Grice on ∈

---- By J. L. S.
-------- for the Grice Circle

---- I WILL FOLLOW THE STRATEGY by R. B. Jones -- which I have seen elsewhere, e.g. in the formalisation of 'illocutionary logic' by Vanderveken -- and adopt Grice's strategy as well of choosing 'set-theory' as the ML (or metalanguage) for his 'analysis' of meaning. The

∈

sign is a basic in that notion, and we don't see Grice using it a lot in the more basic stages of his analysis of utterer's meaning. It starts to feature, naturally, in the higher, more convoluted stages, when he wants to reach the levels of 'expression', rather than utterer's particularised contextual meaning. Notably in just a footnote in WoW:6 -- (the last of the substantive W. James lectures):

It's a convoluted footnote on p. 133, and I'll try to reproduce it more or less in full:

Basically, it yields the result of adding a conjunct to a procedure involving the use of nominal (alpha) and adejctival (nominal-adjectival, strictly, beta). The range of variables being

Alpha: Fido, Jones's dog
Beta: shaggy.

Extension for 'shaggy': hairy-coated things.

Grice's symbolism is intentional and involves the utterer's *purpose* in uttering 'shaggy'.

B: What would you predicate of Jones's dog?
A: Shaggy.

In symbols:

"Plus [this is an addendum to the basic procedure in terms of Denotate-correlate), U's purpose (goal) in effecting that (Ax(......) is that (ER')(Az)(R' 'beta' [for 'beta' being 'shaggy'] z iff z ∈ (y is hairy-coated))."