Grice and Peacocke on language

Davidson said, in PGRICE Grandy/Warner that languages don't exist. He was aiming at controversy.

That footnote 10 to ch. iv of Dale's thesis is substantial: it refers to a sort of a 'change of topic' there. Dale is following the arguments by Lewis (who possibly attended Grice's William James lectures back in 1967, Lakoff tells us -- this blog).

So we have:

Grice on language
Lewis on language
Davidson on language.

What Dale notes, aptly is: "note that Peacocke [in Evans/McDowell] redefines [emphasis mine. Speranza] the notion of a language for his talk of an actual-language relation."

As a result, as Dale notes, Peacokce ends up "talking about a different notion from the one Lewis spoke of."

"Tis doesn't really matter much" Dale embeds. Only that Peacocke's redefinition is better than Lewis's definition, we hope!