Speranza provocatively talks about "the world" having truth value gaps.
Of course it is language rather than "the world" which might possibly have these gaps.
I wonder whether Grice was as obdurate in his opposition to this idea as Speranza?
It seems to me that Grice takes up the challenge of interpreting natural languages in a way which minimises (ideally eliminates) the differences between "the logic" of ordinary discourse and that of "classical" logic.
At least in some places (Presupposition and Implicature) he is careful not to "align" himself with rather than merely discuss his counter-thesis.
Does Grice ever really come down against presupposition rather than sympathetically exploring the alternatives?
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I guess I was referring to this passage in WoW, p. 269:
ReplyDelete"The first is the kind of objection that primarily prompted Strawson's (1950) revolt against the theory of descriptions2, namely, that when one is asked such as question as whether the king of France is, OR IS NOT, bald, one does NOT FEEL inclined to give an answer."
I should search for Grice dubbing this 'metaphysical'. Or 'metaphysical concoction' as it applies to the idea of 'truth-value gap'. What I do remember is that when in "Aspects of reason" he is generalising into general satisfactoriness (rather than mere alethic or factive satisfactoriness) he rallies again to the defence of the underdogma:
"Park your bicicycle here!" -- I think is his example.
It is neither morally ok, nor not morally ok, that one should park one's bicycle there. Grice is playing with the idea that for certain 'phrastics' (Your bicycle is parked here), the additon of a 'neustic' or deontic operator is NOT justified.
----- But I will continue to elaborate, I hope.
I agree about the language-reality distinction. Where do truth-value gaps apply? Horn once wrote on this, "Showdown at Truth-Value Gap", implicating a reference to the western genre he favours.
I would think that the manoevure of the 'implicature' -- regarding "The king of France is bald", "The king of France is not bald" is precisely to disallow that 'strange' feeling of having to say,
of
"The king of France is bald"
or
"The king of France is not bald"
that they are true (or false). In Grice's theory it comes out pretty neat:
With a king of France, "The king of France is bald" is true iff the king of France is bald.
(Similarly, "the king of France is bald" is false if the king of France is not bald).
WithOUT a king of France, "the king of France is bald" is false. This is because there is an "entailment" involved.
WithOUT a king of France, "the king of France is not bald" is _true_.
So any such strange feeling that Starwson felt was UNINVITED and should be challenged.
About the use of 'entailment' here, I'm referring to WoW, 279: "So here we have a case where there is a logical implication on the part of the affirmative, but not on the part of the its denial. (That looks like a case of entailment)." And so on!