Fibs!

--- by JLS
------ for the GC.

---- MANY PEOPLE, including philosophers (!), believe that Grice's Maxim of Quality (so-called, by him, that is) should be generalised. Bach (a linguistic philosopher) and Harnish (a logical philosopher) have thus attempted in their MIT book:

"do not make a bad contribution", rather than a false one ("Close the door!" vis a vis a closed door is a bad move, not a false one -- etc. I'm speaking loosely).

So there's 'fibs!'

1815 H. MADDOCK Princ. & Pract. Chancery I. 208

Whenever Suppressio veri or Suggestio falsi occur..they afford a sufficient
ground for setting aside any
Release or Conveyance.

1855 Newspaper & Gen. Reader's Pocket Compan. I. 4

He was bound to say that the suppressio veri on that occasion approached
very nearly to a positive suggestio falsi.

1898 KIPLING Stalky (1899) 36

It seems..that they had held back material facts; that they were guilty both
of suppressio veri and suggestio falsi.

1907 W. DE MORGAN Alice-for-Short xxxvi. 389

That's suppressio veri and suggestio falsi! Besides, it's fibs!

1962 J. WILSON Public Schools & Private Practice i. 19

It is rare to find a positively verifiable untruth in a school brochure: but
it is equally rare not to find a great many suggestiones falsi, particularly
as regards the material comfort and facilities available.

1980 D. NEWSOME On Edge of Paradise 7

There are undoubted cases of suppressio veri; on the other hand, he appears
to eschew suggestio falsi.

or, as John McChesney reminds us re Warnock's Dilemma (in wiki):

qui tacet consentire videtur

he who remains silent is seen as consenting.

I think it's G. N. Leech who provides the example:

A: We'll all miss Agatha and Franklin.
B: Well, we'll all miss Agatha.

By 'supressing' the 'true'

'We'll miss Franklin',

B _implicates_ (in Grice's jargon)

that there is a 'suggestion' (i.e. implicatura, or sous-entendu
to use Mill's) that it's not a true (verum), but a 'falsum'.

The easiest way to deal with this formally is to assume that B abides by the Gricean maxim,

'utter the true only'.

Therefore, we 'build' in the logical form, of

F: We'll miss Franklin

and turn it into a "T"

by introducing the only logical operator that will allow us that,

"~":

"not".

The implicatum then becomes:

T: We will NOT miss Franklin.

So, in this case, by 'taciting'

"We'll all miss Franklin" -- to which we must get by conjunction simplification --alla Harnish, "Implicature and Logical Form", rather:

"p & q", therefore "q" --,

B is not "seen" or taken as having _consented_ to the second conjunct in A's
utterance, but, quite contrariwise, to have _dissented_ *from* it.

Very odd -- but Griceian in nature. Or not (as the Kramerism goes).

What is fibs?