Grice and Turing on disposition

Speranza

Grice circulated "Disposition and Intentions" among his colleagues just a few years after he had written 'Meaning'".

That would be 1949.

I note that it has to be at least after Ryle 1949, "Conception of Mind", and it has to have been because Grice was irritated by it -- as much as perhaps Turing was pleased by it.

As a matter of fact, J. C. D'Alessio, in "Intentions and Dispositions", following D. F. Pears at All Souls discusses Grice further.

In "Disposition and Intention" Grice writes that his

"purpose is to consider the best analysis of 'PSYCHOLOGICAL CONCEPTS'".

As when he later will describe a 'weak' and a 'strong' use of "free".

The former for animals, the latter of humans, or rather -- persons.

Back in 1949, Grice considers the 'dispositional' [or propensity-based, if you must. I guess I like the noun] account, and the alternative, to consider 'intention' statements as describing

"SPECIAL EPISODES".

Grice is dismissive of a third possibility: Ryle's behaviourism, which he dubs 'silly' (a word I came to overused, too, :) -- it means etymologically, 'blissful'.

Grice argues that the dispositional account runs into difficulties specially with "I intend", of which he had learned via Stout's early 1896, "Voluntary Action" (Mind) cited by R. O. Doyle elsewhere.

But surely it is not appropriate to switch to the 'special episode' account."

 The 'how do you know' is trick.

People are not expected to be judging intention from OBSERVATION.

Or intelligence for that matter. Turing would DISAGREE. And the later Grice would, too.

INTROSPECTION AND FREE WILL: Beyond the first person singular.

In Grice's METAPHOR:

"I am not in the audience, not even in the front row of the stalls. I am on the stage."

Brilliant, I'd expect you'd agree!

For analytic behaviourism, Grice singles Ryle, indeed, for criticism.

The whole point of the Gricean Movement, as I call it, is to refute your predecessors, especially if immediate.

And there's no way you can speak of "The Oxford School of Ordinary Language" (as led by J. L. Austin) if you keep revering Ryle.

Grice argues that the difference between speech and other forms of behavioiur is much greater than Ryle allows.

A man does not need to wait to observe HIMSELF heading for the plate of fruit on the table before is in a position to KNOW that he wants pineapple.

Grice suggested solution to the failure ... of a, b, and c -- rests on intention.

HYPOTHETICAL INTENTION.

The utterance:

"If so and so were the case I would behave in such and such a way"

cannot be understood as a statement of hypothetical fact, but as a statement of some sort of hypothetical intention -- but cfr. Dummett on 'hypothetical promises' -- just as long as the behaviour in question can be seen as VOLUNTARY."

Furthermore, it is not possible to say, "I am not sure whether I intend..." in the way it IS possible to doubt other psychological states."

Grice's own positive theory in that paper relies on Stout and the ideas

i. of FREEDOM FROM DOUBT that the intended action will take place as NOT dependent on any empirical evidence.
(In this he would disagree with Turing)

Grice's second observation is that the utterer must be prepared to take "the necessary steps to bring about the fulfillment of the intention."


Grice has JUSTIFIED the inclusion of psychological concepts in analyses.

They do not need to be 'translated' away into behavioral tendencies or observable phenomena.

Turing would disagree. Carnap, too, perhaps. Ryle would be horrified.

Athough I'd nitpick about EMPIRICAL meaning 'inner experience'?

Second, Grice has established the concept of intention as PRIMARY".

Anscombe's views may have been influential here. We know that Hardie thought that Anscombe's reading of Aristotle had a bit to be desired -- by Hardie, of course, and Grice.

Grice would use Hardie's lectures "Aristotle's ethical theory" as he would teach in Oxford _for years_ -- the thing became a book only in 1968.

INCORRIGIBILITY, privileged access, are notions that Grice will come back to in "Method in philosophical psychology", and while 'intend' may figure as PRIMARY, I would think he
ends up analysing it in terms of willing/judging and these two concepts themselves if not behaviouristically at least "functionalistically".

Incorrigibility and privileged access are topical in, say, R. O. Doyle's point about 'reflective selection', and it relates to Rickaby's exegesis of Locke's paradox of "to will to will to will to..." do something, and Newman ("Grammar of assent") -- as cited in "Free will and four English philosophers: Hobbes, Locke, Hume, and Mill" (London, Burns, 1906).

Philosophers can be _wicked_.

As it happens, Grice lent "Disposition and Intention" to a friend.

This 'friend',  in, obviously, a different hand, made some very wicked comments to Grice's "Disposition and Intention".

"I don't like the way Grice goes to work."

That could have been enough of a reason not for Grice to consider this or that. He could be over-sensitive, perhaps like Turing!
The last passage in "Disposition and Intention" which may relate to 'absurdity' and grammar.

Having established that a doubt over one's own intention is something of an ABSURDITY, Gric offers a characteristically tantalsing suggestion that,

'we hope that this may help to explain
the ABSURDITY of analogous expressions
mentioning some OTHER psychological
concepts, though I wouldn't for a moment
claim that it will help to explain ALL such
absurdities.'


For, indeed, 'what a piece of work is a pirot"!

Another relevant reference here is D. K. Lewis on the counterfactuals.

This may relate to Daniel Frederick's point (elsewhere) about Jeremy Bowman's point on propensity. "Finkish" stuff, as it were.

I learned a lot about this from S. R. Bayne, elsewhere.

And of course serious students of philosophy of science are well aware of the problems with 'fragile' and 'breakable'.

Recall that Grice was writing in 1949 -- but indeed the problem with dispositional  analysis of 'breakable' and the OTHER Lewis (C. I. Lewis, cited by R. O. Doyle) on the strict implication should have been familiar to him.

ONE THING is of special VALUE here, though.

That while the 'special episode' and the behaviourist' account are excluded, there is a good point in the dispositional analysis in the EXPLICATURE (or explicit expansion) of a statement of intention

"I intend that p", or "I shall do p", or "I will do p"

Surely no 'ps' or 'qs' need to be minded here ('mind your ps and qs'), unless we are Georg Von Wright (And I am on Sundays).

Suppose "the door is shut" --- p

p is the state to be brought about.

I intend (that) the door BE shut.

By some strange metamorphosis (or transformations, if you will) this becomes

I INTEND (to) shut the door.

Cfr. with meaning, though,

"I intend my addressee to believe that ..." -- the 'other'-intention, as it where, intention that SOMEONE other than myself brings about this or that -- I'm speaking loosely since it SHOULD be reduced to MY intention to do this or that, anyway.

So the 'dispositional' account at least helps us understand the logical form of 'statements of intentions' as INVOLVING an 'action'.

What [Grice labels the 'dispositional' account, whereby the relevant concept is seen as

A DISPOSITION TO ACT

in certain ways in certain hypothetical situations.

Consider "I like X" (Turing: "I like strawberries and cream; a computer can't") which is a bit of a trick -- but cfr. 'gusto' as cognate with 'choose'. De gustibus non est disputandum, in cognate English would be: of choices one is NOT to dispute.

And in any case reminds one of exegeses Grice's "Meaning" as causalist.

In "Meaning" Grice dismisses "mean-to' as a case of NATURAL-meaning, or of using 'mean' in the 'natural' "sense".

I MEAN *to* shut the door.

Early exegeses of Grice, "Meaning" would focus that the 'mean' we are interested here is not the 'mean' ('to be important' -- you mean a lot to me), or the 'mean' = intend.

"To mean to open the door".

But surely Grice saw a continuum here, typically.

He saw a continuum everywhere.

I wonder lonely as a cloud.

As I prefer, I wonder freely as a cloud.

Surely a cloud wonders free (or is it the wind?). You look at the cloud (the starry skies of Kant). You look down: the plants. How green is my valley. The animals eating it (lambs eating grass) -- and yourself.

"A lot of continuity, if you axes [sic] me."

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