Negating a Conditional (In Conversation)

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

--- THIS IS JUST A BRIEF addendum, I hope to give justice to the subtlety of Kramer's example as per below:

i. I don't love you because you are beautiful.

He indeed provides that as a _schema_, so it's no use to concentrate on the details. Plus, on further thinking, I realise it's not necessary even to dwell on predicate logic, or quantificational logic, since Kramer's example is general enough to be able to be covered by propositional logic alla Grice practices in WoW:iv ("Indicative Conditionals").

I do propose to leave out any metaphysical excrescence (as Grice, echoing the formalists, call it) regarding 'if' (as the inverse of 'because') so we do get i as a conditional

ii. If you are beautiful, I love you.

--- So I propose, rather, that the schema is of the form, for i

iii. - (if p, q)

i.e. the simple denial of a conditional.

This is precisely the context which we were discussing in "Early to bed", where Grice refers to embedding of an implicature-carrying utterance:

If you are beautiful, I love you.

and NEGATING it, i.e. embedding the utterance within the scope of ANOTHER operator (alla, to use Kramer's example elsewhere, "if if time is money, time is money, time is money" -- what an excellent example. So incomprehensible!)

----

So you do get

iv. It is not the case that (if you are beautiful, I love you)

Or:

v. It is not the case that if it is the case that you are beautiful, it is the case that I love you.

But people, as Kramer suggests, _are_ sloppy, and one does wonder what's the good, to echo his adage, to get up every day to deal with so much ambiguity in the air.

People are sloppy, and they raise negation a lot. Eg.

vi. I think it's not raining.

For some reason, humans' analog brain better works with

viii. I don't think it is raining.

As if I cared what people do NOT think. Life is short, and it's enough of a botheration to deal with what people think -- to have to hear and overhear and underhear what they do NOT think, too. (Plus, they are usually wrong about the weather, anyways (sic)).

----

So the issue now (provided it's one) is to find the truth-conditions (via truth-functions) of

- (if p, q)

and see whehter it is compatible with p. So that

while the utterer is saying that he does NOT love the addressee because the addressee is beautiful, he may still think he can UTTER, with a straight face, that he still loves her, as Kramer suggests, 'for another reason'.

"not" in general, for Grice, me, but not for most of the rest of the world, is the squiggly (-). So that one can say:

"I don't love you because you are beautiful; indeed, I don't love you because I do not exist".

Cfr. "The king of France is not bald; indeed, the king of France does not exist".

I.e. the negation of an "S is P" sentence IS compatible with a vacuous "S", in this case "I" (in "I love you"). Of course I may not love you because the addressee does not exist, but this possibly infringes a Gricean maxim to the effect that one is supposed to be holding a conversation with the addressee.

One may object that it's even more illusory to hold a conversation with whoever if one, i.e. the utterer, does not exist. But witness Descartes ("I tell you, malignant demon: I am, therefore I think").

Conditionals are a bother. In Phil-Lit we discussed, I was reviewing things, the resignation of the Haiti president after the coup d'etat. As I recall, it was a 'conditional resignation' and much criticised for it.

Dummett similarly commented on the vacuity of 'conditional promises': "if you behave, I promise I'll take you to the cinema". The negation of a conditional promise or resignation or love-declaration, is even more otiose. Etc.




One of the most confounding challenges in writing English is the "I don't X because Y" structure. What are we to make of "I don't love you because you're beautiful." Do I love you for another reason, or do I not love you and regard your beauty as an obstacle. (To be happy for the rest of your life/ Make an ugly woman your wife. Tra la.)

I am forever looking for words that mean "not X" - words like "dislike" or "disfavor" or "disapprove" just so I won't give people fits figuring our what my "not" modifies.