Grice's "Explanatory Remark" on "Intension" (WoW:365 -- Strand 5)

--- By J. L. Speranza
----- for the Grice Club

-- GRICE JUST LOVED AN 'inferential sequence'. He would even display some affection for what he called 'semi-inferential sequence'. A semi-inferential sequence is like an inferential sequence, only half. I.e. Each step needs to be supplemented not just by the previous one but by 'extra material' in the form of 'assumptions' brought in by the philosopher.

I shall be considered here only with his 'remark' which he dubs 'explantory' as to


extension ----> intension.


i.e. how we do get an 'intension' (or 'Sinn', in Frege's parlance -- Grice speaks of a 'concept' as 'something like a Fregean sense' Gri86).

The sequence itself is easy enough. It's the supplementary material that would turn this semi-inferential sequence into a fully inferential one that should concern us here.

For, in providing the explanatory remark, Grice is paraphrasing what he views as essential in any talk of intensions.

In 1986, in the "Reply to Richrds", he had exposed his problems with Extensionalism, so it's not so much the detailed set-theoretical approach to intensions that he pursues here. Rather, it's more like an appeal to what, after Carnap, we would call a 'meaning-postulate', or a "rule".

Grice writes of the first two steps in the sequence (Wo:364) as being:

i. It is general practice (speaking extensionally,
--- to treat 'shaggy' as signifying 'hairy coated' -- a feature.

The second step, on the other hand, goes slightly dissimilar:

ii. It is general practice (speaking intensionally now,
--- to treat 'shaggy' as signifying 'hairy-coated'.

What's the distinction between the readings. They relate to what Jones notes is the intensional operator, that makes the context opaque to substitutivity of identicals salva veritate.

Grice notes in TWO remarks what the distinction amounts to


---------------------------------------------------
--- EXTENSION --------------- INTENSION -
---------------------------------------------------
- -
"To speak - "To speak -
extensionally - intensionally -
is to base - is to base -
a claim to - a claim to -
generality on - generality on -
actual frequencies" - the adoption of, or -
(WoW: 365) - adherence to, -
- a rule the -
- observance of which -
- may be expected to generate,-
- approximately, a certain -
- actual frequency" -
- (WoW: 365) -
---------------------------------------------------

Clear as mud?

Not quite.

Remarks on the remarks.

--- It is not clear why onw would like to find ANOTHER way of generating 'an actual frequency' (as when one intends to do by speaking intensionally) if one is already provided with them when one is speaking merely extensionally.


---- It is not clear what crime is committed by NOT following or 'observing' or 'adhering' to the 'intension-generating' rule. It seems to me Kant's idea of going beyond the bounds of sense: the limits of intelligibility, as Peacocke would have it.

---- It's only when the intensional speaker (the one who propounds to 'speak intensionally') finds it OBTUSE to speak extensionally that a point in wanting to elevate oneself from step 1 to step 2 is to be found.

----- Since the isomorphism is not total -- for Grice speaks of 'approximation' as regards a 'particular' or "certain" as he prefers, 'actual frequency' is generated out of the adherence to the 'meaning-postulte' -- one wonders what was lost in translation.

----- Platonistic problems. It seems a nominalist will NOT speak intensionally. Denotata is all we need: abtract entities, which 'only approximate' a given actual frequency seem to me beyond the natural mechanisms of language.

----- Or not.