Why Grice was the Warden of Ordinary Language (against Davidson)

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A typical statement (from PPQ, vol. 67, p. 7).

Grice:

"There is CONSIDERABLE support in

ORDINARY LANGUAGE for the idea that

verbs and other relational predicate expressions

carry concealed within themselves ... a

specification of a given degree of

n-adicity."

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The case of 'between':

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"y is between x and z."

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The case of 'above':

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"y is above x"

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But Davidson fails to recognise the implicature here.

Grice notes:

"If we ask whom [Ayer] met in Vienna, we may
get the answer, ["Carnap"]".

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"without any suggestion"

-- IMPLICATURE

"that some restrictive condition
o[f] n-adicity is being violated."

For surely Ayer could have met Quine AND Witters and Schlick, and ..., into the bargain.

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And there is a formal argument to this implicatural effect:

"So far as the construction of logical
systems is concerned, it has been shown
that restrictions o[f] n-adicity are NOT
required for predicate logic."

Grice finds that this view of approaching things is much more charitable to von Wright's spirit.