The basic-nonbasic (resultant) distinction

--- by JLS
------- for the GC

AS WE CONSIDER A REPLY TO R. B. Jones concerning stuff, I refer to this section in the online entry for Grice in the Stanford Encyclopedia, which is about the

basic-resultant

distinction.

Grandy/Warner write:

"These considerations"

---- e.g. teachability and practicability of infinite sets.

---

"lead Grice to posit that the procedures associated with sentences are

RESULTANT

procedures arising

RECURSIVELY

out of

BASIC

procedures..."

Grandy/Warner quotes from Grice WoW:

Grice writes:

"The notion of a ‘

RESULTANT

procedure’: as a first approximation, one might say that a procedure for an utterance-type X will be a

RESULTANT

procedure if it is determined by (its existence is inferable from) a knowledge of

[BASIC -- nonresultant]

procedures (a) for particular utterance-types which are elements in X, and (b) for any sequence of utterance-types which exemplifies a particular ordering of syntactic categories (a particular syntactic form) (1968, 235)."

----

Grandy/Warner go on:

"How can we give an account of such

[RESULTANT]

procedures that is free of undefined semantic notions? We can do so via the concept of reference, where reference, like meaning, is analyzed in terms of intentions."

"The

BASIC [non-resultant]
basic procedure for ‘tiger,’ for example, would roughly be to utter ‘tiger’ to refer to members of the kind tiger."

----- cfr. R. E. Dale's two examples in [C], ch. 4:

"John" refers to John.
"Grass is green" means that grass is green.

Grandy/Warner go on:

"Grice introduces a canonical form for specifying

RESULTANT

procedures. He does so by generalizing the special notation he has already used in specifying meaning. Recall that he represented the indicative case by: U means that ⊢(the door is closed); the imperative: U means that !(the door is closed), where ‘the door is closed’ represents a moodless, underlying syntactical element Grice calls a sentence radical. The sentence radical designates the moodless proposition that the door is closed. Grice generalizes this approach by using ‘*+R’ to represent any sentence whose underlying syntactic form divides into the mood operator * and the sentence radical R. Thus: where * is mood operator, and R a sentence radical, let

∏(*+R)

be the set of all propositions associated with any sentence with the structure (*+R)."

Grandy/Warner go on:

"Where

p ε ∏(*+R)

and

ψ

the psychological state associated with *, a

RESULTANT

procedure for *+R takes one of two forms."

"U has the

RESULTANT

procedure of:

uttering *+R if, for some A, U wants A to ψ that p; or
uttering *+R if, for some A, U wants A to think U to ψ that p."

---

Grandy/Warner:

"Call these type 1 and type 2

RESULTANT

procedures."

---

"As a definition of structured utterance-type meaning we can say that, where

p ε ∏(*+R),

*+R means p in a group G iff members of G have, with respect to *+R, a type 1 or type 2

RESULTANT

procedure,"


----

To use Dale's example:

""Grass is green" means that grass is green" in a group G iff members of G have, with respect to ..."

Grandy/Warner continue:

"the type being determined by the type of the mood operator *. (Qualifications will, of course, be necessary to handle ‘audienceless’ cases.) So far, perhaps, so good. There are pleasant quibbles over details, but in broad outline, the account is a very plausible description of meaning. In fact, at least three authors, Bennett, Loar and Schiffer, have developed their own more detailed accounts along Gricean lines."

---- But Dale was fortunate enough to associate himself with Schiffer when Schiffer was making the big shift. As Dale charmingly shared with the Club -- recall Grice's reply on finding this:

"I haven't been exactly immobile myself."

(as I misrecollect).

----

Schiffer, as a matter of history, presented this to Grice in PGRICE with a note, "I trust Paul will be forebearing of my apostasy". The chapter was later reprinted, with minor variation, in _Remnants of meaning_. Schiffer has since moved further on, with The things we mean, etc.

----

The other references by Grandy/Warner are more obscure. Bennett is interested in generally teleological matters, and it's only in the final sections of the last chapter, as I recall, that he ventures into 'expression' meaning. Loar and Peacocke present views of expression meaning along those lines in Evans/McDowell, and in fact, Dale makes much, and interestingly so, of Peacocke's subtleties here.

--- Perhaps Davies could also be added to Grandy/Warner list, that Dale also cites. Davies has considered problems associated with so-called (so-mis-called as I prefer) 'tacit' knowledge of these basic (and not so basic) procedures.

----

Grandy/Warner conclude that section:

"However, when we turn from description to explanation, plausibility appears to decline. The explanatory idea is to see communication as a rational activity where audiences reason their way to beliefs or intentions via their recognition of the utterer's intention to produce such results. What about the problem that utterers and audiences rarely if ever engage in such reasoning? Grice's work on reasoning contains the answer."

Yes --. Schiffer's point, as I understood it, has to do with Davidson's caveat or point about the 'teachability'. Schiffer combined Davidson's point with something like Quine's arguments in "Word and Object".

As I recall my "Word and object", Quine suggests to treat

"... believes"

as MONADIC.

For _each_ belief.

"Jones believes that grass is green"

thus comes out for Quine as

(Ex)Jx & Px

x jonesises (or speranzises) and x has property P (which stands for 'believes that grass is green').

But Schiffer (notably in the intro to his second edition of "Meaning") does not even consider this too Quinean move (too Quinean to be true) and aptly just focuses on 'relational' accounts of psi-attitudes. And the problem turns to what the second relatum stands for.

After all, we do 'combine' "believes" with all sorts of clauses, and don't learn the meaning of 'believe' out of opaque blocks, as Quine suggested.

------- So, what Schiffer does is use 'believe' as one lexical item that is essentially 'compositional'. We hardly say,

"Jones believes."

-----

It seems incomplete. Yet, --

to apply Grandy/Warner's points:

what would be the 'resultant' procedure for "... believes..."?

Grice would have no problems in using 'p' as a gap-sign.

"... believes ..." means "... holds an attitude of world-to-word direction of fit towards p" or some such.

Or something.

In any case, -- that should be compositional enough!