Do not multiply strands beyond necessity (Was: let's all go down the strand)

--- by JLS
------ for the Grice Circle

GRICE IDENTIFIES eight strands in his "Preliminary Valediction". He never wrote the sequel, but we suspect he would have multiplied them at least by 2 (what's the point of multiplying by 1?) and get a few:

I proposed elsewhere:

Strand 9: Value. This becomes his "Conception of Value" book.

Strand 10. Reason. This becomes his "Aspects of Reason" book.

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As a matter of fact, we foresee a "Philosophical Papers" volume which should contain strands not here touched:

Strand 11. Actions and events. This is his "Pacific Philosophical Quarterly" essay for 1986. Touches on Reichenbach, von Wright, Davidson. It does not fit with the 8 strands he lists in WoW.

Strand 12. Intention. This would include his very influential (as England goes), "Intention and Uncertainty" which was his 1971 Annual Philosohical lecture as a member of the British Academy. This important essay -- published in the Proceedings but also distributed as a separatum, by the Clarendon Press, is not really covered in the 8 strands. It concerns the analysis of 'intention' in terms of 'willing' AND 'believing' and is labelled by Grice as 'neo-Prichardian'.

Strand 13. Method in philosophical psychology. This fortunately got repr. as appendix I of Gr91. It is an extended treatment by Grice of "Ramsified naming" and "definition" as it applies to psychological predicates. It contains detailed thoughts and arguments against what he dubs, after a remark by Myro, the 'devil of scientism'.

Strand 14. Details of calculus. This would be his "Vacuous Names", for the Quine volume, and where Grice provides a detailed account of a formal system (which he calls "System Q" in honour of Quine). It deals wit very technical logical material, as it pertains the specific topic of 'ontological commitment' vis a vis cancellation by negation (hence the 'vacuous' in the title) for both names AND his favoured topic, 'definite descriptions'.

Strand 15. Longitudinal Essays. I.e. on the history of philosophy. Here Jones has espeicially expanded, elsewhere, on Grice on izzing and hazzing as per Grice's "Aristotle" paper (PPQ 1988, but written in the early 1970s).

Strand 16: Etc.