On Not Knowing What You Mean

-- by J. L. Speranza, F. R. S. (failed), &c.
--- for the Grice Club.

******** `I move that the meeting adjourn, for the immediate adoption of more energetic remedies--'
********`Speak English!' said the Eaglet. `I don't know the meaning of half those long words, and, what's more, I don't believe you do either!' Alice in Wonderland.

* * * * * The problem with meaning is -- inter alia -- Judith Butler. As Jason Kennedy recently observed regarding the passage selected by Dennis Dutton as worst writing for vintage 1998, to wit:

The move from a structuralist account
in which capital is understood to
structure social relations in relatively
homologous ways to a view of hegemony
in which power relations are subject
to repetition, convergence, and rearticulation
brought the question of temporality
into the thinking of structure, and
marked a shift from a form of
Althusserian theory that takes
structural totalities as theoretical
objects to one in which the
insights into the contingent
possibility of structure inaugurate
a renewed conception of hegemony
as bound up with the contingent
sites and strategies of the
rearticulation of power

Jason comments, in "Conversations of our times" (commentary, this blog):

"The surrounding of the keywords with a profusion of further Latinate words that have more straightforward counterparts is the problem, it seems to me; it makes for an airless reading experience - does it not violate a Gricean Maxim to practice this?
I mean, it even ties off with 'aforementioned' as if you are reading a codicil."

Yes. But mind, the German translation -- without Latinate words is still unintelligible. So --- next. As instructors say: next try. Here is the German Latinate-less version:

Der Übergang von einer strukturalistischen Konto
in denen das Kapital ist zu verstehen,
Struktur sozialer Beziehungen in relativ
homologen Möglichkeiten, einen Blick auf die Hegemonie
in denen Machtverhältnisse unterliegen
Wiederholungen, die Konvergenz und Neuartikulierung
brachte die Frage der Zeitlichkeit
in das Denken des Bauwerks und
markiert einen Wandel von einer Form von
Althussers Theorie, nimmt
strukturelle Ganzheiten als theoretische
Objekte, in dem die
Einblicke in das Kontingent
Möglichkeit des Bauwerks eröffnet
eine erneute Vorstellung von Hegemonie
wie bei der bedingten gebunden
Websites und Strategien der
Neuartikulierung der Macht

for which I will now provide the English pure Germanic version and let me know if you find it airy enough:

The overgo off one strukturalististic Count
in which "das Kapital" is understood to
struktur sozial "Beziehungen" in relatively
homological "mights", to one blick off the "Hegemony"
in which "might" verhältnisse underlie
Wiederholungen, Konvergenz and Articling
brought the Frage der Timelihood (Zeitlichkeit)
in the Thought off the Bauwork and
marks one Wandel off one Shape off
Althusseric Theory, nimbles
struktural Ganzheiten as theoretic
Objekts, in the
blick in the Contingent
"mights" off the Bauworks launches
one brand-new Vorstellung off Hegemony
wie by the bedingten gebunden
Websites and Strategies of the
New Artikulisation of the "might".

----

The problem is indeed Dutton. For surely Butler knew what she meant. So Dutton is playing the Eaglet as per the pretty transparent piece by the Dodo above. For the Dodo made a pretty uncontroversial conversational move: m1, and the Eaglet reply with the anti-Gricean diatribe:

(m2) Speak English! I don't know the meaning of half those long words, and, what's more, I don't believe you do either!

This errs on Gricean lines on at least three fronts. (It's always three fronts -- no more, no less). But first the Dodo's remark, m1

(m1) I move that the meeting adjourn, for the immediate adoption of more energetic remedies.

Note that, like Judith Butler, the Dodo said, "move" -- surely a Latinate word. It does sound like a codicil with 'aforementioned'. What he means is that he is putting forward something as, to use Butler's appropriation of Austin (himself approprating from Scots lawful idea of the 'operative' words), a 'motion' qua performative:

---- 'adjourn' is also legalese and codicil -- where the Dodo fails perhaps is in ascribing adjourn to the "Meeting", which is the old Anglo-Saxon "Meat" (Meathouse, or council) -- an abstract notion. "immediate" is just not 'mediate'. "Adoption", granted, tends to be confused with 'adaption' (e.g. Darwin's adaptition of the fittest). It's the Result of the remedy that is 'energetic', not the remedy itself, too.

Now the three failures of Gricean insight in the Eaglet:

(m2) 1. Speak English!
2. I don't know the meaning of half those long words, and, what's more, [she means, what's worse -- for the Eaglet, as we shall soon see:
3. I don't believe you do either!

ad 1. hyperbole. Cfr. Grice, "Every nice girl loves a sailor" (WoW). Eaglets often complain like that. And it's no wonder that Carroll modeled the Eaglet upon Miss Pratt -- the Liddell Girls's Scottish (for she had to be Scottish) Lowland Nannie. She would hear Scots from the Dodo (Do-Do-Dodgson, the stammerer -- at which Alice never failed to laugh -- vide closing scene of sublime "Dreamgirl" by Dennis Potter, with Ian Holm as the Reverend -- This scene never fails to bring a tear to my eye -- and the MUSIC! And the setting! Idylic banks of the Isis!).

ad 2. That's the Eaglet -- i.e. Dutton's -- problem. Dutton is now a published author: "Art and Evolution". We love him, but he knows he needs a clique to disseminate his seed. And I have reviewed Dutton's book elsewhere -- actually, at Classics-L, for he cares to compare the Iliad with The Simpsons! --. How many words did the Eaglet not understand. Word count: (I was recently reading a recent dissertation and was surprised at the word count: technology for you -- and over-informative at that):

I move that the meeting adjourn,
1 2 3 4 5 6

for the immediate adoption of more energetic remedies.
7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15.

It's 15 words. But the Eaglet does not mean ALL words: just the LONG ones, to wit:

immediate -- adoption -- energetic -- remedies
1 2 3 4

(I won't count adjourn as long).

That's four words. Since the Eaglet claims (via implicature) to DO know the meaning of two of them, that's a fair count I surmise. I submit the problematic ones are: 'remedy' -- and 'energetic' (but then it could be immediate and adoption) so I will proceed by pairs:

*remedy: the problem is more semantic than the length of the word. Is the Dodo implicating that the wetness of the situation SHOULD be remedied? Alice has just said she feels "as wet as ever", which is an innuendo. Does 'as wet as...' implicate she IS wet? It would NOT under normal circumstances (cfr. "I'm none the brighter") but it just ENTAILS the presupposition in the present ones, where they are ALL (and not just her) wet -- plus, it's her own ocular water.

*energetic. This is Aristotelian metaphyics. The ergon and the dunamis and the energeia. I would not be surprised if the Eaglet, who is a Common-Sensical Scots (cfr. Duns Scots) finds 'energy' a difficult word.

--- the other pair

*adoption. "Adopt" _is_, not a long word, but a difficult one, since people often hear 'adapt'. But there IS a difference via reanalysis: while you can drop the ad in "adapt" and get the still sensical word, 'apt', you cannot drop the ad in 'adopt' and get the opt, and less you opt to.

*immediate. This is Locke's problem, vis a vis Aristotle's third man. The opposite of the mediation is the immediation, but there is ALWAYS something that becomes the mediation between the immediation. This Eleatic paradox is surely to strike an Eaglet.

-----

ad (3). This leads us to the gist of this entry: on NOT knowing what you mean. This is a non-sequitur Gricean prohibition by all accounts. Note that the Eaglet is careful to subclause the thing in a doxastic embedding, "I don't believe that ...":

i.e. "I move (that) the meeting adjourn, for the immediate adoption of more energetic remedies?' (echoing): I don't believe you know the meaning of half those long words." But oddly, it's 'adjourn' that POSSIBLY the Dodo is presupposing the meaning of, rather than using it. Why is this a Gricean redux?

By uttering

"I move that the meeting adjourn, for the immediate adoption of more energetic remedies"

the Dodo meant that

the Dodo moves that the meeting (which includes Alice, the aforementioned Dodo, and the Eaglet, inter alii) adjourns for the immediate adoption of more energetic remedies than the dry reading of a dry "History of England" that the nanny would often instill on Alice (vide Gardner, "The Annotated Alice").

In symbols:

U (utterer) by uttering

"I -- the Utterer -- Perform-Verb (Present Indicative) that
S (subject) adjourn for sub-clause: S (subject) adopts immediately (right now, rather than later) a measure that will bring a remedy even iff the expense of 'energy' is higher -- it is, after all, a Caucus Race.

And surely a Dodo can't form (logically) an intention (which is a willing and a judging) of a Caucus Race unless a Caucus Race.