--- by JLS
------ for the GC
ODDLY, even if I, to challenge the Establishment, cite this as "How UNimaginative Grice can be?", the implicatum is the same: i.e. "how imaginative" and "how UNimaginative" carry the SAME set of implicata (a one-member set as it happens). Cfr.
"How silly is Joan Rivers?"
"How intelligent is Joan Rivers"
--- the rationale for this must be in the Irish dislike for 'n't' ("Do you not think that?")
----
Kramer wrote extensively on 'unimaginative titles'. There are TWO things to consider:
--- R. B. Jones's idea of a keyword: We have a work in progress (forever in progress as my aunt jokes), "Carnap and Grice" -- "We must keep the keywords: surely more people will be interested to read about them than us", he surmises. Not so sure!
--- Kramer's idea that IMAGINATIVE titles are narcissitic (cfr. his views on pricniple) and 'otiose'.
---
A REVIEW OF GRICE'S TITLING PRACTICES, with an emphasis on his post-crematorian practices (* I used to refer to many items of Grice's stuff as 'posthumous' -- his three books to date, for example -- but surely since the man (or his body, as I prefer) was cremated in 1988, post-crematorial sounds more apt -- or apter).
1941. 'Personal Identity', for Mind. Unimaginative. But since this was published in the imaginatively titled review, "Mind" -- originally and BY THE TIME GRICE PUBLISHED IT, still subtitled: "a journal of philosophy and psychology", let that be.
The next paper by Grice was in collaboration, so we can skip that. He then published
1957. 'Metaphysics' (again in collaboration). Grice thought so little (literally) of this item, that he had forgotten all about it when he was listing his publications for his festschrift.
1957. 'Meaning'. Unimaginative. Oddly, my thesis advisor (Rabossi) who could SPEAK Iberian (with an accent) was so IRRITATED when Analise Menasse translated this as "Significado" -- He crossed that out to read, "SignificAR": i.e. it is not a noun in Grice, but a verb (as in "Breaking Wind", to use J. Kennedy's remark by Orwell on Italian waitery).
1961. The causal theory of perception. Unimaginative. I would have titled the thing, "When a pillar box seems red". This was for the imaginatively called "Aristotelian Society" so let that be.
1966. Some remarks about the senses. In Butler, "Analytic Philosophy". Unimaginative. "Remarks" is NOT an infomrmative remark. Cfr. Kramer's notes on 're:' in post titles. "Surely" (or words), "a post about 'myth' is still to be entitled 'myth', not "Re: myth"". For Kramer, the addition of 're:' disqualifies the FIRST post ('myth') as NOT being about myth.
1967. Logic and Conversation. UNIMAGINATIVE. But then, "William James Lectures", as he left them untitled, is perhaps TOO 'imaginatory'. Of the 7 William James lectures, I think the most imaginatively titled one is the first: "Prolegomena". This reminds me of Borges and his favourite philosophical book ever: Schopenhauer, "Prolegomena and Paralipomena" (Ah well). To think that while Schopenhauer was providing deep thoughts on the nature of suicide and the prospects of pessmisim, while Grice is discussing Searle's example of a bunch of Texas oilmen uttering, "He is not lighting his cigarette with a 20-dollar bill" gives you the idea.
1975. "From the banal to the bizarre". This is the subtitle (VERY IMAGINATIVE) to his less imaginative title, "Method in philosophical psychology", which was his (i.e. Grice's rather than Searle -- by default, my use of pronouns refer immediately to the previous MALE in the discourse -- not mentioning "he" who was NOT lighting that cigarette, etc.) presidential address for the American Philosophical Association. ("American" means "US.", and thus it may include a Harborne native).
1971. "Intention and Uncertainty". Witty more than imaginative. This came earlier than 1975, but what the heck! It was a parody (alla music-hall) of Hampshire, "Intention and Certainty".
1978. Further notes on logic and conversation. Perhaps Grice's LESS imaginative (or more UNimaginative) title. THe idea of 'notes on', and "further" is so otiose that one wonders about Peter Cole. Peter Cole and Jerry Morgan had cajoled Grice into allowing his thing published for his friends Davidson/Harman, "The grammar of logic" (1975) into the third volume of their "Syntax and Semantics" boring series for Academic Press. Now it was 1978, and Cole was commissioned -- by the hardly 'academic' Academic Press -- to submit yet another volume in the series. If he had unimaginately entitled the 3rd volume, "Speech acts", he entitled the volume 9, "Pragmatics" -- and he had the thing by Grice, untitled. "How the hell shall we call this?". It was decided, on a VERY unimaginative day, "Further notes on logic and conversation". I would have entitled it, "Modified Occam's Razor" or something.
1982. "Meaning Revisited". This is imaginative, if perhaps NOT AS imaginative as Waugh's (now a major film with Emma Thompson), "Brideshead Revisited". How can you revisit 'meaning'? (Cfr. Kennedy on 'revising' Breaking Wind). This was published in the unimaginatively titled "Mutual Knowledge" book -- again by the hardl academic "Academic Press" in a volume ed. by N. V. Smith).
1986. Actions and Events. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 1986. This is a VERY imaginative essay with a rather dreary unimaginative title of Davidsonian resonances -- it was one of Grice's typical things published to please others: Davidson, in this case.
1988. Aristotle on the multiplicity of being. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 1988. Pretty unimaginatively titled, seeing that he quotes from the WONDERFULLY imaginatively titled (by Canadian author G. E. L. Owen), "Aristotle: The Snares of Ontology").
----
GRICE AT HIS IMAGINATIVE BEST:
1968. The Syntax of Illusion -- an analysis of "The pillar box seems to me, in post-hallucinatory haste, as if it wouldn't exist".
1967. Can one have a pain in one's tail?
-- NOT PUBLISHED. Cited by Grice in "The unpublications of H. P. Grice", the appendix to "Prejudices and predilections, which become (sic) the life and opinions of H. P. Grice" by H. P. Grice.
Etc.
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I don't go along with the 'narcissism' of the IMAGINATIVE titles. To me, the purest narcissism has always been the fact of visual artworks that can be conceived, produced, catalogued, purchased, sold, displayed, criticised, acquired by museums, etc, and yet sit there on the wall with the title/non-title, "Untitled work"
ReplyDeleteAlso, at what point does the supposedly 'efficient' title become so condensed that it either means nothing or means too many things? This is why, personally, I prefer titles that are just long enough to become unique.
I had another point regarding Kramer's 'efficiency' re: word length (which was discussed ages ago, it seems) but that was, on reflection, that this idea of 'efficiency' = brevity, it depends upon the level. German has very many long words, but the fact that it forms these compounds in a way that permits a particular particle to need only be learned once and then understood as the same whenever it occurs, this, to me, is efficiency, even if the result is Katzenspielplatzzeug, etc (made-up word).
Mandarin also works along similar lines, with there being around 200+ base characters (fascinating in their own right for their composition) upon which all other characters are founded, so all characters pertaining to water, for example, feature the 'radical' for water.
So, on the question of efficiency, pursuing it to the point of comparing individual word lengths between languages was to be perhaps looking at the wrong level (or, at the least, to not be considering other areas of a language where efficiencies may gather/emerge).
Yes, Kramer should comment on all those (two) fronts, I hope.
ReplyDeleteSince this is about 'titles', I actually think that a title of a piece of philosophical work IS otiose. Surely we cannot claim that the argument in Grice's "Causal Theory of Perception" depends on the title, "The Causal Theory of Perception".
I do have a few fiches at the Swimming-Pool Library, featuring titles of books, essays, and SECTIONS of books. I find them to be v. good. E.g. I can say that while, say, Sir John Lyons has not explicitly written a book or essay on Grice, he has some sections in his many publications (notably books) featuring Gricean parlance tricks (such as 'implicature').
--- I think Jason is right about 'untitled'. The same is also notorious with poems. I tend to call a poem by the first line, regardless. Now that I am doing opera, I'm ditto. E.g. in a week or so I will be watching "Fidelio" and I'm learning the aria. The recitative you can keep, but the aria for the tenor starts, "In lebens fruhlingstagen" or seomthing, "in the spring days of life". THAT is the title, regardless. The White Knight has a funny piece on 'titles' of songs I have discussed elsewhere (CHORA), as symbolised by Reichenbach.
I think 'Untitled' is NOT the intended name of the thing? I don't know. Are there poems titled 'untitled'? Don't know. Note the pragmatic contradiction:
"Untitled", by Kosuth, is not untitled.
--- I think Jason is right about German and the particles. A long word, like, 'supercalifragilisticespealidousceous' (sp?) is composed of well-known lexemes ('super', etc.). In fact, my brother thinks that when people say,
"Super".
what they mean is an abbreviation of this word by Mary Poppins. I don't agree. I think that if people want to 'abbreviate' a word they have to use the 'last' bit of the long word, 'allidozeous', or something -- i.e. the suffix, rather than the prefix.
Mandarin is still a different animal, etc.
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Incidentally, Kramer notes that he first read the rather direct, "Sex and alcohol", or "Alcohol and sex" I forget. In a way, this is all rather metaphorical: alcohol is literally C-O-H-O-C, I think. The book is possibly about 'wine', i.e. grape juice with C - O - H- C (vs. vodka). It's seldom 'alcohol' itself, but mixed with something with a bit of more flavour to it.
Ditto, 'sex' is also metaphtonymic: for in Latin, it was 'division' -- de-sec-tarian. Usually, 'sex' has nothing to do with it, but there are divergences as to the meaning of 'sex'. In penil-vaginal sex, oral 'sex' is a MISNOMER.
The problem with the chapter on 'sex and alcohol' -- a metaphorical title for a chapter par excellence -- is that while it is supposed to unhibit you, the drawback is not just the hangover, they say. Or something.
Etc.
There is a tendency, burden, expectation, or something, that titles _need_ to be imaginative. This is what I call the titular tyranny. Why shouldn't people just appreciate the THING rather than the title?
I. A. Richards used to present poems for analysis to his students to which he omitted (to the poems, not the students) the title, as a red-herring. And right he was.
Kant's critique of pure reason would be so sweet without that name.
On the other hand, titles and names are aristocratic the longer. S. R. B. Clark, a philosopher, objected: "I'm Anglo-Welsh working-class; the fact that I have three names is neither here nor there with aristocracy". But yet, why does it sound silly to write of the present son of the present Prince of Wales: "William Arthur William Louis -- a prince by any other name would smell so sweet", or something. Ah well.
Recall that the Romeo adage is said by Juliet, who _knew_. Etc.
"Why shouldn't people just appreciate the THING rather than the title?"
ReplyDeleteAgreed. But a title is necessary for finding the thing again, isn't that one of the primary reasons for giving things names? Isn't that why people hum old songs in anguish, wishing they could remember its title...
With my literary work, I will name short stories very simply, "The Sandwich Factory", "The Gym" etc, because I 1) Don't believe that the title should be the site of some attempt at being cool, or witty, etc (and never of a pun), and 2) a story, for me, is not 'about' something, it is simply the thing-in-itself, so I know that 3) whatever I call the story is never a true reflection of its nature, I am just satisfying this obligation that there should/must be a label without troubling myself to "create" something. Unfortunately, most people then seize on the title and declare that "It's about X" there is no escape from that mindset. Maybe I should call the stories "Literature" instead, or "Literature + (description)"
On similar lines, I was trying to convince my agent to call a prospective book, "Book" or to give a physical description (but this would not make sense in different editions...)
Very good. J. L. Borges's second book of poems (I have this good book on "Poetic Avant-Gardes" in Auden and Borges and ... a French poet I forget, Appolinaire, perhaps -- I just read the Borges chapter):
ReplyDeleteIt is entitled,
"Cuaderno San Martin", from what I recall.
I.e.
San Martin Notebook.
Apparently, the reason is that "Cuaderno San Martin" is the brand name of the notebook he used (still available). So what happened then is that he was writing the stuff on that notebook, branded "Cuaderno San Martin", and submitted it to the publishers, without a name, etc.
Yes, book, and 'short story', or "novel" should do. Or "play" for play, etc. Ditto, all philosophy books and essays called 'philosophy'. This is the tactic in Barnes and Noble. They use general titles like that.
I think the idea that addresses have this mindset: "if it is called "X" is is about "X"" possibly follows some otiose Gricean maxim. In principle, in philosophy, it is illegal to call an essay,
"Hegel's phenomenology of spirit in the light of Alhtusser's neo-Marxism"
if it's going to be an illustration of conversational implicature alla "He has beautiful handwriting", or something. Or something.
While a title does help to re-identify the thing, as Kennedy writes, I think poets have it best:
ReplyDelete"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day,"
-- who cares what number this sonnet is?
A sonnet is a sonnet is a sonnet. O. T. O. H., philosophers (e.g. Grice) are never so careful. I could start noting that most of Grice's stuff is indeed 'untitled'. And second, that one COULD, with care, refer to them (the items of stuff) by first line:
E.g. his "Meaning" essay should thus be referred to by the first line:
"Consider the following statements: 'Those spots mean (meant) measles.' 'Those spots didn't mean anything to me, but to the doctor they meant measles'".
----
Or: the untitled William James lecture No. 2 by:
"It is a commonplace of philosophical logic that there are, or appear to be, divergences in meaning between, on the one hand, at least some of what I shall call the formal devices ... and on the other, what are taken to be their counerparts in natural language".
Etc.
The problem with the catalogue raisonee of Grice's stuff ("The Grice Papers", BANC 90/35c) is that some of the folders go, "Assorted varia", "Variorum", "Odds and ends", etc. This was the work of the executors and trustees, but Chapman cites from them as if the titling of them comes from Grice (? -- don't think so: i.e. don't think she quotes them as coming from Grice's hand). Some folders read, "HPG on Oxford". Surely it would be otiose that Grice called himself "HPG" like that, etc.
I think a 'subtitle', while otiose, can be fun: "Method in philosophical psychology: from the banal to the bizarre", or "Prejudices and predilections, which become the Life and Opinions of H. P. Grice", by H. P. Grice. Etc.
Prejudices, predilections and peccadilloes, I'd have paid the money for that.
ReplyDeleteThere's also that most extraneous of subtitles, used by the high-minded literary type.
ReplyDelete"X" - A Novel
Yes:
ReplyDelete"Abbalon: A novel"
Actually, an Argentine man recently died. His claim to fame is to have written:
"Evita: the novel"
---
"Peron: the novel".
In a way it's like
"Elephant! The musical"
"Oliver! The musical"
"Alice in wonderland: the movie".
I suppose the idea is that if you are going to the movie theatre one needs to be told that what one is going to be shown is a 'movie' (it's never 'the film'), rather than the 'book'.
----
Yes, peccadilloes is a good one. Oddly Borges liked to say that Piccadilly (Circus) in London was a variant on 'peccadillo'. Could well be.
While "A novel" does feature as as subtitle, it would still be more otiose to say:
"Waiting for Godot: A Play".
In fact, I once wrote about 'musical comedy'. Apparently, the first one was:
"A Gaiety Girl", which opened at the Gaiety (Theatre). And the reason WHY this is considered (by Mander/Mitcheson, "Musical Comedy") a musical comedy is that the subtitle goes, "A musical comedy".
Mander/Mitcheson make a lot of subtitles like that. In opera, too, subtitles are important.
"Fidelio", which I have just acquired in DVD, is subtitled, "Of conjugal love" (a bore at that) and yet a second subtitle, I expect: "An opera".
Italians NEVER used 'opera' as subtitle. It is always "dramma musicale" or something. Recall that the musician is NEVER credited in the libretto.
G&S's 14 operas also are interesting as per subtitles and I have studied them all. They all feature the form:
X; or Y: an [aesthetic] opera.
e.g.
Patience, or Bunthorn's pride: an aesthetic opera.
This is a parody on Italian baroque titles:
"Orlando Furioso, ossia il ratto di Proserpina: un dramma musicale".
Etc.
Titles! Where would we be without them.
Banana - the fruit.
ReplyDeleteIt's only ever self-consciously literary types who use the 'a novel' subtitle these days.
Or 'a comedy' - as if, somehow, the audience needs to know this in advance.
Yes, -- and a comedy is best reserved as a 'performative elucidation'.
ReplyDeleteFor J. L. Austin, 'to laugh' cannot be an utterer's ILlocutionary intention (what U intends IN uttering 'x') but a PERlocutionary one (what U intends BY uttering 'x').
In general, H. P. Grice disliked, for one, a fine distinction like that. Thus, his account is labelled 'perlocutionary' by some -- N. Wilson*. Wilson tells -- in "Grice: The ultimate counterexample" -- that he approached Grice on that: "Surely you confuse illocution with perlocution".
Grice replied:
"I may be mistaken but I'm bloody well not confused" (or something).
Smoothly implicating that Austin's distinction rests on a mistake.
In general, it's best to retell the Gricean analysis as:
"In/By uttering x, U means that p". And if I had to choose between one preposition there ('in' or 'by', but not both), I would go with 'by' just to irritate Austinians.
"Waiting for Godot: A comedy", by (one) Samuel Beckett.
Don't you hate the implicatum of "one"? The idea is that he is not famous.
Similarly, Aristotle writes, in "Poetics", that 'tragedy' is overused (by Greek tragedians). The mark of a tragedy, Aristotle, in one of his Austinian moments, writes:
-- a woman delivered a child while watching Euripides.
-- ie. the 'katharsis' did not expurgated her bilis, but her offspring, too. Odd, but true (if you believe Aristotle).
Most operas are defined as 'melodramma', or 'tragedia per musica' -- but when I watch them I cannot necessarily cry. It may be the acting. Etc.