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Is Grice the greatest philosopher that ever lived?

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Monday, February 21, 2011

Grice on LF, ILFc-p, and Martha's fall

In "Actions and Events, p. 23", Grice considers:

1. Martha fell.
2. Martha fell into a ditch.
3. Martha fell into a trance.

What is the 'logical form' of "Martha fell"? He knew what he was talking about, and knew Davidson didn't.

Grice teaches Davidson:

"Since, in my view, there NO UNIQUELY correct way of SPECIFYING The LOGICAL FORM of a statement (the LOGICAL FORM of one and the same statement may be characterised with equal property, in different ways for different purposes)"

Our "p-sub-1" in the header of this, with "c" as context

"it may even be that ONE characterisation of LOGICAL FORM of a conjunctive statement is that of providing a SPECIFICATORY modification of one of the conjuncts."

"John arrived and Mary departed"

The sentence "might be seen as embodying the attachment of an adverbial modifier ("and Mary departed") to the initial conjunct." Grice considers this 'neo-Carnapian' pragmatist account to logical form-in-a-context may accounting for Davidson's embarrassment with 'sneezes' (a strong, violent sneeze, qua sneeze), and stuff.

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