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--- IT IS A PITY that Peacocke's tutor was Dummett. As Grice wrote: "no Dummett". Neither Murdoch, nor Anscombe, were accepted in the Play Group, but then, they were females. Why they did not accept Dummett has to be explained elsewise.
In any case, the editor of Flew's "Philosophical Essays" was asking about the background of the pieces -- notably the first: "Oxford Linguistic Philosophy" -- This, as to whether it was a response to Dummett (Dummett had offended Flew by saying, in his "Oxford philosphy", that no 'such school' as 'the school of ordinary language philosophy' ever existed. It was Flew's invention, Dummett argues. And the criterion Dummett says Flew used was: anyone who opposed Russell.
When asked by the editor what he thought of this, Flew replied, in personal correspondence which the editor reprints with permission to the effect, "I never read Dummett's "Oxford Philosophy"" -- so how can it have been an influence.
This reminded me of my friend M. Wrigley asking Grice, "I am going to focus on Frege as seen by Dummett in my thesis. I expect you are familiar with the book." "No," replied Grice, "I haven't read the book on Frege by Dummett, and I hope I won't"".
Dummett could be very superficial, as when he says that Grice's idea of conversational implicature is otiose... (and that it belongs to pragmatics). He refers in the same bag to Grice's implicature, Strawson's presupposition, and Austin's illocutionary force. But surely the philosophically most important of the notions is 'implicature', or 'disimplicature' if you mustn't.
Grice would often agree with Flew that there really was no "school" of ordinary language philosophy -- and we know now that what he had in mind is Gellner's, Bergmann's and Dummett's idiocies on the matter.
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I can understand that being otiose is not a good thing, but why isn't conversational implicature pragmatics and why would it be a bad thing if it were?
ReplyDeleteRBJ
I think I was mixing memories. That was HACKING. Hacking does say in "Why does language matter to philosophy?" -- and the thing hurts me because he married the best Gricean female: Judith Baker -- "presupposition and implicature belong in linguistics", or "Grice's notion has been swallowed whole by linguistics, where it belongs." Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong. Linguists NEVER understand implicature (except the ones I love) and when they do, they are being 'philosophers'!
ReplyDelete---- What Dummett says, and the thing is reprinted in either Truth and Other Enigmas or Seas of Language, so I should check, is that, Oxford philosophy (Grice, Austin, Strawson) were bound to come up with notions like implicature, illocutionary force, and presupposition. Dummett is making the point, as I recall, that these philosophers' interests were purely philosophical. But they played with technicisms that have broader applications. If you've seen a linguist, you'll realise that he does not THINK that 'impplicature''s main use is for philosophical application. They think they own the concept. In D. Kaplan's views, they have 'vacuumed' it. (Actually, the phrase is Barbara Partee). Partee is reminiscing how in 1967, when Grice gave the William James, linguists of a particular brand ('generative semanticists' working with Chomsky) would 'vacuum' any idea from a philosopher that they could encounter, and Grice's implicature fit the perfect bill (or 'foot' if you mustn't). But Kaplan objected (this is online): "Vacuum? We use a vacuum cleaner to vacuum the DUST, rather". Implicating that Partee didn't know (we love her) what she was talking about. Or not.
I'll try and retrieve the specific Dummett quote. I don't think he does use 'pragmatic', so no need to get too concerned! Or something.
ReplyDeleteIn fairness to Dummett, there's a charitable mention of Grice in his "The Logical Basis of Metaphysics" (Dummett's William James), 1993,
ReplyDeleteIn his section on "Truth and the Point of assertion", p. 174:
"All this we already acknowledge, in a rough and ready way, on our everyday comments on things that are said, particulary in the distinction betweeh what a sentence means and what a speaker means, and in our customary application of the predicate 'true'. To give a systematic account of the principles to which we appeal in drawing this distinction is a complex task, which Grice's theory of implicature is a largely successful attempt to accompish; but perhaps no complete systematisation is possible."
I didn't realise that saying it was pragmatics was saying it was not philosophy.
ReplyDeleteWould you be OK with it being pragmatics so long as we agree that you can take a philosophical interest?
Of course, as you pointed out in another thread, Carnap has written at least two and a half pages on pragmatics.
I personally think that philosophy should have no bounds; not limited by subject matter.
And, you did just recently cause me to start thinking about pragmatic elements in X-Logic, and I count that as philosophy.
RBJ
Thanks. Yes, Dummett KNOWS how to spell 'pragmatic'. I just posted to longish quotes. One longish, by courtesy of Tapper, in blog post entitled something like "Dummett on implicature", which is a ref. to the 445 quote in "Truth and Other Enigmas" -- but no mention of 'implicature' but you get the spirit of the 'blistering critique' as Tapper has it.
ReplyDeleteThe more technical quote is a shorter one I provide where apparently Dummetts starts the passage with:
"The notion of conversational implicature was invented..." -- and he goes on to mention semantic/pragmatic.
So we will have to qualify the thing when vis a vis Carnap. "Semantic" for Carnap would be an intensional approach of "s" qua member of language "L" ('s' being sentence). Of course there is EXTENSTIONAL semantics, too (in fact, for Carnap, all is reducible to extensions, in the meta-language, at least). Now, pragmatics, qua theoretical, INVOLVES such notions as 'belief' which are THEORETICAL concepts. Dummett seems to have a deep aversion for them, or in any case, dismisses the move from a 'semantic' conception of the predicate 'true' to a 'pragmatic' account which misses the mark if it's going to rely on notions 'invented' to just stick with 'solmenly frivolous' questions of mere use. Or something. Very tricky.