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

Speranza

Dale in "Theory of Meaning", footnote:

"Tönnies also provides something of a causal theory of meaning in his paper "Philosophical Terminology" (Tönnies (1899))."

"It is not unreasonable," Dale notes,

"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."

Point made! And I'm now thoroughly convinced about it.

Oddly, for a seminar in modern-philosophy, I had to read Hobbes, of course in Latin. And was fascinated by it. I also read him in English.

And Hobbes is all about

'consequence'

--- So wasn't I fascinated when I saw Grice, in "Meaning Revisted" using the SAME terminology when he rejects his earlier,

"mean" has two senses: a natural and a non-natural one.

---

To embrace the view, the right one, that 'mean' is uniguous.

Grice then prepares to explain the 'core' of this 'neutral' view of "... means ..." and concludes: Hobbes's consequence.