On rejecting an invite

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

---- SOME PEOPLE have no (context) sensitivity:

You see he has a bandaged leg. And yet you ask:

"Are you playing squash tonight?"

------

"The implicature", on the part of the questioner, "seems to be, 'I hope you are enjoying your disability'.

Kramer comments, in "Impicatures in Na'vi":

"Implicature seems to me independent of the [communicative behaviour] mode. Rather, I see implicature as the (unspoken) parts of the syllogism entailed in most (all?) [communicative behaviour]s: If I have a bandaged leg, I cannot play squash tonight. I have a bandaged leg. Therefore, I cannot play squash tonight."

In my previous post I commented on the first part of Kramer's qualifications on Grice's examples. This is the second part. Kramer fine-tunes the thing further, in the right Grice-ian spirit of the thing:

"One could fine-tune this line of thought
to include inferences from bandaged leg to
bad leg,"

Indeed, if you do a google search for 'bad leg', you'll get Grice. He does write (words):

"I can only dubiously be said to have meant that I have a 'bad leg' by displaying a bandaged leg in response to a squash invitation. The bandages might be fake, you know."

The point is, why would someone be carrying fake bandages like that?

--- I mean: there is some tolerance to the limit of Gedanke Experimente that Grice was so prone (in response to Urmson's vindictive behaviour) to engage in.

Kramer continues:

"or from "cannot play" to "will not be playing,""

Yes. Alas, Grice does not make it explicit what sort of a 'squash inviation' that was. In fact, 'will' will do. "Intend" won't. As Grice will (or 'will' since this is now the past now) expand in his "Intention and Uncertainty":

"Well, I will play, if I can."

I.e.

"I.e. I will play squash, if I can. I do have a bad leg, but -- when is the game?"

---

Chapman, who is NOT a philosopher, finds Grice's qualifications otiose. She, who, for one, did read "Intention and Uncertainty" -- few linguists have -- and 'few' is hyperbolic -- thinks that this 'example' by Grice is 'over the top'.

Grice is discussing:

'can' play, 'will play', 'intend TO play':

And he proposes an example that Chapman (p. 128). The example is so impeccable for us OLP (ordinary-language philosophers) accustomed to Oxonianisms that I'm hurt that Chapmman finds this to be 'over the top'. The example goes:

A: Are you going to the concert tomorrow?

The problem is in B's reply:

"Well, I'll do my best."

"You'll enjoy it".

"I may not be there, though"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, the police are going to ask me some
awkward questions tomorrow afternoon, and
I may be in prison by the evening."

------

How is the co-conversationalist to respond to that. Cfr.

"Sorry, my leg is bad".

"What has that to do with anything?"

------


------

The co-conversationalist can 'criticise' the 'utterer' as having 'misused' 'will' versus 'intend' and 'can' and 'no'.

"I believe you should have been more guarded in the qualification of your response to my invitation to the concert tomorrow. You should have said, 'I intend to attend it if I am not in prison'"

"I thought that would be out of order."

"Well, agreed. But, if you wished to have been more reticent, you could have said something like, 'I should probably be attending', or 'I hope to go', or "I aim to go', or, simply, "I intend to go if I can"

This relates to the level of explicitness, Kramer notes, silly people may expect on things (No, I'm not implicating he is silly).

Kramer, you will recall, proposes the enthymeme:

* P1 (major)
* If I have a bandaged leg, I cannot play squash tonight.

* P2 (minor)
* I have a bandaged leg.

* Conclusion (always major)
* Therefore, I cannot play squash tonight.

Kramer qualifies: "One could fine-tune this line of thought to include inferences from bandaged leg to bad leg"

i.e. by replacing P1 and P2 to read:

If you have a bad leg (rather than a mere 'bandaged' leg, since, as Grice allows, 'the bandaged can surely be fake'), I cannot play squash (for the duration of my bad leg being bad).
I do have a bad leg (i.e. bad for playing squash, that is) -- cfr. I lack a leg.
Therefore, No.

----

Kramer adds:

"or from "cannot play" to "will not be playing,""

ditto in P1 and P2, now fine-tuned to P1' and P2' to read P1'' and P2'':

-- If I have a real bad leg, I will not (for surely 'ought' implies can?) be playing squash (for the validity of the protasis of the conditional).
-- I do have a real bad leg (read: 'realLY bad leg', assuming -- but hardly 'implicating' -- that the leg IS real).
--- Ergo, I will NOT be playing squash (with a bad leg --).

At this point, 'with a bad leg' makes sense:

"Are you playing squash?"
"I have a bad leg".
"So?"
"It HURTS".

I think 'it hurts' is the only NATURAL reply. For (and I KNOW) the only point in A's question is that B should do his best to comply, I cannot see how BAD the leg is that it inutilises the squash player to comply with a candid invitation (like that).

Kramer continues:

"but the point is that only the minor premise, the bandaged leg, is made explicit by word or deed, i.e., by [commuiative behaviour]"

Yes. And Kent Bach should read this. Because he thinks he is being clever by talking 'implIciture' as if it were something Grice omitted from his excellent analyses. Etc.

Is 'the bandaged leg', more to the point, as Kramer above has it, what is 'made explicit'? I think so. "Produce" is the word.

As when the Magician produces a rabbit out of the hat.

Grice uses 'produce' (a rose):

Wow: 106:

A: What is the girl's name
"B produces a rose"

-- Grice writes.

It always struck me as artificial that B should be carrying a rose (I hope it's fresh) -- in the gentleman's pocket? -- to 'produce' on being asked about the girl's name like that.

--- (Oddly, he is into 'rose production' -- or she, as the Duchess of Devonshire -- carries yet a different implicature.

So...

Is the 'bandaged leg' the 'impliciture'?

Or the 'rose' meaning 'Rose'?

What IS to display a bad leg? Can YOU display a 'bad' leg or merely a 'bandaged' leg? I think the latter. And what is the 'impliciture' of this, if any? Or is it an 'EXpliciture'? God knows (and then some of us are atheists on sordid occasions).

------

So...

Kramer:

"but the point is that only the minor premise, the bandaged leg, is made explicit by word or deed, i.e., by [commuiative behaviour]"

Exactly. Even allowing that words are NOT (as they are) deeds -- if not weeds:

Recall that Austin wanting to be clever entitled (as it were) HIS William James lectures, "How to do things with words" without Urmson, NOT (I.e. URMSON edited the thing, but how MANY linguists recognise this when they quote Austin's work?).

But, as Holdcroft (one of my favourite philosophers from Leeds) noted, in his book entitled, "Words and Deeds", it was not always so. Austin liked to advertise his semianrs in Oxford as "Words and Deeds".

(The subtitle to Holdcroft's book runs, "Problems in the theory of speech acts").

As I like to say:

(via Opie)

A man of words and not of deeds
Is like a garden full of weeds

-- the thing goes on for ages.

Kramer continues:

"The rest of the syllogism [not enthymematic parts of the enthymeme as it were] is already available to A, so the [communicative behaviour] need only supply the bandaged leg and, thereby, invoke those other elements."

True. Kramer was elsewhere wondering, "I wonder why people need to distinguish communicative behaviours". Indeed. And one wonders why one should spend time INVITING people (to play squash). If the man has a bandaged leg he cannot play squash -- simpliciter. The questioner should rely on OTHER people and not having to put the bandaged-legged man in the uncomfortable position of having to admit that he won't be playing squash -- cfr. Grice's other example, "I intend to go to the concert, if I'm not by then in prison".

Kramer then merges with McCafferty:

"To what extent, then is what we call U's implicature anything more than an appeal to A's database."

Exactly. And knowing people. What some people call "data" I call bullshit. "Datum" I restrict to 'true things' -- not givens. In fact, when I speak to staff (waiters, maides, etc.) I NEVER rely on their database. They don't seem to have any. I start afresh with each fresh conversation by fresh me. Why bother with database?

Plus, you never know if the data (or alleged 'data') is accessible. My mother, for example, has a 'hard disk' which I found harder than needed (to be). I am more of the floppy disk data base retrieval type, and will nonomonotonise on request.

Kramer goes dramatic when he asks,

"Where does the implicature end? Does, 'You need to tighten the bolt' implicate
'You WILL need a bolt tightener to solve this problem"?

No. I would think that it is understood (and never 'misunderstood' -- have you noticed how people never say, "it is misunderstood", or 'give it to misunderstand'?) that if you NEED, it is to solve something. "I need a sandwich". To solve my hunger. "I need a sandwich to solve my hunger seems overinformative. Surely you may object that one may need a piece of bread to feed the pigeons in WHICH case you may care to 'explicate', as it were (should the occasion for the 'expliciture' arise).

Kramer repeats, as it were, his dramatical cri de coeur? (Of course he is doing this to entertain me! And I love him for that!).

"Or, does "You neeed to screw it" implicate "You will have to obtain a screwer if you don't have one. Plus I am saddened to have to inform you that, as it happens, the stores are closed at this time of day so you're pretty much 'screwed' if you don't have a screwer" (minor changes).

Well, yes. Apparently (ie. not for a fact) Grice's first example of an 'implicature' is:

A: I've run out of gasoline.
B: There is a closed store round the corner.

A: Huh?

-- that's my variant: the example is 'simpler': 'There is a garage round the corner' (And I think he uses 'petrol', rather than 'gas' (which is short for 'gasoline').

But in fact,

"He hasn't been to prison yet" is an earlier example (as pages go).

---

"Does i implicate iib?"

i. You neeed to screw it.

ib. You will have to obtain a screwer if you don't have one. Plus I am saddened to have to inform you that, as it happens, the stores are closed at this time of day so you're pretty much 'screwed' if you don't have one (sc., a screwer, not a store).

----

Personally I'd never implicate that. Oddly, I don't implicate a lot. I would never implicate 'screw' as verb, for example. (I don't think). I don't think I would make a reference to 'the stores' -- and in fact, I wouldn't go to buy a screwer even if you (in general) asked me, so why burden MY addressee with having to go out to a store to buy one? What I would implicate at most is that perhaps he does NOT need a screwer.

In fact, most people think we need more things than we do, in fact, need.

----

Kramer concludes his commentary, aptly, with a rhetorical question (It's not, strictly, but every question, like the good egg of the curate, is partly rhetorical).

"It's fairly easy to ascertain where the explicit stops and the implicit begins. But where does the implicit end?"

I cannot see how one should care about it, unnecessarily. It's like the half-empty, half-full glass (of wine). It seems that Grice was concerned, in parts, with the 'implicit-explicit' distinction only as it had a PHILOSOPHICAL BEARING. Surely:

i. qua philosophers, we need to be LITERALISTS. I.e. we mean what we SAY. We don't mean what we IMPLICATE. If we wished to mean something we'd SAY it, not 'mean' it! So we are concerned with 'causal-theory' of perception type of cases:

----- The pillar box seems red.

--- Does this 'implicate' it's not? Who cares? What we DO care, and we have Grice rightly ON RECORD as having only cared (WoW: 374, line 29) for this: the PHILOSOPHICAL MISTAKES of 'a' Wittgenstein ("a minor philosophical figure, if ever there was one", he has it -- "Prejudices and recollections:

Grice:

"I was [by then] devoting much [of his] attention
[and some of his tutees, alas -- including, in part,
Warnock] to [this stuff]. Partly prompted 'as an
attempt to REBUFF objections, by followers of
WITTGENSTEIN, to the project of using 'seem'
to elucidate the problem of explaining the notion
of a sense-datum -- a problematic notion
if ever there was one"

Grice is echoing Paul here who was a member of that distinguished "Play Group" (That would be G. A. Paul, of New College -- I know because I made the appropriate historical queries about it. I contacted Paul in New College. I failed, of course, but I still keep their reply, "Dear Dr. Speranza, We are sorry to have to inform you that Mr. Paul died twenty five years ago -- of cancer".

Ah well.

(Paul wrote the most rhetorical-questioning essays of all time, "Is there a problem about sense data?". Grice commented, "Here it would not do to remark that since there is MORE than ONE problem about sense data, Paul's question is meaningful."

To repeat Kramer's apt question:

"It's fairly easy to ascertain where the explicit stops and the implicit begins. But where does the implicit end?"

Should it end?

The end of implicature, as we knew it? Surely not!

-----

Recall too that Grice was extravagntly clever in his use of the 'explicit'. He writes 'say', but he does not 'mean' it!

"He is caught in the grip of a vice".

He meant

"Richard Nixon".

Are we to say that since Grice did NOT say "Richard Nixon" he just merely IMPLIED that it was Richard Nixon who was caught in the grip of a tool used by carpenters? THAT *would* be otiose. We need to be, as philosophers, allowed to use concepts in interestingly philosophical, rather than, say, linguistic, or voidly empirical, ways. And, as we Griceans use 'say', we (when we do use 'say') want to say things that we "deem" as having been said:

Replace 'say' by 'make explicit' in what follows:

Grice:

"In the sense in which I am using the word 'say'
[or the phrase, 'whatever is NOT an implicatum', including
my aunt. JLS] I intend what someone has SAID to be
closely related [how close? Recall familiarity breeds
contempt] to the conventional meaning of the words
(the sentence) he utterered"

Never she. Recall Tannen: the Grandest Gricean Lady of All Time ("Gricean females behave, behavioustistically, different than [sic] Gricean males, on the whole (of it)" -- or something -- Tannen lives in Berkeley, so she KNOWS!

----

Grice continues:

"Suppose someone to have uttered
the sentence, "He was in the grip
of a vice"".

Huh?

Vice: tool used by a carpenter?
or 'vice': something like a sin?

"he"? Jean Morris, the well-known Welsh-born transsexual?

No.

Grice continues:

"Richard Nixon", rather.

Or rather:

"Given a knowledge of the English language"

--- given? I never GIVE that!

"but NO knowledge of the circumstances attending
the utterance of 'He is in a grip of a vice', one
would know something already about what the
utterer has "meant" as it were, or made
explicit" (or something).

"He said 'Caesar is of'".

Recall that Grice is interested ONLY in 'saying that', here. I.e. in saying that he was caught in the grip of a vice.

Philosophers are NOT linguists and they could NOT care less about what people DO say (i.e. the phones they utter). We are into deep, important 'issues' and stuff.

Grice goes on:

"And one would know that much, on
the assumption that he (the utterer)
WAS speaking English -- or standard
English, if you must"

"Plus, that he was speaking literally --" And not referring, say, metaphorically, to Jean Morris, the well-known transgendered Oxonian, as a 'he'"

Grice goes on:

"One would know that he had said,
about some particular born male person
-- or animal" (or something), "that

"at [some time before] the time of
the utterance (whatever that was) either
one of the following, if not both"

"That that aforementioned male person (or animal) -- referred to by 'he' -- was trapped in a certain kind of instrument that carpenters use"

--- This is implicating that Americans don't WRITE standard English, when they write 'vyse'.

"or, alternatively, that he (viz. the aforementioned [penis-holder])" or words, "was unable", at ditto time, "to rid himself" (if not his self) "of a certain kind of BAD character trait".

Is that enough?

Well, no.

"FOR A FULL" explicitation that some pedant may require (and we call pedant everyone who is NOT a philosopher -- philsophers are pedant when they NEED to; notably when they have to rebuff a 'follower of Wittgenstein')

"of what the utterer has 'made it explicit'" or 'said', "one would need to know" a few other things:

---

reference assignment

and

disambiguation

and

semantic enrichment.

Grice was VERY CONSCIOUS of these three levels, and he is making a philosophically VERY (extremely) sound decision as to why he proceeds as he does:

"For a full identification of what" U has 'put forward' in an explicit form that we may require to fill that 'that'-clause, "In U has put forward the claim that p":

"one would need to know:

the denotatum of 'he'.

Richard Nixon?
The dog?

----

Richard Nixon The Dog?

Or what?

-----

Plus one would need to know "the time of the utterance". Grice is having in mind Aristotle's hateful:

"Tomorrow I shall be dead" (there was a naval battle you see, and with the defeat of the Greeks, Athens would be captured by pirates, who would in turn kill Aristotle. Or not) -- 'futurus contingens'.

"And '(c) the meaning" -- if any -- "on the particular occasion of utterance, of the prhase, 'in the grip of a vice".

Cfr.

"She robbed the bank".

"The river bank?"

---

"This would be a 'decision between (1) and (2)": 'vyse' and 'vice' (but surely not both in written American English -- unless he (the utterer) cannot spell his elbow.

----

Grice continues -- this is just a prolegomenon for his strict discussion of these matters in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions in a section which he OMITTED for publication in the reprint of the "Philosophical Review" -- WoW: first section of WoW:v --.

"This brief [by philosophical standards, that is. JLS] indication of my use of 'say' LEAVES still open whether a man who says (also today) i and another man who says (also today) ii would, if each knew that the two singular terms have the same denotatum, have said the same thing."

i. She is not a female dog.
ii. Her Christian name was Maggie and she was a prime minister.

--- Or something.

Why?

I mean, why such loseness of usage? Surely we need to be able to specify that on occasion. Is Grice being loose on purpose? We hope so. He is saying that his 'brief indication' still 'leaves open', AS IT SHOULD, whether Utterer U, and utterer U' may be said to have 'said' the same thing.

Cfr. J. Kennedy. As Kennedy notes, people are SO LOOSE as to the way they speak that he (Jason) would NOT be surprised if someone were to say that he (Jason) said --- a bunch of Chinese things he never actually said!

For people wouldn't know what to 'say' regarding 'say' -- it is NOT a philosophical notion! Recall 'the follower of Wittgenstein':

The pillar box seems red.

What are you saying? Are you saying that 'seems' explicates the 'problematic' notion of a sense-datum? Are you saying that a material-object statement (physicalist) is in a way reducible to a hypothetical conjunction of an endless chain of phenomenalist claims? And why, unless you WERE Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret Anscombe, would like to say that in the first place? (Grice only cared for the 'first' place -- as he should.

Grice concludes his 'brief indication' with an appeal to his wise maxims (the so-called "Gricean maxims", after H. P. Grice):

"Whatever decision is made about this question"

--- which I HOPE does not include circulating the mimeo in your PhD dissertations and stuff!

Grice continues:

"the apparatus that I am about to provide"

-- if you follow me after a drink of coffee

"will be capable"

--- not you, the apparatus.

"of accounting for any 'impicatures'" -- he said smugly.

"that MIGHT [but then again might not. JLS] depend [for surely nothing depends on anything really -- I owe the tenor of this remark to L. J. Kramer, my tutor in Gricean realia here -- "Surely I don't rely on Darwin"] on the presence of one (or another -- [he added smugly]) or "on one, RATHER THAN another" -- more smuglier, seeing it was even more otiose --, "of these singular terms in the sentence utterered."

Provided it IS a sentence. Cfr. "Colourless green ideas sleep furiously." The case is less obvious with people who just seem unable to display what Grice calls "a knowledge of the English language". Do we know a language?

Grice concludes (if the subject is appropriate here: a true philosopher never really concludes -- paradoxical as this may seem (but ain't)):

"Such implicatures"

i.e. over the use of 'female dog' over "Maggie" say,

"would MERELY be related to", i.e. depend on, if you mustn't, "different maxims". Of which we have a bunch -- but never more than 10 -- the 'decalogue' and all reducible to one SIMPLE imperative of the Kantian type which does NOT subsume any of the individual ones -- etc.