Husserl and Grice

by J. L. Speranza
-- for the Grice Club

An online essay by Thomasson, in Beaney, "The Analytic Turn" -- at

consciousness.anu.edu.au/.../Analyzing%20Meanings--long%20version.doc

-- makes an interesting comparison, in one same paragraph, between Husserl and Grice:

"Husserl and ordinary language philosophers alike were cognizant of a certain danger in this characterization: that it may make the tasks of philosophy “seem to the layman to be barren, pettifogging word-exercises” (Husserl 2000, 238), which involve shunning the grander traditional roles of philosophy in determining “the answers to certain nonlinguistic questions about Reality” (Grice 1989, 183-4)."

To consider. Thomasson quotes extensively from the methodological essays in Grice, WoW, and makes points regarding the 'a priori' use of concepts, etc. This has a good Griceian ring to it. It works on abstractions like "E" for expression, the use of "E", the concept underlying "E", and so forth. It describes Grice's somewhat casual remarks -- in his earlier essays -- and later serious remarks (which Thomasson overlooks) on the same topic -- i.e. the point, for a Griceian, is to compare Grice's early "Post-War Oxford Philosophy", delivered at Wellesey in 1958 (extra-mural Oxonian place, if ever there was one) and his later, 1987, "Conceptual analysis and the province of philosophy". But the Husserlian points are well taken!

I especially enjoyed Thomasson's reference to a complaint to Oxford philosophers as 'fudging' rather than 'facing' some questions, and the confidence by Grice in calling himself an "Oxford philosopher". I mean, he was: but he is putting in the same bag things like Grice, and Ryle, I would think! (Thomasson's focus is indeed on Ryle, Grice, and Strawson, as far as the Oxonian side of his contribution is concerned -- also marginal notes on Austin).