"Quite A Beating"

--- by JLS
----- For the GC

-- THIS BELOW WAS MEANT as commentary to Kramer in "Vehicle for meaning?", but the system somewhat failed, and so I'm posting it here as a blog post.

Grice goes on on the next page, 119 -- to p. 118, which I quoted then in reply to comment by Kramer on that thread:

"We must be careful to distinguish the applied timeless meaning": he is being jocular in calling this 'timeless' -- cfr. W. Chapman's commentary in "How artificial can language be?' -- things change and people (e.g. the founder of Esperanto) die.

"distinguish the applied timeless meaning of X (type) with respect to a particular token (belonging to X)."

Here is he being a 'realist' rather than a 'nominalist'. 'Belong'? Why would "Mona Lisa" -- the one and only -- belong any where else than the Louvre? (Actually rumour has it that it was stolen).

"X (type) with respect to a particular token x (belonging to X) from the occasion-meaning of U's utterance of x."

"The following," Grice says, to provoke Urmson, "are not equivalent"

1. When Jones uttered it, "Maggie gave Joe quite a beating" Jones meant that Thatcher vanquished the Labour Party candidate with some ease'.

2. When Jones uttered it, "Maggie gave Joe quite a beating", Jones meant that Tathcer administered vigorous corporal punishment to the Labour Party candidate".

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On the other hand (usually the wrong one, in Grice's case -- i.e. the left one -- we are, i.e. people ARE biased), Grice has:

"When Jones uttered "Maggie gave Joe quite a beating", Jones meant that Thatcher vanquished the Labour Party candidate with some ease".

Why? Well, it's obvious! As Grice notes:

"Jones might have been speaking IRONICALLY". As the case might transpire, in the long run, it was perhaps a good thing that Thatcher got the post, because -- well, she just got it. And one can be IRONIC about that.

Grice adds: if uttererd ironically, the actual meaning would be that "the Labour Party candidate vanquished Thatcher with some ease".

How one would mean that escapes me. But it IS comprehensible in a less convoluted example:

"Ricky Martin gave Madonna quite a beating in that concert!" -- when it is obvious that the man cannot really compete with 'the bitch'. In which case, the sentence means what it means but what the utterer does mean, or did mean, is that Madonna gave Ricky Martin quite a beating -- provided they were sharing a stage and that there was a conpetition. A clearer example is Grice's:

i. Palmer gave Nicklaus quite a beating.

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If U was being ironic, while what the sentence means (i.e. what the utterance type meant) was that Palmer vanquished Nicklaus with some ease, what U meant was quite the contrary, i.e. that Nicklaus -- emphasis in italic Grice's, p. 120 -- gave Palmer -- again emphasis Grice's -- quite a beating.

Or something.

The case to consider here then is:

(among others)

Palmer gave Nicklaus quite a beating.

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The sentence, "Palmer gave Nicklaus quite a beating"

The TYPE of the sentence, "Palmer gave Nicklaus quite a beating".

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Consider now "Meaning", which as we know, is a reification, and we don't want that. We want things to mean things ('mean' as verb, only).

PRIOR case:

U meant that p.

U meant that Palmer gave Nicklaus quite a beating.

U meant that NICKLAUS gave Palmer quite a beating (i.e. by uttering "Palmer gave Nicklaus quite a beating" 'in an ironical way', as Grice has it).

S means that p.

(this is personalistic, for sentences cannot mean that p. So let's consider just x and X, as Grice prefers: utterance tokens and types -- or types and 'tokens' which 'belong' to (or 'in' as I prefer, cfr. it's 'in' to dine IN the Ritz) the type:

"Palmer gave Nicklaus quite a beating" means 'Palmer vanquised Nicklaus with some ease'.

Grice IS AVOIDING BEING disquotational here. He knows his Tarski, and Davidson was claiming some fame with his infamous "Saying that" already (this was 1967 vintage).

So Grice does NOT want to have things like

"Snow is white" means snow is white.

We have to have:

"Snow is white" means 'frozen water refracts all sun rays', or something.

Grice is careful here: and rightly pedantic:

For subject positions, we use double quotes: "Snow is white". For predicate positions (i.e. the object of '... means ...') we use simple quotes:

"Palmer gave Nicklaus quite a beating" means 'Palmer vanquished Nicklaus with some ease'.

In other occasions, it might have been elsewise (or otherwise, if you are of the wise).

Another example by Grice:

"If I am helping the grass to grow, I shall have no time for reading"

"Surely we are not to assume that 'grass' means 'marijuana' all the time" (or words -- Grice WoW: 89).

Snow is white and grass is green.

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Or something.