Piggy Backed

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

AS KRAMER notes, this IS an international club (vide his comment on 'piggy back' as having 'no [intended] sexual connotation', in English (or his English). On the other hand, usually the wrong one -- but not ALWAYS, there's K. Korta. Imagine her problem. To translate a mimeo that Lady Anne (Martin) Strawson typed (without Grice knowing) and that her husband sent to "Philosophical Review". Yes: we mean "Meaning".

Korta proposes:

H. P. Grice,

"Esanahia [Meaning]".

In Korta, K. (atontzailea) (2007),

Hitzaren Lilura. Hizkuntzaren Filosofiako Irakurgaiak. Leioa: UPV-EHU, pp. 145-155.

--- the problem with Basque (for Indo-European speakers us) is that Basque is not (and Indo-European speaker). This complicates matters unnecessarily.

Kemmerling had a similar problem when he was writing his PhD on Grice for Frankfurt. And he was writing in German!

Kemmerling finds that all that Grice says does NOT apply in German. They do not make, the Germans, any of the distinctions that Grice makes.

Mundle objected to this early in his "Critique of Linguistic Philosophy" -- section: "Is all analytic philosophy anglo-linguistic?". Alas, his answer was: yes!

----

Consider again Korta:

Grice, "Esanahia
Hitzaren Lilura. Hizkuntzaren Filosofiako Irakurgaiak.

What does that mean?

Oddly, Korta wrote many papers with a man I do understand: Perry. They wrote so many papers together that Strawson.

I.e. that one thinks of Strawson.

Grice remarks of his collaboration with Strawson: "We shared enough views to write together a piece, which, literally, we called "In defense of a dogma"".

But that was it!

Later Grice wrote a piece with Judith Baker, which, literally, they called, "Davidson on akrasia". It's difficult to see what comes from Grice and what from Baker.

----

"On the whole, it's easier to ascribe
a philosophical view to a philosopher
when his work is NOT a joint
production with some other philosopher".

Similarly it is easier to ascribe
a view to a philosopher when he is dead.

Imagine with blogging. Apparently you can 'delete' things.

Imagine if Kant had deleted his blog entries on the "Critique of the Pure Reason" because, as he wrote to his mother later on,

"I grew increasingly unhappy with all
the idiocies I had written in that
tract. And the sad part about it is
that students were already starting
to quote me."

----

Enough to want to turn onto a ballet dancer. Or something.

----

Kramer notes that it is usually otiose to speak of the implicatures of the Na'vi. It's the speakers, the "Na'vi", who implicate -- hardly the lingo.

But there are contraints by the lingo ON The speakers, some may say.

Recall Grice's nominalism:

First the utterer -- the INDIVIDUAL utterer. "By uttering 'bugger off', U meant 'Happy birthday'".

Then there's the group of individuals. "By uttering in unison, 'For he's a jolly good fellow', the party meant that her transgendered operation had been a success".

---

Then there's Language:

This comprises:

whole utterances:

"As The Pope utterered it, the phrase meant, "Happy Easter to you all"".

Then there's sentences:

"The phrase "Happy Easter" means that the utterer of the sentence means that the addressee is to have, if possible, an eventful ('hap-', to 'hap-pen') Easter.

Then there are PARTS of sentences:

""Easter" means chocolate eggs to most of us. Few think of the Via Crucis".

----

The crux, as it were, is the vengeance. For, while indeed it all boils down (metaphorically -- I wonder who was the idiot who used this phrase literally -- it surely stuck) to the utterer, most utterers do respect the 'established' meaning -- the 'received' meaning.

As Grice says, "only in very special circumstances will I find myself meaning by "It is raining" that I want a piece of written work from my tuttee".

We tend to rely TOO often on what words mean, and we forget that they mean what we mean them to mean.

Kramer's example of 'pathos' is an apt one.

Blanche is a pathetic figure. "Pathetic fallacy": prices will raise.

Oddly, "I reared him", one can said of someone. This is sometimes associated with 'rear' as in 'rear-end'. But of course it has NOTHING to do with the rear-end. It has to do with 'raise'. To 'rear' is a variant on 'raise'.

Oddly, Aristotle distrusted what he called the 'pathetic types'. These are NOT the 'active' types -- but the 'passive' homosexuals. Oddly, all that he said on this -- in the Loeb Classical Library -- has been proved to be NOT by him. He said that while it is normal for a FEMALE to be 'pathetic', sexually, it is less normal of a Greek (and he knew them) to be so.

And the eromenos, you may ask? Weren't they all but 'a pathetic lot'? Yes, but there was, as the Ecclesiastes goes, a time to be pathetic, and a time to grow from the pathetic into the 'poetikos' or 'active intellectus', or something. Aristotle thinks that too much pathetism, in a male, is, er, pathetic.

Oddly, I was reading the Argentine novella that is making the hits in Buenos Ayres: the protagonist is described by the author (S. L.) as being 'hysterical', in parts. But this CANNOT literally be. (He is the same author who spells 'speech' speach). Hysteria means womb-bearer, or vag*na bearer, I forget. So how can a man be hysteric?

While Korta has translated the obscure "Meaning" by Grice what we have to focus is the conversational maxims. In Basque, communication is said, 'kommunikatao', which sounds similarly enough. But with 'implicature' I would not know. And then, perhaps I wouldn't care.

---- Korta does because he has to teach them -- the Basques.

Cheers!