Anita's Adventures iI Griceland -- And What She Saw There

by JLS
--- for the GC

JONES, in "Grice not a reductionist, but his two reductions", comment, this blog:

"there is nothing psychological about semantics in my use of the term, which is closer to Carnap's usage than Grice's and closer to its use in Mathematical Logic and Computer Science."

And then there's Anita Avramides.

Everybody loves Anita. She had a child with Colin McGinn and is a Fellow of Queen's College, Oxford. My mother refuses to use 'Fellow' to apply to a female, but I tell her that 'fellow' is to 'follow'. A fellow is a follower, and surely the Beatles had a lot of female fellows, etc.

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(It's different from a male lady).

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Schiffer knew Anita well. He read her book for MIT and has recollections of her days in Brooklyn (She is of Greek descent, as her surname, "Avramides" shows -- if not tells).

When in Oxford, them were still the days of segregation (still existent today -- females self-segregate -- notably at Somerville -- a lovely college if a bit on the outskirts -- you pass it on your way OUT of Oxford back to Civilisation (London).

In Somerville, there are the female Grice-ians. No males (Griceian or not) allowed. Notably Mrs. Julie M. Jack (nee Rowntree) that Grice charmingly refers to as "Mrs. Jack" in Strand 4 -- Strand 4 is what I call "A strand for Mrs. Jack".

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Avramides, though, was allowed to defend her DPhil Oxon to Sir Peter Strawson. After paying quite a few bunches of dollars for her hardback book, "Grice", I was slightly disappointed. It WAS the DPhil itself! It shows in her style: very argumentative postgrad style. And meant to seduce Strawson. Plus, it was slightly boring (I love her). She brings in Davidson for good measure and she is having an intellectual affair with Davidson now. She may think, deep inside, that Davidson is a better philosopher than Grice. Perish HER thought!

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Her DPhil is structured in terms of what she calls "The Reduction". She doesn't care to quote ALL the flurry of dated stuff that appeared in the pages of Mind, e.g. (e.g McKay) on Grice on meaning.

She wants to say that Grice's analysis (reductive analysis) is ASYMETRIC, and reductionist. Mrs. Jack knew Avramides well, so Grice's play with a reductive analysis not necessarily needing to be a 'reductionst' is more of an echo of Avramides (who THOUGHT these things out and went on record on them) than Julie Jack who never got her "Wrongs of Grice" aired airfully public.

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So, we have an analysis which IS reductionist. And it's ASYMETRICAL:

The semantic reduces to the psychological.

Avramides wants to say that for Davidson, the analysis is symmmetrial (making it very stupid). The semantic reduces to the psychologic and the psychologic reduces to the semantic. Why Davidson would hold such an absurd view remains to be analysed (by Freud). For Davidson, as for Quine, the semantic and the psychological are MUTUALLY dependent: one cannot learn about the psychological without learning about the semantic and vice versa.

For Avramides, Grice is an ONTOLOGIST. He is concerned with ONTOLOGICAL reduction. Davidson and Quine are weaker bests: they ar cognitive reductionists, or 'epistemologist'. They are merely concerned with what the analyst LEARNS. Who cares for that? We're passed kindergarten days.

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"there is nothing psychological about semantics in my use of the term,"

-- Or in 95% of the population (of relevant speakers). Avramides's book has a subtitle: Mind and Meaning, or Meaning and Mind. This, in Italy, would be like having a book called, "Opera and Operatic": they are the SAME thing. To 'mean' is to 'mind' and to 'mind' is to 'mean'. But you need NOT to know English to understand that!

---- Grice's point is that for any use of a sign (Gk. semeion) we need to postulate some psychological factor about the user of the semeion. Smoke means "The palefaces are coming". The "Indians" were good at smoke signals. Itself, smoke cannot mean (surely NOT 'smoked salmon').

From this first connection you very easily get the 'semantic' with the pscyhological connected.

And there's more! Or not






which is closer to Carnap's usage than Grice's and closer to its use in Mathematical Logic and Computer Science