Grice's School -- as it wasn't.

Speranza

Jones was wondering about Grice's use of terms (hypothetical) like, "The American School of Latter-Day Nominalists" (Quine, Scheffler, Martin) and why Grice would be so adamant in denying that HE belonged to any school.

As a matter of fact, he did.

His mother, Mabel Felton, ran one. It was called the Grice School, and was at the Main Street in posh Harborne (Staffs -- Jones's shire, incidentally), back in the day, where Grice was born.

Grice never attended a school other than his mother's -- at the beginning.

------ His main school mate was curiously, his brother, Dereck.

------ Grice's father eventually thought it was not too bad a thing if Grice coud go to a 'proper' school, and so he was sent STRAIGHT to (of all places), CLIFTON.

So this was Grice's second SCHOOL.

He showed a talent for old Greek (of all languages) and earned a scholarship to his third school -- not his ALMA MATER, which was Clifton --: this was CORPUS CHRISTI.

There, his tutor was Hardie. This was Grice's third school.

Then he was for a time a fellow at MERTON (when he met his future wife, K. Watson).

So Merton was his fourth school.

FINALLY, he was elected at St. John's -- his fifth school.

He remained at the school of St. John's, in Oxford, till 1967, when he moved to the American school of Berkeley.

He would hold positions in many other schools. Notably in Seattle, but also in Reed College, Oregon. Not to mention the many schools where he lectured, from Harvard, to Brandeis, Princeton, and perhaps MOST of American schools.

During his Oxonian days, he would of course lecture, occasionally, at other Oxford 'schools' (other than St. John's -- for conferences and such -- since he held an office for the British Council which organised philosophical colloquia) and extra-murally.

----

Now, when it comes to Austin's PLAY GROUP _not_ being a school. We should distinguish what we might call

THE OLD SCHOOL -- this was Austin himself, Ayer, Hampshire, and a few others. They met Thursday nights at ALL SOULS. Grice never attended.

After the war, Austin initiated his "Saturday morning meetings" at different colleges, and Grice soon joined. So THIS is the thing that Grice denies the title of 'school' to.

It shoud be distinguished from, more generally, "Oxford ordinary language philosophy", because Austin's was a specific group. It would NOT accept members who were older than Austin. Not that they WOULD like to become members. But famously, G. E. L. Owen, in his obituary of Gilbert Ryle, reminisces on these two notable 'groups' or schools at Oxford then: one led by Ryle, the senior group, and one led by Austin (and then by Grice when Austin died). Owen says that it was this second 'school' that became eventually more famous or had more of a cult or iconic status.

Since Austin had already created his OLD play group, it's best to refer to the post-war group as the NEW play group.

Members were:

J. L. Austin -- who became White's professor of moral philosophy.
R. M. Hare -- who became White's professor of moral philosophy.
P. F. Strawson -- who became Waynflete's professor of metaphysical philosophy
H. P. Grice, of course, who became Professor Emeritus at Berkeley, years later -- his official post during this time was "Tutorial Fellow in Philosophy for St John's College, and University Lecturer with Oxford".
G. J. Warnock, who became Vice-Chancelor of Oxford.
J. O. Urmson, Fellow of Corpus Christi
P. H. Nowell-Smith, of Trinity College
P. L. Gardiner
G. A. Paul, of New College -- author of "Is there a problem about sense data".
J. F. Thomson -- who later moved to M. I. T., and married J. Jarvis
D. F. Pears, of Oxford's most prestigious college, Christ Church
A. Flew -- who was Grice's tutee

and a few others.

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Grice uses the term "Play Group" to refer to these. It was NOT an official group, obviously -- and it was Austin who gave strenght to it. They were merely there to 'entertain' Austin.

While no dogma unified them, as Grice says, there was this 'linguistic botany' sort of activity that G. J. Warnock reminisced about in his "Saturday mornings" (now repr. in his "Language and Morality").

When Grice moved to Berkeley, he would soon have his "at-homes". So this may be said to be yet another of his 'schools'. While it was formed by Berkeley faculty mainly -- Davidson, Myro, Baker, ... -- it held close connection with Stanford -- "Hands across the Bay".

It was slightly different from the Play Group, in it being less formal. Although change of venues (which in the New Play Group was restricted to colleges, rather than pubs -- Grice's favourites in Oxford: "The Lamb and Flag" and the "Bird and Baby", across from St. Giles) involved not just Grice's home, but a few restaurants, notably a nice Italian one in Oakland.

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The word 'school' can be misused. But Grice didn't!

Cheers.