Grice's Anti-Sneak

--- By J. L. S.

From wiki, 'evolution of cooperation':

"Don't be too clever: or, don't try to be tricky."

I was going to title this, "The Gricean Cheat: Doomed to Fail" but thought it would sound ambiguous!

I've always been fascinated, in an odd sort of way, by Grice's emphasis on anti-sneak. The thing has a formal ring to it in Grice. Almost 'cybernetic', to use Kramer's word. For Grice, if we want to say that

By uttering x, U meant that p


three conditions need to be fulfilled:


i. U exhibits propositional attitude p

ii. Grice-Way: he successfuly exhibits
by A's coming to recognise the exhibition
on account of A's recognition of U's
_INTENTION_ to exhibit p.

iii. Anti-Sneak. There's NO inference element
such that constitutes (i)-(iii) and such
that U may use but does not intend A to
recognise.


There can be no sneaky intention behind my uttering "The cat sat on the mat", for to mean, by uttering that, that I mean that the cat sat on the mat.

I actually buy the Gricean Formula, so called. But it _has_ been provocative. In general, Griceans who are more interested in expression-meaning, and who import a notion of 'mutual knowledge', usually don't need the anti-sneak clause. Vide Gr89: Meaning Revisited for the clearest exposition of his rivals on this, notably Schiffer.

So, it was nice to see Axelrod arriving at the same Gricean conclusion from a different perspective.