Sigmund Freud would have agreed with Grice's points in "Logic and Conversation". Perhaps he would have had a few extra maxims thrown in.
The problem with Freud is that he never studied philosophy seriously! He was a physician! He tried to look for the 'science' of psychopathological reflections, to echo J's wording.
Surely there is no science for that. The Id knows NO LAWS. At least not the easy laws that Freudians speak about.
Then, Freud confuses between 'intention' and 'meaning' and the rest of them. There may be a sexual pulsion, or instinct, or force, in all we say, but surely,
"I love the way you smile"
does NOT mean anything more than what the U says by uttering it.
Freudian slips abound. We have,
"My mother was a nurse" -- The utterer meant that he is a passive-aggressive type.
"Bonaparte was never defeated" -- means that the utterer is a lunatic.
"I'm a lunatic" means that the utterer is NOT a lunatic (Quinton, "The point about madness is that you cannot conceptualise it").
----
"When he said, 'pipe', he meant 'phallus'".
Lacan is the laughing stock here, because he wants to compose a 'grammar of desire' -- with the "Id" talking to us in a code that only the psycho-analyst handles. So that by having the implicatural reflection via transference the patient gets cured. Baloney! By which Grice means, 'baloney'.
Or not.
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He was a naturalist like many thinkers of the time, ie Nietzsche. He rejects metaphysics (at least of otherworldly sort). He doesn't reject philosophy per se, really. I agree there are quackish elements to Freud (especially early on) and would not say there was a "Freudian science of psychology"...he later turned to more anthropological speculations. Herd mind. --ie, after WWI, he calls the majority of humans "crazy wolves" more or less--violent predators. Not exactly Einstein, but at some point one makes inferences--impulses, drives, instincts--even if they don't please logicians. We should object to the naive Freudian who points at specific acts and says that reveals the death drive or something. It's more subtle. But Im not completely convinced the analyticals defeated Freud...
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