Speranza
Grice's Meme.
A Griceian Meme.
Friday, May 20, 2016
Monday, May 16, 2016
Hardy's Paradox
Speranza
Or shall we say, Grice on Hardy's Paradox, or "Bertie and Harold," or "Hardy's Paradox, and how Popper deals with a phenomenon identified by Grice."
The new film, "The man who knew infinity" has a lot of Griceian implicatures.
The first one is that the film is not set in Oxford. Grice went to Oxford. The implicature is: "The other uni exists."
Once Gilbert Ryle was asked if he worked at Oxford University. "There's no such thing -- that would be an anti-Ockham universal. There are colleges and there's the sub-faculty of philosophy, etc. But there's no such thing as Oxford uni."
The second implicature is that part of the screenplay reads, "Principia Mathematica." While the words are uttered, the ms of Newton's treatise is shown, not Whitehead's and Russell's masterpiece that Grice revered. The implicature: "The other Principia Mathematica exist" ("Principia" is neutral plural, hence the 'exist').
The third implicature is Popperian, and reflected in the title of the film, itself based on a bio.
i.The man who knew infinity.
Grice talked about infinity when he said that the implicature invited by (ii) is "stever," a portmanteau word of 'stupid' + 'clever':
ii. I know that there are infinitely many stars.
I.e., as Grice notes, "to combine 'know' with 'infinite' is stever: one cannot _know_ infinite". The title is possible sexist, too, in that "The person who knew infnity" perhaps scans better. According to Popper, infinity belongs in W3. His example of an interrelation between W3 and W2 relates precisely to mathematics, where infinity figures. Popper's example is of a Griceian mathematician, not a Cambridge mathematician, but let that go.
The fourth implicature is Griceian of the first rate. In his second John Locke lecture on 'aspects of reason and reasoning,' Grice quotes Hardy directly -- not the Dorset pessimist novelist, but but the Cambridge mathematician, Harold Hardy (played in the film by Jeremy Irons). Grice quotes Hardy as an example of 'reasoner'. And there is much about this in the film, with Hardy (convincingly played by Irons) focusing on 'proofs' as in "Proofs" used by Lakatos in his Popperian philosophy of mathematical revolutions. Hardy is into 'proofs' of 'theorems,' and rejects 'intuitionism'. I felt that Hardy's references to intuitionism were 'avant-la-lettre', in that they were directed towards Dummett! But Grice's point is that we have
A. Explicit reasoning
where we cannot skip ONE set from premise to conclusion. And then there's
B. INCOMPLETE reasoning.
Grice's point may be called "Hardy's Paradox": while Hardy praised for the need of step-by-step proof, he would often skip one step or two in his pieces of reasoning. The film does not show Hardy displaying much of mathematical proofs, but one can get the idea.
The fifth implicature is about Grice's heterodoxy -- As an Oxonian he should have had antipathetic feelings towards Russell (as J. L. Austin should have had antipathetic feelings towards Moore -- but Austin said, "Some like Witters but Moore's MY man"). Russell was GRICE's man, and he dedicates one of his unpublications to him, "Definite descriptions in Russell and in the vernacular."
The film shows Russell being dismissed from Cambridge:
HARDY: Where are you going now?
I was expecting Russell (played by Jeremy Northam -- you can call "The man who knew infinity" "Jeremy and Jeremy") to say, "London." To surpise all he says, "Oxford, until Cambridge BEGS me to come back." Grice was enamoured with Russell's and Whitehead's (or Whitehead's and Russell's "Principia Mathematica") since he thought that Strawson should not have gotten offended by Russell ("Mr. Strawson on referring", Mind). You see, Russell thought ordinary language of the type Grice and Strawson spoke involved 'a few silly things silly people say', as when we say:
iii. He went to bed and took off his trousers.
Surely (iii) is equivalent to:
iv. He took off his trousers and went to bed.
since 'p. q' is equivalent to 'q. p'. If we _feel_ that (iii) reports an event, where the implicature is 'p, and then q', that's because there is a pragmatic desideratum to the effect that our conversational contributions should provide "ORDERLY" reports. Russell knew this, Whitehead knew this, and Grice knew this. Strawson didn't. As L. J. Cohen later, Strawson would argue that 'and' carries a different SENSE from Russell's and Whitehead's ".". But he is wrong. "And" has only SENSE and is commutative. The 'then' implicature is cancellable:
v. He took off his trousers and went to bed; but of course I don't want to implicate the events happened in the order I describe them as happening.
Jeremy Northam plays 'Bertie' (as Hardold Hardy calls him) sympathetically, much more than the one who plays him as a really hateful character in "Tom and Viv" (on the life of T. S. Eliot). But them Northam has a lot of class, and it shows!
Irons plays a wonderful Hardy. And the film will help to make his theories better known in Oxford, even among non-mathematical philosophers!
Or shall we say, Grice on Hardy's Paradox, or "Bertie and Harold," or "Hardy's Paradox, and how Popper deals with a phenomenon identified by Grice."
The new film, "The man who knew infinity" has a lot of Griceian implicatures.
The first one is that the film is not set in Oxford. Grice went to Oxford. The implicature is: "The other uni exists."
Once Gilbert Ryle was asked if he worked at Oxford University. "There's no such thing -- that would be an anti-Ockham universal. There are colleges and there's the sub-faculty of philosophy, etc. But there's no such thing as Oxford uni."
The second implicature is that part of the screenplay reads, "Principia Mathematica." While the words are uttered, the ms of Newton's treatise is shown, not Whitehead's and Russell's masterpiece that Grice revered. The implicature: "The other Principia Mathematica exist" ("Principia" is neutral plural, hence the 'exist').
The third implicature is Popperian, and reflected in the title of the film, itself based on a bio.
i.The man who knew infinity.
Grice talked about infinity when he said that the implicature invited by (ii) is "stever," a portmanteau word of 'stupid' + 'clever':
ii. I know that there are infinitely many stars.
I.e., as Grice notes, "to combine 'know' with 'infinite' is stever: one cannot _know_ infinite". The title is possible sexist, too, in that "The person who knew infnity" perhaps scans better. According to Popper, infinity belongs in W3. His example of an interrelation between W3 and W2 relates precisely to mathematics, where infinity figures. Popper's example is of a Griceian mathematician, not a Cambridge mathematician, but let that go.
The fourth implicature is Griceian of the first rate. In his second John Locke lecture on 'aspects of reason and reasoning,' Grice quotes Hardy directly -- not the Dorset pessimist novelist, but but the Cambridge mathematician, Harold Hardy (played in the film by Jeremy Irons). Grice quotes Hardy as an example of 'reasoner'. And there is much about this in the film, with Hardy (convincingly played by Irons) focusing on 'proofs' as in "Proofs" used by Lakatos in his Popperian philosophy of mathematical revolutions. Hardy is into 'proofs' of 'theorems,' and rejects 'intuitionism'. I felt that Hardy's references to intuitionism were 'avant-la-lettre', in that they were directed towards Dummett! But Grice's point is that we have
A. Explicit reasoning
where we cannot skip ONE set from premise to conclusion. And then there's
B. INCOMPLETE reasoning.
Grice's point may be called "Hardy's Paradox": while Hardy praised for the need of step-by-step proof, he would often skip one step or two in his pieces of reasoning. The film does not show Hardy displaying much of mathematical proofs, but one can get the idea.
The fifth implicature is about Grice's heterodoxy -- As an Oxonian he should have had antipathetic feelings towards Russell (as J. L. Austin should have had antipathetic feelings towards Moore -- but Austin said, "Some like Witters but Moore's MY man"). Russell was GRICE's man, and he dedicates one of his unpublications to him, "Definite descriptions in Russell and in the vernacular."
The film shows Russell being dismissed from Cambridge:
HARDY: Where are you going now?
I was expecting Russell (played by Jeremy Northam -- you can call "The man who knew infinity" "Jeremy and Jeremy") to say, "London." To surpise all he says, "Oxford, until Cambridge BEGS me to come back." Grice was enamoured with Russell's and Whitehead's (or Whitehead's and Russell's "Principia Mathematica") since he thought that Strawson should not have gotten offended by Russell ("Mr. Strawson on referring", Mind). You see, Russell thought ordinary language of the type Grice and Strawson spoke involved 'a few silly things silly people say', as when we say:
iii. He went to bed and took off his trousers.
Surely (iii) is equivalent to:
iv. He took off his trousers and went to bed.
since 'p. q' is equivalent to 'q. p'. If we _feel_ that (iii) reports an event, where the implicature is 'p, and then q', that's because there is a pragmatic desideratum to the effect that our conversational contributions should provide "ORDERLY" reports. Russell knew this, Whitehead knew this, and Grice knew this. Strawson didn't. As L. J. Cohen later, Strawson would argue that 'and' carries a different SENSE from Russell's and Whitehead's ".". But he is wrong. "And" has only SENSE and is commutative. The 'then' implicature is cancellable:
v. He took off his trousers and went to bed; but of course I don't want to implicate the events happened in the order I describe them as happening.
Jeremy Northam plays 'Bertie' (as Hardold Hardy calls him) sympathetically, much more than the one who plays him as a really hateful character in "Tom and Viv" (on the life of T. S. Eliot). But them Northam has a lot of class, and it shows!
Irons plays a wonderful Hardy. And the film will help to make his theories better known in Oxford, even among non-mathematical philosophers!
Wednesday, May 11, 2016
Anna Wintour's Implicature
Speranza
There are few people (never mind philosophers) who are good at aphorisms. One was Sir Karl Popper ("Falsify that!"). Another was H. P. Grice ("Disimplicate that!"). Another is Anna Wintour. When leaving college (she would not use 'leave', but I will) she uttered (to her father, the famous Mr. Wintour -- pronounced like one of the four seasons, the cold one):
i. Either you know fashion or you don't.
Her implicature was obvious: a refudiation of Popper. Popper was against Ryle, and Ryle held that there were two types of 'know': 'know that' and 'know how'. Wintour is using
ii. know fashion
in a neutral fashion to implicate both:
iii. Either you know that fashion is something, or you don't.
Witters would claim that Wintour is _not_ making a statement about the world. Yet Mr. Wintour would disagree, and found Ms. Wintour's utterance (carrying the lovely Griceian implicature) very convincing.
Grice would wonder if Wintour's utterance can be DISIMPLICATED.
Recall: you implicate when you mean more than you say; you disimplicate when you mean less.
Could it be that Anna Wintour is meaning less than she says? Don't think so. In a way, Wintour's implicature-laden utterance ("All utterances are implicature-laden to the point that the jargon 'utterance-laden' becomes very Griceianly otiose" -- McEvoy) compares to what Grice learned from Cook Wilson.
Cook Wilson was a pretentious Oxonian don. His surname was plain Wilson, but since his mother was a Cook, he kept her maiden name as his own middle name. Note that "Wilson" etymologically means, "a son of the will", in this case, the cook's son of the will". Wilson said to Grice:
iv. What we know we know.
Grice was the soccer captain at Corpus Christi when he heard Professor Wilson utter that, and was impressed. In the locker room he said to his mates:
v. GRICE: Today, I learned from Professor Wilson one stoic truth.
GRICE'S CLASSMATE: And what was that?
GRICE: He said, "What we know we know."
GRICE'S CLASSMATE: And what was his implicature?
GRICE: His _what_?
At this point, Grice had not yet coined the noun.
There are few people (never mind philosophers) who are good at aphorisms. One was Sir Karl Popper ("Falsify that!"). Another was H. P. Grice ("Disimplicate that!"). Another is Anna Wintour. When leaving college (she would not use 'leave', but I will) she uttered (to her father, the famous Mr. Wintour -- pronounced like one of the four seasons, the cold one):
i. Either you know fashion or you don't.
Her implicature was obvious: a refudiation of Popper. Popper was against Ryle, and Ryle held that there were two types of 'know': 'know that' and 'know how'. Wintour is using
ii. know fashion
in a neutral fashion to implicate both:
iii. Either you know that fashion is something, or you don't.
Witters would claim that Wintour is _not_ making a statement about the world. Yet Mr. Wintour would disagree, and found Ms. Wintour's utterance (carrying the lovely Griceian implicature) very convincing.
Grice would wonder if Wintour's utterance can be DISIMPLICATED.
Recall: you implicate when you mean more than you say; you disimplicate when you mean less.
Could it be that Anna Wintour is meaning less than she says? Don't think so. In a way, Wintour's implicature-laden utterance ("All utterances are implicature-laden to the point that the jargon 'utterance-laden' becomes very Griceianly otiose" -- McEvoy) compares to what Grice learned from Cook Wilson.
Cook Wilson was a pretentious Oxonian don. His surname was plain Wilson, but since his mother was a Cook, he kept her maiden name as his own middle name. Note that "Wilson" etymologically means, "a son of the will", in this case, the cook's son of the will". Wilson said to Grice:
iv. What we know we know.
Grice was the soccer captain at Corpus Christi when he heard Professor Wilson utter that, and was impressed. In the locker room he said to his mates:
v. GRICE: Today, I learned from Professor Wilson one stoic truth.
GRICE'S CLASSMATE: And what was that?
GRICE: He said, "What we know we know."
GRICE'S CLASSMATE: And what was his implicature?
GRICE: His _what_?
At this point, Grice had not yet coined the noun.
Wednesday, May 4, 2016
Grice on floutings versus violations (Was: Conversational implicature
[lit-ideas] Grice on floutings versus violations (Was: Conversational implicature - lit-ideas - FreeLists: [lit-ideas] Grice on floutings versus violations (Was: Conversational implicature, lit-ideas at FreeLists
Tuesday, May 3, 2016
The Peacock's Implicature
[lit-ideas] The Peacock's Implicature - lit-ideas - FreeLists: [lit-ideas] The Peacock's Implicature, lit-ideas at FreeLists
Implicatures At Anna's Party
[lit-ideas] Implicatures At Anna's Party - lit-ideas - FreeLists: [lit-ideas] Implicatures At Anna's Party, lit-ideas at FreeLists
[lit-ideas] Implicatures At Anna's Party - lit-ideas - FreeLists
[lit-ideas] Implicatures At Anna's Party - lit-ideas - FreeLists: [lit-ideas] Implicatures At Anna's Party, lit-ideas at FreeLists
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