Paul Grice and Gregory Currie -- or Gregory Grice and Paul Currie

--- by JLS for the GC

JONES and J are wondering about fictitious entities, notably Sherlock Holmes, who was created by Conan Doyle, and who smoked a pipe. (Example by courtesy of R. B. Jones -- I should dedicate one to Laertes, as mentioned by J, too).

Further from wiki, ("Sherlock Holmes"):

"Incidental details about his early life and extended families do construct a loose biographical picture of the detective. An estimate of Holmes's age in the story "His Last Bow" places his birth around 1852."

"However, on her website, Laurie R. King gives an argument for a younger Holmes, with a birth date somewhere between 1863 and 1868.[2]."

"Commonly, the date is cited as 6 January.[3]."

"Holmes states that he first developed his

deduction methods while an undergraduate. The author

Dorothy L. Sayers suggested that, given details in

two of the Adventures, Holmes must have been

at Cambridge rather than Oxford and that



"of all the Cambridge colleges, Sidney Sussex [College]
perhaps offered the greatest number of advantages to a
man in Holmes’ position and, in default of more
exact information, we may tentatively place him there".[4]""

"His earliest cases, which he pursued as an amateur, came from fellow university students.[5]"

"According to Holmes, it was an encounter with the father of one of his classmates that led him to take up detection as a profession[6]"

"And he spent the six years following university working as a consulting detective, before financial difficulties led him to take Watson as a roommate, at which point the narrative of the stories begins."

"From 1881, Holmes is described as having lodgings at 221B Baker Street, London, from where he runs his private detective agency."

"221B is an apartment up seventeen steps, stated in an early manuscript to be at the "upper end" of the road."

"Until the arrival of Dr. Watson, Holmes works alone, only occasionally employing agents from the city's underclass, including a host of informants and a group of street children he calls the Baker Street Irregulars."

"The Irregulars appear in three stories, "The Sign of the Four", "A Study in Scarlet" and "The Adventure of the Crooked Man"."



---- HIS PRIVATE LIFE:


"Little is said of Holmes's family."

"His parents were unmentioned in

the stories and he merely states that his

ancestors were "country squires"."



"In "The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter", Holmes claims that his great-uncle was Vernet, the French artist."

"He has a brother, Mycroft, seven years his senior, who is a government official, who appears in three stories;[7] he is also mentioned in one other story.[8] Mycroft has a unique civil service position as a kind of memory-man or walking database for all aspects of government policy."

"Mycroft is described as even more gifted than Sherlock in matters of observation and deduction."

"However, he lacks Sherlock's drive and energy, preferring to spend his time at ease in the Diogenes Club, described as

"a club for the most un-clubbable men in London.""


---- cfr. the Grice Club.


---


"It's unclear whether Holmes has any other siblings."

"In "The Adventure of the Copper Beeches", Holmes says,


------- "I confess that it is not the situation which I should like to see a sister of mine apply for",


leading some to suppose the existence of same."

"But he mentions this only to warn a woman in a case, taking her as his sister; therefore, this may be a mere figure of speech."

--- as is his whole existence, NOT for a change!


---- Anyway, J. L. Borges wrote, The Book of Imaginary Beings. He says he takes a narrow view of the subject -- to talk about Pegasus --, "for a broad account would have ourselves listed in the book".


----

Now, when I was researching on Borges -- for some stuff that did get published -- I consulted a fascinating author (his book, rather): Gregory Currie.

This however is rather drearier Grice on this:

Grice writes on p. 144 of "Vacuous Names"

---

"It IS important to note that, for

a definite description used in the explanation of

a NAME to be employed in an identificatory way"

--- e.g. Sherlock Holmes, The Sussex college graduate who had his office in Baker Street --

"and who smoked a pipe."



Grice goes on:

"it is NOT required that the item which

the explainer means (is referring to) when

he uses the description should ACTUALLY EXIST."

as opposed to 'potentially'? :).

Grice goes on:

"A person may establish or explain

a use for a name alpha by saying,

'Let us call THE F alpha' or

'THE F is called alpha' even THOUGH

every definite description in his dossier

for 'the F' is vacuous."



---- Fiction starting to loom:



Grice goes on:

"He may MISTAKENLY think, or merely

deceitfully intend his hearer to think,

that the elements in the dossier

are non vacuous and are satisfied by

a single item."



--------- GRICE ON FICTION -- the whole point of Mary Louise Pratt's book on Grice and Cortazar, etc.

Grice writes:

"In secondary or 'parasitic' types

of case, as in

the NARRATION OF, or commentary upon,

----------------******FICTION*********,

that this is so may be

something which the [utterer] NON-deceitfully

pretends or 'feigns'."

-----

Only a modal system as that referred to by Gregory Currie allows for the very ramsified ramified ways of fictionalsing.

Matter of fact, fiction features rather large in what Grice saw as the trigger for his approach: not so much Quine, but Strawson on 'On referring'. I think he mentions that in the context of a fairy story, "The king of France is bald" may be FALSE with a vengeance!