Allott´s "Key terms in pragmatics" (Continuum, 2010), reviewed at
http://www.cognitivelinguistics.org/Reviews/allott
"Allott identifies three periods (cf. pp. 10-11):
(1) From antiquity to Grice (1957).
(2) From the 1940s to the 1960s, with Grice and Austin as main proponents.
(3) The modern period from 1967 (Grice 1975) to today."
which sounds like an excellent axis to me: BGE, and G. E.
<------------------- GRICE ------------------>
Before the Gricean Era The Gricean Era
This excellent book is structured as entries for subject and names. Under subjects, I especially loved the entry for ´implicature´. It is a fun word. Under names, I especially loved the entry for ´Grice´. It is a fun name.
Congrats!
---- The book is published by Continuum.
From amazon. at
http://www.amazon.com/Key-Terms-Pragmatics-Nicholas-Allott/dp/1847063772/ref=sr_1_1/186-3782459-3472201?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1273326319&sr=8-1
This is the first study of pragmatics with an introduction organized by key terms, including short intellectual biographies of key thinkers, and a list of key works for further reading. Pragmatics is a core discipline within linguistics, but is without an introduction organized by key terms - until now. "Key Terms In Pragmatics" succeeds in tackling this problem by giving students clear, explanatory definitions of over 300 key terms in the field. There are short intellectual biographies of key thinkers, and a list of key works for further reading. This book is essential reading for students on introductory and intermediate courses on linguistics and language and communication, especially those studying pragmatics and logic and meaning. It is also useful to more advanced students of pragmatics who are looking for clear definitions and for guidance on topics outside of their specialist area. "The Key Terms" series offers undergraduate students clear, concise and accessible introductions to core topics. Each book includes a comprehensive overview of the key terms, concepts, thinkers and texts in the area covered and ends with a guide to further resources.
Allott´s PhD on rationality can be found at:
http://folk.uio.no/nicholea/papers/n_allott_phd_thesis_09_2007.pdf
Also accessible from his webpage at
http://www.csmn.uio.no/homepages/nick/
is
his co-written essay on indicative conditionals at
Allott, N. & Uchida, H. (2009). Natural language indicative conditionals are classical. UCL Working Papers in Linguistics, 21, 1–17.
----
His other publications listed in his webpage:
Allott, N. & Uchida, H. (2009). Classical logic, conditionals and “nonmonotonic” reasoning. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 32(01), 85.
--- (2008) Pragmatics and rationality. PhD thesis, University of London.
--- (2006) Game theory and communication. In A. Benz, G. Jäger, & R. van Rooij (eds.), Game Theory and Pragmatics(pp. 123–51). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan
--- (2006) The role of misused concepts in manufacturing consent: A cognitive account. In L. de Saussure, & P. Schulz (eds.), Manipulation and Ideologies in the Twentieth Century: Discourse, Language, Mind. Amsterdam: John Benjamins
--- (2005) Paul Grice, reasoning and pragmatics. UCL Working Papers in Linguistics, 17: 217–43.
--- (2003) Game theory and communication. UCL Working Papers in Linguistics 15: 1-33
--- (2002) Relevance and rationality. UCL Working Papers in Linguistics 14: 69-82. ---- & Rubio Fernández, P. (2002). This paper fills a much-needed gap. Actes de l’atelier des doctorants en linguistique, Université Paris 7, 97–102.
He also provides links to past conferences that he has been involved with:
-- Stalnaker-Lewis semantics for conditionals, particularly 'counterfactual'/'subjunctive' conditionals.Relen
-- Metarepresentation and non-literal language use
-- Metarepresentation, communication and culture
-- Language and Rationality seminar.
He organises CSMN4021, with downloadable lecture notes and reading lists.
-----
Allott, who is from the South of England, was eduacated in the North of England (Tyneside) from where he ´landed´ in Oxford. It was THAT, I like to say, that makes him a Griceian! He studied at St. Catherine´s, and knows all about physics and science in general. Once he got imbued with the details of Grice´s complex programme in "rational pragmatics", or rather "philosophy of language" as "a branch of psychologia rationalis", as Grice prefers -- cited from archival material by Chapman -- it was just all a piece of cake for N. E. -- He applies the rigour of his logical background and formation to anything minimally resembling Griceian, Griceaian included. He can talk about various things. He likes to provide good examples, and likes to examine an argument step by step. His PhD dissertation, for example, is a model on how to proceed with such recalcitrant matters as the type of "reasoning" involved not just in "implicature", but -- shall I say, "disimplicature", and aspects of entailment, and "explicit content". He is well aware of the philosophical connotations of the work by Grice and is especially clever in the insights he brings from the logical interface. He is at home discussing things like probability and desirability satisfactoriness criteria in defeasible frameworks, and with a straight face!
One day, he should go to Bancroft, and edit a few of the Griceana! I think he should especially enjoy to edit that essay misquoted by Levinson, "Probability, desirability and mood operators". It is actually, "Probability, Desirability and Mood operators". And, if he finds the Berkeley weather not to his taste he should send some of his students to do the work!
Readers are encouraged to browse his "PhD" thesis -- and retrieve notes on Allott´s concept of "rationality", or " ... reasons ... from ... to ... " and the so many variables it includes.
His range of examples is illuminating and overwhelming and he maintains a truly philosophical (and thus conceptual and analytic, very much in the Griceian vein) that makes reading his work as getting a very intelligent running commentary (and more) on the oeuvre of H. P. -- (that´s Grice, for the cognoscenti).
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We have outstanding issues in relation to "speakers meaning" in which I was skeptical about the psychologism apparently involved, and have taken the view that it is not the business of semantics to connect meaning with mental states in the speaker.
ReplyDeleteThis may be an indication of my very superficial acquaintance with Grice. Here (in Allott's thesis) we see rationality and pragmatics connected, and I have no problem with a notion of speakers meaning which is firmly connections with "intentions" so long as this is a part of pragmatics rather than semantics.
However, it still seems to me that to understand natural languages you do need to recognise that not all speakers understand language in the same way, and that this may warrant a notion of "speakers meaning" which belongs to properly to semantics rather than pragmatics, and which is independent of the speakers intentions at the time of speaking but rather a relatively stable aspect of his use of language.
Thus, I am suggesting two kinds of "speakers meaning", one which relates to the speakers understanding of the language, and his own linguistic idiosyncracies (at least as far as semantics is concerned), and the other which relates to what the speaker intended to convey by his utterance. The first, non psychologistic kind belonging to semantics and the second to pragmatics.
A mere glance at ALlott's thesis suggests to me also that his interest in rationality differs from mine (which is becoming gradually more significant in relation to my contributions to the Carnap/Grice conversation), is in rationality as a normative concept, whereas the sense I have from Allott is that his interest may be descriptive.
RBJ
Of course, N. Elwyn, as I familiarly call him (have you ever experienced a more aristocratic name than Elwyn?) should be able to comment on your points, Roger.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I would follow Grice in thinking, roughly, of semantics as definable and indeed defined in terms of pragmatics. This is one of the stages in WoW:vi, where he does say that "word meaning", "sentence meaning", etc. all get drawn from "utterer´s meaning". There are FURTHER elements involved: it´s not a 1-to-1, or one-on-one reduction: there are elements involved in established meaning, part of utterance meaning, utterance type meaning, but they are not irreducible semantic. Irreducible semantics does not exist. This is what I call the radical pragmatic view that goes well with a minimal semantic component.
I think you are right about Allott´s descriptive approach to rationality. You can sense this (in him or any author) by what I call the "Wason" number. The number of times they quote Wason. I think he quotes him on occasion. Hence, he is a descriptivist.
For a whole ´school´ -- not of sirens, but of Griceians -- Grice could have done with a visit to a lab. In these psychological labs, you pay people and they perceive things, etc. You "study" their reasonings, etc.
But I am VERY charitable on these Griceians. Especially Allott! Indeed, he says that his working paper on Grice has been "superseded" by his PhD, but surely nothing supersedes nothing! We contain multitudes. Allott has managed to provide a good exegesis of Grice, and if one thinks what he concludes is "descriptive", one has to read "descriptive" as in Strawson (not "revisionary")!
Indeed, elsewhere, I have commented on a few aspects of Allott´s thesis. I think a very good comparison could be made with a detailed study of Grice, "Method in philosophical psychology", that Allott cares to mention in his PhD bibliography. This is vintage 1975a Grice -- the paper was delivered in 1975, although based on lectures in 1974, etc. -- Another good point would be to compare Allott´s idea with Grice on the PERE. Only yesterday, when browsing Grice´s PPQ 1986 essay, "Actions and Events", I note that Grice refers to a Principle of Economy of Effort, sic. In Reply to Richards, it´s even the more specific "Principle of Economy of RATIONAL Effort" -- the P. E. R. E., which I find sublime in that it allows us to explain how tacit (in a very metaphorical use of "tacit") those rationality patterns are.
The ch. viii of MY thesis was called, "Cunning of Conversational Reasoning", and it dealt with the Hegelian criticism of the Kantian ideal of (communicative) rationality alla Grice. Elsewhere I have for this reason referred to Allott´s programme as evoking aspects that indeed challenge the Kantian and Aristotelian ("Kantotelian", "Ariskantian") paradigm, and wanting us, in a good provocation, to explore what Plathegel had to say about all that! Or something!
Just checked, and Allott quotes Wason 1960, Wason 1966, Wason 1968a, Wason 1968b, and Wason et al 1971.
ReplyDeleteOther psychologist of rationality (to which if you would even mention anything like a Griceian "normative" approach like the one Roger Bishop Jones and I defend) would label you "metaphysical" is Johnson-Laird.
Alas, my interfaces with cognitive science, so called (this is NOT Allott, because I connect with the philosopher in Allott!) came from my brief interaction with S. Stich. I had him read a passage from Grice´s "Method" to the effect that we need to postulate psychological attitudes for the "concern" of others -- not just "explain" his behaviour. "Preposterous!", was his response. Stich was also VERY sceptical about how Grice (who never stepped on a psychology lab) could say that
To say U reasoned from P to C
we need to postulate
U believes p
U believes c
----
AND U believes that U´s belief that c is CAUSED by U´s belief that p.
For me that is SO obvious, that when I meet a psychologist who doubts it, I´m very happy I never cared to study psychology!