Roger Bacon and Grice -- the neoscholastic basis for Griceanism

by JLS
for the GC

As we discuss, as we did, Lacey,

"Rainbows imply rain"

here's Bacon from Hackett's entry in the Stanford. Enjoy!

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Bacon's own classification of signs introduces distinctions that reflect an integration of both Augustine and Aristotle.

1. Natural Signs

1.1 signifying by concomitance, inference and consequence 1.1.1 Necessarily
1.1.2 Probability

1.2 signifying by configuration and likeness
1.3 cause and effect

2. Intentional Signs purposefully generated:

2.1 Signifying conventionally by means of a concept: 2.1.1 Linguistic signs by way of imperfect deliberation: interjections
2.1.1 Linguistic signs by way of perfect [completed] deliberation: other parts of speech
2.1.3 Non-linguistic signs (language of gestures, monk-signs, sign-boards)

2.2 Signifying naturally, in the mode of affect 2.2.1 Products of the sensitive soul: animal sounds
2.2.2 Products of the rational soul: groans, exclamations, cries of pain[15]


The distinction between 1 and 2 is taken from Augustine's De doctrina Christiana. Bacon himself claims that he worked out the typology himself prior to finding it in Augustine's great work on interpretation. Modern scholars, however, believe that he must in some way have borrowed it from Augustine.[16] The distinction between [2.1 and 2.2] is taken from the Aristotelian tradition as handed on by Boethius. Type 1 signs happen naturally as part of the agency of Nature. Type 2 are signs only because they have been willfully creates as such by deliberation and are include linguistic and non-linguistic signs. However, Type 2.2 are designated “natural” in a sense different from Type 1. These sounds and groans are products of nature and happen instinctively but in an “animate” action.

Interjections are a problem. They are parts of language, conventional signs, and so conceptual, yet they are emitted suddenly and often due to pain. They are similar in a way to groans of animals (Type 2.2). This discussion is common to writers on grammar and logic from the 1240s, especially in the works of Richard Kilwardby and other related works.

The signs in 1.1 on natural consequence indicate that Bacon has integrated not only Aristotle and Augustine but also the work of Averroes on the Rhetoric of Aristotle. Thomas S. Maloney has argued that Aristotle's De anima plays an important role in Bacon's distinction between signs by nature and signs by intention.[17] Bacon's provides an analysis of ambiguity and equivocation in De signis and Compendium studii theologiae (Maloney 1984).