Grice Gets A Free Lesson From Mates

by JLS
for the GC.

JONES, "Reductionist", THIS BLOG:

"The connection between "semantics" and "meaning" is not so solid for me as it appears to be for Grice.
Semantics is a technical device which is useful in understanding certain kinds of language, particularly descriptive or propositional language. The kind of language which has truth conditions, maybe other kinds too, but not all language."

L. M. Tapper has unburied an early 1950s paper by Benson Mates. The man, though an American, had deep Oxonian connections. The paper is all about paleo-Griceanism of the best type.

When Grice re-met with Mates at Berkeley (in 1967) they would discuss things. By 1969, Grice was ready to present to Davidson/Hintikka his "Vacuous Names". I have submitted to this blog the sections of that paper. So let me see if I can retrieve them easily enough.

Yes. I titled my post System G-HP (after H. P. Grice, and follow Myro in redefining Grice's System Q, in honour of Quine, as System G). This paper NEEDS to be reprinted and the executors should never have allowed Ostertag to reprint the "Definite Description" bit only in his book, "Definite Descriptions" for MIT. (For people to laugh at an ordinary-language philosoher who knew more about formal semantics than the majority of so-called formal semanticists).

Grice's sections are:

1. The problem. This should not concern us here, since it relates to a particular puzzle ("If Pegagus doesn't exist, Pegasus does not fly" which Grice found irritating in Quine).

2. System Q: Objectives. Again, this relates to a particular problem and need not concern us here. But his point is that for each system, there are OBJECTIVES. We just don't create a lingo out of nill to entertain the masses, say.

3 Scope. This relates to the problem and the objectives. Need not concern us here.


4. Natural Deduction System Q. This SHOULD concern us. It's syntactics, not semantics.
---- Here Grice relies on Gentzen. He is relying actually on Benson Mates, Boolos, Myro, and Parsons's treatment of Gentzen, notably in Mates's Elementary Logic, published by Oxford University Press. Grice says he learned mostly from Mates by "way of word of mouth", for he had OTHER things to do than read boring logic textbooks.
Subsection which Grice has as "A. Glossary."
This is really the "VOCABULARY", in Carnap's terms.
His next section goes: "B. Provisional set of rules for Q."
1. Symbols.
-- This is the 'grammar'.
2. Formulae.
-- This defines 'wff'.
3. Inference Rules.
-- This is the 'natural deduction' component, and includes introduction and elimination rules for each of the seven logical formal devices he had identified in Grice WoW:ii: not, and, or, if, every, some (or at least one) and the.
----
5. Existence.
This relates to (Ex) only, i.e. "some" or "at least one". Grice uses the inverted A for 'all' or 'every' and the inverted (Ex) for 'existence'). I prefer /\x and \/x respectively to analogue it with Grice uses for 'and' and 'or' in WoW:ii.

First section: "A. Closed formulae containing & individual constant alpha."
Individual constant refers to things like "Jones", or more like it, "Fido" in WoW:vi, i.e. alpha qua designating expression. 'Pegasus' is the one he focuses here apres Quine, "On what there is", "x pegasises". Grice wants to say that it is true that Pegasus does not fly.

Second section: "B. Existentially quantified formulae."
(Ex)Ax
is for Quine the form for "Pegasus flies". So Grice has to be careful with this.
6. Objection considered.
Grice's objection. The point of reducing 'Pegasus' to the predicate, 'to pegasise'.
7. Identity.
The Russellian idea of introducing 'the' by the iota operator in terms of the identity of indescirnibles.
a = b iff they share all properties.
The a, as being the uniquely existent thing that is a, so that if there is an y such this is also a, then y equals x.

8. Semantics for Q. -- so this is the precise sense of 'semantics' that both Carnap and Grice and Jones see as basic. I'm less sure about Grice, but this on record to see how HE COULD PLAY 'formal semantics', and use the term in the appropriate regimented use.
The interpretation for \/x.Ax. There is an item x under the class A such that the item has the feature.

First section: "A. Interpretation"
A section of 8. Deals with interpretation in a model, strictly after Mates.

Second section: "B. Truth and Validity."
The relation between premises and conclusion, vis a vis the introduction and elimination for \/x, as provided by the natural-deduction component.

Last but one section: "9. Names & Descriptions" (this section repr in _Definite Descriptions_,
MIT).
----- and mostly discussed by the best of the Griceians among us. He distinguishes, contra Donnellan, between an identificatory and a non-identificatory use of 'the' phrases. The 'butler' example, taken to be a gardener, and vice versa. Things our intuitions lead us to say in those cases.

Last section: "10.Concluding remarks"
--- relates to transparent and opaque readings of things involving psychological attitudes like '... believes ...' and 'desires' which Grice symbolises as "W" (for 'want').

Grice says he learned it all from 'word of mouth' from Mates. He is referring to Mates's "Elementary Logic" which then IS the way to understand Grice's formal approach to semantics. Etc.