Grice, Misremembered

M. Wrigley once pointed out to me, "You should write a book" and he would smile, "Grice Remembered". He proposed a titbit for it: "I haven't read Dummett's book and I hope I won't."

Benjamin was not a central Oxonian philosopher. He was from Down Under, but he appealed Grice.

Grice discusses Benjamin on 'remember' (in Studies, 'Prolegomena' -- Benjamin's essay in _Mind_) as a case of an A-philosopher, along with Strawson, Hart, and Wittgenstein:

Grice writes:

"Benjamin remarked: 'One could generate A SENSE
of the VERB
'remember' such that from the demonstration
that one has NOT FORGOTTEN p, i.e.
that one has produced or performed p, it
would follow that one remembers p
... Thus one could speak of English[women]
conversing or writing in English as
'remembering' words in the English language;
of accountants doing accounts as
'remembering how to add,' and one might
murmur as one signs one's name 'I've
remembered my name again.' The absurd
inappropriateness of these examples,
if 'remember' is understood in its USUAL SENSE,
illustrates the opposition
between the two senses." (Benjamin, _MInd_, July 1956).

Grice adds a note to the effect that 'remember' behaves like 'know' here:

"The hotel clerk asked me what my name was, and (fortunately) I knew the answer").

For Grice, all this is a matter of implicature, never entailment.
A second topic is the actual or alleged factivity:

"I remember it was somewhere in 1942".

If it wasn't, then you cannot remember. Misremember is a malapropism. Etc.