Grice Italiano

--- a memoir of Marino
--------- by J. L. Speranza
------------- for the Grice Club

KRAMER was mentioning 'preciosite' (wiki essay), which correlates with Italian entry for 'preziosismo' which lists other movements elsewhere: preziosismo indeed French -- Versailles -- l'art de la conversation --. Euphism in England, gongorism in Spain, and marinism in Italy.

We should recall that one of the extended sections in Grice WoW 'implicature' essay -- "Logic and Conversation", without which, no Grice --, concerns 'something of the nature of a figure of speech'. Thus, Marinists also abound in:

"Figure retoriche. L'impegno dei marinisti è essenzialmente retorico. Uso intensivo delle antitesi, allora denominate contrapositi, figura retorica che già il Manierismo aveva molto valorizzato e di cui il Barocco fa una sorta di segno distintivo."

antithesis, that is -- or counterpoint. There is this novel by Huxley by this name. He was a high-brow, so I wouldn't be surprised if his counterpoint has connotations other than musical.

"Uso della metafora continuata, per cui il piano di analogia tra l'oggetto e l'immagine è persistente, e sviluppato in ogni direzione possibile. Emanuele Tesauro è il massimo teorico della metafora, soprattutto in senso creativo;"

This is quite a stretch from Grice's "You're the cream in my coffee", but you get the drift. Grice was of course mainly interested in so-called 'sense' derivations:

Peter is between Paul and Frederick:

'between': what sense? Literal (i.e. spatial or physical), or 'some order of merit'? Grice writes to the effect, "I wouldn't say that 'between' is ambiguous between a literal and a figurative sense here". That is precisely the Lakoffian big mistake. Everything turns to become a metaphor before we can properly so-called it, or her!

With Tesauro and Vico it WAS different -- cfr. Croce.

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"Tendenza a far culminare il componimento nel concettino o argutezza, trovata spiritosa a fine di "maraviglia", in funzione della quale, molto spesso, l'intero componimento è costruito. Importante l'opera normatrice, in questo senso, di Matteo Peregrini nonché, sul finire del secolo, quella di Matteo Caravita col suo trattato In lode del concetto."

This is so precieux it hurts -- it's just the concept -- or conceptism. If there is something I regret about ordianry-language philosophers is the excessive use of 'concept'. NOT Grice's fault! Ryle ("The concept of mind"), and Strawson ("The concept of a person") rather. For Grice it's just WoW: Way of Words!

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