three categories, apres Aristotle: quantitas (posotes), qualitas (poiotes -- these two are coinages by Aristotle, unexistent in Greek before his time), modus and relatio.

It's "relatio" that yields Grice, "be relevant". For it means that something 'relates' to something else. I have proved elsewhere (my little "Treatise on ontological metaphysics from Zulberg to Amarides") that all is connected to all.

But is that so with 'relevance'. Grice didn't care a hoot, he says, what the dictionary says. I do, two hoots actually. So here's the quotes of relevance, a term of Scots law, originally, for your enjoyment!

Cheers,

JL

----

"be relevant":

USAGE 1.

= Relevancy.

USAGE 2.

Specially in recent use: pertinency to important current issues.

USAGE 3.

Social or vocational relevancy.

QUOTES:
FIRST REGISTERED USE IN ENGLISH:

****1733****
Innes View Laws Scot 11
(NOTE the word "relevance" WAS FIRST USED IN SCOTLAND).


the relevance being determined, the probation
proceeds in the next place.

1865 Lecky Ration p98
The main principle upon which the relevance of this
species of narrative depends.


1890 Spectator 19 Apr 536
What relevance had such a fact to the duty of the hour?

1949 Poetry Chicago Feb 299
Tate holds that the poem is autonomous,
and that the only relevance the subject-ideas
have is to each other within the formal meaning
of the work itself.

===

Note: THIS is interesting, since it relates to work on the so-called
INTENTIONALIST fallacy. I.e. the idea (fallacy to some) that the meaning of
a poem is independent of the meaning of the poet.

==


1955 Bull. Atomic Sci. Apr. 126/1
======================

Relevance is another one of these non-assessable
quantities which circumstances require to be assessed.
=============

JLS Trouble is: HOW CAN YOU ASSESS THE NON-ASSESSABLE?
Note that the circumstances REQUIRE that relevance be
assessed does not entail that relevance is in fact
assessed.
====

The next three quotes show the word was in vogue in England in
the mid-70s!


1970 Time 30 Nov. 40
The impetus came largely from student demands
for relevance, especially for the
overdue admission of more minority-group
students. Activism has also done much to curb
the old absurdities of trivial research and needless
PhDs.

1975 Language for Life Dept Educ & Sci 129
We have heard the case for relevance
carried to the point of excluding fantasy
or any stories with settings or characters
unfamiliar to the pupils from their
first-hand experience.

1975 Times 12 Feb 11
The novel ["Hal"]- while laudable
in its social intentions - is little
more than a piecing together of stock
responses to the current demand for "relevance".

==
1977 Chem in Brit Mar, 105

It may seem anomalous in these days of
relevance philosophy in tertiary education
that the average student of chemistry gets
little inkling from his teachers
of the vast practical importance of
disperse systems in industry.


1978 New Scientist 21 Sept p850
Relevance in research implies both
social efficacy and psychic commitment
by the research worker.

====
RELEVANCY. Alternative spellings: "relivance"

From the Roman "relevantia".

1. The quality or fact of being relevant

1.1. in Law, esp. Scotland's Law.

1561 Reg. Privy Council Scot, p.173

Of the law it is requirit to the
relevancy thereof that other of
the parties be relevant in the self,
otherwise the haill to be nocht relevant.
==
?????
== Give me Grice any time!


1575 Reg. Privy Council Scot II 487
The relivancy of the said allegeance.


1693 Stair Instit p665
=====================

The meaning of relevancy -- which is more accustomed
with us than elsewhere -- imports the Justice of the
_point_, that is alledged to be relevant.
==========

((I Like that since it suggests RELEVANCY Is merely
a Scottish thing)).


Note that many pragmaticists have tried to define "relevance" in terms of
point. "Be relevant" = "be to the point".


1715 Burnet Own Time p521
Then the matter of the charge, which is
there called the relevancy of the libel,
was to be argued by lawyers.


1746 Act 20 Geo II p 43
After the debate of the relevancy is
ended, the procurators shall
give in to the clerk informations in writing.


1786 Burke Art agst W Hastings Wks 107
The competence, or credibility, or relevancy of any
of the said affidavits, or other attestations.

1818 Scott Hrt Midl xxii
the presiding Judge next directed the counsel
to plead to the relevancy.


1838 W. Bell Dict Law Scot 844
The relevancy of the libel is the justice and
sufficiency of the matters therein stated to
warrant a decree in the terms asked.


1883 Law Rep. 11 QB Div 594
He failed to satisfy me that in a case
in which this strict relevancy could not
be proved the advocate would not be protected.

1.2. In general use. Now less common than RELEVANCE.

1826 Sheridaniana 49
[Speranza's] answer would thus come with
more relevancy and effect.

1839 Hallam History of Literature pvii
It is of no relevancy to the history of literature.


1878 Simpson Sch. Shaks. I. 95
His Irish enterprise had lost its
appositeness & relevancy.


((I like this since apposite is like aptness)).


1961 Jrnl Physical Chem LXV 317
We are reporting these investigations
because of their relevancy to problems of
the study of apparently simple exchange
reactions of chlorine.


1980 Times Lit. Suppl. 30 May 609
A tendency to confuse relevancy with recency.


USAGE 2:

a relevant remark. A nonce use influenced by "irrelevancy".


1895 S Clemens ("Mark Twain") in N Amer Rev July 10
===================================

Conversations consisted mainly of irrelevancies,
with here and there a relevancy,
a relevancy with an embarrassed look,
as not being able to explain how it got there.

======================


Appendix. Remarks on the morphology and spelling.


"-ANCE". English suffix.


From the Roman Latin "-antia" (see "esperance" -- a battle cry in
Shakespeare's Henry V ("Esperance, Percy". 1 Hen. IV, v. ii. 97). Italian
_speranza_), all of which in words that survived as nouns of action, on the
pres. pple. For the confusion and inconsistency which this causes in
current spelling,

relevance vs. relevancy

The suffix "-ance" is a living formative as used to form a noun of action
on a native verb ("abid-ance", "abear-ance", "forbear-ance",
"further-ance", "hinder-ance", "good ridd-ance").

RELEVANT. Alternative spelling: "relivant".

From Roman Latin, "relevantem" (Ducange 1481).

Present participle of Roman "relevare"

relev-are -> relev-antia -> mod. Ital. relev-anza. Engl. relevance
sper-are -> sper-antia -> mod. Ital. sper-anza Engl. esperance
relevare: "to raise up. Cfr. English "relieve", and "relief".
Cognate with Italian "rilevante" =

Glossed by Florio as "availeful, of importance, of worth, of consequence".

USAGE 1
SUBUSAGE 1:
Bearing on, connected with, pertinent to (the matter at hand).

1560 Rolland Crt Venus, p.498

I sall the schaw one answer relevant.

1646 Chas I Lett to A. Henderson, p.55

To determine our differences, or, at least,
to make our probations & arguments
relevant.

1646 R Baillie Anabaptism, p.143

=======================================

It is very relevant if it were true.

=======================================

JLS: THIS SUGGESTS THAT GRICE's Quality is more basic than RELATION? (I
think that a hasty look at the OED Grice was purposefully confusing
etymologies when he said, "relation: be relevant". rel-evant, and rel-ation
only have in etymological commonality that both start with prefix "re-",
but they are otherwise unconnected. I.e. the "l" sound is not cognate. But
then Grice needed the four super-maxims if he was to echo Kant's categories
of judgement.


1707 J Frazer Disc Second Sight 15


It seems truly to be founded on relevant grounds.


1782 Pownall Study Antiq, p.140


A positive regulation respecting marriage,
relevant to a like regulation of the institution of the theocracy.

1827 Stewart Planter's G, p78

We either admit those objections as relevant,
or obviate them as unfounded.


1851 Gladstone Glean, p15
The advantage most relevant of all to the present purpose.


1875 Jowett Plato, p.4
Many things in a controversy might seem relevant,
if we knew to what they were intended to refer.

1948 D Cecil Two Quiet Lives p.140
To learn everything that could possibly
be thought relevant to the subject.

1969 Harper's Mag Nov, p.86
Either we can commit ourselves to changing the
institutions of our society that need to be changed,
to make them

- to use a term which I hate -

relevant, or we can sit back & try to defend them.


=====

Great PITY (shame) WE ARE NOT TOLD WHO WROTE THIS, OR WHY HE/SHE FOUND
"Relevant" hateful.
I think she/he meant "vague"?

====

1970 NY Times 1 July, p.44
Museums should have a
more involved or relevant public role.

1976 Listener 20 May p.627

The ultimate sin of the broadcaster is to keep off the air,
because of his political or social prejudices,
subjects which are relevant & significant.

1978 S Braden, Artists & People, p.17.
What actually makes a work of art relevant to people?
It has been said that relevance is achieved
when artists meet the real observations of their public.

USAGE 1.1. Correspondent/proportional (to something).

1868 Rogers Political Economy, p.76
Population & the supply of food must be
exactly relevant.


1868 Rogers Political Economy, p.191
The value is absolutely relevant
to the demand for them.

=====

Second Usage: Technicism. Scotland's Law:

Legally pertinent or sufficient.


1561. See "relevancy".

1644 Maxwell Prerog Kings 107
They can make no relevant endictment
against them.

1723 in Maclaurin Argt & Decis Cases, p.70
They find the libel relevant to infer the pains of law.

1753 Stewart's Trial 149
They remit the pannel
with the libel as found relevant to the knowledge of an assize.

1818 Scott Hrt Midl 22
The defence, that the panel had communicated
her situation to her sister, was
a relevant defence.

1838 W Bell Dictionary of Law in Scotland, p.273
The exception of fraud, or force and fear,
is not relevant against all actions.

====
Third Usage:

Relieving; remedial.

1730 Bailey (folio):
Relevant, relieving.


1762 Aston in Burke's Corr I 38
They ever pursued vindictive rather than relevant measures.

===

Two uses of the adverb "RELEVANTLY" indexed by the OED:
1561 Reg Privy Council Scot I 180
In respect of the libel relevantly
libeled against the said Thos Kennedy.
1883 Law Rep 11 QB Div 601
parties & witnesses who make statements
without malice & relevantly.
====

So now you know what Grice thought it best to leave his a 'terse maxim', be relevant.

Cheers,

JL