Hobbes's Computatio, Gricean key, via Tonnies, or Grice in Manhattan

Speranza


Dale notes in a footnote to his "Theory of Meaning"

"Tönnies also provides something of a causal theory of meaning in his paper "Philosophical Terminology" (Tönnies (1899)). It is not unreasonable to wonder whether Tönnies might have been influenced in his causal theory by Hobbes since Tönnies was the editor of Hobbes's Behemoth and The Elements of Law as well as the author of a book on Hobbes's life and work (Tönnies (1925)). For a little about Hobbes's view on language, see the section on Hobbes in Kretzmann (1967) and see Landesman (1972), especially the quote on p. 2."

Indeed, I am convinced.

When I attended a seminar in modern philosophy and had to read Hobbes both in Latin and English, I was fascinated that the words he chooses to describe 'signs' (etc.) is 'consequence' -- as Grice does in "Meaning Revisited" as Grice finds a neutral locution to cover the two wrongly alleged 'senses' of "mean" (natural and non-natural).

Hacking makes a similar point about how Gricean Hobbes can get in "Why does language matter to philosophy".