LAST William James Lecture RESCHEDULED

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------- We are discussing 'thought-language' and 'language of thought' (alleged, alleged) in the "Evidentialism" post (vis a vis Kramer's remarks). So I'm posting the very last paragraph as Grice utterered it at Harvard, Emerson Hall, back in April 1967. The handwritten notes (now WoW:142) but you have to _imagine_ the man, go:



"The solution to this

SEEMINGLY _knotty_ problem

may, perhaps, lie,

in the idea that the

psychological attitudes

which, in line with my theory of meaning,

attend the

word FLOWS

of thought

do so

as

CAUSES and effects
of the word flows in question,

but not as natural [italics Grice's. JLS]

causes and effects
and so NOT as states that
are manifested in psychological
episodes or thoughts which are
_numerically distinct_ form word flows
which set them off or arise from
them;

They are due or
proper antecedents or
consequentces of the word flows
in question and AS SUCH

are legitimately DEEMED
to be present in those roles;

THIS IS PART of one's authority
AS A RATIONAL THINKER
to assign acceptable interpretations
to one's internal word flows.

What they may be DEEMED to
generate or arise from is ipso facto
something which they DO generate
or arise from."

"The interpreation, therefore, of

ONE'S OWN VERBALLY formulated
thoughts is PART of the
privilege of a thinking being."

"The association of our word flows and
our psychological attitudes is FIXED
BY US as an

OUTFLOW

from our having learned to use our
language for descriptive purposes

TO DESCRIBE THE WORLD

[to others, mainly. JLS],

SO, the attitudes which, when
speaking spontaneously and yet
nonarbitrarily, we assign as causes
and effects of our word flows
have to be accepted
as properly
occupying that position."

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Editorials in comments, I hope. But this connects with the previous part of that lecture (No. 7 and last) -- as it would, wouldn't it. And it shows the itinerary of his thought, as it were. For soon enough, Schiffer and many others were already finding 'solutions' to how to interpret those inflows in good Gricean terms. In this respect, it's, ironically, the intro (a long one) to Schiffer's second edition of his _Meaning_ which I've found most illuminating, as he revises different approaches to the 'language of thought' hypothesis along Gricean lines.

The best exegetical material will come from Grice himself in works that were later repr. in "Conception of Value" (notably his "Method in philosophical psychology" -- as this relates to 'stages' of 'content-internalisation' by pirots.

While talk of pirots (pirot talk) scares a few, it actually should be the other way round: it's Grice's way to go back to his beloved symbolisms, and work stage by stage with little symbols like "p v q" and how this can "project" into 'dubitative' thinking as it were. Etc.

The aside of solecism-report is an interesting one. If he uses 'theirselves' in his outflow, it's of course natural that he'll use it in his inflow. The connection Grice makes between both 'flows' vis a vis the 'deeming' bit of our use of the "external" (and only) language to _express_ our (psychological, never propositional) attitudes is, from Grice, a charm.