by J. L. Speranza
-- for the Grice Club.
WHAT I PERHAPS FAILED TO DISTINGUISH IN MY "JABBERWOCKY" ESSAY, which I presented to the Luton, Beds-based Lewis Carroll Society (only I never knew if they read it -- they did publish it, though!) is between
'anarchic Humpty-Dumptyism', as used by Grice's disciple at Christ Church, A. G. N. Flew.
and
'liberal Humpty-Dumptyism'.
Let's consider the Carrollian passages:
----
`And only one for birthday presents, you know. There's glory for you!'
`I don't know what you mean by "glory,"' Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. `Of course you don't -- till I tell you. I meant "there's a nice knock-down argument for you!"'
`But "glory" doesn't mean "a nice knock-down argument,"' Alice objected.
`When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, `it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.'
`The question is,' said Alice, `whether you can make words mean so many different things.'
`The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, `which is to be master - - that's all.'
Alice was too much puzzled to say anything
----
In my "Jabberwocky" essay, I simplified the claim to read:
(T) By uttering 'There's glory for you!', Humpty Dumpty means that there is a nice knock-down argument for Alice.
(I failed to distinguish if this was via implicature or what).
----
I gave Griceian arguments PRO and finally AGAINST it (The 'against' it being based on D. F. Pears, also of Christ Church).
---
I entitled my piece, "Impenetrability", since I also considered the immediate continuation to that exchange:
---
Alice was too much puzzled to say anything, so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again. `They've a temper, some of them -- particularly verbs, they're the proudest -- adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs -- however, I can manage the whole of them! Impenetrability! That's what I say!'
`Would you tell me, please,' said Alice `what that means?`
`Now you talk like a reasonable child,' said Humpty Dumpty, looking very much pleased. `I meant by "impenetrability" that we've had enough of that subject, and it would be just as well if you'd mention what you mean to do next, as I suppose you don't mean to stop here all the rest of your life.'
`That's a great deal to make one word mean,' Alice said in a thoughtful tone.
`When I make a word do a lot of work like that,' said Humpty Dumpty, `I always pay it extra.'
`Oh!' said Alice. She was too much puzzled to make any other remark.
----
----
Note that the issue is not as simple as Flew thinks it is (to utter 'pod' to mean pod.
"Linguistic conventions," Flew writes (p. 30 of the reprint in Shosky), "here means those by which we use 'pod' rather than 'pid' or 'nup' to mean pod; and so forth." VERY clarifying. (Irony there).
----
glory, noun. feminine in Latin, 'gloria'.
"a nice knockdown argument" -- still a noun phrase.
"There's glory for you"
"There's A NICE KNOCK-DOWN ARGUMENT for you"
---
But
"impenetrability", noun, feminine in Latin, 'impenetrabilitas'.
"
`I meant by "impenetrability" that we've had enough of that subject, and it would be just as well if you'd mention what you mean to do next, as I suppose you don't mean to stop here all the rest of your life.'
Note that in this second instance, Humpty engages in a 'that'-clause of the type that R. Hall and I adore.
---- By 'impenetrability' [rather than by the stricter, "By UTTERING 'Impenetrability'], Humpty Dumpty MEANT that: "Humpty Dumpty and Alice have had enough of some subject AND that it would be just as well if Alice would mention what Alice means to do next, as Humpty Dumpty doesn't suppose Alice means to stop THERE all the rest of Alice's life.
Surely that is silly.
----
Note that in the previous, better known case [I'm scared of using 'better-known' and 'well-known' after Kramer's reprimand -- but I'll survive], that Kramer now trades on, "glory" ('a nice knock-down argument'),
HUMPTY DUMPTY: There's glory for you!
ALICE: I don't know what you mean by "glory".
HUMPTY DUMPTY [smiling] Of course you don't -- till I tell you. I meant "there's a nice knock-down argument for you!"
---- In this case, it is not utterer's meaning, which (as Grice WoW:v -- second section has it, -- 'Varieties of nonnatural meaning', p. 91), but utterance-type occasion-meaning at most. For the record, let's revise Grice considers, the basic, prior:
i. utterer's meaning
from ii-iii-iv specifications of EXPRESSION meaning:
ii. utterance-type occasion-meaning ("By X U meant '...'"]
iii. utterance-type APPLIED timeless meaning ("X means here '...'")
and
iv. utterance-type TIMELESS meaning ("X means '...'").
----
I cannot go into the detail, right here, as to how the belief-based view of intention held by Grice ends endorsing a 'liberal' rather than an 'anarchic' Humpty Dumptyism but you get the picture.
In any case, it is sad that not only J. L. Austin and Wittgenstein ignored ('frequently' in the case of Austin, Grice has it) the 'importance of distinguishing what our words mean and what we mean by them' ("Prejudices and predilections, which become the life and opinions of Paul Grice", by Paul Grice), but that Alice did too!
---
ALICE: But "glory" does not mean "a nice knock-down argument".
HUMPTY DUMPTY (all too famous retort) [in rather a scornful tone]: When I use a word, it means just what I choose it [i.e. the word, rather than myself -- which would be a strict case of utterer's meaning. JLS] to mean -- neither more nor less.
ALICE. The question is whether you can make words mean so many different things.
HUMPTY DUMPTY. The question is which is to be master - - that's all.
--- Gardner simplifies the issue here, but rather inspirational. He notes that in Wonderland, just to prove Mill right -- cfr. our Grice to our Mill -- general words like 'brilling', 'toves', etc. -- don't mean anything but what people (and eggs, etc.) whimsically mean by them, while proper names (like "Alice", "Humpty Dumpty") MEAN things --:
HUMPTY DUMPTY: Tell me your name and your business.
ALICE. My name is Alice, but--
HUMPTY DUMPTY [interrupting] It's a stupid name enough! What does it mean?
ALICE [doubtfully]. Must a name mean something?
HUMPTY DUMPTY [with a sort laugh]. Of course it must. My name means the shape I am -- and a good handsome shape it is, too. With a name like your, you might be any shape, almost.
--- In any case, I like to think that, Griceian varieties of nonnatural meaning aside, and since Humpty Dumpty works basically with TWO scenarios ('glory' and 'impenetrability') which are specific, and one which is general -- as per the rhyme which encapsulates his moral, it is utterer's meaning he is centrally having in mind -- if an egg can be said to have one ('mind', I mean, not 'central meaning'):
In spring, when woods are getting green,
I'll try and tell you what I mean.
("`Thank you very much,' said Alice.")
And we should welcome her.
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I should say, and I'm saying it now, that this post was inspired by Kramer's recent commentary on Humpty Dumpty under "Deutero-Esperanto", THIS BLOG. Since he refers to very specific issues of a fascinating case he refers to -- about 'fighting words', and which I would need to elaborate further to see how his references to Humpty Dumpty do apply (as I'm sure they do), I have not made explicit references to Kramer's excellent points in the body of the post itself. He provides links to the details of the 'fighting word' ("tuna sandwich") thing which I should pursue to provide the right commentary, as I should or hope I will.
ReplyDeleteThis humpty dumpty discussion goes, it seems to me, to the very heart of my concerns about analytic philosophy in the twentieth century. I connects both with our Carnap/Grice conversation, and with the Carnap/Quine debacle which is central to my other project.
ReplyDeleteThe (proximate) origin is in Russell and in Wittgenestein's repudation of Russell and his own tractatus, for Russell saw the way forward through idealised languages, in which the meaning is definite and precise because they mean what we chose them to mean, but Wittgenstein chose to stick with what words actually do mean (or how they are used) in ordinary language, to reject the suggestion that there is any purpose for which ordinary language doesn't work well enough, and to reject philosophical ploys and theories (including defining new languages) as confusions arising from an insufficient understanding of ordinary language.
This is a radicalisation of the Moorean defence of common sense and ordinary language, turning it into a full blown assault on philosophical language and philosophical insight.
In this Carnap and Grice inherit aspects of the positions of Russell and Wittgenstein, and our hope for constructive conversation lies in the perception that both of these men have accommodating temperaments and liberal tendencies.
The Carnap/Quine connection here is of course the long dispute over analyticity, in which Quine's rejection is firmly rooted in scepticism about semantics, aka meaning. Carnap, like Russell, wanted to achieve reliable deductive reasoning through the use of idealised, formal, languages, and in his latter phase this meant languages whose semantics had been precisely defined, yielding a special kind of logical truth called analyticity. Quine's response is to say "It can't be done", you can't chose a language with whatever meaning you like because it is impossible to define the meaning of a language.
The repudiation of logical positivism involved a repudiation in the idea that formal languages could serve any purpose beyond the analysis of ordinary language, and of the whole idea that philosophers might use ordinary words (or neologisms) with special meanings. Of course this is too simplistic, Quine cannot be seen as consistently taking that point of view, but Quine's arguments, like Wittgenstein's if swallowed whole, lead to a place in which philosophy is impossible, and the fact that Wittgenstein and Quine could continue to do philosophy is evidence of a kind of equivocation and disingenuity which often accompanies radical, supposedly sceptical (but actually dogmatic), arguments.
RBJ
Great. Excellent comment, Roger. I am pleased you were able to see the tree for the forest (or vice versa -- I'm never sure, the botanist in me, what's more important). And your precise points would merit independent comment. I do agree, wholeheartedly, that, as far as Grice is concerned, he saw (and was seen as seeing) his project as demolishing something like the common (in the bad 'sense' of 'common') slogan, "meaning = use". This is fairly enough adjudicated to Witters, but -- I owe this to ONE footnote in Strawson's Intro to his Philosophical Logic -- to Quine, too! (Strawson quotes Quine on the 'meaning' vs. 'use' of 'if', for example, complete with page reference, and draws Grice to the defense of the distinction -- Strawson 1967).
ReplyDeleteYes, it is good to see the broader picture behind particular locutions, like 'glory', or 'impenetrability'. And I would add here, 'pirot'. For while Flew does NOT expand on the point by Waismann, I am guessing he is bringing in Carnap's pirot (which karulises elatically) into the picture -- this is Waismann in "Analytic-Synthetic" for Analysis, 1950. I like to think that the heart of this is in that pirot talk that fascinated Grice.
For a pirot karulises elatically, and surely that's a short step from it being brilling and the slythy toves gyring and gimbling in the wabe.
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