"And Then"

--- By JLS
------ for the GC.

This is a commentary on Kramer's apt reading of Korta:

Kramer writes in "McCafferty":

"[T]he word "and" can mean logical AND (and-L), or it can mean logical AND, subsequently (and-S), depending on context. One form of disambiguation involves a choice of principal meaning, whereas the other a choice between (a) logical meaning and (b) logical meaning plus sequential meaning, but I don't see the relevance of that distinction."

--- Well, I woudn't think this involves polysemy AT ALL (contra Cruse and a few). It's not a polyemic facet, or other otiosity that Cruse uses.

---

We just have 'and' which is the logical and -- Yes. we've discussed this before. But I'll provide commentary relating to the im-verus-ex-plicit distinction.

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The 'then' is merely a tag that one infers, cancellably, by one's assumption that U is abiding by 'be orderly'.

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"There was a storm, and sunshine".

----- One reports things as they have occurred.


Surely one can MAKE the 'then' explicit, by saying 'then':

"She had an abortion and THEN she committed suicide".

Surely to commit suicide and THEN have an abortion challenges all Physical Laws, not just the Logical ones, but you get my drift.

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But one has not TROUBLED to utter 'then', so why insist that that is part of the 'sense' of what one has said?

It's like when people object my use of 'funny'.

They ask, "Funny ha-ha?"

I mean, if I had MEANT, 'funny ha-ha' I would have said it. This does NOT mean that, as I use it, 'funny' usually means 'queer'.

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(In fact, I fact very few thigns _funny_: either ha-ha or queer, if not both. Some opera, by Puccini, being a rare exception).

In the usual hateful practice (as by Korta in her website), the order has now been reversed: one is supposed to list one's publications in the exact inverse order in which they have occurred. I find the practice a hateful one -- and I would blame the French for it.

Imagine if Cicero had to list his publications like that!

Kramer comments:

"If Spanish did not recognize the implicit order in "y," would we not translate the word "and" in certain contexts as "y después"?"

"We" yes, but "I" never!

In fact, I would not translate simpliciter. I find translation a patronising act. "And" is, fortunately, a word that is popular enough for people to be able to use it freely and clearly.

Not always though. There was recently an earthquake in San Jacinto. Lawerence Helm was almost injured. He wasn't. R. Paul commented, and publicly:

"I'm glad that Helm and his wife are sound and safe"

---- I would not dare translate that as "y despues". As I hope you would NOT, either.

----

I would not mind translating "I have a boring black-and-white TV set" as 'blanco y negro'. To stick to 'negro y blanco' does not FLOW in the vernacular, and they say the opposite.

But of course, few sets are 'first black, and then white" or vice versa.

Kramer continues:

"Perhaps that's a useful test: can we imagine a language in which what is implicit in our language would have to be made explicit?"

Yes. Sex. This was implicit for the Victorians. Now, it's the talk of the town.

Kramer: "(Logiclandian lends itself nicely as the benchmark in many cases.) If so, what is implicit in English but would need to be made explict in the other is part of "what is said," not "what is implied.""

Yes. The Victorians were a funny lot. Implicit in some respects but very explicit in others. The condom, for example, or 'penis sheath' as they called it, is a Victorian (or French, I forget) invention -- It's certainly NOT a Catholic one.

Yet, they would also use "French letter". The implicature here is that 'condom' while briefer is ruder. Why?

Kramer:

"I think you mentioned Bach in another thread, and he figures prominently in Korta's article. His "impliciture" strikes me as unnecessary in Occam's sense. What I think he calls "impliciture" I would simply call "meaning in context.""

Yes, and what he calls 'impliciture' I would simply NOT call -- simpliciter.

I don't know what Bach was thinking when he wrote that piece (in "Mind and Language, for 1991). Oddly, if you pronounce his first name fast enough ("Kent") it sounds like "Kant" -- but I cannot see that their views (i.e. Kent Bach's and Kant's) combine.

I once ordered, at my own expense, that rather otiose book, that I must have somewhere: It's a MIT thick thing (blissfully paperback), "Speech acts and communication". This Bach wrote in collaboration with Harnish, with whose views I agree more --. Harnish, while not a Kantian, is a Fregean. He lives in Arizona, which helps. R. M. Harnish and K. Bach rely for their joint book, a lot, on Harnish's earlier piece, "Logical form and implicature" (or "Implicature and Logical form" I forget). Harnish quotes from Woozley.

I knew of Woozley. So I contacted Woozley. Woozley contacted me. On the whole, Woozley was a red-herring!

----- (Woozley belonged to the Gilbert Ryle group, not the Austin or Grice playgroup. In fact he was older than Grice -- during Grice's duration).

----

Harnish's essay was commissioned for a rather too grandiose collection edited by Katz. It is in parts too 'expositive', but it has some good examples. When collaborating with Bach, Harnish tends to be less philosophical. So I expect that Bach is more of a philosophical linguist than a philosopher (Allott has only THREE philosophers listed in his new "Key Terms in Pragmatics" -- bio section --: Grice, Austin, and Bach -- in a VERY particular order.

Kramer goes on:

"Take Korta's example, "I have not had breakfast". In Logiclandian, that sentence says and means (Logiclandians are very literal folk) that I have never eaten breakfast. In English, I submit, it says that I have not eaten it today. It does not say "never" and implicate "today"; it says "today.""

Yes. But there are constraints. Logiclanders (as I prefer) may be literalists, but they are not idiot!

For how can Kosta be eternal?

Surely she was born at some stage of the universe. So, so as coming from her, the sentence means, "She hasn't eaten breakfast". I would not add 'never'. In fact, I never say never; and implicate it seldom, too.

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Kramer: "There really is no requirement that words mean discrete things. The utterance is what has meaning - the words are merely clues."


And I would go farther (if not further). Since 'mean', IN MY IDIOLECT, is, 'mind' -- "Mind your own business" -- mean your own busy-ness that belongs to you" -- it's UTTERERS (the mindful ones, at least) who mean. An utterance's mind is a terrible thing to waste!

----

Or something

"A mind is a terrible thing to waste"
"A waist is a terrible thing to mind"

----

Since I never saw the mind of an utterance, I cannot see how an utterance can MEAN. True, I do enjoy reading public toilets' graffiti, but they soon bore me. I catch some of the implicata alright but sometimes their breach of the maxims of manner offend me.

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Kramer goes on:

"The sentence does, in many cases, imply "I would like some food." Imagine a language just like English except that "I haven't eaten breakfast" is only said when one hasn't had breakfast that day and wants breakfast at the time of utterance. If a speaker of that language says "I haven't eaten breakfast," his English interpreter could translate as "I haven't eaten breakfast this morning and I would like some food." The interpreter would not be inferring from an implicature; he would be translating from meaning. I would put "They got married and had children" in that same model, vis a vis sequence. The sequence is part of the translation, not the inference."

I will have to elaborate on that. In fact, 'and then' is the special particle to use, in Engish, for what you call "Schm-English" (you don't, but I'm using 'you' generically). I'm less sure about the breakfast escenario. I don't really know when a day starts. I suppose it's Greenwich time we are talking about, "So I haven't had breakfast today" is already problematic. Some old-fashioned people still spell, 'today', "to-day", to mark how otiose that phrase can be. "ajourd'hui" in French is even more so -- and it's triply redundant.

Kramer comments:

"The line-drawing is, as perhaps Recanati claims, intuitional, although I can see how that might seem annoyingly unscientific and incalculable. For me to say that "this morning" is meant, whereas "I want food" is implied, seems arbitrary."

It perhaps shouldn't. I would not like to force my self to say that when I said, "I'm bored" I'm suggesting "right now". Or hinting right now. Recall that 'implicate' is to do 'duty' as Grice has it, for a whole range of verbs which have some import. Plus, there's the idea of the INTENTIONAL force of the utterance. If I say, "That elephant's trunk is not long enough", I am presupposing that you are aware of the 'criteria' by which an elephant's trunk can be said to be long (or short, for that matter). But I'm not MEANING, or intentionally putting myself in a position to be willing to impart that information to you. Hence, it's NOT meant, suggested, implied, indicated, or -- even -- communicated.

Recall what Grice says of the philosophically important Moore paradox:

The elephant's trunk is long but I don't think so.

In saying so, the speaker has IMPLICATED *NONE*. For the 'expression' of a belief is NOT the 'communication' of a belief. By using the INDICATIVE mode, "I am hungry", the speaker expresses his belief that he is hungry (or his hunger, simpliciter, if you must). But surely, "I believe that I am hungry" is not something that he (or anyone else for that matter) should care to communicate.

It's different with the pillar box, because surely one may want to just say, "I would believe that that pillar box is VIOLET" because that breaches the convention that they (pillar boxes) are supposed to be red, not red-and-blue. Etc.

Kramer:

"But also right. Go figure. Which raises the serious question, what turns on the distinction? Why do we care where the borders are?"

Well, Horn wrote a piece -- where I think he credits me, so I must have read it -- called "The Borders Wars". He thinks, apparently, that some people would DIE for the right line.

--- Can't say I share the feeling. The fact that he is a neo-Gricean and I'm a Gricean simpliciter does not help. (He needs to be 'newish' in stuff -- and stuff).

Kramer:

"Have we walked this ground before? Destinational memory is one of the first things to go..."

Well, we did discuss the kernel and the yolk, I think we decided to call. We care about the content of the proposition, "p", that we wish to impart.

You speak a lot about 'information', -- but that phrase may have an unwanted 'implicature' (or wanted, knowing you). E.g. that what one is informed about is 'true' (For false information is no information, as Grice notes).

So I'd rather speak of beliefs and stuff. I notice that Korta (who teaches NOT in a Dept. of Philosophy) uses 'sub-doxastic' (for things I would NEVER, even if you'd pay me, would call 'subdoxastic'). And what's worse, Recanati (who SHOULD know, or should HAVE known) uses the still more hateful (but I love HIM), 'conscious' -- as if "I do want some food" may be unconsciously communicated by the utterer of "I haven't had any breakfast today".

Other examples by Korta are pathetic rather than queer (funny):

"I haven't no clothes to wear"

--- says Joan Rivers as he prepares to attend a wedding in the Fifth Avenue, St. Thomas.

---- (She is inspecting her closet). "I don't have anything to wear".

Korta contrasts this with the Basque equivalent: a 'seminude' she writes, woman, outside a church, saying the same. Oddly, the implicatures are different. The beggar is ALMOST saying, "Dress me!", while Joannie is almost crying for "Surely you'll look lovely in the Dior".

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Etc.

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I wouldn't think things need to be arbitrary. Artificial maybe. Again, it's not as dark as Recanati and others may want you to have it. Some of these authors have never cared to consider in depth the intentional roots of the Gricean programme, let alone the philosophical import and target of his reflections. They would take a few examples from here and there and find counterexamples. The easiest strategy. Then they call themselves "neo-Griceans"!

Give me a palaeo-Gricean anyday!

----- Oddly, perhaps the most palaeo-Gricean of them all, Horn thinks, is Dionysios. He wrote a tract "Peri syntaxeos" or something, where he discusses, "I went to the wood, and I saw a lion, and a tiger -- and a woman". "But not in that order". Dionysios finds that this would 'mislead' the reader.

As Grice would comment: "It should rather mislead the writer". People think too much on the social side of the implicature -- but most of this relates to the architecture of our thinking. Why would someone want to say that "She got an abortion and became a nun" is NOT a chronological report of events?

The way Grice depicts things is like Strawson (in ""and" and '.'") was just making fun of Logicians. They can be literalist, and some of them CAN be idiotic -- but, surprisingly, some of us have standards too: and an abortive nun is a paradigm of Feyerabend's "Anything goes" -- at its worst. Or not.