Grice, the authority

by J. L. Speranza
for the Grice Club.

Is "author" an otiose word? Is "authority" an ever more otiose one? Consider one´s claims to what one implicates (or not), as part of a claim as to what one (or other) means (or other).

I should revise all this, but recently, out of a discussion, elsewhere, as to whether it is possible for an utterer to misunderstand himself (or ´his self´, as I prefer), I came across this bit by Grice which reminded me of Aune´s brilliant autobiography, and the point about Grice´s expressed interest in Aune on avowals.

Grice is considering a specific scenario, but he wants to suggest that,

"By uttering x, I mean that p"

is a bit of an avowal, where "a bit of" is just a redundant otiosity.

He is considering a pupil (or tutee, as I prefer). Since Strawson was one such, allow me:

Grice: You should bring a paper tomorrow.
Strawson: You mean a newspaper? Will the "Independent" do?
Grice: No. I don´t mean a _newspaper_. I mean "a piece of written work."
Strawson: By _me_, expect.

Grice is considering further challenges. Consider a journal entry -- Grice´s favourite scenario for "Griceian utterer´s meaning withot an audience or addresee". "In retrospect, now that I think of it, perhaps when I did say, "You should bring a paper tomorrow I meant a "newspaper". Rather, Grice considers a challenge by, say, Strawson. Of the form:

"Are you _sure_ you mean "a piece of written work" and not a newspaper?"

Grice´s commentary comes out in "Studies in the Way of Words" (that Aune quotes). It belongs to a rather early piece by Grice totally concerned with something quite different: philosopher (as Moore called him) and his paradoxes.

Grice writes of a possible challenge by, say, Strawson,

"I expect you ultimately do mean, "a newspaper"".

---- (cfr. Freud on slips which mean other than they say, as it were).

Grice comments, and here is where this indirect reference to Aune can be made.

"It would be absurd at this point for the pupil to say,

"Perhaps you only think, mistakenly, that you mean 'a piece of written work', whereas you
really mean 'a newspaper'."

Grice goes on to propose an analogy with,

"I have a headache".

"((And)) ((T))his absurdity seems the absurdity
of suggesting to someone who says he has a
pain in his arm that perhaps he is mistaken
(unless the suggestion is to be taken as saying
that perhaps there is nothing physically wrong
with him, however his arm feels)."

I regret that Grice did not expand on the "unless", because it´s quite central to the issue at large, as to the incorrigibility or privileged access or "avowals", that Grice also considers, indirectly, in "Method in philosophical psychology", now repr. in "Conception of Value" --- For Grice, for any psychological attitude psi, held by agent A, it is plausible to add an iteration of it. "I believe that p", "I believe that I believe that p". "I want that p", "I want that I want that p", and so on. He goes on to represent these iterated attitudes by means of a subscript, "believe-2" ("He believes-2 that p") standing for this higher order belief (Grice´s terminology is on "judging" and "willing" there, and generalising over "accepting").

Grice goes on note a caveat against a simplistic analogy of an avowal as "I have a headache" with "I mean a piece of written work".

"It is important", Grice notes, "to notice that
although there is a point of analogy between
MEANING SOMETHING and having a pain, there
are striking differences."

--- These concern the space-time coordiantes, as it were.

"A pain may start and stop at specifiable times"

-- ditto a willing, or a belief (or judgement).

Grice goes on:

"((E))qually something may begin to look red to one at
2:00 P.M. and cease to look read at one at 2:05 P.M."

-- a very important illustration that pertains to the most philosophical side of avowals as it relates to sense-data of the type that Grice will later defend in "A causal theory of perception".

"But it would be ABSURD", Grice notes, as he focuses on the particulars of "... means...",

"for my pupil ... to say to me,

"When did you begin to MEAN that?"

or

"Have you stopped meaning it yet?"

--- This may have to do with the _standing_ status of an intention. If meaning RESOLVES in intending, there shouldn´t be much of a problem to qualify things here: "I spent all day yesterday intending to travel to France, and then I changed my mind". Cfr. "I spent all day yesterday meaning, by "bachelor" something OTHER than "unmarried"".

Grice notes another disanalogy between "I mean "a piece of written work" and "I have a toothache".

"Again there is no LOGICAL objection to a pain arising in any set
of concomitant circumstances; but it is SURELY ABSURD to
suppose that I *might* find myself _meaning_ that is
it is raining when I say, 'I want a paper'".

This surely requires qualification, since, by Grice´s "Deutero-Esperanto" and his reduction of expression meaning to utterer´s meaning, that sounds like a highly plausible scenario, in Griceian terms.

Grice expands, in this early piece, as follows:

"Indeed, it is odd to speak at all of ´my finding
myself MEANING SO AND SO,´ though it is not
odd to speak of my finding myself suffering from a pain."

It is in the next passage that he illustrates this oddity when it comes to "meaning that p", or, "q", by uttering x:

Grice:

"At best, only VERY special circumstances (if any)
could enable me to say 'I want a paper' MEANING THEREBY
that it is raining."

Or, as I prefer,

"By uttering "glory", Davidson meant "a nice knockdown argument" -- Davidson, "A nice derangement of epitaphs", in Grandy/Warner, PGRICE -- "Glory for Grice".

Grice concludes with a nod to "avowals" and "declarations of intention":

"In view of these differences, we may perhaps prefer to
label such statements as

"I mean a piece of written work'

(in the conversation with my pupil) as "declarations""

-- or avowals, in B. Aune's parlance. The bibliography on avowal was only starting to grow, and no wonder Grice displayed such a genuine interest when he heard Aune addressing the topic in a direct and fresh way in his talk Corpus Christi. -- vide Aune, "Autobiography", in Bayne´s site.

Grice goes on:

"rather than as "introspection reports"".

Grice may be having in mind this idea that Hampshire took from Grice. Grice had written on "Intention and disposition" early on in his career. The paper is at the Bancroft library. Grice then possibly found that Hampshire (now paired with Hart) had expressed such a view (neo-Stoutian, as it were) in "Intention and Certainty". This triggered Grice to change his view, just because, and label it neo-Prichardian, rather, in "Intention and uncertainty" -- his British Academy lecture (1971).

Grice goes on:

"Such statements as these are perhaps like declarations
of intention, which also have AN AUTHORITATIVE STATUS in
some ways like and in some ways unlike that of a statement
about one's own current pains."

One would think that since this is all tangential to the matter at course -- "philosopher´s paradoxes" -- Grice would leave it at that. Instead, always the analytic, he goes on to provide an expansion on what we mean by "authoritative". A rather hateful word, when we think that "author" = "utterer", more or less, in Grice.

Grice then notes:

"((But)) ((T))he immediately relevant point
with regard to such statements about MEANING as
the one I have just been discussing is that, insofar as they have
the AUTHORITATIVE status which they SEEM to have, they are NOT
statements which the speaker ((or rather, author, utterer -- JLS)) could
have come to accept AS THE RESULT OF a [Popperian, empirical]
INVESTIGATION or of a train of ((logical)) argumentation. To revert
to the conversation with my pupil, when I say,

"I mean a piece of written work."

it would be QUITE INAPPROPRIATE for my pupil to
say,

"How did you _discover_ that you meant that?"

or

"What *convinced* you that you meant that?".

Grice THEN concludes, for the time being:

"And I think we can see why a "meaning" statement
cannot be *BOTH* SPECIALLY AUTHORITATIVE and also
the conclusion of an ((logical)) argument or an ((empirical))
investigation."

The reason is clarified:

"If a statement is accepted on the strength of an
argument or an investigation, it always makes sense
(although it may be FOOLISH) to suggest that
the ((logical)) argument is unsound or that the
investigation has been improperly conduced ((as per
the canons of Mill´s methods, say)); and if this is
conceivable, then the statement MAY be mistaken, in which
case, of course, his statement has NOT go the
authoritative character which I have mentioned."

("Studies in the Way of Words", Harvard U. Press).

And so on. Thus, I just wanted to share with the forum this ´historical´ bit as it pertains to the relevance of a philosophical discussion of avowals and such.