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Thursday, March 29, 2018

Implicature as Misused by Grice

Implicature as used by Grice's English Friends at Oxford

Implicatures in lingos other than Oxonian

Why Implicature should be preferred to Implication -- It's cooler

The implication-implicature distinction -- and why Quine ignored it

Implicature and Implication: Philosophy's Main Distinction

Implicature: Face the music and dance

How to avoid implicature like the plague (does)

How to Avoid Implicatures like the Rats (do)

How To Cancel Your Worse Implicatures

Grice: The Implicature Spotter

Grice: implicature and what philosophers should do with it

Grice: Implicature and its discontents

Grice: The Implicature Poem

Grice's Griceian Implicature

Grice: Cricket and Implicature

Grice: The Song and Dance Man

Grice The Pianist

Grice at Clifton

Grice at the Admiralty

Grice, of the Royal Navy

Grice during the Second World War

Grice and his enemies

Grice and his colleagues

Grice's Implicature to his Daughter

Grice's Implicature to his Son

Grice's Implicature to His Wife

Grice's Implicature to His Father ("I chopped the cherry tree")

Grice The Oxonian

Grice, the lecturer

H. P. Grice, University Lecturer

Herbert Paul Grice, Philosophical Tutor at St. John's -- the implicatures

Grice: The Old World of Implicature

Grice vs. Austin on implicature

Grice's Implicature and why it was ignored by J. L. Austin

Grice's Implicature -- and why it was ignored by Witters

The rational basis of Grice's concoction of 'implicature'

Grice's invention of implicature and its misuses by the non-Griceians

Implicature and what do with it

And Deliver Us From Implicature

What Implicature Did To Grice

Why Implicature Is Best When Conversational

Herbert Paul Grice and his conversational implicatures

Herbert Paul Grice -- and the conversational implicature approach to philosophy

Herbert Paul Grice: One Implicature Too Many

Herbert Paul Grice and all the implicatures

The Grice Papers on Implicature and Beyond

Why Grice Trusted Implicature

Grice's Kantotelian Theory of Implicature

Grice's Grand Theory of Implicature: Desiderata and Principles

Grice's Big Implicature

Grice: The Implicature of Philosophy

Grice: All You Always Wanted to Know About Implicature -- but Was [Sic] Afraid To Axe [Sic]

Herbert Paul Grice: The Birth of Implicature

Herbert Paul Grice: The Implicature "Don" at St. John's!

Herbert Paul Grice at St. John's: a list of all the tutees!

Grice and the implicature lessons to his pupils

Grice: "Implicatures for my Pupils"

Grice: The Implicature Lessons

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Why You Need That Oxonian Spirit To Appreciate Implicature

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Why You Need To Be Oxonian To Catch Implicature

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Why Implicature is Oxonian

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Herbert Paul and all the Grices

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Grice and all the Grices

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Herbert Paul Grice at St. John's -- the implicature years

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Why H. P. Grice went by "H. P. Grice"

Herbert Paul Grice on Witters

Grice and the implicatures of Wittgenstein's mistakes

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Everybody Loves Grice

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H. P. Grice's Play Group at Oxford: The Saturday Mornings and Beyond

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Grice: The Implicatures of a Mere Surname!

Grice: In Love With Implicature

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Grice and the implicatures of philosophy

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Grice: What Implicature Does For You

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Why Grice Felt The Need To 'Coin' "Implicature"

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Paul Grice and the implicature of implicature

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Grice's list of implicature-laden philosophical terms and propositions

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Where Have All The Implicatures Gone: Grice's Legacy and Beyond

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A Wealth of Implicatures! The Philosophy of H. P. Grice and his Circle

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Grice and the World of Implicature

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Herbert Paul Grice -- and all the implicatures

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Grice's Salad Days at Oxford -- the implicatures

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Grice's Circle at Oxford -- The Grice Years

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What Grice Merely Implicated -- But Never Said!

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Grice's Most Infamous Implicature: All the Details

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H. P. Grice, St. John's -- The Implicature Years

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Grice at St. John's: the reign of implicature

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"That's no cricket" -- Grice and the implicatures of sport

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Grice's Best Friend

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His dog!

A Catalogue Raisonné of Grice's Conversational Implicatures -- J. L. Speranza

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A catalogue raisonné of H. P. Grice's implicatures -- J. L. Speranza

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Herbert Paul Grice: Implicature: A Catalogue Raisonné

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H. P. Grice and J. L. Speranza: the club and beyond

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Paolo Grice and Luigi Speranza

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Herbert Paul Grice and the implicatures of "Herbert" -- J. L. Speranza

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L'Italia di Paolo Grice -- Luigi Speranza

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Paolo Grice in Italia -- Luigi Speranza

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H. P. Grice and J. L. Speranza -- Why the Philosopher Needs The Implicature -- and Vice Versa!

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Herbert Paul Grice: Implicature and how to deal with misunderstood philosophical adages ("The Causal Theory of Perception" -- final section of the excursus on 'implication'

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H. P. Grice: Implicatures of Expressions vs. Implicatures of Adages

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Grice's Application of "Implicature" to "Philosophical Theses" in the latter part of the excursus on 'implication' in "Causal Theory of Perception"

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Herbert Paul Grice: Implicature, Disimplicature -- and Beyond!

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Herbert Paul Grice: Implicature and its Enemies -- J. L. Speranza

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Herbert Paul Grice: Implicature and Her Enemies -- J. L. Speranza

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Herbert Paul Grice: Earliest Use of "Implicature" -- After Sidonius!

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Herbert Paul Grice: The Implicature of Implicature -- J. L. Speranza

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Herbert Paul Grice and the implicature of implicature

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Grice's Infamous Implicature!

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Grice's Discovery of the Implicature -- and what he did with it!

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Why Implicature Had to Emerge in Oxford!

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Implicature

Why Implicature Had to Emerge in Oxford!

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Herbert Paul Grice: Implicature as THE tool to rectify philosophers' mistakes -- from Socrates onwards!

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Not counting the pre-Socratics!

Herbert Paul Grice: Implicature as a tool to dissolve philosophical problems

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Herbert Paul Grice: Implicature as a Philosophical Tool to Analyse "Philosophical Discourse"

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Herbert Paul Grice on Implicature as the main Philosopher's Tool

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Why Implicature Matters (Mostly) To Philosophy -- and not just "Of Language"! -- J. L. Speranza

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Why Herbert Paul Grice Matters To Philosophy

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Herbert Paul Grice and John Langshaw Austin's "Play Group"

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Herbert Paul Grice and Post-War Oxford Philosophy

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The Oxford Herbert Paul Grice Knew

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Herbert Paul Grice's English Friends

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Herbert Paul Grice and Peter Frederick Strawson -- J. L. Speranza -- "Robbing Peter to Pay Paul"

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H. P. Grice: "St. John's Made Me"

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Herbert Paul Grice: The St. John's Years -- J. L. Speranza

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Herbert Paul Grice at Merton -- J. L. Speranza

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Herbert Paul Grice at Corpus Christi -- J. L. Speranza

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Herbert Paul Grice and Oxford -- J. L. Speranza

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Herbert Paul Grice: "Harborne Made Me"

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Herbert Paul Grice: "Clifton Made Me"

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Herbert Paul Grice: "Oxford Made Me"

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Herbert Paul Grice, of Harborne

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Griceianism as spelled by Grice!

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Or spelt!

Why the spelling "Griceian" (introduced by Dennett) should be preferred!

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Why we spell "Griceian" "Griceian"

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H. P. Grice and the idea of conversational implicature -- J. L. Speranza

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H. P. Grice and J. L. Speranza, "The Grice Papers"

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H. P. Grice and J. L. Speranza: Implicature and Disimplicature

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H. P. Grice and J. L. Speranza: The Oxford lectures on implicature -- candour, clarity, benevolence, and self-interest

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H. P. Grice and J. L. Speranza, The Early Lectures at Oxford on Implicature

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H. P. Grice and J. L. Speranza: candour, clarity, benevolence and self-interest: the pragmatics of conversational implicature in the early Oxford lectures

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H. P. Grice and J. L. Speranza: Before Kant -- The Oxford early lectures on implicature

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H. P. Grice and J. L. Speranza, Implicature vs. Disimplicature

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H. P. Grice and J. L. Speranza: The Play Group and the Development of the Idea of Conversational Implicature

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H. P. Grice and J. L. Speranza on modus ponens

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If modus ponens is valid, you should take up smoking.

H. P. Grice and J. L. Speranza on underdeterminacy and propositional complexes

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Neo-Russellians claim that propositions can be modelled by tuples. A common view is that propositions cannot be tuples. I argue that the interpretivist account of propositions developed by Jeffrey C. King can be adapted for the tuple view.

H. P. Grice and J. L. Speranza on underdeterminacy

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Linguistic meaning underdetermines what is said. This has consequences for philosophical accounts of meaning, communication, and propositional attitude reports. I argue that the consequence we should endorse is that utterances typically express many propositions, that these are what speakers mean, and that the correct semantics for attitude reports will handle this fact while being relational and propositional.

H. P. Grice and J. L. Speranza on default implicature

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This is a note from an AMC session on Jeff Horty's (2012) book *Reasons as Defaults*.

H. P. Grice and J. L. Speranza on gender

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In this paper, we defend two main claims. The first is a moderate claim: we have a negative duty to not use binary gender-specific pronouns he or she to refer to genderqueer individuals. We defend this with an argument by analogy. It was gravely wrong for Mark Latham to refer to Catherine McGregor, a transgender woman, using the pronoun he; we argue that such cases of misgendering are morally analogous to referring to Angel Haze, who identifies as genderqueer, as he or she. The second is a radical claim: we have a negative duty to not use any gender-specific pronouns to refer to anyone, regardless of their gender identity. We offer three arguments in favor of this claim (which appeal to concerns about inegalitarianism and risk, invasions of privacy, and reinforcing essentialist ideologies). We also show why the radical claim is compatible with the moderate claim. Before concluding, we examine common concerns about incorporating either they or a neologism such as ze as a third-person singular gender-neutral pronoun. These concerns, we argue, do not provide sufficient reason to reject either the moderate or radical claim.

H. P. Grice and J. L. Speranza on expressiveness

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In this paper, we study natural language constructions which were first examined by Barwise: The richer the country, the more powerful some of its officials. Guided by Barwise’s observations, we suggest that conceivable interpretations of such constructions express the existence of various similarities between partial orders such as homomorphism or embedding. Semantically, we interpret the constructions as polyadic generalized quantifiers restricted to finite models. We extend the results obtained by Barwise by showing that similarity quantifiers are not expressible in elementary logic over finite models. We also investigate whether the proposed readings are sound from the cognitive perspective. We prove that almost all similarity quantifiers are intractable. This leads us to first-order variants, which only approximate the strong readings, but are cognitively more plausible. Driven by the question of ambiguity, we recall Barwise’s argumentation in favour of strong readings, enriching it with some arguments of our own. Given that Barwise-like sentences are indeed ambiguous, we use a generalized Strong Meaning Hypothesis to derive predictions for their verification. Finally, we propose a hypothesis according to which conflicting pressures of communication and cognition might give rise to an ambiguous construction, provided that different semantic variants of the construction withstand different pressures involved in its usage.

H. P. Grice and J. L. Speranza on hyperintensionality

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I present a possible worlds semantics for a hyperintensional belief revision operator, which reduces the logical idealization of cognitive agents affecting similar operators in doxastic and epistemic logics, as well as in standard AGM belief revision theory. belief states are not closed under classical logical consequence; revising by inconsistent information does not perforce lead to trivialization; and revision can be subject to ‘framing effects’: logically or necessarily equivalent contents can lead to different revisions. Such results are obtained without resorting to non-classical logics, or to non-normal or impossible worlds semantics. The framework combines, instead, a standard semantics for propositional S5 with a simple mereology of contents.

H. P. Grice and J. L. Speranza on symmetry

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I present a new First Cause argument that builds on modal notions to derive causal finitism, the thesis that all causal chains are of finite length. An independent uniqueness argument is then supplemented to establish the existence of a unique First Cause.

H. P. Grice and J. L. Speranza on friction and implicature

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Gila Sher’s Epistemic Friction is a bold and ambitious book, with many interesting things to say not only about knowledge, truth, and logic but also about matters ontological. It often requires the reader to construe it hermeneutically, but repays the effort of doing so.She coins the expression ‘epistemic friction’ to refer to constraints on a system of knowledge, coming from both the world and the mind. She says, ‘The world as the object or target of our theories restricts what we can truly say about it, and the mind restricts our theories both voluntarily and involuntarily’. Borrowing terminology from Shapiro, she describes her project as foundation without foundationalism. ‘The key idea’, she says, ‘… is that there is no inherent connection between grounding our system of knowledge in reality and...

H. P. Grice and J. L. Speranza: Developmental pragmatics

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In the current study, 24- to 27-month-old children (N = 37) used pointing gestures in a cooperative object choice task with either peer or adult partners. When indicating the location of a hidden toy, children pointed equally accurately for adult and peer partners but more often for adult partners. When choosing from one of three hiding places, children used adults’ pointing to find a hidden toy significantly more often than they used peers’. In interaction with peers, children’s choice behavior was at chance level. These results suggest that toddlers ascribe informative value to adults’ but not peers’ pointing gestures, and highlight the role of children’s social expecta- tions in their communicative development.

Grice's Semiotics: H. P. Grice and J. L. Speranza

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I introduce an extension of the Lewis-Skyrms signaling game, analysed from a dynamical perspective via simple reinforcement learning. In Lewis’ (Convention, Blackwell, Oxford, 1969) conception of a signaling game, salience is offered as an explanation for how individuals may come to agree upon a linguistic convention. Skyrms (Signals: evolution, learning & information, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2010a) offers a dynamic explanation of how signaling conventions might arise presupposing no salience whatsoever. The extension of the atomic signaling game examined here—which I will refer to as a salience game—introduces a variable parameter into the atomic signaling game which allows for degrees of salience, thus filling in the continuum between Skyrms’ and Lewis’ models. The model does not presuppose any salience at the outset, but illustrates a process by which accidentally evolved salience is amplified, to the benefit of the players. It is shown that increasing degrees of salience allow populations to avoid sub-optimal pooling equilibria and to coordinate upon conventions more quickly.

Herbert Paul Grice -- Modalities

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A series of recent studies have explored the impact of people's judgments regarding physical law, morality, and probability. Surprisingly, such studies indicate that these three apparently unrelated types of judgments often have precisely the same impact. We argue that these findings provide evidence for a more general hypothesis about the kind of cognition people use to think about possibilities. Specifically, we suggest that this aspect of people's cognition is best understood using an idea developed within work in the formal semantics tradition, namely the notion of modality. On the view we propose, people may have separate representations for physical, moral and probabilistic considerations, but they also integrate these various considerations into a unified representation of modality.

H. Paul Grice, J. Luigi Speranza and Modalities

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This paper offers a model of graded modal judgment. It begins by showing why the phenomenon is so theoretically vexing: given plausible constraints on the logic of epistemic modality, it is actually impossible to model graded attitudes toward modal claims as judgments/ascriptions of probability to modalized propositions. In response to this problem, this paper considers two alternative models, on which modal operators are non-proposition-forming operators:
(1) Moss (2015), in which graded attitudes toward modal claims are represented as judgments/ascriptions of probability to a "proxy" proposition, belief in which would underwrite belief in the modal claim.
(2) A model on which graded attitudes toward modal claims are represented as judgments/ascriptions of credence to a (non-propositional) modal representation (rather than a proxy proposition).
The second model is shown to be both semantically and mathematically tractable—a feature which does not ultimately distinguish it from Moss (2015). The second model, however, is easily integrated into our ordinary understanding of the functional role of graded attitudes toward modal claims (in both cognition and normative epistemology)—something that, I argue, represents a positive contrast with the account of Moss (2015).


Herbert Paul Grice, J. L. Speranza, and Predicativism

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The unification argument, usually regarded as the main argument for predicativism about proper names, has recently been attacked by Robin Jeshion. According to Jeshion, the unification argument is based on the assumption of the literality of predicative uses of proper names in statements such as “There is one Alfred in Princeton.” In such a use, a proper name ‘N’ is used predicatively to denote those, and only those, objects called N. As Jeshion argues, however, there are many other examples in which a proper name ‘N’ is used predicatively to denote objects which are not called N. Based on such cases, Jeshion challenges the predicativist to provide a justification for assuming that the original predicative use of proper names, to which the predicativist appeals in the unification argument, is literal. My aim in this paper is to defend predicativism by arguing that the predicativist’s assumption is well motivated. To this end, I first present the unification argument for predicativism and Jeshion’s challenge to it. Then, I argue that the answer provided by Delia Graff Fara to Jeshion’s challenge is unsatisfactory. Finally, I meet Jeshion’s challenge by extending the phenomena highlighted in Jeshion’s examples to the referential uses of proper names.

Monday, March 19, 2018

J. L. Speranza, "H. P. Grice, M. A. Lit. Hum." -- and the implicatures thereof

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J. L. Speranza, "Why you need to be a MA Lit Hum to qualify as a Griceian philosopher"

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J. L. Speranza, "Why Philosophy Mattered to H. P. Grice"

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J. L. Speranza, "H. P. Grice and his examples of philosophical adages at the end of the 'excursus' on 'implication' in "The Causal Theory of Perception"

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J. L. Speranza, "H. P. Grice and the causal theory of perception"

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J. L. Speranza, "H. P. Grice: His Friends and Foes"

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J. L. Speranza, "Griceian Reflections on Grice"

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J. L. Speranza, "H. P. Grice: the greatest living philosopher"

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J. L. Speranza, "H. P. Grice at Oxford: from Corpus Christi to St. John's via Merton: the implicatures"

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J. L. Speranza, "H. P. Grice, St. John's: his favourite affiliation"

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J. L. Speranza, "The Oxford that H. P. Grice KNEW -- or believed"

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J. L. Speranza, "H. P. Grice and his Friends -- the Implicatures"

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J. L. Speranza, "Why P. F. Strawson felt like quoting H. P. Grice in "Introduction to Logical Theory""

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J. L. Speranza, "Witty Grice: The Harvard Lectures on Implicature and the idea of the quartette of conversational categories"

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J. L. Speranza, "H. P. Grice on desiderata and principles that generate conversational implicature"

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J. L. Speranza, "H. P. Grice on clarity, candour, benevolence and self-interest: how implicatures are generated"

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J. L. Speranza, "Harborne Made Made Me -- H. P. Grice reminisces"

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J. L. Speranza, "I never left Harborne -- H. P. Grice"

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Luigi Speranza, "Why Paul Grice Left Harborne"

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J. L. Speranza, "H. P. Grice's FIRST unpublication: "Negation""

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J. L. Speranza, "Why Grice published under "H. P. Grice" and not "Paul Grice""

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The Implicatures of Grice's "TIMES" obituary, "Professional philosopher AND amateur cricketer" -- though not necessarily in that order.

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Luigi Speranza at St. John's: A Photographic Album with Paul Grice

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J. L. Speranza, "Why Grice's Earlier Lectures on Implicature Should Be Preferred Over The Later Ones"

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Because they are less _popular_.

J. L. Speranza, "H. P. Grice's Worst Implicature Ever"

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J. L. Speranza, "H. P. Grice's Best Implicature Ever"

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Luigi Speranza, "Conversations with Paul Grice -- in Pirotese"

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J. L. Speranza, "Conversations with H. P. Grice" -- in Oxonian

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Luigi Speranza, "Conversations with Paul Grice" -- in Italian.

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Luigi Speranza, "A catalogue raisonné of H. P. Grice's implicatures"

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J. L. Speranza, "H. P. Grice and implicature"

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J. L. Speranza, "The Griceian Newsletter" --

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Why the Grice Club is the Grice Circle

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Luigi Speranza and Paul Grice: unpublications and publications

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Luigi Speranza on Paul Grice: the implicatures

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The Unpublications of Herbert Paul Grice -- Luigi Speranza

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Why Paul Grice went by "H. P. Grice" and then by "Paul Grice" *simpliciter*

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J. L. Speranza as Luigi Speranza -- the implicature

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How to Unpublish Grice -- Debates over disimplicature

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The Compleat Griceian Unpublications of J. L. Speranza

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J. L. Speranza, "The Saturday Implicature: H. P. Grice and J. L. Austin's Play Group at Oxford"

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J. L. Speranza, "H. P. Grice and the Oxford Conversational Play Group Meeting"

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J. L. Speranza, "Grice introduces 'implicature' at a Conversational Play Group meeting

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J. L. Speranza, "H. P. Grice and the Conversational Play Group" --

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J. L. Speranza, "Implicature and Disimplicature: Sidonius and Grice"

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J. L. Speranza, "Unpublications" -- on H. P. Grice

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J. L. Speranza, "The Conversational Manoeuvre" -- on H. P. Grice

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J. L. Speranza, "The Conversational Immanuel" -- on H. P. Grice

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J. L. Speranza, "A Critique of Conversational Reasoning" -- on H. P. Grice

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J. L. Speranza, "On the way of conversation" -- on H. P. Grice

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J. L. Speranza on H. P. Grice

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Sunday, March 18, 2018

Grice on the normativity of perception and disimplicature

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Grice draws on John Haugeland’s work in order to argue that Burge is wrong to think that exercises of perceptual constancy mechanisms suffice for perceptual representation. 

Although Haugeland did not live to read or respond to Burge’s Origins of Objectivity, we think that his work contains resources that can be developed into a critique of the very foundation of Burge’s approach. Specifically, we identify two related problems for Burge. First, if (what Burge calls) mere sensory responses are not representational, then neither are exercises of constancy mechanisms, since the differences between them do not suffice to imply that one is representational and the other is not. Second, taken by themselves, exercises of constancy mechanisms are only derivatively representational, so merely understanding how they work is not sufficient for understanding what is required for something, in itself, to be representational (and thereby provide a full solution to the problem of perceptual representation).

Quasi-Disimplicature

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Grice argues that not all context dependent expressions are alike. Pure (or ordinary) indexicals behave more or less as Kaplan thought. But quasi indexicals behave in some ways like indexicals and in other ways not like indexicals. A quasi indexical sentence φ allows for cases in which one party utters φ and the other its negation, and neither party’s claim has to be false. In this sense, quasi indexicals are like pure indexicals (think: “I am a doctor”/“I am not a doctor” as uttered by different individuals). In such cases involving a pure indexical sentence, it is not appropriate for the two parties to reject each other’s claims by saying, “No.” However, in such cases involving a quasi indexical sentence, it is appropriate for the par- ties to reject each other’s claims. In this sense, quasi indexicals are not like pure indexicals. Drawing on experimental evidence, I argue that gradable adjectives like “rich” are quasi indexicals in this sense. e existence of quasi indexicals raises trouble for many existing theories of context dependence, including standard contextualist and relativist theories. I propose an alternative semantic and pragmatic theory of quasi indexicals, negotiated contextualism, that combines insights from Kaplan 1989 and Lewis 1979. On my theory, rejection is licensed with quasi indexicals (even when neither of the claims involved has to be false) because the two utterances involve conflicting proposals about how to update the conversational score. I also adduce evidence that conflicting truth value assessments of a single quasi indexical utterance exhibit the same behavior. I argue that negotiated contextualism can account for this puzzling property of quasi indexicals as well.

Disimplicature and Rule

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An introduction to the debate on Kripke's Wittgenstein's rule-following paradox.

Grice the reviewer

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Review of the book "Brandom", by Ronald Loeffler.

Updating Data Disimplicature

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Grice's paper has three main goals. 

First, to motivate a puzzle about how ignorance-expressing language like \expression{maybe} and \expression{if} interact: they (surprisingly) iterate and when they do they exhibit scopelessness. Second, to argue that there is an ambiguity in our theoretical toolbox and that resolving that opens the door to a solution to the puzzle. And third, to explore the reach of that solution (it turns out to do work in unexpected places). Along the way, the paper highlights a number of pleasing properties of two elegant semantic theories (data semantics and update semantics), explores some meta-theoretic properties of dynamic notions of meaning, dips its toe into some hazardous waters (epistemic contradictions and presupposition projection), and offers characterization theorems for the space of meanings an indicative conditional can have.

Keeping Disimplicature Simple

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Breheny et al. argue against the structural approach to alternatives. 

The empirical force of their argument comes mostly from challenges raised against Trinh and Haida. This paper aims to respond to these challenges, showing how they can be met by a natural refinement of Trinh and Haida’s proposal which turns out to capture additional facts previously not accounted for. Another aim of this paper is to recount the debate with enough precision and explicitness in order to enhance understanding and facilitate future discussions.

Dominance Reasoning and Disimplicature -- and Smoking!

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If modus ponens is valid, you should take up smoking.

Sunday, March 11, 2018

Disimplicature

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Hoeltje raises a number of important issues about Grice's theory of generics. 

In his brief reply, Grice addresses some of these challenges.

Disimplicature

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Grice explores the idea that a semantics for ‘ought’ should be neutral between different ways of deciding what an agent ought to do in a situation. While the idea is, I argue, well-motivated, taking it seriously leads to surprising, even paradoxical, problems for theorizing about the meaning of ‘ought’. This paper describes and defends one strategy—a form of Expressivism for the modal ‘ought’—for navigating these problems.

Grice on Signs: Disimplicature

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W. V. Quine’s first philosophical monograph, Word and Object, is widely recognized as one of the most influential books of twentieth century philosophy. 

Notes, letters, and draft manuscripts at the Quine Archives, however, reveal that Quine was already working on a philosophical book in the early 1940s; a project entitled Sign and Object. In this paper, I examine these and other unpublished documents and show that Sign and Object sheds new light on the evolution of Quine’s ideas. Where “Two Dogmas of Empiricism” is usually considered to be a turning point in Quine’s development, this paper redefines the place of ‘Two Dogmas’ in his oeuvre. Not only does Quine’s book project reveal that his views were already fairly naturalistic in the early 1940s ; Sign and Object also unearths the steps Quine had to take in maturing his perspective; steps that will be traced in the second half of this paper.

Disimplicature and Kripkenstein

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Grice defends dispositionalism about meaning and rule-following from Kripkenstein's infamous anti-dispositionalist arguments. The problems of finitude, error, and normativity are all addressed. The general lesson I draw is that Kripkenstein's arguments trade on an overly simplistic version of dispositionalism.


Traces and Disimplicature

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Grice presents a novel argument for the so-called scope theory of English sentential even, based on examples with antecedent-contained deletion. 

Nakanishi’s argument is based on the assumption that even cannot associate with a focus which has moved out of its LF scope. I show that this assumption is incorrect, defusing Nakanishi’s argument. I propose that when even associates with a focus which has moved out of its surface scope, it actually associates with focused material in the lower copies of movement. I show that a closer look at ACD examples of Nakanishi’s type in fact yields a new argument against the scope theory. I conclude that English sentential even must always be interpreted in its pronounced position. The patterns of focus association with even presented here constitute a new argument for the copy theory of movement.

Disimplicature and Grice's Theory of Context

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Syntax has to do with rules that constrain how words can combine to make acceptable sentences. 

Semantics (Frege and Russell) concerns the meaning of words and sentences, and pragmatics (Austin and Grice) has to do with the context bound use of meaning. We can hence distinguish between three competing principles of translation: S—translation preserves the syntax of an original text (ST) in the translation (TT); M—translation preserves the meaning of an ST in a TT; and P—translation preserves the pragmatics of an ST in a TT. A prominent form of P is functionalism defended by linguists and translation theorists (J.R. Firth, Eugene Nida, Susan Bassnett and many others) and historically was defended by philosophers (Russell, Ogden and Richard) but abandoned by philosophers and criticized by Wittgenstein. If we adopt M, then a TT will always say exactly what the ST says, and hence all subsequent TTs, even alternative ones produced via M, will be consistent with each other. But if we adopt P, in contrast, we have no reason to believe that the TTs will say what the ST does, and moreover they can contradict each other. If such contradictory translations are produced on the basis of the totality of empirical evidence, it results in what Quine called the indeterminacy of translation. Yet, P is not easy to reject. In many cases, translation in accordance with M where the meaning to be preserved is linguistic results in TTs that are failures. In contrast to a language focused approach to semantics, I close by following a lead in the translation theory literature of identifying text-types (genres) as a tool for identifying translatable content in an ST. To individuate text-types I identify them with disciplines, as elucidated by the 2nd century Patañjali’s Yoga SÅ«tra. This allows for the definition of textual meaning as the discipline relative pragmatics of an ST and further for translation to proceed by way of M, while taking the intuitions that motivate P seriously. Translations that preserve textual meaning will not only have the same meaning as each other but will be pragmatically felicitous.

Demonstration and Disimplicature

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Grice's unpublication presents a new theory of perceptual demonstrative thought, the property-dependent theory. It argues that the theory is superior to both the object-dependent theory (Evans, McDowell) and the object-independent theory (Burge).

Disimplicature

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Grice provides a review of Jody Azzouni's "Ontology without Borders". 

Azzouni defends "ontological projectivism", a variety of ontological nihilism according to which "ontological borders" are not "worldly". I raise some questions about the view and about his master argument for it.

Disimplicature and Perception

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Grice draws on John Haugeland’s work in order to argue that Burge is wrong to think that exercises of perceptual constancy mechanisms suffice for perceptual representation. 

Although Haugeland did not live to read or respond to Burge’s Origins of Objectivity, we think that his work contains resources that can be developed into a critique of the very foundation of Burge’s approach. Specifically, we identify two related problems for Burge. First, if (what Burge calls) mere sensory responses are not representational, then neither are exercises of constancy mechanisms, since the differences between them do not suffice to imply that one is representational and the other is not. Second, taken by themselves, exercises of constancy mechanisms are only derivatively representational, so merely understanding how they work is not sufficient for understanding what is required for something, in itself, to be representational (and thereby provide a full solution to the problem of perceptual representation).

Quasi-Disimplicature

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Grice argues that not all context dependent expressions are alike. 

Pure (or ordinary) indexicals behave more or less as Kaplan thought. But quasi indexicals behave in some ways like indexicals and in other ways not like indexicals. A quasi indexical sentence φ allows for cases in which one party utters φ and the other its negation, and neither party’s claim has to be false. In this sense, quasi indexicals are like pure indexicals (think: “I am a doctor”/“I am not a doctor” as uttered by different individuals). In such cases involving a pure indexical sentence, it is not appropriate for the two parties to reject each other’s claims by saying, “No.” However, in such cases involving a quasi indexical sentence, it is appropriate for the par- ties to reject each other’s claims. In this sense, quasi indexicals are not like pure indexicals. Drawing on experimental evidence, I argue that gradable adjectives like “rich” are quasi indexicals in this sense. e existence of quasi indexicals raises trouble for many existing theories of context dependence, including standard contextualist and relativist theories. I propose an alternative semantic and pragmatic theory of quasi indexicals, negotiated contextualism, that combines insights from Kaplan 1989 and Lewis 1979. On my theory, rejection is licensed with quasi indexicals (even when neither of the claims involved has to be false) because the two utterances involve conflicting proposals about how to update the conversational score. I also adduce evidence that conflicting truth value assessments of a single quasi indexical utterance exhibit the same behavior. I argue that negotiated contextualism can account for this puzzling property of quasi indexicals as well.

Sunday, March 4, 2018

Disimplicature and Cosupposition

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In dynamic theories of presupposition, a trigger pp′ with presupposition p and at-issue component p′ comes with a requirement that p should be entailed by the local context of pp′. We argue that some co-speech gestures should be analyzed within a presuppositional framework, but with a twist: an expression p co-occurring with a co-speech gesture G with content g comes with the requirement that the local context of p should guarantee that p entails g; we call such assertion-dependent presuppositions ‘cosuppositions’. We show that this analysis can be combined with earlier theories of local contexts to account for complex patterns of gesture projection in quantified and in attitudinal contexts, and we compare our account to two potential alternatives: one based on supervaluations, and one, due to Cornelia Ebert, that treats co-speech gestures as supplements. We argue that the latter is correct, but for ‘post-speech’ gestures, rather than for co-speech gestures.

Deontic disimplicature

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This paper explores the idea that a semantics for ‘ought’ should be neutral between different ways of deciding what an agent ought to do in a situation. While the idea is, I argue, well-motivated, taking it seriously leads to surprising, even paradoxical, problems for theorizing about the meaning of ‘ought’. This paper describes and defends one strategy—a form of Expressivism for the modal ‘ought’—for navigating these problems.

Disimplicatures of Disunity

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Monists say that the nature of truth is invariant, whichever sentence you consider; pluralists say that the nature of truth varies between different sets of sentences. The orthodoxy is that logic and logical form favour monism: there must be a single property that is preserved in any valid inference; and any truth-functional complex must be true in the same way as its components. The orthodoxy, I argue, is mistaken. Logic and logical form impose only structural constraints on a metaphysics of truth. Monistic theories are not guaranteed to satisfy these constraints, and there is a pluralistic theory that does so.

Pragmatics and disimplicature

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The semantics/pragmatics distinction was once considered central to the philosophy of language, but recently the distinction’s viability and importance have been challenged. In opposition to the growing movement away from the distinction, I argue that we really do need it, and that we can draw the distinction sharply if we draw it in terms of the distinction between non-mental and mental phenomena. On my view, semantic facts arise from context-independent meaning, compositional rules, and non-mental elements of context, whereas pragmatic facts are a matter of speakers’ mental states and hearers’ inferences about them. I argue for this treatment of the distinction by comparing it to some other extant treatments (in terms of “what is said,” and in terms of the involvement of context) and then defending it against several challenges. Two of the challenges relate to possible intrusion of mental phenomena into semantics, and the third has to do with possible over-restriction of the domain of pragmatics.

"Negative Truth" and Disimplicature

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Molnar argues that the problem of truthmakers for negative truths arises because we tend to accept four metaphysical principles that entail that all negative truths have positive truthmakers. This conclusion, however, already follows from only three of Molnar's metaphysical principles. One purpose of this note is to set the record straight. I provide an alternative reading of two of Molnar's principles on which they are all needed to derive the desired conclusion. Furthermore, according to Molnar, the four principles may be inconsistent. By themselves, however, they are not. The other purpose of this note is to propose some plausible further principles that, when added to the four metaphysical theses, entail a contradiction.

Grice in Korea

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The Korean particle -nun combined with an accent indicates contrast :269–320, 1972; Heycock, in: Merce Proceedings of NELS, vol 24, pp 159–187, 1993; in: Miyagawa, Saito Handbook of Japanese linguistics, Oxford University Press, Cambridge, 2007; Hara, in: Dekker, Franke Fifteenth Amsterdam colloquium, Universiteit van Amsterdam, pp 101–106, 2006; Lee, in: Lee, Gordon, BĂ¼ring Topic and focus: meaning and intonation from a crosslinguistic perspective. Springer, Berlin, 2003; Tomioka, in: Zimmermann, Fery Information structure, Oxford University Press, Cambridge, pp 115–138, 2009, among many others). While this is not controversial, what it means to be contrastive remains unclear. In this paper, instead of analyzing contrastive -nun as a discourse device in the sense of information structure, as has been done in previous studies, I explore how the contrastive meaning is derived compositionally. I treat contrastive -nun as a focus sensitive particle that associates with prosodic accents in two places, generating a non-at-issue meaning. The non-at-issue meaning contains a polyadic quantifier that establishes a contrastive relationship between two elements in a given set. This analysis explains how focus following contrastive -nun is associated with -nun. It also provides an explanation for the uncertainty implicature that contrastive -nun gives rise to. Finally, it clarifies the logical relationship among different focus particles in Korean.

Descriptions and Disimplicature

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A central thread in 20th-century philosophy is the debate over proper names. Naively, a name is just a tag or label for an object in the world – but the obvious question then concerns names for objects that are nowhere in the world, names like ‘Zeus’, ‘Sherlock Holmes’, ‘Vulcan’ etc. To avoid the Meinongian thesis, ‘there exist non-existent objects’, Russell bestowed us with ‘that paradigm of philosophy’, the descriptive theory of names. Yet against this, Kripke famously argued that a name is not equivalent to a definite description, as seen in modal contexts. Kripke’s argument has proved highly influential. But...

Propositional Complexes and Disimplicature

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Explanations deploy theoretical representations of their explananda. 

One question to ask about such representations is whether to regard them under a realist attitude, i.e. as revealing the nature of what they represent, or under an instrumentalist attitude, i.e. as serving particular explanatory ends without such further revelatory pretension. This question can be raised for representations wielded within metaphysical explanation to fruitful effect. I consider structured propositions as theoretical representations within a particular explanatory enterprise – the metaphysics of what is said – and argue that a realist attitude towards them is in fact unwarranted. I offer various considerations against the widespread tendency to regard structured propositions as revealing the nature of what is said and conclude that they should be considered instead under an instrumentalist attitude.

Bilaterialism and disimplicature

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Bilateralism is a theory of meaning according to which assertion and denial are independent speech acts. Bilateralism also proposes two coordination principles for assertion and denial. I argue that if assertion and denial are independent speech acts, they cannot be coordinated by the bilateralist principles.

Counterfactuals and Disimplicature

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Backtracking counterfactuals are problem cases for the standard, similarity based, theories of counterfactuals e.g., Lewis. These theories usually need to employ extra-assumptions to deal with those cases. Hiddleston, 632–657, 2005) proposes a causal theory of counterfactuals that, supposedly, deals well with backtracking. The main advantage of the causal theory is that it provides a unified account for backtracking and non-backtracking counterfactuals. In this paper, I present a backtracking counterfactual that is a problem case for Hiddleston’s account. Then I propose an informational theory of counterfactuals, which deals well with this problem case while maintaining the main advantage of Hiddleston’s account. In addition, the informational theory offers a general theory of backtracking that provides clues for the semantics and epistemology of counterfactuals. I propose that backtracking is reasonable when the state of affairs expressed in the antecedent of a counterfactual transmits less information about an event in the past than the actual state of affairs.

Irony and Disimplicature

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Grice argues that we need to re-think the semantics/pragmatics distinction in the light of new evidence from embedding of irony. 

This raises a new version of the old problem of ‘embedded implicatures’. I argue that embedded irony isn’t fully explained by solutions proposed for other embedded implicatures. I first consider two strategies: weak pragmatics and strong pragmatics. These explain embedded irony as truth-conditional content. However, by trying to shoehorn irony into said-content, they raise problems of their own. I conclude by considering how a modified Griceian model can explain that irony embeds qua implicature. This leads us to prefer a local implicature model. This has important consequences for how we draw the semantics/pragmatics distinction.

Hyperbole and Disimplicature

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Hyperbole is traditionally understood as exaggeration. 

Instead, a Griceian should define it not just in terms of its form, but in terms of its effects and its purpose. Specifically, we characterize its form as a shift of magnitude along a scale of measurement. In terms of its effect, it uses this magnitude shift to make the target property more salient. The purpose of hyperbole is to express with colour and force that the target property is either greater or lesser than expected or desired. This purpose is well suited to hyperbolic expression. This because hyperbole naturally draws a contrast between two points: how things are versus how they were expected to be. We also consider compound figures involving hyperbole. When it combines with other figures hyperbole operates by magnifying the specific effects of the figure it operates on. We shall see that sometimes hyperbole works as an input for irony; and at other times it builds on a metaphor to increase the effects of that metaphor.

Grice on generics and disimplicature

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Hoeltje raises a number of important issues about the theory of generics. Grice should address some of these challenges.

Thursday, March 1, 2018

Grice: The Complete Sonnets

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A number of works have been done by scholars on the study and interpretation of Audre Lorde’s poetry, especially through the lens of literary and critical analysis. However, Lorde’s poems have not been analyzed pragmatically. A lot may have been written about Lorde’s poetry, but there is absolutely no evidence of a pragmatics study of her work. Lorde is the author of many poems that have been studied in various theoretical dimensions, but none have been done with reference to their pragmatics implications. The problem which this research recognizes, therefore, is that Lorde’s poems, especially the ones under the present study, have not been studied and interpreted using Grice’s theory of Conversational Implicature (Cooperative Principle) which is comprised the four maxims: the maxims of Quantity, Quality, Manner and Relation. This study seeks to discover the extent to which these maxims  could be applied to the reading of the selected poems of Lorde. It also seeks to ascertain the degree to which Lorde’s selected poems violate or adhere to these maxims. The study has found that Audre Lorde in some of her poems, violates the maxims as well as adheres to them both in the same breath.

Keywords


Conversational Implicature, Pragmatics, Grice, Poems, Maxims, Cooperative Principles, Audre Lorde, context

Full Text:

PDF

References


Austin, J. L. (1962). How to Do Things with Words. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Bakshi, P. (2014). “AudreLorde’s Exploration of Her Multiple Selves in Her Biomytho-graphy Zami: A New Spelling of My Name.” Abhinav National Monthly Refereed Journal of Research in Arts and Education.
Conrad, J. (2011). Heart of Darkness. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Dieke, I. (2010). Allegory and Meaning: Reading African, African American, and Caribbean Literature. Lanham, MD: UP of America.
Dudley, R. A. (2006). “Confronting the Concept of Intersectionality: The Legacy of Audre Lorde and Contemporary Feminist Organization.”McNair Scholars Journal Studies.
Dyah, R. (2013). “A Pragma-Stylistic Analysis of Robert Frost’s Poem “ The Road Not Taken.” Jurnal Humaniora, Sains, vol. 1, 41-50.
Ellison, R. W. (1952). Invisible Man. New York: Random House.
Grice, H. P. (1975). “Logic and Conversation.” Syntax and Semantics: Speech Acts 3. Eds. P. Cole and J. Morgan. New York: Academic Press.
Grice, H.P. (1991). Studies in the Way of Words. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Griffiths, P. (2006). An Introduction to English Semantics and Pragmatics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Hull, G. T. (1989). “Living on the Line: Audre Lorde and Our Dead Behind Us.” In Changing Our Own Words: Essays on Criticisms, Theory, and Writing by Black Women, edited by Cheryl A. Wall, 150-172. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press.
Indede, F.N. (2009). “The Pragmatics of Kiswahili Literary Political Discourse.” The Journal of Pan African Studies.
Khalid, R. J. (2008). “Demilitarizing Disease: Ambivalent Warfare and Audre Lorde’s The Cancer Journals.” African American Review.
Lorde, A. (1978). The Black Unicorn. New York: Norton.
Lorde, A. (2000).The Collected Poems of Audre Lorde. New York: Norton.
Lorde A. (1985). “Poetry is not a Luxury.” Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches. New York: Crossing Press.
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Rivera-Fuentes, C. “Sister Outsider, An Enduring Vision: Embracing Myself, My Sister and the ‘Other.’The Lesbian Studies Journal.1-9.
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Online (http/www. Wikipedia.com)

H. P. Grice and Oxford Ordinary Language Philosophy: The Coming of the Implicature

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Griceian Conversational Impicature -- Is There Another?

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Grice as Griceian

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Grice In Reprints

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My favourite:

"Causal Theory of Perception" in Warnock, "The philosophy of perception," -- complete with A. R. White's co-symposiast contribution!

H. P. Grice, Fellow of St. John's

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They way he liked to be identified as.

Harborne as 'place or origin' of Grice's first unpublication, "Negation."

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Why Grice Left Harborne

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Why wouldn't he?

Grice and Strawson: Robbing Peter To Pay Paul -- Presupposition as Implicature

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Why Grice Joined Austin's Play Group

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He qualified!

He was a full-time tutorial don -- and he spoke the ordinary language! (And his cricket matches were Saturday afternoons -- never mornings!)

Did Grice Read Sidonius?

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Browsing through the Oxford Latin Dictionary, one finds 'implicatura,' used by Sidonius!

Grice told this to his tutees at Oxford!

Grice: The Complete Sonnets

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He never wrote one!

Is there an 'implicature' there somewhere?

Grice: The Musical

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With words and music by Herbert Paul Grice.

Implicatures of "Ladybird"

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One should love Sacramento, and one does!

Implicatures of "Three Billboards"

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"Three billboards" implicates "two billboards" implicates "one billboard" -- implicature: praise the trinity!

Implicatures in "Dunkerque"

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If they call it "Dunkerque," "Dunkirk" is "Kirk of Scotland" to me!

Implicatures in "Darkest Hour"

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The author is Griceian and avoids (like the rats) the Russellian operator, 'the'.

Implicatures in "Phantom Thread"

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Surely they involve the lexical item 'mushroom'!