The Harsh and the Rough

People, and this irritated Grice, do say,

"Roughly speaking".

I don't. I'm not into rough trade, or Nothing.

But Grice enjoyed Berkeley, 'harsh'.

Bishop Berkeley said,

"It is harsh to say that my soul is quadrangular".

He was a spiritualist, and he held that predicates which apply to res extensa do not need to apply to res cogitans.

Grice uses 'harsh' -- or the 'harsh' method in various places.

(Notably in Grice 1991, Conception of Value -- crediting the British empiricist).

In a way, it's a presequel to Linguistic Botanising and the somewhat pedantic way Grice had to dismiss the views of

Moore
Strawson
Austin
Grant
Urmson
Hungerland
Nowell-Smith
Edwards
Bar-Hillel

All these authors had said that

"p" implies "I believe that p"

Only Grice will have the cheek and decency to add: "Surely it does sound a bit or slightly _harsh_ to say those things; so I won't". Etc.