Grice, of St. John´s

By JLS
for the GC

If you see the "affiliation" for Grice´s "Meaning" (sent by Strawson to the Philosophical Review) you´ll read, "St. John´s" -- His "Mind" paper came out as coming from "University of Oxford", which makes slightly more sense. I mean: I love Oxford -- and it IS a city, rather than a varsity, but imagining the uniqueness of it all!

Grice had three Oxonian college associations: the first and best was indeed Corpus Christi, without which, no Grice. He had Hardie as tutor, which helped. Anyone more flamboyant would have destroyed Grice´s character! I was amused to see that Hardie was wanting to compete with J. L. Austin at a time. Oxford is VERY generational. If you belong to Hardie´s generation (or class) there´s NO WAY you say will have a say on Austin!

Then came Merton -- Grice was one of the first post-graduate fellows there -- and it was via the connection with Merton that he found a lovely wife! Merton is perhaps the best Oxford college! So prestigious it hurts. Plus, it´s so close to the heart of the bureaucracy that the Sub-Faculty of Philosophy represents that you feel "at home".

And then, he was elected in 1939 already! to a Fellowship at St. John´s. Since then, he lived in the premises provided by the College, not far from it, on Banbury Road, and he would frequent the two pubs ALSO owned by the College. I mean, who needs anything more?

---- Chapman comments that when Grice wrote to his wife, "Hey, I´m staying in the USA for good", she (the wife) was pretty surprised, and surmised that the reason was that, now in his 50s, he was seeing his-self or himself (as Kramer would prefer) as too old to do the summer cricket tours!

----

It was glorious that St. John´s made him an Honorary Fellow, since it was the St. John´s association that saw the best of him!