'Suggest' Rears Its Ugly Head From Behind The Blanket (of "Implicature"): WoW:24 and 87 -- and 368

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

PEOPLE ARE FASCINATED by "Fascination" -- such a beautiful, catchy, rhythmic, song. They are also fascinted by "implicature". But Grice was adamant to coin. He does have a BEAUTIFUL PASSAGE on 'implicature' dated 1964 -- this blog, from archival material in Chapman -- which any reader of the OED3 should be aware of, because they think -- the OED3 but do they care? -- that the first cite should be Grice 1967.

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But in 1967, on p. 24 and 87, he refers to

'implicate' as a 'blanket word', or verb, to do general duty for

i. imply (of course -- it had been murdered by philosophers of the Oxford generation just before Grice, including Strawson, "On referring" (Mind, 1950), Grant ("Pragmatic implication"), Nowell-Smith ("contextual implication and ethical theory", Proc. Arist. Society), Urmson ("implied claims" to truthfulness), and Austin ("Other Minds", "I implied that I knew it was a chaffinch"), and the rest of them. I'm just sticking to people in the 'know': "Play Grouppers".

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ii. 'mean' -- Grice's infamous claim to infame (by his enemies, of course, starting with Ziff and other Americans).

iii. 'indicate' (this features on p. 87, only -- but cfr. archival material cited by Chapman on Grice on Peirce's index -- 'indicated that p'.

and

today's fare:

iv. 'suggest'.


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What does Grice say about the etymology of 'suggest'?

Nothing. But he does say something about the etymology of 'irony' (pretense).

'suggest' is from the Latin, sub-, meaning under. As in 'understatement'.

What Grice DOES say about this word which p. 87 has as 'worth analysing':

First "suggestion."

Such directness!

Suggesting [that p]"

is a beast of its own.

----

A: How is Smith getting on his his new job at the bank?
B: He hasn't been to prison yet.

What is B 'suggesting': that he is likely to prove dishonest, given the temptations of his job.

"Standardly", Grice notes,

"to suggest that [p]" -- in this case, that Smith is likely to prove dishonest.

"invites a response."

A: You're talking bullshit.

----

"and, if the SUGGESTION is reasonable."


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Surely this is NOT Grice's scenario. He is thinking,

"May I suggest we go to the Lamb and Flag, rather than the Bird and Baby?"

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Or,

"I suggest that the cause of the War with the Zulus was the Zulus".

---

Grice goes on:

"And, if the suggestion is reasonable,
the response it invites is to meet in
one way or other the case which the
maker of the suggestion, somewhat like
a grand jury, supposes there to be in
favour of the possibility that [p]."

----

"Are you suggesting he is likely to prove dishonest? Then you should have SAY it."

"No. The point of me suggesting it -- via implicature -- is that you are an idiot about asking about the new job at the bank, as if you cared. The man is safe, getting a good salary, and seems happy, under the circumstances."

Grice goes on:

"The existence of such a case [that Smith is likely to prove dishonest]
will require that there should be
a truthful fact or set of facts which
might be explained by the hypothesis
that [p] together with certain other
facts or assumptions, though the [Utterer]
is NOT committed"

--- this is within Grice's discussion of 'lower-commitment' acts, i.e. defeasible implicatures.

"to the claim that such an
explanation would in fact be
correct."

WoW:368