Kennst du das Land, wo die Zitronen blühen

Speranza

---

NO, I HAVEN'T SEEN IT, but Kramer reports from it in "Do not multiply senses beyond necessity":

"In a later scene [of "Inglorious Basterds"] a German officer and a British spy pretending to be a German soldier meet in a bar. The German officer is suspicious of the Brit because the latter's German is unfamiliarly accented. Not to spoil the scene, let me say only that the range of utterances that can be spoken with a foreign accent is interesting."

Mmm. Will see.

Here is what Grice writes about a similar spy:

Grice writes (WoW: 100):

"(iii) (Searle)[What is a speech act, pp. 221-239]. A soldier in the [Phoney] war is captured by Italian troops [Call him U]. [U] wishes to get the troops to believe that he is a German office, in order to get them to release them. What he would like to do is to tell them in German (or Italian) that he is a German officer, but he does not know enough German (or Italian) to do that. So he, 'as it were, attempts to put on a show of telling them that he is a German officer' by reciting the only line of German that he knows, a line he learned at school."

Kennst du das Land, wo die Zitronen blühen

Grice continues:

"Now, U intends, indeed, to produce a certain response in his captors, namely that they should believe him to be a German officer. Plus, he intends to produce this response by means of their recognition of his intention to produce it."

----

What irritates Grice:

"Searle uses this example to support a claim that something is missing from my account of meaning in "Meaning"".

---

Grice laughs at the very idea that he may be 'here faced with a genuine counterexample'.

---- Recall Searle's piece had appeared in a volume called "Philosophy in America" edited by a Russian (M. Black) -- this is Grice, Willam James lecture No. 5. In William James lecture No. 1, Grice was quoting from Searle's piece in "British Analytic Philosophy". Is that running with the hare and hunting with the hounds, or what?

----

Grice continues:

"Is Searle's example a genuine counterexample?"

Grice is cautious here because, as he notes, Searle is still trying to rebuff Austin, not Grice.

----

Grice writes:

"It seems to methat the imaginary situation [presented by Searle] is [miserably] underdescribed".

----

"There are, it seems to me, three different cases to be considered."

FIRST CASE:

"The situation might be SUCH that the ONLY REAL CHANCE
that the Italian soldiers would, on hearing the [Allies]
soldier speak this German line, suppose him to be
a German soldier [wearing an Allies uniform -- or was he
captured in bed?], would be if they were to argue as follows."

--- "He has just spoken in German, perhaps in an authoritative tone. We don't know any German. And we have no idea what he has been trying to tell us. But if he speaks German, then the most likely possibility is that he is a German officer -- What other Germans would be in this part of this world?"

---

Grice objects:

"If the situation was SUCH that the Italians
were likely to argue like that, and the [Allies
soldier] KNEW that to be so, then, it would be
very difficult to AVOID attributing to him
the intention, when he [utterered what he did],
that they SHOULD argue like that."

-- in which case, as Grice demonstrates,
U would NOT be meaning that he is a German officer

(for he would NOT be intending A to believe U
"on the basis of their recognition of this intention" --
Grice has it, p. 101).

SECOND CASE:

"I think Searle wants us to suppose that the [Allies
soldier] hoped that the Italians would reach a belief
that he [the soldier, not Searle. JLS] was a German
officer via a belief that the words which he utterered
were the German for 'I am a German officer'"

---- Or "Idiots! Release me on the spot!" I would rather think -- I have MET some of those unglorious basterds, if I must confide.

Grice goes on:

"Now, it is NOT easy to see how to build up
the context of utterance" -- in Searle's
miserably underdescribed alleged counterexample --
"so as to give any basis for this hope."

Plus,

"it becomes doubtful whether, after all, it is
right to say that the American did NOT mean
'I am a German officer'"

---

or "Release me, idiots, on the spot!"

----

Or:

"What the f*ck are you doing?! I'm a bleeding German officer!"

----

Or:

"Are you idiots, or what? Can't you blooming see I'm a Nazi?"

-----

Etc.

Grice goes on:

Here Grice produces his charming example

of a whore in Port Said saying the Arabic for "You pig of an Englishman" as she lures the customer into the brothel:

"I would be inclined to say that, in this case, what the [prostitute] means is that the passer by is to come in. And to point out that what she actually said was (the Arabic for 'you pig of an Englishman' is not relevant".

"I would not, of course, be in the least inclined
to say that the [prostitute] meant that by the words
which she uttered."

Similarly,

"to point out taht the German line means, 'Knowest thou the land where the lemon trees bloom?' and NOT, "I am a German officer" is neither here nor there -- 'not relevant'"

----

i.e. inappropriate.

Grice continues:

"If the soldier could be said to have
meant that he was a German soldier, he
would have meant that by saying the
line, or by saying the line in a particular
way" just as the prostitute would have meant
that the British visitor was to come into
the brothel by SAYING what she said, "in dulcet
tones and with an alluring smile" the Arabic
for 'You pig of an Englishman'.

Grice continues:

THIRD CASE:

"Now, suppose the soldier accompanies "Kennst
du das land..." with the appropriate
gesticulations, chest-thumping, and so forth".

Grice continues:

"He might then hope to succeed in
conveying to his addressee that he intends
them to understand the German sentence, to learn
FROM the particular German sentence that he
intends them to think that he is a German
officer (rather than an Allies soldier)."

But can he do that?

Grice continues:

"Really, of course, the soldier does NOT
expect his addressee to learn THAT way,
but only by assuming, on the basis of
the situation he finds himself in, and
the character of the soldier's performance,
that he must be trying to tell them
that he is a German soldier -- or something".

But this is somewhat dubious. Grice continues:

"In this case, I should be DISINCLINED
to say that the soldier MEANT that he was
a German officer".

I agree.

Grice's intuitions matches mine there:

"I would, rather, be ready to say
that, rather, and only, that he
meant his addressee to
think that he was a German officer".

I.e. a case of NATURAL meaning -- in Grice's artificial 'sense' of this use ("mean to" as the same mean of "Spots mean fire", or something, WoW:Meaning).

Grice goes on:

He introduces the example, "Le chien est tres beau" (French for 'The cat is a cutie') meaning thereby, "help yourself with a piece of cake") uttered by Grice to his colleague's little daughter. Where it is obvious that what U means in this case is that the little girl is to help herself with a piece of cake. "And I have utterered what I did 'on the assumption that I know that that is what the girl thinks 'Le chien est tres beau' means.

But while his own example illustrates, magistrally, his account of meaning -- Searle's doesn't. Why?

Well, the reason is obvious. Grice writes:

"In Searle's alleged counterexample, there is NO feature -- call it f -- that does the trick it has to do. The captors are intended, first, to recognise, and go by, f1 (x's being a bit of German and being utterered with certain gesticulations, and so forth. But, they are ALSO intended to think that they are intended to recognise x as having a different f -- call it f2 -- (as being a PARTICULAR German sentence)".

But that is absurd.

On the other hand, the writing in "Unglorious Basterds" is not.