"Everywhere is within walking distance if you have the time."
Steven Wright
American, Comedian
--- True. This allows for an existential point, though: a man cannot live more than 150 years, say. What IS the oldest man? Or who WAS the oldest man? (There is a point to be made about continuant individuals which are super-human). So, you do not have the time.
So the material implication here is:
"If you have the time, everywhere is within walking distance".
i.e., 'provided you do have the time', etc.
---
Surely Wright is objecting the exaggerated, hyperbolic use of the expression by ... people.
"It's just walking distance". "Hey, that's not walking distance!". So now you know how to challenge the odious implicature. The implicature is:
"It was walking distance" -- meaning -- a distance that is WALKABLE.
But all distances ARE walkable 'if you have the time'. So it cannot implicate just that.
I suppose the extra implicature is then, "and such that you may enjoy the walk". For surely it can be boring to walk and walk and walk just because you DO have the time. Perhaps the implicature is, too, 'i.e. you won't get too tired'. There's also the time limit. "It's walking distance" meaning you can walk it in 15 minutes. More than 15 minutes is NOT walking distance to me, by which I mean, that's how people who mention to me that distance I assume they mean.
Note that U and A play a role here. In a conversation, I take 'walking distance' to mean 'according to Utterer', rather than "addresee". R. B. Jones, for example, is an excellent walker, so 'walking distance' -- does not CHANGE the meaning in his idiolect, it may change the 'reference' -- or not!
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I'll give it a go.....
ReplyDelete--While I respect Grice's work with conditionals (as far as I understand it), I am not always in agreement. Conversational conditionals are rarely truth functional in any serious sense--and there may be many psychological factors to speech acts that really can't be...mapped in any real sense--(boasting, or irony, or a type of veiled assessment, etc)
when someone says "If it's raining, X will be late," he/she usually means only that he has seen X late before and was told that it was because of the rain (or made the inference himself....what if X lied?). It's merely a sort of observation or trite "truism", not necessary in any logical sense (and induction/probability another factor....).
An assertion like that might be important in some contexts (ie military, professional work, etc) but in those cases the speaker--if liable in some sense-- probably takes more care, is precise, etc. Grice was aware of that probably, but perhaps the "contextuality" was insufficient...
or, shall we say, I'm generally in agreement with the "pragmatics" types/Searleans in regard to upholding intention--but it's often difficult if not impossible to show/reveal/prove what that specific "intention" was (probably another obvious point...tant pis)--
ReplyDeleteobviously language often functions on a phonological level as well as semantically ( tone of voice, diction, even body gestures, etc)--as good actors are aware of and "hams", as well, but we dislike the ham or melodrama villain because he insists on obvious, trite tone or diction...whereas an Anthony Hopkins does something unique, or something.
and for 2nd language-learners it's also difficult to pick up inflections (as with anglos trying to watch hispanic soap operas...or real operas...when the music swells, feel emotion...) Sry if that's too mundane
Excellent points, J. Of course I was wondering, where exactly did I dwell on the horseshoe here, but of course you are perfectly right -- or wright. It's Steven Wright. HE used the conditional:
ReplyDelete"Everywhere is within walking distance, if you have the time."
Note that this may be a biscuit-in-the-cupboard type of conditional (so-called by Austin):
"even if you do NOT have the time, everything is within walking distance".
So, yes -- the conditional is being FLOUTED by, yet again, Wright's template.
The phrase is "within walking distance". I would think that a conditional is not really meant by those who use THAT expression, which is the one Wright is pouring scorn on.
I would need to analyse the first page of google hits, say, for 'within walking distance' which we may analyse. I bet you that in ALL cases the thing *IS*, blatantly, offensively, anti-Griceanly -- within, er, walking distance. People misuse the expression!
Grice has an essay in WoW which he entitled "Philosopher's Paradox". Sometimes it is quoted, "Philosophers' Paradox" -- Actually, it's, sorry, "Philosopher's ParadoxES". His point is that there is someone, called "Philosopher", who utters the occasional paradox -- for our amusement, of course.
In any case, I propose the Layman's Paradox, or Layman's paradox, for this sort of thing that Wright analyses. Wright does it 'implicaturally', Yogi Berra _perlocutionary_. I once discussed this with J. M. Geary, who contributes, here. We went to a website line that had all of the Yogi Berra dicta analysed as 'to make sense'.
So, one CAN make sense of 'within walking distance'. But again, Grice, like Austin, was a 'relentless literalist'. This was some sort of upper-class, public-school, perpetual-adolescent thing about them. You know the types: the ones who take things LITERALLY and think they can't (or Kant) go wrong by so doing. So beware!
"EVEYWHERE is within walking distance, if you have the time". My comment did make a reference to the spatio-temporality of 'you'. If 'you' is finite temporally, then no, you do NOT have the time. So, the dictum, 'everywhere' is 'within walking distance' may have to take the apodosis (or antecedent) of the conditional or "if" utterance seriously.
Note that, again, as in "You can't have everything. Where would you put it?", Wright trades on the (Ax) to symbolise 'every' or 'all' (I prefer 'every' since it keeps the sentence singular rather than plural as 'all' does).
"For ANY place, x, x IS within walking distance."
So, this is supposed to refute the cliche:
"It's not within walking distance!"
--- (as you can try to agree next time you hear, "You can't have everything". "Exactly. Where would you put it?"). In this case the intention is refutatory.
"It's NOT within walking distance. No way you can drag me there."
"EVERYwhere is within walking distance."
"What d'you mean?"
"If you have the time."
---- Or something. Or not.
Yes, it's quite right, er wright to just focus on the conditional issue, and holy Logick--'scuzi for the speculations psychological.
ReplyDeleteYet "Everywhere is within walking distance, if you have the time" equals "if you have the time, everywhere is within walking distance." So the necessary condition is "everywhere is within walking distance" (which I think you've suggested). Ergo, there's no barring the scenario where even if you don't have the time, everywhere is walking distance, however weird.
So perhaps it's the proverbial f-ed up conversational ie colloqual implicature where actually Wright meant something like "if everywhere is within walking distance, you have the time", with the necessity in the consequent.
Good. Plus, as I think I mentioned to Horn -- who wrote, "From if to iff", for the Journal of Pragmatics, D. F. Pears first noted this in connection with Grice. In his "Ifs and Cans" -- I'm proud the thing is cited in the OED3 thanks to yours truly! --, D. F. Pears that, applying Grice's "theory of conversational implicature" (this got Pears in the OED3, where it is credited as being published in Berlin et al, 1973, even if it was first published in the Canadian Journal of Philosophy", you get
ReplyDelete"if p, q"
conversationally implicates
"iff p, q"
i.e. "if and only if p, q"
-- It's very rare that conditionals or ifs are not thus strengthened. So one may have to be careful there.
But yes, I would think we can stick with the horseshoe which I will represent as ")" -- a sort of bland horseshoe)
If you have the time ) everywhere is within walking distance.
This is true in all cases except when "If you have the time" is 1 (or true, if you prefer -- but one may need to allow for 'non-standard' logics?) and "Everywhere is within walking distance" is 0 (or false). I don't think Wright is, by uttering what he does, flouting the semantics of 'if' -- Maybe the pragmatics, as you note.
p ) q
The most one could do is transposition,
~q ) ~p
If it is NOT the case that everwhere is within walking distance, it is not the case you have the time.
Part of the problem is that there is an elision as to -- 'time' for WHAT?
In which case, there may be some anaphoric binding -- using x's now to be within the scope of 'everywhere' -- 'time to WALK to those places', i.e. to any x such that it is a place to walk. Or not!
yes, in conversational use (in English at least--in spanish , french, etc the conditional's indicated by verbs, right? ) the speaker wants to say only ONE situation holds for the conditional or something-- but it's not really implying a biconditional
ReplyDelete--using an easier example if you don't mind-- "if you don't stop eating sweets, you'll get cavities." Now, run through some truth table you can get a true statement whether p is true or false, if q is true (right?). So it's sufficiency (as in eating sweets leads to cavities). Not necessary and sufficient (iff)--other things --say hot drinks, or disease, etc could lead to cavities; it's not the case that if you have cavities you indulged in sweets (but highly likely). But the speakers' point is rarely about all of the truth cases, but only about the one case--sweets leading to cavities OR something like that.
Yes. I´m not sure about the "verb" thing you mention for the Romance languages, but it´s VERY worth investigating.
ReplyDelete--- I just stick to "if" utterances, and think that even in ENGLISH, the form of the verb may project a notable "counter-factual" implicatum.
"If I had been Australian-born, I´d swim to Tahiti". Seems to implicate that I am NOT Australian-born. Yet, it´s just an "if" utterance. Grice never entitled his 4th William James lecture, but when he sent it for publication in 1988 -- or actually revised in 1987 -- he died in Aug. 1988, so strictly, his Way of Words is posthumous -- it came out, in Way of Words (or WoW, as we prefer) as "Indicative conditionals" -- which makes the mode or mood point.
Everywhere is within travelling distance if you have the time.
The point seems to be timeless, so the turning of the thing to a counterfactual is bound to be otiose. But I can think:
If I had NOT had the time, everywhere would NOT be within travelling distance.
which IS odd.
Your point about the cavities well taken. In his 3rd book, Aspects of Reason, Grice considers how to boil down a Kantian imperative (or maxim) to an assertoric conditional.
"If you want a youthful complexion, smear your face with peanut butter every night for two months."
He wants to say that this is TOTALLY verifiable -- along the sufficiency lines you provide for the cavity thing.
"If you don´t want any cavities, don´t eat sweets"
seems a bit strong. So it´s more like,
"Brush up your teeth" and then you CAN have everything.
Or something.
in romantic tongues (span. french ital. etc) the anglo conditional translates into subjunctive in some cases (also known as mutha-f-ing subjunctive). but "si" usually works (and from latin)-- either way, the grammar of conditionals is a bit weird
ReplyDeletea conditional in pinche ingles doesn't always need the "if"--also can use subjunctive ("Were she not a mormon, he might date her"..etc), or "provided that", given, since, unless, etc. Not sure where "if" comes from (me deutsch is not great...but "ob" or something) but a rather odd little word. Conditionals hint at uncertainty, unless one sticks to mathematical/logical axioms ...I doubt Grice & Co ever discussed Madame Fortuna, however
Well, yes. There is something fascinating about the 'ob' as you have it. Grice actually once gave a seminar, Nancy Cartwright recalls in PGRICE, ed Grandy/Warner, on 'as if'. -- What strikes me is the diversity of dyadic truth-functors:
ReplyDelete"p /\ q" ('p and q') is merely 'conjunctive', paratactic.
"p \/ q" (p or q) is similarly, pretty paratactic.
But
"p ) q" (if p, q)
is different. It is not paratactic. The protasis is a sub-clause of the main clause, the apodosis. Oddly, in the propositonal calculus, the tense is immaterial which is just as well. I like the subjunctive, though.
"God shave the queen" -- (misheard cliches, I once heard).
It's not God SHAVES the queen (or Ruritania). Sorry about that.
"God save the queen"
"God saves the queen".
Surely the latter is indicative, the direction of fit is word to world. But "God save the queen" is subjunctive. The proper and pure expression of volition. And the direction of fit is world to word. So one HAS to be careful.
Grice actually was fascinated by uncertainty. His colleagues at Oxford, Hampshire and Hart, had given a paper which appeared in Mind, "Intention and certainty, and decision". Grice replied for the British Academy Lecture for 1971 with his own: "Intention and Uncertainty" which makes for some good read, if you like Prichard! -- (Grice calls himself a neo-Prichardian). The uncertainty is merely there to refute Hampshire/Hart. For Grice, "I intend to do p" in NO way entails, "I know I will". At most: I MAY, if adversary circumstances are blocked, or something.