The King of France -- and why he matters

J quotes my:

"So, the logical form is that given by the Russellian expansion of 'the king of France is bald.'"

and writes:

"Well...the cynic might say Russell merely reminded us of the obvious: when people speak of Kings of France, they mean that such a creature exists, or existed, or they are speaking falsely (no, I meant the non-existing King of France is bald). How can we ever repay such Genius! Quantification may have some formal importance but most sane humans understand it, dare we intuitively."

Yes. Russell was involved with the "King of France" in 'On Denoting'. Unfortunately, his co-author, A. N. Whitehead, was not much of a philosophical 'genius' or other. He was too technical, and ignored Russell's points.

Their joint work, "Principia Mathematica", came out, last volume included, about 1919, I would think. It is best then to see Russell's commentary (on the borderline sentence, "The king of France is bald", when no such king is in evidence") as a clarification of points of their analysis of statements in "PM".

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J notes:

"Furthermore...what of fictional or mythological figures. Does someone who says...Perseus slew the Medusa, merely speak falsely, until we verify that Perseus existed?"

Well. R. B. Jones has now expanded on this in a pdf document on "Vacuous Names". His reading of Grice differs from mine. He takes Grice _seriously_! I read, superficially, his "Vacuous Names" as providing a syntactic device to deal with that sort of ambiguity that the King of France creates.

"Pegasus does not fly"

is the sentence analysed by Grice. Surely he wants to say it's true:

"Pegasus does not fly; in fact, Pegasus does not exist."

I THINK the Pegasus example can be traced back to Plato's Parmenides, and has been analysed in terms of logical form more recently by D. Wiggings and D. Bostock. I discuss that elsewhere (I think).

Grice proposes a syntactic device:

Pegasus-1 does-not-fly-2.

and

Pegasus-2 does-not-fly-1

If "Pegasus" gets introduced in the discourse _prior_ to any commentary on his flying abilities, then that may trigger one conversational implicature. But the logical form should always consider 'not' to bear 'maximal scope'. Only by pragmatic regimentation ("Pegasus exists and he does not fly") can we make 'sense' of the 'apparent' logical form.

Or something.

In his alternate 'square bracket' device, this comes out as:

[Pegasus exists and] he does not fly.

Versus

[Pegasus does not fly].

He would also write:

[Pegasus] doesn't fly.

---- WoW:III and 'Presupposition and conversational implicature'.

We include within the square brackets those items whose existence we take for granted. It is a nice way to attend your religious service on Sundays, I suppose.

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J notes:

"According to Russell's schema it would seem so. And we couldn't just add anything to Perseus. He did not orbit Mars, etc. So much as I dislike the 'Meinongian" school, I am not sure iota notation always works/applies."

Well, Meinong was not as insane as Grice thinks he was. There may be some use to talk of 'irreal' objects like he did. Unfortunately he is a Continental, and as such rejected by Grice _on principle_ (Just teasing).

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Perhaps wiki provides a good sketch of Meinong's theory. One may inflict a Griceian reading to it.

J notes:

"Meaning is not dependent on existence, or something (in brief)."

I see what you mean.

There are various types to consider:

"This square circle"

is I think an example of an irreal object.

Yet, 'square circle', provided you go by the quadratura circulii may not be as nonsensical as one thinks.

Pegasus was thought existent by the Greeks. Grice finishes his "Vacuous Names" with an account of 'vacuous' names in the context of propositional attitudes.

The Greeks believed that Pegasus flew.

makes sense.

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Oddly, the logician, R. Martin, called his cat 'Pegasus' just to irritate Grice.

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The idea of a name being 'vacuous' is possibly rhetorical. Empty, too.

A name is a name is a name.

Grice is working, as Austin did, with a simplified account of Frege's Sinn und Bedeutung as mistranslated by P. T. Geach.

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A name is not a bottle that can be empty, or not.

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Ryle referred to this as the "Fido"-Fido theory of meaning.

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There are other examples Grice gives:

Bellophoron rode Pegasus.

He thinks is possibly nonsensical.

--- But has more of a structure than 'Pegasus does not fly'.

His other example is

"Marmaduke Bloggs".

This is supposed (by the members of the Merseyside Geographical Society) to be the first climber of Mt. Everest on hands and knees. They organise a cocktail to his honour. He fails to attend. Of course, he doesn't exist. He was invented by the journalists.

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In Jones's reading, Grice is allowing for an interpretation of

(Ex)...

such that one CAN say that someone did not attend the party (viz.: Marmaduke Bloggs).

I think those idioms a bit of a stretch, but I find Grice's point useful about the mere negation:

"Marmaduke Bloggs will not be attending the party".

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Grice applies his treatment, and this is R. B. Jones's focus -- to Existential Generalisation, and other 'laws' of his system.

Etc.

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Quine, who read Grice's "Vacuous Names", wasn't necessarily impressed.