H. P. Grice, "Sender and Sendee"

Let's explore the issue of the UTTERER'S OCCASION-MEANING 

IN THE ABSENCE OF A (so-called) AUDIENCE 

or sender without sendee, as it were.




There are various scenarios of utterances by which the utterer or sender is correctly said to have communicated that so-and-so, such that there is no actual person or set of persons (or sentient beings) whom the utterer or sender is addressing and in whom the sender intends to induce a response. 


The range of these scenarios includes, or might be thought to include, such items as 

-- the posting of a notice, like "Keep out" or "This bridge is dangerous," 
-- an entry in a diary, 
-- the writing of a note to clarify one's thoughts when working on some problem, 
-- soliloquizing, 
-- rehearsing a part in a projected conversation, and 
-- silent thinking. 

At least some of these scenarios are unprovided for in the reductive analysis so far proposed. 

The examples which Grice's account should cover fall into three groups: 

(a) Utterances for which the utterer or sender thinks there may (now or later) be an audience or sendee (as when Grice's son sent a letter to Santa). 


U may think that some particular person, e. g. himself at a future date in the case of a diary entry, may (but also may not) encounter U's utterance.

Or U may think that there may or may not be some person or other who is or will be an auditor or sendee or recipient of his utterance. 

(b) An utterances which the utterer knows that it is not to be addressed to any actual sendee, but which the utterer PRETENDS to address or send to some particular person or type of person, OR which he thinks of as being addressed (or sent) to some imagined sendee or type of sendee (as in the rehearsal of a speech or of his part in a projected conversation, or Demosthenes or Noel Coward talking to the gulls.

(c) An utterances (including what Occam calls an "internal" utterance) with respect to which the utterer NEITHER thinks it possible that there may be an actual sendee nor imagines himself as addressing sending so-and-so to a sendee, but nevertheless intends his utterance to be such that it would induce a certain sort of response in a certain perhaps fairly indefinite kind of sendee were it the case that such a sendee *were* present.

In the case of silent thinking the idea of the presence of a sendee will have to be interpreted 'liberally,' as being the idea of there being a sendee for a public counter-part of the utterer's internal, private speech, if there is one. 

Austin refused to discuss Vitters's private-language argument.

In this connection it is perhaps worth noting that some cases of verbal thinking (especially the type that Vitters engages in) do fall outside the scope of Grice's account. 

When a verbal though  merely passes through Vitters's head (or brain) as distinct from being "framed" by Vitters, it is utterly inappropriate (even in Viennese) to talk of Vitters as having communicated so-and-so by "the very thought of you," to echo Noble.

Vitters is, perhaps, in such a case, more like a sendee than a sender -- and wondering who such an intelligent sender might (or then might not) be.


In any case, to calm the neo-Wittgensteinians, Grice propose a reductive analysis which surely accounts for the examples which need to be accounted for, and which will allow as SPECIAL (if paradigmatic) cases (now) the range of examples in which there is, and it is known by the utterer that there is, an actual sendee. 

A soul-to-soul transfer.

This redefinition is relatively informal.

Surely Grice could present a more formal version which would gain in precision at the cost of ease of comprehension. 

Let "p" (and k') range over properties of persons (possible sendees); appropriate substituends for "O" (and i') will include such diverse expressions as 

"is a passer-by," 
"is a passer-by who sees this notice," 
"understands the Viennese cant," 
"is identical with Vitters." 

As will be seen, for Grice to communicate that so-and-so it will have to be possible to identify the value of "/" (which may be fairly indeterminate) which U has in mind; but we do not have to determine the range from which U makes a selection. 

"U means by uttering x that *iP" is true iff (30) (3f (3c): 

I. U utters x intending x to be such that anyone who has q would think that 

(i) x has f 
(2) f is correlated in way c with M-ing that p 
(3) (3 0'): U intends x to be such that anyone who has b' would think, via thinking (i) and (2), that U4's that p (4) in view of (3), U O's that p; and 

II. (operative only for certain substituends for "*4") 

U utters x intending that, should there actually be anyone who has 0, he would via thinking (4), himself a that p; ' and 

III. It is not the case that, for some inference-element E, U intends x to be such that anyone who has 0 will both (i') rely on E in coming to O+ that p and (2') think that (3k'): Uintends x to be such that anyone who has O' will come to /+ that p without relying on E. 

Notes: 

(1) "i+" is to be read as "p" if Clause II is operative, and as "think that UO's" if Clause II is non-operative. 

(2) We need to use both "i" and "i'," since we do not wish to require that U should intend his possible audience to think of U's possible audience under the same description as U does himself. 

Explanatory comments: 

(i) It is essential that the intention which is specified in Clause II should be specified as U's intention "that should there be anyone who has 0, he would (will) . . ." rather than, analogously with Clauses I and II, as U's intention "that x should be such that, should anyone be 0, he would ... ." If we adopt the latter specification, we shall be open to an objection, as can be shown with the aid of an example.

Suppose that, Vitters is married, and further, suppose he married an Englishwoman. Infuriated by an afternoon with his mother-in-law, when he is alone after her departure, Vitters relieves his feelings by saying, aloud and passionately, in German:

"Do not thou ever comest near me again!"





It will no doubt be essential to Vitters's momentary well-being that Vitters should speak with the intention that his remark be such that were his mother-in-law present, assuming as we say, that he married and does have one who, being an Englishwoman, will most likely not catch the Viennese cant that Vitters is purposively using, she should however, in a very Griceian sort of way, form the intention not to come near Vitters again. 

It would, however, be pretty unacceptable if it were represented as following from Vitters's having THIS intention (that his remark be such that, were his mother-in-law be present, she should form the intnetion to to come near Vitters again) that what Vitters is communicating (who knows to who) that the denotatum of 'Sie' is never to come near Vitters again.

For it is false that, in the circumstances, Vitters is communicating that by his remark. 

Grice's reductive analysis is formulated to avoid that difficulty. 

(2) Suppose that in accordance with the definiens o

 U intends x to be such that anyone who is f will think ... , and suppose that the value of "O" which U has in mind is the property of being identical with a particular person A. 

Then it will follow that U intends A to think . . . ; and given the further condition, fulfilled in any normal (paradigmatic, standard, typical, default) case, that U intends the sendee to think that the sendee is the intended sendee, we are assured of the truth of a statement from which the definiens is inferrible by the rule of existential generalisation (assuming the legitimacy of this application of existential generalisation to a statement the expression of which contains such "intensional" verbs as "intend" and "think"). 

It can also be shown that, for any case in which there is an actual sendee who knows that he is the intended sendee, if the definiens in the standard version is true then the definiens in the adapted version will be true. 

If that is so, given the definition is correct, for any normal case in which there IS an actual sendee the fulfillment of the definiens will constitute a necessary and sufficient condition for U's having communicated that *1p.