"My ball itches" (Was: all-male

Mrs. Grice commented to the biographer of Grice, Chapman, words: "Of course we were not allowed to the parties at St. John's". Oxford was an all-male thing.

In Joshi et al this all struck back with a vengeance. A female linguist was considering the uniqueness implicature of the iota-operator formulae:

My ball itches.

Does this implicate that the utterer only has one ball? "I cannot reply, because, well, I'm a woman. I lack the relevant native-speaker intuition".

But was Grice like that?! Yes he was. He did believe in 'intuitions'.


Before giving my "intuitions" ('for want of a better word', as Buckle would say) about what 'intuition' may (or may *fail* to) mean, I thought it would be a good exercise to check the OED's take (and cites) for _intuit_ (qua verb) -- below --. I was (slightly) surprised that 'intuition' (the noun) lexicologically predates 'intuit', so I append some quotes for 'intuition',
too.

My favourite quote is from the work of Locke (_Essay Concerning Humane [sic] Understanding_, available online at R. Jones's site):

"The mind perceives, that white is not black,
That a circle is not a triangle,
That three are more than two, and
equal to one and two. Such kind of
truths the mind perceives at the first
sight of the ideas together, by bare
intuition."
J. Locke, _Essay_, iv ii i

There's below another quote from Locke using 'intutive' as applied to 'knowledge'.

Another interesting quote is by E. Conder (1877). Conder hesitates to call an 'intuition' a _belief_. The issue seems to me interesting for anyone concerned with a general theory of propositional atittudes. Indeed, one may like to say that 'intuiting' not only is perhaps something that we may call (with Stich) 'sub-doxastic' but also that _exceeds_ the 'doxastic' sphere (into the 'boulomaic' or 'conative'):

"Primary judgments (such as that every
change must have a cause) are often
called beliefs, though `intuitions'
would be a better term."
E. Conder, Bas. Faith, 1877, p. 157.

There is also an interesting quote (I find) by A. Huxley, which concerns what I (or Grice) may call (after Kiparsky) the 'factiveness' of 'intuiting'. Authors such as Locke who apply 'intutive' to things like 'knowledge' (not to mention 'truth') would seem to commit to the absurdity of someone _mis-intuiting_ something. Yet here we have Huxley (on one reading) _contesting_ that:

"You intuit things that aren't there at all."
A. Huxley, Two or three Graces, 1926, p. 85.

I say 'one reading' for Huxley may be saying that 'intuiting' goes
_beyond_ perceiving.

Anyone committed to the 'factiveness' of "intuit" may (as I would) however justify Huxley's use as what Grice would call a 'loose' usage. Thus Grice writes about the appropriateness of something like
"Macbeth saw Banquo."
Grice writes:

"One way in which the [cancelability] test
[for conversational implicature] may fail
is connected with the possibility of using
a word in a loose or relaxed way. Suppose
that two people are considering the purchase
of a tie which both of them know to be medium
green; they look at it in different lights,
and say such things as 'It is a light green now',
or 'It has a touch of blue in it in this light'.
Strictly (perhaps) it would be correct for
them to say 'It looks light green now' or
'It seems to have a touch of blue in it in
this light', but it would be unnecessary
to put in such qualificatory words since
both know (and know that the other knows)
that there is no question of a real change
of colour. A similar linguistic phenomenon
attends such words as 'see': If we all
know that Macbeth hallucinated, we can
quite safely say that Macbeth _saw_ Banquo,
even though Banquo was not there to be seen,
and we should _not_ conclude from this
that an implication of the existence of
the object said to be seen is _not_ part
of the "conventional meaning" of the
word 'see', nor even (as some have done)
that there is one _sense_ of 'see' which
lacks this implication".

H. P. Grice, WOW -- Studies in the Way of Words
-- p. 44)


From the OED

"intuit". from the Latin "intueri", to look upon, consider, contemplate. From "in-" + "-tueri", to look.
"to tutor, to instruct".
Cites:

1776 Adventures of a Corkscrew 15
"Scarce a sharper or gambler but what could freely
take his lordship by the hand; intuited by such company,
it was in vain his mother now attempted to remonstrate
against his proceedings."
"to receive or assimilate knowledge by direct perception or comprehension."
Cites:

1840 De Quincey Rhetoric
"God must see; he must intuit, so to speak;
and all truth must reach him simultaneously."

1895 Thinker VIII. 448
"Anselm does not attempt to intuit,
but only to prove."

1968 J Holmes Nothing more to Declare
"You had to be able to intuit on the bias,
to hear music being music."
"to know anything immediately, without the
intervention of any reasoning process".
Cites:

1858 Bushnell Nat. & Supernat.
"He is a being who by the eternal necessity
even of his nature, intuits everything.

1872 H. Spencer Princ. Psychol.
"If space and time are forms of intuition
they can never be intuited; since it is
impossible for anything to be at once
the form of intuition and the matter of
intuition.

1874 Lewes Probl. Life & Mind I. 419
"The mind intuites what the eye cannot see."

1881 Sully Illusions 33
"Our other senses are also avenues by which
we intuit and recognize objects."

1926 A. Huxley Two or three Graces 85
"You intuit things that aren't there at all."

1968 Times 13 Jan. 20/3
"We may intuit his reality, but we cannot share it."

1972 Times Lit. Suppl. 18 Feb. 178/1
"What Johnson intuited and asserted in 1765,
that of the Folios only the first had any
textual authority, was demonstrated by
Malone in 1790."

Some cites for 'intuition':
First cite for 'intuition' in the English langauge:

1497 Bp. Alcock Mons Perfect. B iij,
"That they myght have a perpetuall intuycion
& fruycion of his Infynyte Joye.

The OED defines "intuition" as per "Mod. Philos. The immediate apprehension of an object by the mind without the intervention of any reasoning process; a particular act of such apprehension", and gives amongst the quotes:

1600 Hooker (in Cottle Coleridge II. 217)
"An intuition, that is, a direct beholding or
presentation to the mind through the senses or imagination."

1782 Priestley Matter & Spir. I. xi. 134
"What we feel, and what we do, we may be said
to know by intuition."

1840 De Quincey Rhetoric Wks. 1859 XI. 42
"An intuition is any knowledge whatsoever,
sensuous or intellectual, which is apprehended
immediately."

-- This author De Quincey seems important in that, as per above, he is one
to use 'intuit' as a verb, too.

1860 Abp. Thomson Laws Th. §47. 74
"Notions of single objects are called Intuitions,
as being such as the mind receives when it simply
attends to or inspects (intuetur) the object."

Other cites include:

1677 Hale Prim. Orig. Man. i. i. 2
"There seems to be a third means, which is
a kind of intuition; there are some truths
so plain and evident, and open, that need
not any process of ratiocination to evidence
or evince them."

1695 Locke Hum. Und. iv. ii. §1
"The Mind perceives, that White is not Black,
That a Circle is not a Triangle,
That Three are more than Two, and
equal to One and Two. Such kind of
Truths the Mind perceives at the first
sight of the Ideas together, by bare
Intuition, without the intervention
of any other Idea."

1877 E. R. Conder Bas. Faith iv. 157
"Primary judgments (such as that every
change must have a cause) are often
called beliefs, though `intuitions'
would be a better term."

1862 Buckle Misc. Wks. (1872) I. 40
"That peculiar property of genius which,
for want of a better word, we call intuition."

Cites for 'intuitive':

1656 Blount Glossogr. s.v.,
"An intuitive Vision is a cleer sight of a thing,
as it is in itself."

†2 Said esp. of the kind of `vision' or immediate perception ascribed to
angelic and spiritual beings. (See intuition 4.) Obs. (or merged in 3).

1690 Locke Hum. Und. iv. i. §9
"Intuitive Knowledge, where the Ideas themselves
by an immediate View, discover their Agreement or
Disagreement one with another."

1833 Mill Let. 5 July (1910) i. ii. 54,
"I conceive that most of the highest truths are..
intuitive; that is, they need neither
explanation nor proof, but if not known
before are assented to as soon as stated."

1790 Burke Fr. Rev. Wks. V. 159
"The first intuitive glance, without any
elaborate process of reasoning, would shew,
that this..would justify every extent of crime."

Etc.