Grice and Fowler

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I was pretty amused when I saw the comparisons of H. P. Grice (well, he doesn't mention HIM) and W. H. Fowler (he DOES mention him) made by who was perhaps Grice's first tutee at St. John's: the recently 'demised' (is that the word?) A. G. N. Flew. I should get the quotes soon.

This reminds us of the recent quote in the 'online etymology' for 'category' where Fowler rather pedantically refers to "the" difference. Etc. "Pedantic" is just the perfect phrase for Fowler, but must say I love the man, and know everything about him!

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He was better than his BROTHER -- who, while not a pedant, was a bore.

I HAVE LOADS of material about this because he worked so close to Oxford. In fact, IN Oxford. For the "Concise Oxford Dictionary".

If Carnap wrote a treatise on 'semantics' because of the hyperinflation that made "Principia Mathematica" a hard buy in Germany (vide Jones's notes on Carnap's life in CarnapGrice pdf and elsewhere), the "Concise" was for years MY idea of a dictionary. Surely, it's impractical to carry the OED2 around -- and I never liked the SOD (Shorter Oxford Dictionary). The COD (Concise Oxford Dictionary) is my mother's favourite, too.

So -- we love Fowler.

There is a good book on him, "The Warden of the English Language", etc.

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Now, for A. G. N. Flew:

His point was that J. L. Austin and H. P. Grice -- and others -- he is writing from what he knew while he was in Oxford, from 1945 (roughly -- he was there before, but I count the Armistice as the beginning of post-war Oxford philosophy) and 1950 (he myseriously left Christ Church then -- and returned to Oxford for bad -- this last phrase to mean, he left for good).

--- He writes, for example that:

A philosopher, like Grice (he never mentioned but TWICE in his long career), could write about

"Personal Identity", as Grice had in Mind for 1941.

But "it is for Fowler to distinguish between "I" and "me" and "my" and "mine"". I disagree. I do think that some declensional and conjugational aspects (the latter: of the verb, 'to be': was, been, were, am, is, are, etc.) need or merit some philosophical consideration.

Flew makes the point that the linguistic botaniser, or the ordinary-language philosopher is "not a Fowler". But the distintion is sometimes pretty fuzzy, or blurred.

You have Austin and Grice often -- the early Austin and the early Grice -- sort of 'prescribing' uses: "It's not that we would comfortably say that, "She killed him UNINTENTIONALLY"", or some such.

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There's also the issue of 'the' -- as it applies not to 'the' difference, but to 'the' dictionary!

Grice (to Austin): "I don't give a hoot what the dictionary says" [emphasis mine].
Austin (cited by Grice -- in archival material, retrieved by Chapman]: And that's where you make your big mistake.

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I like to think of the COD as being referred to at that point. And Grice's 'big mistake' merely being a piece of wisdom. In general, the COD is better than the OED, but in many ways not so good. The SOD is midway. What I mean is the use of quotations, that I have used elsewhere to some extent. The OED1 and OED2 -- OED3 has 'impilcature' thanks to me! -- are good at quotes. (Actually, I think the OED3 quote for implicature should be earlier than the one they provide 1967, for Grice has a lovely paragraph using 'implicature' in 1964 -- in archival material retrieved by Chapman].

It would seem to me that Fowler was into something big when he omitted ALL quotes. So we would have:

'child' --- this or that

(I'm sticking to Grice's and Strawson's example, "My neighbour's three-year old child is an adult")

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We need QUOTES. We need actual examples (authentic ones) of the use of kild in Old English, and how it developed. And with THOSE quotes, we don't NEED a definition. Because we can DEDUCE or abduct or infer the meaning of 'ccild' FROM the extensional examples. Suppose it's first used in Piers Plowman, "There was a child by the gate". What makes us think that he was not an adult? The first uses of 'ccild' are buried in the mist of antiquity, and one would have to be careful as to how, from all those uses, we get the 'definition' that a dico (my slang for dictionary) is supposed to give you -- "Let me look it up in the dictionary" -- where 'it is the 'sense', and Fregean at that. Odd.

Why would someone like Fowler have anything to do with 'senses'? Surely I am one with Adam Kilgariff, when he wrote, "I do not believe in word senses!" (he worked for Longman for years.). Etc.