Grice's Security Blanket

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


WE HAVE EXAMINED EXTENSIVELY IN THIS CLUB what Grice meant by 'general duty': when he coined (or thought he coined, since Sidonius had used it), 'implicature', or rather, 'implicate' (which Grice knew he hadn't coined) to do 'general duty' for

i. mean
ii. imply (of course)
iii. suggest.

In considering the Strand 5 of "Retrospective Epilogue" (which only NOW theorists are beginning to consider when doing exegeses of Grice -- such being academia -- and only students present THESE things to their tutors!) we see that he was obsessed with the right analysis, for example between:

'to suggest'

and

'to hint'.

--- But I revise and I see no reference to 'hint' in WoW:i-vi (i.e. the William James). However, on p. 86 (WoW:v -- in the section that he omitted for publication back in 1969 for the Philosophical Review -- the rest of the thing WAS published), Grice adds:

'to indicate'.

I.e. 'implicature' gets lowered down from 'general duty' to ...

a 'blanket'!

""Implicature" is a blanket word to avoid
having to make choices between words like
"imply," "suggest," "indicate," and "mean."
These words are worth analyzing."

-----

So we have

'to implicate' to do general duty (blanket) for

i. to imply (of course) -- here the NOUN, 'implicatio' was not much used by the scholastics, but 'consequentia' was, and Grice wants to avoid 'entail' and 'imply' in THOSE 'strictER' senses.

ii. to 'mean'. This was Grice's claim to fame, and he knew it. His account of "Meaning" back in Oxford in 1948 had been used by Hart, Strawson, etc., and had provided much enjoyable topic of conversation with Urmson, etc.

iii. to 'suggest'. Grice provides a good analysis of this in WoW:Valedictory Essay -- Strand 5 (isn't there a bad implication about 'strand'?)

iv. to 'indicate'. This is the new one. We should analyse it, as Grice says it's worth. For Grice was aware that Peirce had made technical use of 'index', which is just 'indicate', only worse. So Grice was aware of 'factive' uses of 'indicate': the weathercock indicates that the wind is N. E., for example. Also note that this use of 'indicative' by Dionysius Thrax and his followers (the 'modus indicativus') would have irritated Grice who was never sure how to CALL the 'declarative' thing.

----

So, if that blanket does not make you secure, I don't know what will