Grice -- a closet Reichenbachian

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PPQ, vol. 67, p. 15.

It was typical of Grice to go to the defense of the underdogma. After all Quine had criticised (some say demlished) Carnap, and Davidson is now ditto Reichenbach.

But Grice wants to DEFEND Reichenbach.

Reichenbach, unlike Davidson, wants to distinguish between

TOPIC and FOCUS

Grice's example:

"I am 93"

-- I am telling you my age.
"NOT talking about my age"

-- Two cars collided on the bridge.

"TELLING you what happened, not DESCRIBING it."

"Considerations like these led Reichenbach
to distinguish between
logically equivalent [L-equivalent, for Carnap]
sentences one of which DOES, and
the other of which DOES NOT, refer to or talk about
an event."