H. P. Grice

Grice once said that he now thought that, in philosophy,

'if you can’t put it into symbols, it isn’t worth saying.'

Back in Oxford, Strawson heard of Grice’s remark.

Strawson smiles wryly, and says:

‘Oh no!

If *can* put it into symbols, it isn’t worth saying.’

Grice later issues a partial recantation, resulting from

'a growing apprehension that philosophy is all too often being squeezed out of operation by technology.'

'To borrow words from Ramsey, that apparatus which began life as a system of devices to combat woolliness has now become an instrument of scholasticism’

'Reply to Richards’, p. 61.