Grice's Underdogma

--- by JLS
----- for the GC

Grice and Strawson wrote in "In Defence of a Dogma" (in Grice, STUDIES IN
THE WAY OF WORDS) to 'please' Quine.

They write:

"In "Two Dogmas" Quine advances some criticisms of the analytic-synthetic distinction, and rejects it. We wish to show that his criticisms of the distinction do not justify his rejection of it".

Now that's tricky. They could be trying to show that his criticisms do not justify THE rejection of it. But why not, HIS rejection of it. After all, we only need the will to reject to reject something

They go on:

"There are many ways in which a distinction can be criticised (and/or
rejected)".

Grice/Strawson argue that there are radical ways and non-radical ways. Non-Radical ways include:

- the distinction is not _sharp_.
- its terms are _ambiguous_.
- the distinction is _confused_
(Grice/Strawson think these criticisms
invite a clarification, not a rejection).
- the distinction is literally _useless_.

Grice/Strawson think Quine can't think this, because to say that something
is useless you have to admit that something exists. "And simply declare
that you can get on without it".

But Quine cannot just say this.

"Quine would get on without the distinction but not in the way which
would commit him to acknowledge its existence"...". Quine describes the
dogma to a "metaphysical article of faith".

Grice and Strawson say Quine is at odds with philosophical tradition since
it's a class of family concepts at play here:
analytic synthetic
b. necessary contingent
c. a priori empirical
d. truth of reason truth of fact

Kripke has showed that this is in need of analysis). This tradition, Grice
thinks, is "not wholly disreputable", which, as L. Tapper would agree,
does not mean that is wholly reputable.

Grice and Strawson say that, tradition aside, you can teach a new philosopher the
distinction, and that he can apply the distinction to NEW cases.

Grice makes a point about the list being not closed. This points to the
generativeness of the distinction, or its productiveness.

So Quine must be saying that there IS a distinction, but it's the
criterion for such a distinction which is a DOGMA, "ie. that the stories
philosophers tell themselves about the distinction are full of it"

(Grice writes "illusion", but I prefer "it").

Quine cannot be meaning that philosophers don't distinguish between
analytic and synthetic because they do. So Quine is not against the
distinction, because there IS such a distinction, between, Grice says,
- statements which appear to have
a certain characteristic
- statements which appear NOT to
have a certain characteristic.

Regardless of whether they do in fact DO have such characteristic.

As Grice notes, Quine is on the wrong track on this. He finds that
philosophers should be criticised for making avoiding distinctions rather
than making them:

"On the whole, it sems that philosophers are prone to
make too few distinctions rather than too many. It is their assimilations,
rather than their distinctions which tend to be spurious".

Grice goes on to note that Quine not only rejects "...is analytic", "...is
synthetic", but also the two-argument predicate

"...means the same as..."

And Grice finds this odd:

"It inolves saying that anyone who seriously remarks

1. A bachelor is an unmarried man.

and

2. This creature with kindey hasn't got a heart.

EITHER 1. is not in fact drawing attention
to any distinction at all between the
relations between the members of each
pair of expressions
OR 2. is making a mistake about the nature of the
distinction between them.

Grice notes that "meaning" is at danger too:

"If talk of sentence
synonymy is meaningless, it seems talk of sentences having a meaning at all
must be meaningless too".

Grice writes:

Two sentences are synonymous iff any true answer to the qustion "what does S mean?" asked of one of them is a true answer to the same qustion asked of the other".

"I do not claim any clarifying power for this definition", he adds, nor he needs to!)). (And which is precisely Quine's point re: intension).

"We might as well give up the notion of sense!", he adds as with a chuckle! Grice's example is 3 vs 4.

3. My neighbour's 3-year old child is an adult.

4. My neighbour's 3 year old child understands Russell's theory of Types.


Grice writes:

"It would not be INAPPROPRIATE [which does not mean it would be appropriate -- cfr LM Tapper] to reply to the utterer taking (4) as an HYPERBOLE".

Indeed, Grice considers hyperbole as a case of conversational implicature in "Logic and Conversation". His example there being:

5. Every nice girl loves a sailor

(Title of daff great-war song).

If the addressee takes (4) as an hyperbole he may say,

6. You mean the child is a particularly bright lad.

and that he is using "...understands Russell's Theory of Types"
figuratively, as Grice puts it (p.425). But then, the utterer may go,

7. No, I mean what I say - he really doesn't understand it.

If the U were to say that, Grice writes, "One might be inclined to reply"

8. I don't believe you. The thing's impossible.

meaning causally impossible. Conversationally implicating "causally
impossible". "But if the child was then produced, and did
- expound the theory correctly
- answer questions on it
- criticise it
- and so on

"one would in the end be FORCED to acknowledge that the claim was
truth-conditionally true: the child is a prodigy".

Grice contrasts this with my reaction to (3):

"To begin with, it might be SOMEWHAT SIMILAR to the previous case".

"One might say:


9. You mean he's very advanced for his age.


And then U says,

10. No, I mean what I say. He is an adult.

We might reply

11. Perhaps YOU MEAN that the three-year old
won't GROW anymore, or that
he's a sort of freak,
i.e. that he's already fully devloped.

And U says,

12. No, he's not a freak. Just an adult.

"At this stage we should be inclined to say that we don't understand".

"UNLESS U ADMITS HE IS USING THE EXPRESSION "Adult" in A FIGURATIVE WAY,
we wouldn't say we don't believe U, but that he can't mean what he says he
means".

"Whaever kind of creature is ultimately produced for our
inspection, it will NOT lead us to say that what U said was
truth-conditionally true".

"At most, we could say that we know SEE what he
wanted to MEAN".

Grice is happy that this example "breaks out of Quine's family circle of the analyticity group of expressions".

The distinction, Grice says is between

- increduilty yielding to conviction and
- incomprehension yielding to comprehension.

"It would be absurd to say that this distinction does not exist". Grice
considers Quine's example

13. Everything green is extended.

[This rightly interpreted by R. B. Jones, elsewhere].

Quine says this is dubious not because of the meaning of "green" or
"extended" but "analytic". So Grice invites us to remove "analytic" and
rephrase 14 a la Tarski as

14. "Everthing green is extended" is true.

Grice asks,

"Does the indecision now disappear at once? I think not!".

The indecision arises from one which we feel when asked,

15. Should you count a POINT of green light extended, or not?

"The example Quine chose is particularly unfortunate for his thesis. He
could have chosen another example in which we would hesitate about
"analytic" and have few qualms about "true"..."

One may want elaborate on all this. I'm skipping all Grice says about conceptual revision, which has been studied in terms of conversational implicature by the so-called theory of belief-change.

But it all reminds me of an Andy Capp cartoon:

FLO (To her MUM): Some tale, eh, mum!
MOM: He's incoherent, Flo.
I couldn't understand a word of it.

ANDY: Flo never finds me difficult to understand. Just impossible to
believe.