He played cricket

Speranza

I meant this to the thread initiated by Jones, the recent one, on WoW, to which I provided one commentary already.

Comment on Abstract to Neale in Ling. & Phil.:

"The work of the late Paul Grice (1913–1988) exerts a powerful influence on the way philosophers, linguists, and cognitive scientists think about meaning and communication."

And literary critics! Just teasing. I once listed ALL professions that have cited Grice. Mediums even! There are anthropologists like Gumperz ("Legacy of Grice"); sociologists like Schegloff and Harvey Sachs ("He had copies of Grice, but he would hardly quote from him," Schegloff told me about Sachs; psychologists like Argyle and D. D. Clarke, logicians like Strawson (just teasing -- a logician not a philosopher?), computer scientists (like Levesque, and Thomason), people like Deborah Tannen, and, journalists at large, not to mention Madonna fans, perhaps.

"With respect to a particular sentence φ and an “utterer” U, Grice stressed the philosophical importance of separating (i) what φ means, (ii) what U said on a given occasion by uttering φ, and (iii) what U meant by uttering φ on that occasion."

Too true. Note that also Grice cared little, I hope, about sentences as such. He would use 'x' and "X" for any vehicle by which an utterer may mean. It IS true that _sentence_ was a topic of his focus. But his analysis allows for, say, a movement of the head as 'SAYING' or signalling things. If I utter the sentence, "It is raining", using the same intonation and timbre by which my interlocutor has just pronounced it, but signal with the movement of my head sideways, the implicature may be, "it is NOT raining".

One good example I like is (from Grice, WoW, 5):

A: Are you playing squash?
B shows his bandaged leg.

Here the 'sentence' may mean:

"No, I'm not; you silly".

It has been argued, by Kramer, et al, THIS CLUB, that there is a distinction here in terms of exploitation. It seems that while,

"I have a bad leg" can be used ironically, the gesture of displaying a bandaged leg cannot.

Grice is particular about this. He notes that

"I have a bandaged leg" is NOT what is communicated, or meant. ONLY: "I cannot play squash" OR "I have a BAD leg".

This has to do with effects of communication. The belief, "Utterer has a bandaged leg" will be evident to the recipient REGARDLESS of what he has utterered.

Another good example that may show boundaries is U wants to communicate to A that "Mrs. X is being unfaithful to Mr. X". He can say it:

"Mrs. X is being unfaithful to Mr. X."

He can also _draw_ it. This for Grice seems a better strategy.

He can also, Grice notes, show A a _photograph_(of Mrs. X being unfaithful to Mr. X, if that can be photographed -- this is vintage 1948 Grice). In this case, Grice refuses to say that by showing a photograph of p, U means that p. Odd! (But true!)

"Second, he provided systematic attempts to say precisely what meaning is by (...) providing a series of more refined analyses of utterer’s meaning, sentence meaning, and what is said. Third, Grice produced an account of how it is possible for what U says and what U means to diverge. Fourth, by characterizing a philosophically important distinction between the “genuinely semantic” and “merely pragmatic” implications of a statement, Grice clarified the relationship between classical logic and the semantics of natural language. Fifth, he provided some much needed philosophical ventilation by deploying his notion of “implicature” to devastating effect against certain overzealous strains of “Ordinary Language Philosophy,” without himself abandoning the view that philosophy must pay attention to the nuances of ordinary talk. Sixth, Grice undercut some of the most influential arguments for a philosophically significant notion of “presupposition.”"

I like the idea of numbering things. I'll keep adding:

seventh: he played cricket! (Just teasing -- but true: most philosophers -- e.g. Socrates, Diogenes -- seem to have been pretty clumsy in physical endeavours, unlike our Grice. He is an example of 'mens sana in corpore sano'. Too bad about the smoking habit, but I like to blame Grice's mother on that. Apparently it was HER to thought that Grice looked 'very sophsticated' with his cigarettes.

Eighth, he was from Oxford. I am interested in vintage top English philosophy. It is Grice being associated with OXFORD -- and thus with Schopenhauer, eventually -- that brings him to the forum in discussions. For Oxford compares to the great world universities, like Bologna, and Paris. Grice allows us to understand that movement called "Oxford school" of ordinary language, as a challenge to Witters. Grice allows us to understand Austin, Strawson, Warnock, Urmson, Pears, and all those of a generation which came to have primacy in post-war Oxford. So, it is the HISTORICAL importance of Grice: his activities in Oxford as they influenced students in Oxford -- that is pretty important too.

Ninth, he spoke good English! He was untechnical. I mean, have you ever heard Heidegger speak English? Grice allows you, for once, to read GOOD English Philosphy, in the vernacular! (Oddly, when he gets translated to, say, Italian, or French, it is no Grice no more! (sic).

----

Tenth, he liked Kantotle. He became so obsessed with being a reactionary conservative irreverent rationalist, that one cannot but sympathise with him!

Eleventh, he played bridge (and was Oxfordshire champion).

Twelfth, he played chess.

Thirteenth, he played the piano. (And composed; his compositions 'too avant garde to our ears', some say.

Fourteenth, his LIFE was philosophy. He couldn't HELP it!

Etc.

"Today, Grice’s work lies at the center of research on the semantics-pragmatics distinction and shapes much discussion of the relationship between language and mind. In a nutshell, Grice has forced philosophers and linguists to think very carefully about the sorts of facts a semantic theory is supposed to account for and to reflect upon the most central theoretical notions, notions that otherwise might be taken for granted or employed without due care and attention. To be sure, Grice’s own positive proposals have their weaknesses;"

Echoes of that infamous book by Davies, "The failure of Grice" come to mind! But then, on double or second thoughts, this was a book published by Cambridge University Press, so what can you expect?! They'll never have a Grice!

"but in the light of his work any theory of meaning that is to be taken at all seriously must now draw a sharp line between genuinely semantic facts and facts pertaining to the nature of human interaction."

Too true. Grice was of course a reductionist (he distinguished, otiosely, between reductive and reductionist analyses) so in the LONG run (made less long by Loar, say) facts pertaining to human interaction lie at the base of semantic 'facts', if you find one! Just teasing!

It would be good to qualify the strands 1-6, as listed by Neale here and there. Cheers! Later perhaps!