More on Grice's shaggy-dog story

A beautiful section in that ch. iv of Dale's PhD dissertation, online, "The theory of meaning"

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Recall Grice:

"Fido is shaggy"

--- R-correlate: By uttering "Fido" U meant Jones' dog.

--- D-correlate. By uttering 'shaggy', U meant 'hairy-coated.'

Dale:

"[O]n the sort of theory that Fodor argues for, a predicate like "dog" (pretend that's Mentalese) will have as its meaning the property of being a dog."

"But, for well known reasons that property will not suffice as the thing assigned to "dog" by a C[ompositional] M[eaning] T[heory]."

"A story by Schiffer is helpful here."

"Ralph came upon a race of creatures which he thought comprised a previously unencountered biological species, and he introduced the word

'shmog'

to designate members of that species."

""A thing shall be called a 'shmog'," Ralph said, "just in case it belongs to the species of those creatures."

"Unbeknown to him, however, shmoghood IS doghood."

"Ralph had stumbled not upon a new species but a new race of dogs, and thus the property that 'shmog' has been introduced as standing for is none other than doghood."

"But 'shmog' and 'dog' will have to be synonymous for Fodor's theory since they will both stand in the relation that Fodor offers to the same property, the property of being a dog."

It is sad that Grice focussed on the 'shaggy', in retrospect -- i.e. on the D-correlate, rather than the R-correlate [Jones's shmog?], in retrospect, that is.