Griceian Explorations

---- by J. L. Speranza
------- for the Grice Club.

As is the title ("Explorations in semantics" (... "and metaphysics", he adds) to Part II of Grice's WoW (Way of Words, Studies in the).

In "Formal semantics", R. B. Jones writes:

"I promised Speranza and the Grice
Club that I would return in April to
discuss formal semantics, having been
distracted from the discussion on that topic
which I provoked by referring to Russell Dale's
deprecatory chapter on compositional semantics
in his 1996 PhD dissertation on "The Theory of Meaning".
http://www.russelldale.com/dissertation/TheTheoryofMeaning.pdf
I am now engaging again with this topic with the intention of writing something on formal semantics. At the workshop on "Higher Order Logic and Set theory" the prospect of which distracted me from the discussion of compositionality on the Grice Club, I met a young French philosopher called Isidora Stojanovic, whose principal interest at present seems to be formal semantics, and who has an interesting and relevant collection of papers on line at the Institut Nicod electronic archive, here:
http://jeannicod.ccsd.cnrs.fr/aut/Isidora+Stojanovic/".

Beautiful. Will check it out!

"in which (among many other things) she secures my approval by disagreeing with Kripke on the relationship between the a priori and contingency."

---- That is good to learn. I always loved Kripke's phrase, used by Dummett as title of his collection of papers, "Seas of language". Grice held similar views. "Berths of language", I think Grice called them. Kripke's simile being that even at its most superficial, shallow waters, language provides us with seas of puzzlement, or something.

Then the way that Kripke was treated by the American Philosophical Association is something to consider, too!

---

Jones goes on:

"These seem for me a valuable and accessible resource which I hope will help me to get an up to date idea of how philosophers are thinking about formal semantics (since my own main sources are non-philosophical), and it will be interesting to see how Isidora's view relates to that of Russell Dale, and of course, here, on how they both relate to Grice's philosophy."

-------

Yes. In connection with Grice, I would like to refocus then on this idea that beyond, or besides, 'truth-conditions' there are some sort of 'satisfaction-conditions' (for central meaning which is not assertive). And so the compositional semantics would make a balanced use of 'true' (as it opposes to things which are also relevant in the semantics of a language, such as imperatives).

Jones goes on:

"Review of these two sources is not however my principal aim. My principal aim is to provide a background exposition on formal semantics as a part of an explanation of the method of formalisation by (shallow) "semantic embedding", which I have explored in a number of recent analyses, some provoked by Speranza and Grice. There are four examples (all in various states of incomplete disarray) which I put on the table, as examples of formal analysis/exegesis making use of mechanised tools (and hence connecting both with Leibniz and Carnap, inter alia).
1. Aristotle's Logic and Metaphysics
This one started with an examination of a formal approach to Aristotle's metaphysics by Grice and Code."

------- and an excellent piece it is too. Jones considers both Aristotle's formal syllogistic -- with an inclusion of some of P. F. Strawson's caveats regarding 'vacuous' subjects -- and Grice's ingenious 'izzing' and 'hazzing' in a sort of axiomatic treatment that serves as a good exegesis of what is realist about Aristotle (I especially enjoyed the view Code, for example, uses the same axioms and theorems to provide alternate for 'platonist' readings).


"2.Grice on Vacuous Names
This is based on Grice's paper in the Quine volume "Words and Objections" in which he presents his "System Q" (renamed and mangled ever since)."

------ Indeed. And for which Jones provides a clear systematisation. Jones is interested in the general manoeuver, controversial as it is for Grice, as to different 'meanings' of 'exist', as per the very basic "(Ex)". "Marmaduke Bloggs -- does he exist?". "_He_ was invented by the journalists as being the first to climb Mt. Everest on hands and knees". Grice concludes his "Vacuous Names" with some notes on 'bouletic' (as I may call them) operators -- pscyhological attitudes like 'desires', etc., and one may want to say that Grice is allowing for things like "Marmaduke Bloggs" _is_ a 'vacuous name' (for why mention it in an essay called "Vacuous Names") yet of which a few interesting things can be said: "Some journalists wanted their readership to BELIEVE that Marmaduke Bloggs -- as they called him -- was an explorer from Liverpool (there was a meeting in his honour held by the Merseyside Geographical Society) -- who had climbed Mt. Everest on hands and knees".

Jones goes on:

"3. Meaning, Modality and Metaphysics
This is an attempt at a critique of both Quine and Kripke on Modal Logic and related topics (provoked by some exchanges on "hist-analytic"). It is in writing this document that I came to feel that I needed a good account of the semantic methods I was using, not just to make them more intelligible to readers but because their philosophical underpinnings are relevant to the subject matter. The document has been suspended pending such an account."

------ The Three Ms, as I call it. It is interesting that the one to blame here is perhaps Von Wright. With his emphasis on 'modality'. He would speak of modal logic as involving an 'alethic modality'. I think I like that. But it can be confusing. For we don't think of first-order predicate calculus (something like Grice's System Q) as supplying for 'alethic modality'. Just 'alethic'. It is true that when Myro refined on Grice's System Q (and called it System G) he did introduce ONE BIG MODALITY: chronology. I don't have Myro's notes to hand, but Sally Haslanger was generous to share them with me. Myro is involved in a very specific semantics for his System to give room for this 'chronological' (time-indexed) modalities. It was an attempt by Myro and Grice to deal with examples concerning time-relative identity of the type that Aristotle, Hobbes, Geach, and Wiggins had been preoccupied with. I notice that when Nicholas Rescher wrote on "Topics in philosophical logic" he expanded on the modalities: there is the alethic modality (alethic modal logic), chronological (or temporal) modality, epistemic (and doxastic) modality, bouletic or boulomaic modality (these two referred to by Grice in the final section of "Vacuous Names"), deontic modality, and a few others. Enough to want to say, "Do not multiply modalities beyond modal necessities". The good news is that all modalities allow for the same type of semantic treatment!

---

Jones goes on:

"4.Pluralities and Sets
This is a document I wrote in preparation for the workshop of Set theory and Higher Order logic which I just attended at Birkbeck and is a mechanisation of formal materials in a paper of the same name by Oystein Linnebo (who organised the workshop). I intend now to expand the scope of this paper and retitle it "Iterative Foundational Ontologies" making it into a broader discussion of a subject which I now think of as "the foundations of abstract semantics". [the "iterative" is as in "the iterative conception of set" which I intend to generalise to other ontologies]"

---- This is very good. For some reason -- call me Griceian on that -- I love an iteration. Tapper once told me (after we'd discussed Grice at length) that in the beginning he would only identify Grice as "the philosopher of the iterations": to believe that you intend to know that you know that you know that you believe", and so on. I should track that post by Tapper, since it is amusing. It is a different type of iteration, but still. Grice was formal enough to use superscripts here:

want
want-2
want-3
... and so on.

believe
believe-2
believe-3
... and so on.

He does this in his second book, "Conception of Value" (reprinting "Method in philosophical psychology"). Thus

"x believes-2 that p"

comes out for Grice as meaning:

x believes-1 that p.

AND

x believes that x believes that p.

Why he would think such a basic notion is puzzling enough. Similarly, in the case of the alcoholic, say:

x desires to drink alcohol. (with caveats here -- but you should get my drift).

x desires that he should not desire to drink alcohol.

------------ (I'm currently studying Frankfurt-type scenarios).

In that scenario above we cannot speak of 'desire-2' because there is a clash: a first-floor desire that p, and a higher-order desire which denies a first-floor desire. But in normal circumstances,

x desires-2 that p

seems trivial enough.

"I desire to walk the dog".

---- True: few people seem to be filled with overjoy about the rutinary prospects of walking the dog, but you get my drift.

Grice thought iteration was a way to make sense of Witters's confused thoughts on

------ privileged access

and

----- incorrigibility.

For Witters had said that if you say,

"I believe it's a horse"

you cannot be wrong. I mean, the thing may not be a horse, but still, who is going to challenge that that is what you BELIEVE? Ditto for 'desire'. The passage is yet another one by Grice where he manages to poke fun on Witters without even caring to mention him!

----

Jones goes on:

"I also have a new empty document which is entitled:
Formal Semantics and Deductive Methods
(linked for future reference)
And I hope to progress this document, and the one on iterative ontologies while discussing formal semantics at the Grice Club, (and possibly elsewhere) if anyone is still interested!
The next task on my agenda is to respond here to Russell Dale on Compositional Semantics."

Good, and thanks for the great update!