Grice, "Philosophical Papers" (Clarendon)

Speranza

---- Not yet a volume, but who knows?

R. B. Jones was referring to Neale, Ling & Phil, vol. 15 -- where Neale writes:

"Four previously published papers are _not_ [Speranza's emphasis] to be found in Studies: Grice’s first publication “Personal Identity” (1941); his contribution to a collection for W. V. Quine, “Vacuous Names” (1969); his British Academy lecture “Intention and Uncertainty” (1971); and his APA Presidential Address “Method in Philosophical Psychology: From the Banal to the Bizarre” (1975). Each of these papers is a minor classic and hooks up in interesting ways with the work on display in Studies. In view of the relative difficulty in obtaining the volumes in which the last three appear, it is hoped that each will be republished in subsequent volumes of Grice’s work. (“Method in Philosophical Psychology” has recently been reprinted in Grice (1991))."

Comment:

"Four previously published papers are _not_ [Speranza's emphasis] to be found in Studies."

Indeed. Here the focus is on 'published' or 'previously published'. When Horn was discussing un- formations, I mentioned "unpublication", which got us into seeing if Grice ever used the thing, "This is one of my unpublications" -- other than in scare quotes. He does, in "Reply to Richards": "the number of my unpublications by far exceed the number of my publications". We disagreed with Horn on this: Horn takes the un- to have minimal scope: an unpublication is something that could have been published, but wasn't. My view, oddly, is more Wittgensteinian on this ("I never published this, but I 'published' it".

Neale continues:

"[to wit:] Grice’s first publication “Personal Identity” (1941)"

Indeed, _Mind_, and cleverly reprinted by Perry, in his book that should be in the NY Best-selling list, because it is, for once, a "University of California Press" publication! Based in Berkeley. It is called, perhaps unimaginatively, but I love Perry, "Personal identity". It has some lovely intro by Perry (a man I love): discussing LOCKE, as he should, and Grice, and interestingly enough, Quinton, the late Lord.

"; his contribution to a collection for W. V. Quine, “Vacuous Names” (1969)"

As I was mentioning, Ostertag somewhat oddly reprinted this IN PART: only the slightly boring last section on "Definite descriptions" -- sans "Marmaduke Bloggs". MIT, "Definite descriptions: a reader". This was later than Neale's piece, beware.

"; his British Academy lecture “Intention and Uncertainty” (1971)"

This IS a gem. OUP indeed did publish it as an offprint, but, the snob that I am, I prefer to quote from the Proceedings of the British Academy, with a higher page reference. It is a lovely piece, and a much-awaited one, seeing that Grice was member of the BA (FBA 1966) and only delivered his stuff in 1971. A nice occasion to revisit the London of his Admiralty days.

"; and his APA Presidential Address “Method in Philosophical Psychology: From the Banal to the Bizarre” (1975)."

As Neale notes in a footnote, this is repr. by Baker in "Conception of Value" by Grice (1991).

Neale:

"Each of these papers is a minor classic and hooks up in interesting ways with the work on display in Studies."

We may venture ways:

"Intention and uncertainty": the idea that if you intend something, you will it, and you think you will it. But "Intention and uncertainty" indeed is such a DEEP essay that it would look out of place in what Grice found to be his most frivolous stuff, as indicated by the choice of the sobriquet: "way of words", a pun on Locke (vs. "way of ideas", and 'way of things', which Locke found deeper). It is best to understand "Intention and uncertainty" as a criticism, on the part of Grice, to his earlier self, as expressed in a mimeo now in the Bancroft collection, which I like to date as 1949 (he cites Ryle, Concept of Mind): "Intention and disposition". In this paper, Grice held the stronger view that if you intend to climb Mount Everest on your hands and knees you KNOW you will do it. He was citing, what was his name, Stout, on this! (I discussed this at length with R. O. Doyle, in Information-Philosopher site).

"Method in philosophical psychology" is also too deep for _ways of words_. It connects though, via "Meaning revisited". But in "Method" he quotes from Ramsey, Lewis, Aristotle, Hume, Locke, Myro, and the essay is intended to the American Philosophical Association audience. A different animal, as it were?

"Vacuous Names" is too technical, but still a lovely gem. It connects indeed with "Presupposition and conversational implicature". I never knew why Grice was so obsessed with Quine on _NAMES_. But I actually think I know. Grice and Strawson were indeed the hosts of Quine back in Oxford in 1955. This is a later thing, 1969, but Grice was always fascinated to find himself being fascinated by Quine's 'puritan' ontologies.

"In view of the relative difficulty in obtaining the volumes in which the last three appear, it is hoped that each will be republished in subsequent volumes of Grice’s work. (“Method in Philosophical Psychology” has recently been reprinted in Grice (1991)).""

Ineed. I would suggest then,

"Philosophical Papers"

---- Personal identity.
---- Actions and events (Pacific philosophical quarterly)
---- Aristotle on the multiplicity of being (idem)
---- Vacuous names
---- Intention and uncertainty.

The problem with "Intention and uncertainty" is that it is dated by Grice, "Intending", perhaps a better essay. You see, Davidson, oddly, was quoting and quoting from Grice. Davidson thought he was complimenting Grice. He wasn't. Grice got pretty furious by seeing Davidson use the idea of 'implicature' for things like:

"I intend to rob the bank; I know I will".

Grice said, cited by Pears, "Motivated irrationality" that the implicature is "too social a theory to be true". He found that the issue with the cognitive apparatus on the part of the intender ("I know", "I believe") was more of a matter of entailment.

In the end he concluded that it's a matter of disimplicature. As Yablo notes, "Implicatures happen." One is FREE to use

"I intend" thereby

implicating, "I believe, with probability > 0.5, that p"

or not. In those cases when one uses "I intend" more freely, one is DISIMPLICATING what a more cautious utterer would be implicating. And so on.

----- J. Baker says she is going to publish the loads of Stuff by Grice. "Reflections on morals", etc. She reprinted "Method in philosophical psychology" along with a SECTION of "Reply to Richards", in Grice 1991. What Clarendon needs is a more mechanical editor who can just type the things and publish them in Clarendon. But they seem to be too busy, at Clarendon, with CONTINTENTAL authors, to care much for the genius of the insular Oxonian that Grice was! (The irony, too, that Grandy/Warner were disallowed to use "GRICE" in the subtitle of their book, which had to hide the man in an acronym:

P aul philosophical
G rice rounds
R ice of ratinality
I ce intentions
C e categories
E ends.

Cheers!