Grice and Bolzano: -- the Phenomenological Basis of Conversational Implicature

Abstract

from an essay by

Anita Kasabova:

"This paper presents a so-far undiscussed part of Bolzano's 'Theory of Science', namely the "semiotics" which Bolzano considered as belonging to methodology, since the correct understanding and correct use of words are grounded in a correct use of signs. Bolzano's account of explication is reconstructed to show his contribution to the contemporary discussion. Bolzano's semiotics is compared to Marty's theory, as well as to Grice's theory of conversational implicature: an explication occurs within the communicative process of transmitting written information between author and reader and, if successful, the reader understands the author's intention and the explication is effective."


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From wiki:

"Bernhard Placidus Johann Nepomuk Bolzano (October 5, 1781(1781-10-05) – December 18, 1848), Bernard Bolzano in English, was a Bohemian mathematician, logician, philosopher, theologian, Catholic priest and antimilitarist of German mother tongue.
Bolzano was the son of two pious Catholics. His father, Bernard Pompeius Bolzano, was born in northern Italy and moved to Prague, where he married Maria Cecilia Maurer, the (German-speaking) daughter of a Prague merchant. Only two of their twelve children lived to adulthood."

Why he became a Griceian:

"In his 1837 Wissenschaftslehre Bolzano attempted to provide logical foundations for all sciences, building on abstractions like part-relation, abstract objects, attributes, sentence-shapes, ideas and propositions in themselves, sums and sets, collections, substances, adherences, subjective ideas, judgments, and sentence-occurrences. These attempts were basically an extension of his earlier thoughts in the philosophy of mathematics, for example his 1810 Beiträge where he emphasized the distinction between the objective relationship between logical consequences and our subjective recognition of these connections. For Bolzano, it was not enough that we merely have confirmation of natural or mathematical truths, but rather it was the proper role of the sciences (both pure and applied) to seek out justification in terms of the fundamental truths that may or may not appear to be obvious to our intuitions."

CHECKLIST OF HIS PUBLICATIONS:


Wissenschaftslehre, 4 Bde Neudr., 2. verb, A. hrsg. W. Schultz, Leipzig I-II 1929, III 1980, IV 1931
Bolzano, Bernard (1810), Beyträge zu einer begründeteren Darstellung der Mathematik. Erste Lieferung (Contributions to a better grounded presentation of mathematics; Ewald 1996, p. 174-224).
Bolzano, Bernard (1817), Rein analytischer Beweis des Lehrsatzes, dass zwischen je zwey Werthen, die ein entgegengesetzes Resultat gewähren, wenigstens eine reele Wurzel der Gleichung liege, Wilhelm Engelmann, http://books.google.com/books?id=EoW4AAAAIAAJ&ots=Gtt6wFaHA5&dq=%22Rein%20analytischer%20Beweis%20des%20Lehrsatzes%22&pg=PA2-IA3#v=onepage&q=&f=false (Purely analytic proof of the theorem that between any two values which give results of opposite sign, there lies at least one real root of the equation; Ewald 1996, p. 225-48).
Bolzano, Bernard (1851), Paradoxien des Unendlichen, C.H. Reclam, http://books.google.com/books?id=RT84AAAAMAAJ&ots=10923mdkXy&dq=Paradoxien%20des%20Unendlichen&pg=PR3#v=onepage&q=&f=false1851 (Paradoxes of the Infinite; Ewald 1996, p. 249-92 (excerpt)).
[edit] Translations and compilations
Theory of science, attempt at a detailed and in the main novel exposition of logic with constant attention to earlier authors. (Edited and translated by Rolf George University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles 1972)
Theory of science (Edited, with an introduction, by Jan Berg. Translated from the German by Burnham Terrell - D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht and Boston 1973)
The mathematical works of Bernard Bolzano - Edited by Steve Russ - Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2004.
On the mathematical method and correspondence with Exner - Translated by Paul Rusnock and Rolf George - Amsterdam, Rodopi, 2004.
Selected Writings on Ethics and Politics - Translated by Paul Rusnock and Rolf George - Amsterdam, Rodopi, 2007.
[edit] External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Bernard Bolzano
Bernard Bolzano at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
Bernard Bolzano's Contributions to Logic and Ontology
"Bernard Bolzano" article by Edgar Morscher in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
"Bolzano's Logic" article by Jan Sebestik in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Works in German, in the Internet Archive
Digitized Bolzano's works


Cfr.:

Boyer, Carl B. (1959), The history of the calculus and its conceptual development, New York: Dover Publications, MR0124178 .
Boyer, Carl B.; Merzbach, Uta C. (1991), A History of Mathematics, New York: John Wiley & Sons, ISBN 978-0-471-54397-8 .
Ewald, William B., ed. (1996), From Kant to Hilbert: A Source Book in the Foundations of Mathematics, 2 volumes, Oxford University Press .
O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F. (2005), "Bolzano", MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Bolzano.html .
Künne, Wolfgang (1998), "Bolzano, Bernard", Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 1, London: Routledge, pp. 823–827 . Retrieved on 2007-03-05