grammar:
Odly, Oxonians, who rarely go to grammar schools, see ‘grammar’ as a divinity,
and talk of the logical grammar of a Ryleian agitation, say. It sounds high
class because there is the irony that an Oxonian philosopher is surely not a
common-or-garden grammarian, involved in the grammar of, say, “Die Deutsche
Sprache.” The Oxonian is into the logical grammar. It is more of a ‘linguistic
turn’ expression than the duller ‘conceptual analysis,’ or ‘linguistic
philosophy.’ cf. logical form, and Russell, “grammar is a pretty good guide to
logical form.” while philosophers would use grammar jocularly, Chomsky didnt.
The problem, as Grice notes, is that Chomsky never tells us where grammar ends
(“or begins for that matter.”) “Consider the P, karulising elatically.” When
Carnap introduces the P, he talks syntax, not grammar. But philosophers always
took semiotics more seriously than others. So Carnap is well aware of Morriss
triad of the syntactics, the semantics, and the pragmatics. Philosophers always
disliked grammar, because back in the days of Aelfric, philosophia was supposed
to embrace dialectica and grammatica, and rhetorica. “It is all part of
philosophy.” Truth-conditional semantics and implicata. Refs.: One source is an
essay on ‘grammar’ in the H. P. Grice Papers, BANC.
gricese: english,
being English or the genius of the ordinary. H. P. Grice refers to “The English
tongue.” A refusal to rise above the facts of ordinary life is characteristic
of classical Eng. Phil. from
Ireland-born Berkeley to Scotland-born Hume, Scotland-born Reid, and very
English Jeremy Bentham and New-World Phil. , whether in transcendentalism
Emerson, Thoreau or in pragmatism from James to Rorty. But this orientation did
not become truly explicit until after the linguistic turn carried out by
Vienna-born Witters, translated by C. K. Ogden, very English Brighton-born
Ryle, and especially J. L. Austin and his best companion at the Play Group, H.
P. Grice, when it was radicalized and systematized under the name of a phrase
Grice lauged at: “‘ordinary’-language philosophy.” This preponderant recourse
to the ordinary seems inseparable from certain peculiar characteristics of the
English Midlanders such as H. P. Grice, such as the gerund that often make it
difficult if not impossible to translate. It is all the more important to
emphasize this paradox because English Midlander philosopher, such as H. P.
Grice, claims to be as simple as it is universal, and it established itself as
an important philosophical language in the second half of the twentieth
century, due mainly to the efforts of H. P. Grice. English, but especially
Oxonian Phil. has a specific
relationship to ‘ordinary’ language (even though for Grice, “Greek and Latin
were always more ordinary to me – and people who came to read Eng. at Oxford
were laughed at!”), as well as to the requirements of everyday life, that is
not limited to the theories of the Phil.
of language, in which an Eng. philosopher such as H. P. Grice appears as
a pioneer. It rejects the artificial linguistic constructions of philosophical
speculation that is, Met. and always prefers to return to its original home, as
Witters puts it: the natural environment of everyday words Philosophical
Investigations. Thus we can discern a continuity between the recourse to the
ordinary in Scots Hume, Irish Berkeley, Scots Reid, and very English Jeremy
Bentham and what will become in Irish London-born G. E. Moore and Witters after
he started using English, at least orally and then J. L. Austin’s and H. P.
Grice’s ‘ordinary’-language philosophy. This continuity can be seen in several
areas. First, in the exploitation of all the resources of the language, which
is considered as a source of information and is valid in itself. Second, in the
attention given to the specificities—and even the defects, or ‘implicata,’ as
Grice calls them —of the vernacular --
which become so many philosophical characteristics from which one can
learn. Finally, in the affirmation of the naturalness of the distinctions made
in and by ordinary language, seeking to challenge the superiority of the
technical language of Philosophy —the former being the object of an agreement
deeper than the latter. Then there’s The Variety of Modes of Action. The
passive. There are several modes of agency, and these constitute both part of
the genius of the language and a main source of its problems in tr.. Agency is
a strange intersection of points of view that makes it possible to designate
the person who is acting while at the same time concealing the actor behind the
act—and thus locating agency in the passive subject itself v. AGENCY. A classic
difficulty is illustrated by the following sentence from J. Stuart Mill’s To
gauge the naturalness of the passive construction in English, it suffices to
examine a couple of newspaper headlines. “Killer’s Car Found” On a retrouvé la
voiture du tueur, “Kennedy Jr. Feared Dead.” On craint la mort du fils Kennedy;
or the titles of a philosophical essay, “Epistemology Naturalized,”
L’Épistémologie naturalisée; Tr. J.
Largeault as L’Épistémologie devenue naturelle; a famous article by Quine that
was the origin of the naturalistic turn in American Phil. and “Consciousness Explained” La conscience
expliquée by Daniel Dennett. We might then better understand why this PASSIVE
VOICE kind of construction—which seems so awkward in Fr. compared with the active voice— is perceived
by its Eng. users as a more direct and effective way of speaking. More
generally, the ellipsis of the agent seems to be a tendency of Eng. so profound
that one can maintain that the phenomenon Lucien Tesnière called diathèse
récessive the loss of the agent has become a characteristic of the Eng.
language itself, and not only of the passive. Thus, e. g. , a Fr. reader irresistibly gains the impression that
a reflexive pronoun is lacking in the following expressions. “This book reads
well.” ce livre se lit agréablement. “His poems do not translate well.” ses
poèmes se traduisent difficilement. “The door opens.” la porte s’ouvre. “The
man will hang.” l’homme sera pendu. In reality, here again, Eng. simply does
not need to mark by means of the reflexive pronoun se the presence of an active
agent. Do, make, have Eng. has several terms to translate the single Fr. word faire, which it can render by to do, to
make, or to have, depending on the type of agency required by the context.
Because of its attenuation of the meaning of action, its value as emphasis and
repetition, the verb “to do” has become omnipresent in English, and it plays a
particularly important role in philosophical texts. We can find a couple of
examples of tr. problems in the Oxonian seminars by J. L. Austin. In Sense and
Considerations on Representative Government: “I must not be understood to say
that” p. To translate such a passive construction, Fr. is forced to resort to the impersonal pronoun
on and to put it in the position of an observer of the “I” je as if it were
considered from the outside: On ne doit pas comprendre que je dis que p. But at
the same time, the network of relations internal to the sentence is modified,
and the meaning transformed. Necessity is no longer associated with the subject
of the sentence and the author; it is made impersonal. Philosophical language
also makes frequent use of the diverse characteristics of the passive. Here we
can mention the crucial turning point in the history of linguistics represented
by Chomsky’s discovery Syntactic Structures,
of the paradigm of the active/ passive relation, which proves the
necessity of the transformational component in grammar. A passive utterance is
not always a reversal of the active and only rarely describes an undergoing, as
is shown by the example She was offered a bunch of flowers. In particular,
language makes use of the fact that this kind of construction authorizes the
ellipsis of the agent as is shown by the common expression Eng. spoken. For a
philosopher, the passive is thus the privileged form of an action when its
agent is unknown, indeterminate, unimportant, or, inversely, too obvious. Thus
without making his prose too turgid, in Sense and Sensibilia Austin can use
five passives in less than a page, and these can be translated in Fr. only by on, an indeterminate subject defined
as differentiated from moi. “It is clearly implied, that “Now this, at least if
it is taken to mean The expression is here put forward We are given, as
examples, familiar objects The expression is not further defined On sous-entend
clairement que Quant à cela, du moins si on l’entend au sens de On avance ici
l’expression On nous donne, comme exemples, des objets familiers On n’approfondit
pas la définition de l’expression . . . 1 Langage, langue, parole: A virtual
distinction. Contrary to what is too often believed, the Eng. language does not
conflate under the term language what Fr.
distinguishes following Saussure with the terms langage, langue, and
parole. In reality, Eng. also has a series of three terms whose semantic
distribution makes possible exactly the same trichotomy as Fr. : First there’s
Grice’s “tongue,”which serves to designate a specific language by opposition to
another; speech, which refers more specifically to parole but which is often
translated in Fr. by discours; and
language in the sense of faculté de langage. Nonetheless, Fr. ’s set of
systematic distinctions can only remain fundamentally virtual in English, notably
because the latter refuses to radically detach langue from parole. Thus in
Chrestomathia, Bentham uses “tongue” (Bentham’s tongue – in Chrestomathia) and
language interchangeably and sometimes uses language in the sense of langue:
“Of all known languages the Grecian [Griceian] is assuredly, in its structure,
the most plastic and most manageable. Bentham even uses speech and language as
equivalents, since he speaks of parts of speech. But on the contrary, he
sometimes emphasizes differences that he ignores here. And he proceeds exactly
like Hume in his essay Of the Standard of Taste, where we find, e. g. , But it
must also be allowed, that some part of the seeming harmony in morals may be
accounted for from the very nature of language. The word, virtue, with its
equivalent in every tongue, implies praise; as that of vice does blame. REFS.:
Bentham, Jeremy. ChrestomathiEd. by M.
J. Smith and W. H. Burston. Oxford: Clarendon, . Hume, D. . Of the Standard of
Taste. In Four Dissertations. London: Thoemmes Continuum, . First published in
175 Saussure, F. de. Course in General Linguistics. Ed. by Bally and Sechehaye. Tr. R. Harris. LaSalle, IL: Open Court, . First
published in circulation among these forms. This formal continuity promotes a
great methodological inventiveness through the interplay among the various
grammatical entities that it enables.
The gerund: The form of -ing that is the most difficult to translate
Eng. is a nominalizing language. Any verb can be nominalized, and this ability
gives the Eng. philosophical language great creative power. “Nominalization,”
as Grice calls it, is in fact a substantivization without substantivization:
the verb is not substantivized in order to refer to action, to make it an
object of discourse which is possible in any language, notably in philosophical
Fr. and G. , but rather to nominalize
the verb while at the same time preserving its quality as a verb, and even to
nominalize whole clauses. Fr. can, of
course, nominalize faire, toucher, and sentir le faire, le toucher, even le
sentir, and one can do the same, in a still more systematic manner, in G. .
However, these forms will not have the naturalness of the Eng. expressions: the
making and unmaking the doing and undoing, the feeling, the feeling Byzantine,
the meaning. Above all, in these languages it is hard to construct expressions
parallel to, e. g. , the making of, the making use of, my doing wrongly, “my
meaning this,” (SIGNIFICATUM, COMMUNICATUM), his feeling pain, etc., that is,
mixtures of noun and verb having—and this is the grammatical characteristic of
the gerund — the external distribution of a nominal expression and the internal
distribution of a verbal expression. These forms are so common that they
characterize, in addition to a large proportion of book titles e. g. , The
Making of the Eng. Working Class, by E. P. Thomson; or, in Phil. , The Taming
of Chance, or The taming of the true, by I. Hacking, the language of classical
Eng. Phil. . The gerund functions as a sort of general equivalent or exchanger
between grammatical forms. In that way, it not only makes the language dynamic
by introducing into it a permanent temporal flux, but also helps create, in the
language itself, a kind of indeterminacy in the way it is parsed, which the
translator finds awkward when he understands the message without being able to
retain its lightness. Thus, in A Treatise of Human Nature, Hume speaks,
regarding the idea, of the manner of its being conceived, which a Fr. translator might render as sa façon d’être
conçue or perhaps, la façon dont il lui appartient d’être conçue, which is not
quite the same thing. And we v. agency and the gerund connected in a language
like that of Bentham, who minimizes the gaps between subject and object, verb
and noun: much regret has been suggested at the thoughts of its never having
yet been brought within the reach of the Eng. reader ChrestomathiTranslators
often feel obliged to render the act expressed by a gerund by the expression le
fait de, but this has a meaning almost contrary to the English. With its
gerund, Eng. avoids the discourse of fact by retaining only the event and
arguing only on that basis. The inevitable confusion suggested by Fr. when it translates the Eng. gerund is all the
more unfortunate in this case because it becomes impossible to distinguish when
Eng. uses the fact or the case from when it uses the gerund. The importance of
the event, along with the distinction between trial, case, and event, on the
one hand and happening on the other, is Sensibilia, he has criticized the claim
that we never perceive objects directly and is preparing to criticize its
negation as well: I am not going to maintain that we ought to embrace the
doctrine that we do perceive material things. Je ne vais pas soutenir que nous
devons embrasser la doctrine selon laquelle nous percevons vraiment les choses
matérielles. Finally, let us recall Austin’s first example of the performative,
which plays simultaneously on the anaphoric value of do and on its sense of
action, a duality that v.ms to be at the origin of the theory of the
performative, I do take this woman to be my lawful wedded wife—as uttered in
the course of the marriage ceremony Oui à savoir: je prends cette femme pour
épouse’énoncé lors d’une cérémonie de mariage; How to Do Things with Words. On
the other hand, whereas faire is colored by a causative sense, Eng. uses to
make and to have—He made Mary open her bags il lui fit ouvrir sa valise; He had
Mary pour him a drink il se fit verser un verre—with this difference: that make
can indicate, as we v., coercion, whereas have presupposes that there is no
resistance, a difference that Fr. can
only leave implicit or explain by awkward periphrases. Twentieth-century Eng.
philosophers from Austin to Geach and Anscombe have examined these differences
and their philosophical implications very closely. Thus, in A Plea for Excuses,
Austin emphasizes the elusive meaning of the expression doing something, and
the correlative difficulty of determining the limits of the concept of
action—Is to sneeze to do an action? There is indeed a vague and comforting
idea that doing an action must come down to the making of physical movements.
Further, we need to ask what is the detail of the complicated internal
machinery we use in acting. Philosophical Papers No matter how partial they may
be, these opening remarks show that there is a specific, intimate relation
between ordinary language and philosophical language in English language Phil.
. This enables us to better understand why the most Oxonian philosophers are so
comfortable resorting to idiomatic expressions cf. H. Putnam and even to
clearly popular usage: “Meanings ain’t in the head.” It ain’t necessarily so.As
for the title of Manx-ancestry Quine’s famous book From a Logical Point of
View, which at first seems austere, it is taken from a calypso song: “From a
logical point of view, Always marry women uglier than you. The Operator -ing:
Properties and Antimetaphysical Consequences -ing: A multifunctional operator
Although grammarians think it important to distinguish among the forms of
-ing—present participles, adjectives, the progressive, and the gerund—what
strikes the reader of scientific and philosophical texts is first of all the
free in Phil. , You are v.ing something Austin, Sense and Sensibilia, regarding
a stick in water; I really am perceiving the familiar objects Ayer, Foundations
of Empirical Knowledge. The passage to the form be + verb + -ing indicates,
then, not the progressiveness of the action but rather the transition into the
metalanguage peculiar to the philosophical description of phenomena of
perception. The sole exception is, curiously, to know, which is practically
never used in the progressive: even if we explore the philosophical and
epistemological literature, we do not find “I am knowing” or he was knowing, as
if knowledge could not be conceived as a process. In English, there is a great
variety of what are customarily called aspects, through which the status of the
action is marked and differentiated in a more systematic way than in Fr. or G. , once again because of the -ing
ending: he is working / he works / he worked / he has been working. Unlike what
happens in Slavic languages, aspect is marked at the outset not by a duality of
verbal forms but instead by the use of the verb to be with a verb ending in
-ing imperfect or progressive, by opposition to the simple present or past
perfect. Moreover, Grice mixes several aspects in a single expression:
iterativity, progressivity, completion, as in it cannot fail to have been
noticed Austin, How to Do Things. These are nuances, or implicate, as Labov and
then Pinker recently observed, that are not peculiar to classical or written
Eng. but also exist in certain vernaculars that appear to be familiar or
allegedly ungrammatical. The vernacular seems particularly sophisticated on
this point, distinguishing “he be working” from “he working” —that is, between
having a regular job and being engaged in working at a particular moment,
standard usage being limited to “he is working” Pinker, Language Instinct.
Whether or not the notion of aspect is used, it seems clear that in Eng. there
is a particularly subtle distinction between the different degrees of
completion, of the iterativity or development of an action, that leads Oxonian
philosophers to pay more attention to these questions and even to surprising
inventions, such as that of ‘implicatum,’ or ‘visum,’ or ‘disimplicatum.’ The
linguistic dissolution of the idea of substance
Fictive entities Thus the verb + -ing operation simply gives the verb the
temporary status of a noun while at the same time preserving some of its
syntactic and semantic properties as a verb, that is, by avoiding
substantivization. It is no accident that the substantiality of the I think
asserted by Descartes was opposed by virtually all the Eng. philosophers of the
seventeenth century. If a personal identity can be constituted by the making
our distant perceptions influence each other, and by giving us a present
concern for our past or future pains or pleasures Hume, Treatise of Human
Nature, it does not require positing a substance: the substantivization of
making and giving meets the need. We can also consider the way in which Russell
Analysis of Matter, ch.27 makes his reader understand far more easily than does
Bachelard, and without having to resort to the category of an epistemological
obstacle, that one can perfectly well posit an atom as a series of events
without according it the status of a substance. crucial in discussions of
probability. The very definition of probability with which Bayes operates in An
Essay towards Solving a Problem, the first great treatise on subjective
probability, is based on this status of the happening, the event conceived not
in terms of its realization or accomplishment but in terms of its expectation:
The probability of any event is the ratio between the value at which an
expectation depending on the happening of the event ought to be computed, and
the value of the thing expected upon its happening. The progressive: Tense and aspect If we now
pass from the gerund to the progressive, another construction that uses -ing, a
new kind of problem appears: that of the aspect and temporality of actions. An
interesting case of tr. difficulty is, e. g. , the one posed by Austin
precisely when he attempts, in his presentation of performatives, to
distinguish between the sentence and the act of saying it, between statement
and utterance: there are utterances, such as the uttering of the sentence is,
or is part of, the doing of an action How to Do Things. The tr. difficulty here
is caused by the combination in the construction in -ing of the syntactical
flexibility of the gerund and a progressive meaning. Does the -ing construction
indicate the act, or the progressiveness of the act? Similarly, it is hard to
choose to translate “On Referring” P. F. Strawson as De la référence rather
than as De l’action de référer. Should one translate On Denoting Russell as De
la dénotation the usual tr. or as Du dénoter? The progressive in the strict
sense—be + verb + -ing— indicates an action at a specific moment, when it has
already begun but is not yet finished. A little farther on, Austin allows us to
gauge the ease of Eng. in the whole of these operations. “To utter the sentence
is not to describe my doing of what I should be said in so uttering to be
doing. The Fr. tr. gives, correctly:
Énoncer la phrase, ce n’est pas décrire ce qu’il faut bien reconnaître que je
suis en train de faire en parlant ainsi, but this remains unsatisfying at best,
because of the awkwardness of en train de. Moreover, in many cases, en train de
is simply not suitable insofar as the -ing does not indicate duration: e. g. ,
in At last I am v.ing . It is interesting to examine from this point of view
the famous category of verbs of perception, verbum percipiendi. It is
remarkable that these verbs v., hear can be in some cases used with the
construction be + verb + -ing, since it is generally said even in grammar books
that they can be used only in the present or simple past and not in the progressive.
This rule probably is thought to be connected with something like the immediacy
of perception, and it can be compared with the fact that the verbs to know and
to understand are also almost always in the present or the simple past, as if
the operations of the understanding could not be presented in the progressive
form and were by definition instantaneous; or as if, on the contrary, they
transcended the course of time. In reality, there are counterexamples. “I don’t
know if I’m understanding you correctly”; You are hearing voices; and often
Oxonian Phil. , which makes their tr. particularly indigestible, especially in
Fr. , where -ismes gives a very Scholastic feel to the classifications
translated. In addition to the famous term realism, which has been the object
of so many contradictory definitions and so many debates over past decades that
it has been almost emptied of meaning, we may mention some common but
particularly obscure for anyone not familiar with the theoretical context
terms: “cognitivism,” noncognitivism, coherentism, eliminativism,
consequentialism, connectionism, etSuch terms in which moral Phil. is particularly fertile are in general
transposed into Fr. without change in a
sort of new, international philosophical language that has almost forgone tr..
More generally, in Eng. as in G. , words can be composed by joining two other
words far more easily than in Fr. —without specifying the logical connections
between the terms: toothbrush, pickpocket, lowlife, knownothing; or, for more
philosophical terms: aspect-blind, language-dependent, rule-following,
meaning-holism, observer-relative, which are translatable, of course, but not
without considerable awkwardness.
Oxonian philosophese. Oxonian
Phil. seems to establish a language that
is stylistically neutral and appears to be transparently translatable. Certain
specific problems—the tr. of compound words and constructions that are more
flexible in Eng. and omnipresent in current philosophical discourse, such as
the thesis that la thèse selon laquelle, the question whether la question de
savoir si, and my saying that le fait que je dise que—make Fr. tr.s of contemporary Eng. philosophical texts
very awkward, even when the author writes in a neutral, commonplace style.
Instead, these difficulties, along with the ease of construction peculiar to
English, tend to encourage non-Oxonian analytical philosophers to write
directly in Gricese, following the example of many of their European
colleagues, or else to make use of a technical vernacular we have noted the
-isms and compounds that is frequently heavy going and not very inventive when
transRomang terms which are usually transliterated. This situation is certainly
attributable to the paradoxical character of Gricese, which established itself
as a philosophical language in the second half of the twentieth century: it is
a language that is apparently simple and accessible and that thus claims a kind
of universality but that is structured, both linguistically and
philosophically, around major stumbling blocks to do, -ing, etthat often make
it untranslatable. It is paradoxically this untranslatability, and not its
pseudo-transparency, that plays a crucial role in the process of
universalization. . IThe Austinian Paradigm: Ordinary Language and Phil. The proximity of ordinary language and
philosophical language, which is rooted in classical English-language Phil. ,
was theorized in the twentieth century by Austin and can be summed up in the
expression “‘ordinary’-language philosophy”. Ordinary language Phil. is interested This sort of overall
preeminence in Eng. of the verbal and the subjective over the nominal and the
objective is clear in the difference in the logic that governs the discourse of
affectivity in Fr. and in English. How
would something that one is correspond to something that one has, as in the
case of fear in Fr. avoir peur? It
follows that a Fr. man—who takes it for granted that fear is something that one
feels or senses—cannot feel at home with the difference that Eng. naturally makes
between something that has no objective correlative because it concerns only
feeling like fear; and what is available to sensation, implying that what is
felt through it has the status of an object. Thus in Eng. something is
immediately grasped that in Fr. v.ms a
strange paradox, viz. that passion, as Bentham notes in Deontology, is a
fictive entity. Thus what sounds in Fr.
like a nominalist provocation is implicated in the folds of the Eng.
language. A symbolic theory of affectivity is thus more easily undertaken in
Eng. than in Fr. , and if an ontological conception of affectivity had to be
formulated in English, symmetrical difficulties would be encountered. Reversible derivations Another particularity
of English, which is not without consequences in Phil. , is that its poverty
from the point of view of inflectional morphology is compensated for by the
freedom and facility it offers for the construction of all sorts of
derivatives. Nominal derivatives based on adjectives and using suffixes such as
-ity, -hood, -ness, -y. The resulting compounds are very difficult to
differentiate in Fr. and to translate in
general, which has led, in contemporary Fr.
tr.s, to various incoherent makeshifts. To list the most common
stumbling blocks: privacy privé-ité, innerness intériorité, not in the same
sense as interiority, vagueness caractère vague, goodness bonté, in the sense
of caractère bon, rightness justesse, “sameness,” similarité, in the sense of
mêmeté, ordinariness, “appropriateness,” caractère ordinaire, approprié,
unaccountability caractère de ce dont il est impossible de rendre compte.
Adjectival derivatives based on nouns, using numerous suffixes: -ful, -ous, -y,
-ic, -ish, -al e.g., meaningful, realistic, holistic, attitudinal, behavioral.
Verbal derivatives based on nouns or adjectives, with the suffixes -ize, -ify,
-ate naturalize, mentalize, falsify, and even without suffixes when possible
e.g., the title of an article “How Not to Russell Carnap’s Aufbau,” i.e., how
not to Russell Carnap’s Aufbau. d. Polycategorial derivatives based on verbs,
using suffixes such as -able, -er, -age, -ismrefutable, truthmaker. The
reversibility of these nominalizations and verbalizations has the essential
result of preventing the reification of qualities or acts. The latter is more
difficult to avoid in Fr. and G. , where
nominalization hardens and freezes notions compare intériorité and innerness,
which designates more a quality, or even, paradoxically, an effect, than an entity
or a domain. But this kind of ease in making compounds has its flip side: the
proliferation of -isms in liberties with the natural uses of the language. The
philosophers ask, e. g. , how they can know that there is a real object there,
but the question How do I know? can be asked in ordinary language only in
certain contexts, that is, where it is always possible, at least in theory, to
eliminate doubt. The doubt or question But is it a real one? has always must
have a special basis, there must be some reason for suggesting that it isn’t real,
in the sense of some specific way in which it is suggested that this experience
or item may be phoney. The wile of the metaphysician consists in asking Is it a
real table? a kind of object which has no obvious way of being phoney and not
specifying or limiting what may be wrong with it, so that I feel at a loss how
to prove it is a real one. It is the use of the word real in this manner that
leads us on to the supposition that real has a single meaning the real world,
material objects, and that a highly profound and puzzling one. Austin,
Philosophical Papers This analysis of real is taken up again in Sense and
Sensibilia, where Austin criticizes the notion of a sense datum and also a
certain way of raising problems supposedly on the basis of common opinion e. g.
, the common opinion that we really perceive things—but in reality on the basis
of a pure construction. To state the case in this way, Austin says, is simply
to soften up the plain man’s alleged views for the subsequent treatment; it is
preparing the way for, by practically attributing to him, the so-called
philosophers’ view. Phil. ’s frequent recourse to the ordinary is characterized
by a certain condescension toward the common man. The error or deception
consists in arguing the philosopher’s position against the ordinary position,
because if the in what we should say when. It is, in other words, a Phil. of language, but on the condition that we
never forget that we are looking not merely at words or ‘meanings,’ whatever
they may be but also at the realities we use the words to talk about, as Austin
emphasizes A Plea for Excuses, in Philosophical Papers. During the twentieth
century or more precisely, between the 1940s and the s, there was a division of
the paradigms of the Phil. of language
between the logical clarification of ordinary language, on the one hand, and
the immanent examination of ordinary language, on the other. The question of
ordinary language and the type of treatment that it should be given—a normative
clarification or an internal examination—is present in and even constitutive of
the legacy of logical positivism. Wittgenstein’s work testifies to this through
the movement that it manifests and performs, from the first task of the
Phil. of language the creation of an
ideal or formal language to clarify everyday language to the second the concern
to examine the multiplicity of ordinary language’s uses. The break thus
accomplished is such that one can only agree with Rorty’s statement in his
preface to The Linguistic Turn that the only difference between Ideal Language
Philosophers and Ordinary Language Philosophers is a disagreement about which
language is ideal. In the renunciation of the idea of an ideal language, or a
norm outside language, there is a radical change in perspective that consists
in abandoning the idea of something beyond language: an idea that is
omnipresent in the whole philosophical tradition, and even in current
analytical Phil. . Critique of language and Phil. More generally, Austin criticizes traditional
Phil. for its perverse use of ordinary
language. He constantly denounces Phil. ’s abuse of ordinary language—not so
much that it forgets it, but rather that it exploits it by taking 2 A defect in
the Eng. language? Between according to Bentham Eng. philosophers are not very
inclined toward etymology—no doubt because it is often less traceable than it
is in G. or even in Fr. and discourages a certain kind of commentary.
There are, however, certain exceptions, like Jeremy Bentham’s analysis of the
words “in,” “or,” “between,” “and,” etc., -- cf. Grice on “to” and “or” – “Does
it make sense to speak of the ‘sense’ of ‘to’?” -- through which Eng.
constructs the kinds of space that belong to a very specific topiLet us take
the case of between, which Fr. can
render only by the word entre. Both the semantics and the etymology of entre
imply the number three in Fr. , since what is entre intervenes as a third term
between two others which it separates or brings closer in Lat., in-ter; in Fr.,
en tiers; as a third. This is not the case in English, which constructs between
in accord with the number two in conformity with the etymology of this word, by
tween, in pairs, to the point that it can imagine an ordering, even when it
involves three or more classes, only in the binary mode: comon between three?
relation between three?—the hue of selfcontradictoriness presents itself on the
very face of the phrase. By one of the words in it, the number of objects is
asserted to be three: by another, it is asserted to be no more than two. To the
use thus exclusively made of the word between, what could have given rise, but
a sort of general, howsoever indistinct, perception, that it is only one to one
that objects can, in any continued manner, be commodiously and effectually
compared. The Eng. language labours under a defect, which, when it is compared
in this particular with other European langues, may perhaps be found peculiar
to it. By the derivation, and thence by the inexcludible import, of the word
between i.e., by twain, the number of the objects, to which this operation is
represented as capable of being applied, is confined to two. By the Roman
inter—by its Fr. derivation entre—no
such limitation v.ms to be expressed. Chrestomathia REFS.: Bentham, Jeremy.
ChrestomathiEd. by M. J. Smith and W. H.
Burston. Oxford: Clarendon, To my mind, experience proves amply that we do come
to an agreement on what we should say when such and such a thing, though I
grant you it is often long and difficult. I should add that too often this is what
is missing in Phil. : a preliminary datum on which one might agree at the
outset. We do not claim in this way to discover all the truth that exists
regarding everything. We discover simply the facts that those who have been
using our language for centuries have taken the trouble to notice.
Performatif-Constatif Austinian agreement is possible for two reasons: Ordinary language cannot claim to have the
last word. Only remember, it is the first word Philosophical Papers. The
exploration of language is also an exploration of the inherited experience and
acumen of many generations of men ibid..
Ordinary language is a rich treasury of differences and embodies all the
distinctions men have found worth drawing, and the connections they have found
worth marking, in the lifetimes of many generations. These are certainly more
subtle and solid than any that you or I are likely to think up in our
arm-chairs of an afternoon ibid.. It is this ability to indicate differences
that makes language a common instrument adequate for speaking things in the
world. Who is we? Cavell’s question It is clear that analytical Phil. ,
especially as it has developed in the United States since the 1940s, has moved
away from the Austinian paradigm and has at the same time abandoned a certain
kind of philosophical writing and linguistic subtlety. But that only makes all
the more powerful and surprising the return to Austin advocated by Stanley
Cavell and the new sense of ordinary language Phil. that is emerging in his work and in contemporary
American Phil. . What right do we have to refer to our uses? And who is this we
so crucial for Austin that it constantly recurs in his work? All we have, as we
have said, is what we say and our linguistic agreements. We determine the
meaning of a given word by its uses, and for Austin, it is nonsensical to ask
the question of meaning for instance, in a general way or looking for an
entity; v. NONSENSE. The quest for agreement is founded on something quite
different from signification or the determination of the common meaning. The
agreement Austin is talking about has nothing to do with an intersubjective
consensus; it is not founded on a convention or on actual agreements. It is an
agreement that is as objective as possible and that bears as much on language
as on reality. But what is the precise nature of this agreement? Where does it
come from, and why should so much importance be accorded to it? That is the
question Cavell asks, first in Must We Mean What We Say? and then in The Claim
of Reason: what is it that allows Austin and Witters to say what they say about
what we say? A claim is certainly involved here. That is what Witters means by
our agreement in judgments, and in language it is based only on itself, on the
latter exists, it is not on the same level. The philosopher introduces into the
opinion of the common man particular entities, in order then to reject, amend,
or explain it. The method of ordinary language: Be your size. Small Men.
Austin’s immanent method comes down to examining our ordinary use of ordinary
words that have been confiscated by Phil. , such as ‘true’ and ‘real,’ in order
to raise the question of truth: Fact that is a phrase designed for use in
situations where the distinction between a true statement and the state of
affairs about which it is a truth is neglected; as it often is with advantage
in ordinary life, though seldom in Phil. . So speaking about the fact that is a
compendious way of speaking about a situation involving both words and world.
Philosophical Papers We can, of course, maintain along with a whole trend in
analytical Phil. from Frege to Quine
that these are considerations too small and too trivial from which to draw any
conclusions at all. But it is this notion of fact that Austin relies on to
determine the nature of truth and thus to indicate the pertinence of ordinary
language as a relationship to the world. This is the nature of Austin’s
approach: the foot of the letter is the foot of the ladder ibid.. For Austin,
ordinary words are part of the world: we use words, and what makes words useful
objects is their complexity, their refinement as tools ibid.: We use words to
inform ourselves about the things we talk about when we use these words. Or, if
that v.ms too naïve: we use words as a way of better understanding the
situation in which we find ourselves led to make use of words. What makes this
claim possible is the proximity of dimension, of size, between words and
ordinary objects. Thus philosophers should, instead of asking whether truth is
a substance, a quality, or a relation, take something more nearly their own
size to strain at ibid.. The Fr.
translators render size by mesure, which v.ms excessively theoretical;
the reference is to size in the material, ordinary sense. One cannot know
everything, so why not try something else? Advantages of slowness and
cooperation. Be your size. Small Men. Conversation cited by Urmson in A
Symposium Austin emphasizes that this technique of examining words which he
ended up calling linguistic phenomenology (and Grice linguistic botany) is not
new and that it has existed since Socrates, producing its slow successes. But
Grice is the first to make a systematic application of such a method, which is
based, on the one hand, on the manageability and familiarity of the objects
concerned and, on the other hand, on the common agreement at which it arrives
in each of its stages. The problem is how to agree on a starting point, that
is, on a given. This given or datum, for Grice, is Gricese, not as a corpus
consisting of utterances or words, but as the site of agreement about what we
should say when. Austin regards language as an empirical datum or experimental
dat -- Bayes, T. . An Essay towards Solving a Problem in the Doctrine of
Chances, with Richard Price’s Foreword and Discussion. In Facsimiles of Two
Papers by Bayes. : Hafner, . First published in 176 Bentham, Jeremy.
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Burston. Oxford: Clarendon, . . Deontology. Ed.
by Goldworth. Oxford: Clarendon, . . Essay on Language. In The Works of
Jeremy Bentham, ed. by J. Bowring.
Edinburgh: W. Tait, 18384 Berkeley, George. Of Infinities. In vol. 2 of The
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Library of America, . Hacking, Jan. Why Does Language Matter to Phil. ?
Cambridge: Cambridge , . Hume, D. . Dialogues concerning Natural Religion.
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, . . Essays, Moral, Political and Literary Ed.
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Essay concerning Human Understanding. Oxford: Oxford , . Mill, J. Stuart.
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Ricœur, Paul. Memory, History, Forgetting. Tr.
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published in 195 . Philosophical Investigations. Tr. G.E.M. Anscombe. Oxford: Blackwell, 195 we,
as Cavell says in a passage that illustrates many of the difficulties of tr. we
have discussed up to this point: We learn and teach words in certain contexts,
and then we are expected, and expect others, to be able to project them into
further contexts. Nothing ensures that this projection will take place in
particular, not the grasping of universals nor the grasping of books of rules,
just as nothing ensures that we will make, and understand, the same projections.
That we do, on the whole, is a matter of our sharing routes of interest and
feeling, modes of response, senses of humor and ‑of significance and of
fulfillment, of what is outrageous, of what is similar to what else, what a
rebuke, what forgiveness, of when an utterance is an assertion, when an appeal,
when an explanation—all the whirl of organism Witterscalls forms of life. Human
speech and activity, sanity and community, rest upon nothing more, but nothing
less, than this. It is a vision as simple as it is and because it is terrifying. Must We Mean What We Say? The
fact that our ordinary language is based only on itself is not only a reason
for concern regarding the validity of what we do and say, but also the
revelation of a truth about ourselves that we do not always want to recognize:
the fact that I am the only possible source of such a validity. That is a new
understanding of the fact that language is our form of life, precisely its
ordinary form. Cavell’s originality lies in his reinvention of the nature of
ordinary language in American thought and in the connection he
establishes—notably through his reference to Emerson and Thoreau, American
thinkers of the ordinary—between this nature of language and human nature,
finitude. It is also in this sense that the question of linguistic agreements
reformulates that of the ordinary human condition and that the acceptance of
the latter goes hand in hand with the recognition of the former. In Cavell’s
Americanization of ordinary language Phil.
there thus emerges a radical form of the return to the ordinary. But
isn’t this ordinary, e. g. , that of Emerson in his Essays, precisely the one
that the whole of Eng. Phil. has been
trying to find, or rather to feel or taste, since its origins? Thus we can compare
the writing of Emerson or James, in texts like Experience or Essays in Radical
Empiricism, with that of the British empiricists when they discuss experience,
the given, and the sensible. This is no doubt one of the principal dimensions
of philosophical writing in English: always to make the meaning more available
to the senses. J.-Pierre Cléro Sandra Laugier REFS.: Austin, J. L. How to Do
Things with Words. Oxford: Clarendon, . . Performatif-Constatif. In La
philosophie analytique, ed. by J. Wahl
and L. Beck. : Editions du Minuit, . Tr. in Performative-Constative. In
Phil. and Ordinary Language, ed. by E. Caton. Urbana: University of Illinois
Press, . . Philosophical Papers. Ed. by
J. O. Urmson and G. J. Warnock. Oxford: Clarendon, . . Sense and SensibiliOxford:
Clarendon, . Ayer, J. The Foundations of Empirical Knowledge. London:
Macmillan, 1940. ENTREPRENEUR 265 form the basis of the kingdom by means of
calculated plans; to the legal domain: someone who contravenes the hierarchical
order of the professions and subverts their rules; finally, to the economic
domain: someone who agrees, on the basis of a prior contract an established
price to execute a project collection of taxes, supply of an army, a merchant
expedition, construction, production, transaction, assuming the hazards related
to exchange and time. This last usage corresponds to practices that became more
and more socially prominent starting in the sixteenth century. Let us focus on
the term in economics. The engagement of the entrepreneur in his project may be
understood in various ways, and the noun entrepreneur translated in various
ways into English: by contractor if the stress is placed on the engagement with
regard to the client to execute the task according to conditions negotiated in advance
a certain time, a fixed price, firm price, tenant farming; by undertaker now
rare in this sense when we focus on the engagement in the activity, taking
charge of the project, its practical realization, the setting in motion of the
transaction; and by adventurer, enterpriser, and projector, to emphasize the
risks related to speculation. At the end of the eighteenth century, the
Fr. word entreprise acquired the new
meaning of an industrial establishment. Entrepreneur accordingly acquired the
sense of the head or direction of a business of production superintendent,
employer, manager. In France, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, the
noun entrepreneur had strong political connotations, in particular in the
abundant pamphlets containing mazarinades denouncing the entrepreneurs of tax
farming. The economist Pierre de Boisguilbert wrote the Factum de la France,
the largest trial ever conducted by pen against the big financiers,
entrepreneurs of the wealth of the kingdom, who take advantage of its good
administration its political economy in the name of the entrepreneurs of
commerce and industry, who contribute to the increase in its wealth.
Boisguilbert failed in his project of reforming the tax farm, or tax business,
and it was left to a clever financier, Richard Cantillon, to create the
economic concept of the entrepreneur. Chance in Business: Risk and Uncertainty
There is no trace of Boisguilbert’s moral indignation in Cantillon’s Essai sur
la nature du commerce en générale Essay on the nature of commerce in general.
Having shown that all the classes and all the men of a State live or acquire
wealth at the expense of the owners of the land bk. 1, ch.12, he suggests that
the circulation and barter of goods and merchandise, like their production, are
conducted in Europe by entrepreneurs and haphazardly bk. 1, of ch.1 He then
describes in detail what composes the uncertain aspect of the action of an
entrepreneur, in which he acts according to his ideas and without being able to
predict, in which he conceives and executes his plans surrounded by the hazard
of events. The uncertainty related to business profits turns especially on the
fact that it is dependent on the forms of consumption of the owners, the only
members of society who are independent—naturally independent, Cantillon
specified. Entrepreneurs are those who are capable of breaking ÉNONCÉ Énoncé,
from the Roman enuntiare to express, divulge; from ex out and nuntiare to make
known; a nuntius is a messenger, a nuncio, ranges over the same type of entity
as do proposition and phrase: it is a basic unit of syntax, the relevant
question being whether or not it is the bearer of truth values. An examination
of the differences among these entities, and the networks they constitute in
different languages especially in English: sentence, statement, utterance,
appears under PROPOSITION. V. also DICTUM and LOGOS, both of which may be
acceptably Tr. énoncé. Cf. PRINCIPLE,
SACHVERHALT, TRUTH, WORD especially WORD, Box
The essential feature of an énoncé is that it is considered to be a
singular occurrence and thus is paired with its énonciation: v. SPEECH ACT; cf.
ENGLISH, LANGUAGE, SENSE, SIGN, SIGNIFIER/SIGNIFIED, WITTICISM. v. DISCOURSE ENTREPRENEUR FR. ENG. adventurer, contractor, employer,
enterpriser, entrepreneur, manager, projector, undertaker, superintendent v. ACT, AGENCY, BERUF, ECONOMY, LIBERAL,
OIKONOMIA, PRAXIS, UTILITY. Refs.: G. J. Warnock, “English philosophy,” H. P.
Grice, “Gricese,” BANC.
Grice’s
handwave. A sort of handwave can mean in a one-off act of communication
something. It’s the example he uses. By a sort of handwave, the emissor
communicates either that he knows the route or that he is about to leave the
addressee. Handwave signals. Code. Cfr. the Beatles’s HELP. Explicatum: We need
some body – Implicatum: Not just Any Body.
Grice’s
myth. Grice refers to the social contract as a ‘myth,’ which may still explain,
as ‘meaning’ does. G. R. Grice built his career on this myth. This is G. R.
Grice, of the social-contract fame. Cf. Strawson and Wiggins comparing Grice’s
myth with Plato’s, and they know what they are talking about.
Grice’s
predicament. S draws a pic- "one-off predicament"). ...
Clarendon, 1976); and Simon
Blackburn, Spreading the Word (Oxford: Clarendon, 1984) ... But
there is an obvious way of emending the account, as Grice points out. ... Blackburn helpfully suggests
that we can cut through much of this complexity by ... The above account is
intended to capture the notion of one-off meaning. Walking in a forest, having gone some way
ahead of the rest of the party, I draw an arrow at a fork of a path, meaning
that those who are following me should go straight on. Gricean considerations may be safely ignored. Only when
trying to communicate by nonconventional means ("one-off predicament," Blackburn, 1984, chap. Blackburn's mission
is to promote the philosophy of language as a pivotal enquiry ... and
dismissed; the Gricean model
might be suitable to explain one-off acts.
The Gricean mechanism
with its complex communicative intentions has a clear point in what Blackburn calls “a one-off predicament” - a
situation in which an ...
Grice’s
shaggy-dog story: This is the story that Grice tells in his lecture. He uses a
‘shaggy-dog’ story to explain TWO main notions: that of ‘reference’ or
denotatio, and that of predicatio. He had explored that earlier when
discussing, giving an illustration “Smith is happy”, the idea of ‘value,’ as
correspondence, where he adds the terms for ‘denote’ and ‘predicatio,’ or
actually, ‘designatio’ and ‘indicatio’, need to be “explained within the
theory.” In the utterance ‘Smith is happy,’ the utterer DESIGNATES an item,
Smith. The utterer also INDICATES some class, ‘being happy.’ Grice introduces a
shorthand, ‘assign’, or ‘assignatio,’ previous to the value-satisfaction, to
involve both the ‘designatio’ and the ‘indicatio’. U assigns the item Smith to
the class ‘being happy.’ U’s intention involves A’s belief that U believes that
“the item belongs to the class, or that he ASSIGNS the item to the class. A
predicate, such as 'shaggy,' in my shaggy-dog story, is a part of a bottom-up,
or top-bottom, as I prefer, analysis of this or that sentences, and a
predicate, such as 'shaggy,' is the only indispensable 'part,' or 'element,' as
I prefer, since a predicate is the only 'pars orationis,' to use the old
phrase, that must appear in every sentence. In a later lecture
he ventures with ‘reference.’ Lewis and Short have “rĕferre,” rendered as “to
bear, carry, bring, draw, or give back,” in a “transf.” usage, they render as
“to make a reference, to refer (class.),” asa in “de rebus et obscuris et
incertis ad Apollinem censeo referendum; “ad quem etiam Athenienses publice de
majoribus rebus semper rettulerunt,” Cic. Div. 1, 54, 122.” While Grice uses
‘Fido,’ he could have used ‘Pegasus’ (Martin’s cat, as it happens) and apply
Quine’s adage: we could have appealed to the ex hypothesi unanalyzable,
irreducible attribute of being Pegasus, adopting, for its expression, the verb
'is-Pegasus', or 'pegasizes'. And Grice could have played with ‘predicatio’ and
‘subjectio.’ Grice on subject. Lewis and Short have “sūbĭcĭo,” (less correctly
subjĭcĭo ; post-Aug. sometimes sŭb- ), jēci, jectum, 3, v. a. sub-jacio. which they render as “to throw, lay, place,
or bring under or near (cf. subdo),” and in philosophy, “subjectum , i, n. (sc.
verbum), as “that which is spoken of, the foundation or subject of a
proposition;” “omne quicquid dicimus aut
subjectum est aut de subjecto aut in subjecto est. Subjectum est prima
substantia, quod ipsum nulli accidit alii inseparabiliter, etc.,” Mart. Cap. 4,
§ 361; App. Dogm. Plat. 3, p. 34, 4 et saep.—.” Note that for Mart. Cap. the
‘subject,’ unlike the ‘predicate’ is not a ‘syntactical category.’ “Subjectum
est prima substantia,” The subject is a prote ousia. As for correlation, Grice
ends up with a reductive analysis. By uttering utterance-token V, the utterer
U correlates predicate P1 with (and only with) each member of P2 ≡ (∃R)(∃R') (1) U effects that (∀x)(R P1x ≡
x ∈ P1) and (2) U
intends (1), and (3) U intends that (∀y)(R'
P1y ≡ y ∈
P1), where R' P1 is an expression-type such that utterance-token V is a
sequence consisting of an expression-token p1 of expression-type P1 and an
expression-token p2 of expression-type P2, the R-co-relatum of which is a
set of which y is a member. And he is back with ‘denotare. Lewis and Short have
“dēnŏtare,” which they render as “to mark, set a mark on, with chalk, color,
etc.: “pedes venalium creta,”
It is interesting to trace Grice’s earliest investigations on this. Grice and
Strawson stage a number of joint seminars on topics related to the notions of
meaning, categories, and logical form. Grice and Strawson engage in systematic
and unsystematic philosophical exploration. From these discussions springs work
on predication and categories, one or two reflections of which are acknowledge
at two places (re: the reductive analysis of a ‘particular,’ “the tallest man
that did, does, or will exist” --) in Strawson’s “Particular and general” for
The Aristotelian Society – and “visible” as Grice puts it, but not
acknowledged, in Strawson’s “Individuals: an essay in descriptive metaphysics.””
Grice’s
theory-theory: Grice’s
theory-theory: A theory of mind concerning how we come to know about the
propositional attitudes of others. It tries to explain the nature of ascribing
certain thoughts, beliefs, or intentions to other persons in order to explain
their actions. The theory-theory holds that in ascribing beliefs to others we
are tacitly applying a theory that enables us to make inferences about the
beliefs behind the actions of others. The theory that is applied is a set of
rules embedded in folk psychology. Hence, to anticipate and predict the
behavior of others, one engages in an intellectual process moving by inference from one set of beliefs
to another. This position contrasts with another theory of mind, the simulation
theory, which holds that we need to make use of our own motivational and
emotional resources and capacities for practical reasoning in explaining
actions of others. “So called ‘theory-theorists’ maintain that the ability to
explain and predict behaviour is underpinned by a folk-psychological theory of
the structure and functioning of the mind – where the theory in question may be
innate and modularised, learned individually, or acquired through a process of
enculturation.” Carruthers and Smith (eds.), Theories of Theories of Mind. Grice
needs a theory. For those into implicata and conversation as rational
cooperation, when introducing the implicatum he mentions ‘pre-theoretical
adequacy’ of the model. So he is thinking of the conversational theory as a
theory in the strict sense, with ‘explanatory’ and not merely taxonomical
power. So one task is to examine in which way the conversational theory is a
theory that explains, rather than merely ad hoc ex post facto commentary. Not so much for his approach to mean. He
polemises with Rountree, of Somerville, that you dont need a thory to analyse
mean. Indeed, you cannot have a theory to analyse mean, because mean is a
matter of intuition, not a theoretical concept. But Grice appeals to theory,
when dealing with willing. He knows what willing means because he relies on a
concept of folk-science. In this folk-science, willing is a theoretical
concept. Grice arrived at this conclusion by avoiding the adjective souly, and
seeing that there is no word to describe willing other than by saying it is a
psychoLOGICAL concept, i.e. part of a law within that theory of folk-science.
That law will include, by way of ramsified naming or describing willing as a
predicate-constant. Now, this is related to metaphysics. His liberal or
ecunmenical metaphysics is best developed in terms of his ontological marxism
presented just after he has expanded on this idea of willing as a theoretical
concept, within a law involving willing (say, Grices Optimism-cum-Pesimism
law), within the folk-science of psychology that explains his behaviour. For
Aristotle, a theoria, was quite a different animal, but it had to do with
contemplatio, hence the theoretical (vita contemplativa) versus the practical
(vita activa). Grices sticking to Aristotle’srare use of theory inspires him to
develop his fascinating theory of the theory-theory. Grice realised that there is no way to refer
to things like intending except with psychological, which he takes to mean,
belonging to a pscyhological theory. Grice was keen to theorise on
theorising. He thought that Aristotle’s first philosophy (prote
philosophia) is best rendered as Theory-theory. Grice kept using Oxonian
English spelling, theorising, except when he did not! Grice calls himself
folksy: his theories, even if Subjects to various types of Ramseyfication, are
popular in kind! And ceteris paribus! Metaphysical construction is
disciplined and the best theorising the philosopher can hope for! The way
Grice conceives of his theory-theory is interesting to revisit. A route by
which Grice hopes to show the centrality of metaphysics (as prote philosophia)
involves taking seriously a few ideas. If any region of enquiry is to be
successful as a rational enterprise, its deliverance must be
expressable in the shape of one or another of the possibly different types of
theory. A characterisation of the nature and range of a possible kind of
theory θ is needed. Such a body of characterisation must itself
be the outcome of rational enquiry, and so must itself exemplify
whatever requirement it lays down for any theory θ in
general. The characterisation must itself be
expressible as a theory θ, to be called, if you like, Grice
politely puts it, theory-theory, or meta-theory, θ2. Now, the
specification and justification of the ideas and material presupposed
by any theory θ, whether such account falls within the bounds of
Theory-theory, θ2 would be properly called prote philosophia (first
philosophy) and may turn out to relate to what is generally accepted as
belonging to the Subjects matter of metaphysics. It might, for example,
turn out to be establishable that any theory θ has to relate to a
certain range of this or that Subjects item, has to attribute to each item this
or that predicate or attribute, which in turn has to fall within one or another
of the range of types or categories. In this way, the enquiry might lead
to recognised metaphysical topics, such as the nature of being, its range of
application, the nature of predication and a systematic account of categories. Met.
, philosophical eschatology, and Platos Republic, Thrasymachus, social justice,
Socrates, along with notes on Zeno, and topics for pursuit, repr.in Part II,
Explorations in semantics and metaphysics to WOW , metaphysics,
philosophical eschatology, Platos Republic, Socrates, Thrasymachus, justice,
moral right, legal right, Athenian dialectic. Philosophical eschatology is a
sub-discipline of metaphysics concerned with what Grice calls a category shift.
Grice, having applied such a technique to Aristotle’s aporia on philos (friend)
as alter ego, uses it now to tackle Socratess view, against Thrasymachus, that
right applies primarily to morality, and secondarily to legality. Grice has a
specific reason to include this in his WOW Grices exegesis of Plato on justice
displays Grices take on the fact that metaphysics needs to be subdivided into
ontology proper and what he calls philosophical eschatology, for the study of
things like category shift and other construction routines. The exploration of
Platos Politeia thus becomes an application of Grices philosophically
eschatological approach to the item just, as used by Socrates (morally just)
and Thrasymachus (legally just). Grice has one specific essay on Aristotle in
PPQ. So he thought Plato merited his own essay, too! Grices focus is on Plato’s
exploration of dike. Grice is concerned with a neo-Socratic (versus
neo-Thrasymachean) account of moral justice as conceptually (or axiologically)
prior to legal justice. In the proceeding, he creates philosophical eschatology
as the other branch to metaphysics, along with good ol ontology. To say
that just crosses a categorial barrier (from the moral to the legal) is to make
a metaphysical, strictly eschatological, pronouncement. The Grice Papers locate
the Plato essay in s. II, the Socrates
essay in s. III, and the Thrasymachus
essay, under social justice, in s. V. Grice is well aware that in his account
of fairness, Rawls makes use of his ideas on personal identity. The
philosophical elucidation of fairness is of great concern for Grice. He had
been in touch with such explorations as Nozicks and Nagels along anti-Rawlsian
lines. Grices ideas on rationality guide his exploration of social justice.
Grice keeps revising the Socrates notes. The Plato essay he actually dates. As
it happens, Grices most extensive published account of Socrates is in this
commentary on Platos Republic: an eschatological commentary, as he puts it. In
an entertaining fashion, Grice has Socrates, and neo-Socrates, exploring the
logic and grammar of just against the attack by Thrasymachus and
neo-Thrasymachus. Grices point is that, while the legal just may be
conceptually prior to the moral just, the moral just is evaluationally or
axiologically prior. Refs.: There is a specific essay on ‘theorising’ in the Grice
Papers, but there are scattered sources elsewhere, such as “Method” (repr. in
“Conception”), BANC.
Grice’s three-year-old’s guide to
Russell’s theory of types. Grice put forward the empirical hypothesis that a
three-year old CAN understand Russell’s theory of types. “In more than one
way.” This brought confusion in the household, with some members saying they
could not – “And I trust few of your tutees do!” Russell’s influential solution
to the problem of logical paradoxes. The theory was developed in particular to
overcome Russell’s paradox, which seemed to destroy the possibility of Frege’s
logicist program of deriving mathematics from logic. Suppose we ask whether the
set of all sets which are not members of themselves is a member of itself. If
it is, then it is not, but if it is not, then it is. The theory of types
suggests classifying objects, properties, relations, and sets into a hierarchy
of types. For example, a class of type 0 has members that are ordinary objects;
type 1 has members that are properties of objects of type 0; type 2 has members
that are properties of the properties in type 1; and so on. What can be true or
false of items of one type can not significantly be said about those of another
type and is simply nonsense. If we observe the prohibitions against classes
containing members of different types, Russell’s paradox and similar paradoxes
can be avoided. The theory of types has two variants. The simple theory of
types classifies different objects and properties, while the ramified theory of
types further sorts types into levels and adds a hierarchy of levels to that of
types. By restricting predicates to those that relate to items of lower types
or lower levels within their own type, predicates giving rise to paradox are
excluded. The simple theory of types is sufficient for solving logical
paradoxes, while the ramified theory of type is introduced to solve semantic
paradoxes, that is, paradoxes depending on notions such as reference and truth.
“Any expression containing an apparent variable is of higher type than that
variable. This is the fundamental principles of the doctrines of types.”
Russell, Logic and Knowledge. Grice’s
commentary in “In defense of a dogma,” The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC.
gricism.
Gricese. At Oxford, it was usual to refer to Austin’s idiolect as Austinese. In
analogy with Grecism, we have a Gricism, a Griceian cliché. Cf. a ‘grice’ and
‘griceful’ in ‘philosopher’s lexicon.’ Gricese is a Latinism, from -ese,
word-forming element, from Old French -eis (Modern
French -ois, -ais),
from Vulgar Latin, from Latin -ensem, -ensis "belonging to" or
"originating in."
grecianism:
why was Grice obsessed with Socrates’s convesations? He does not say. But he
implicates it. For the Athenian dialecticians, it is all a matter of ta
legomena. Ditto for the Oxonian dialecticians. Ta legomena becomes ordinary
language. And the task of the philosopher is to provide reductive analysis of
this or that concept in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions. Cf.
Hospers. Grices review of the history of philosophy (Philosophy is but
footnotes to Zeno.). Grice enjoyed Zenos answer, What is a friend? Alter ego,
Allego. ("Only it was the other Zeno." Grice tried to apply the
Socratic method during his tutorials. "Nothing like a heartfelt dedication
to the Socratic art of mid-wifery, seeking to bring forth error and to strangle
it at birth.” μαιεύομαι (A.“μαῖα”), ‘to serve as a midwife, act a; “ἡ
Ἄρτεμις μ.” Luc. D Deor.26.2. 2. cause delivery to take place, “ἱκανὴ ἔκπληξις
μαιεύσασθαι πρὸ τῆς ὥρας” Philostr. VA1.5. 3. c. acc., bring to the birth,
Marin.Procl.6; ὄρνιθας μ. hatch chickens, Anon. ap. Suid.; αἰετὸν κάνθαρος
μαιεύσομαι, prov. of taking vengeance on a powerful enemy, Ar. Lys.695 (cf.
Sch.). 4. deliver a woman, esp. metaph. in Pl. of the Socratic method, Tht.
149b. II. Act., Poll. 4.208, Sch. OH.4.506. Pass., τὰ ὑπ᾽ ἐμοῦ μαιευθέντα
brought into the world by me, Pl. Tht. 150e, cf. Philostr.VA5.13. Refs.: the
obvious references are Grice’s allusions to Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, Zeno,
The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC.
Hampshire.
Cited by Grice as a member of the play group. Hampshire would dine once a week
with Grice. He would discuss and find very amusing to discuss with Grice on
post-war Oxford philosophy. Unlike Grice, Hampshire attended Austin’s Thursday
evening meetings at All Souls. Grice wrote “Intention and uncertainty” in part
as a response to Hampshire and Hart, Intention and certainty. But Grice brought
the issue back to an earlier generation, to a polemic between Stout (who held a
certainty-based view) and Prichard.
hazzing:
under conjunctum, we see that the terminology is varied. There is the
copulatum. But Grice prefers to restrict to use of the copulatum to izzing and
hazzing. Oddly Grice sees hazzing as a predicate which he formalizes as Hxy. To
be read x hazzes y, although sometimes he uses ‘x hazz y.’ Vide ‘accidentia.’
For Grice the role of métier is basic since it shows finality in nature. Homo
sapiens, qua pirot, is to be rational.
hint
hinting. Don’t expect Cicero used this. It’s Germanic and related to ‘hunt,’ to
‘seize.’ As if you throw something in the air, and expect your recipient will
seize it. Grice spends quite a long section in “Retrospective epilogue” to
elucidate “Emissor E communicates that p via a hint,” versus “Emissor E
communicates that p via a suggestion.” Some level of explicitness (vide
candour) is necessary. If it is too obscure it cannot be held to have been
‘communicated’ in the first place! Cf. Holdcroft, “Some forms of indirect
communication” for the Journal of Rhetoric. Grice had to do a bit of linguistic
botany for his “E implicates that p”: To do duty for ‘imply,’ suggest,
indicate, hint, mean, -- “etc.” indirectly or implicitly convey.
heterological:
Grice and Thomson go heterological. Grice was fascinated by Baron
Russell’s remarks on heterological and its implicate. Grice is particularly
interested in Russell’s philosophy because of the usual Oxonian antipathy
towards his type of philosophising. Being an irreverent conservative
rationalist, Grice found in Russell a good point for dissent! If paradoxes
were always sets of propositions or arguments or conclusions, they would always
be meaningful. But some paradoxes are semantically flawed and some have
answers that are backed by a pseudo-argument employing a defective lemma that
lacks a truth-value. Grellings paradox, for instance, opens with a
distinction between autological and heterological words. An autological
word describes itself, e.g., polysyllabic is polysllabic, English is English,
noun is a noun, etc. A heterological word does not describe itself, e.g.,
monosyllabic is not monosyllabic, Chinese is not Chinese, verb is not a verb,
etc. Now for the riddle: Is heterological heterological or
autological? If heterological is heterological, since it describes itself,
it is autological. But if heterological is autological, since it is a word
that does not describe itself, it is heterological. The common solution to
this puzzle is that heterological, as defined by Grelling, is not what Grice a
genuine predicate ‒ Gricing is!In other words, Is heterological
heterological? is without meaning. That does not mean that an utterer, such as
Baron Russell, may implicate that he is being very witty by uttering the Grelling
paradox! There can be no predicate that applies to all and only those
predicates it does not apply to for the same reason that there can be no barber
who shaves all and only those people who do not shave themselves. Grice
seems to be relying on his friend at Christ Church, Thomson in On Some
Paradoxes, in the same volume where Grice published his Remarks about the
senses, Analytical Philosophy, Butler (ed.), Blackwell, Oxford,
104–119. Grice thought that Thomson was a genius, if ever there is one!
Plus, Grice thought that, after St. Johns, Christ Church was the second most
beautiful venue in the city of dreaming spires. On top, it is what makes Oxford
a city, and not, as villagers call it, a town. Refs.: the main source is
Grice’s essay on ‘heterologicality,’ but the keyword ‘paradox’ is useful, too,
especially as applied to Grice’s own paradox and to what, after Moore, Grice
refers to as the philosopher’s paradoxes. The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC.
Hobson’s choice: willkür –
Hobson’s choice. One of Grice’s favourite words from Kant – “It’s so Kantish!”
I told Pears about this, and having found it’s cognate with English ‘choose,’
he immediately set to write an essay on the topic!” f., ‘option, discretion,
caprice,’ from MidHG. willekür,
f., ‘free choice, free will’; gee kiesen and Kur-kiesen, verb, ‘to select,’ from Middle High German kiesen, Old High German chiosan, ‘to test, try, taste for the
purpose of testing, test by tasting, select after strict examination.’
Gothic kiusan,
Anglo-Saxon ceósan,
English to choose.
Teutonic root kus (with
the change of s into r, kur in the participle erkoren, see also Kur, ‘choice’), from
pre-Teutonic gus, in
Latin gus-tus, gus-tare, Greek γεύω for γεύσω, Indian root juš, ‘to select, be fond of.’
Teutonic kausjun passed
as kusiti into
Slavonic. There is an oil portrait of Thomas Hobson, in the National Portrait
Gallery, London. He looks straight to the artist and is dressed in typical
Tudor dress, with a heavy coat, a ruff, and tie tails Thomas Hobson, a portrait
in the National Portrait Gallery, London. A Hobson's choice is a free choice in
which only one thing is offered. Because a person may refuse to accept what is
offered, the two options are taking it or taking nothing. In other words, one
may "take it or leave it". The
phrase is said to have originated with Thomas Hobson (1544–1631), a livery
stable owner in Cambridge, England, who offered customers the choice of either
taking the horse in his stall nearest to the door or taking none at all. According
to a plaque underneath a painting of Hobson donated to Cambridge Guildhall,
Hobson had an extensive stable of some 40 horses. This gave the appearance to
his customers that, upon entry, they would have their choice of mounts, when in
fact there was only one: Hobson required his customers to choose the horse in
the stall closest to the door. This was to prevent the best horses from always
being chosen, which would have caused those horses to become overused.[1]
Hobson's stable was located on land that is now owned by St Catharine's
College, Cambridge. Early appearances in
writing According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first known written
usage of this phrase is in The rustick's alarm to the Rabbies, written by
Samuel Fisher in 1660:[3] If in this
Case there be no other (as the Proverb is) then Hobson's choice...which is,
chuse whether you will have this or none.
It also appears in Joseph Addison's paper The Spectator (No. 509 of 14
October 1712); and in Thomas Ward's 1688 poem "England's
Reformation", not published until after Ward's death. Ward wrote: Where to elect there is but one, 'Tis
Hobson's choice—take that, or none. The term "Hobson's choice" is
often used to mean an illusion of choice, but it is not a choice between two
equivalent options, which is a Morton's fork, nor is it a choice between two
undesirable options, which is a dilemma. Hobson's choice is one between
something or nothing. John Stuart Mill, in
his book Considerations on Representative Government, refers to Hobson's
choice: When the individuals composing
the majority would no longer be reduced to Hobson's choice, of either voting
for the person brought forward by their local leaders, or not voting at all. In
another of his books, The Subjection of Women, Mill discusses marriage: Those who attempt to force women into
marriage by closing all other doors against them, lay themselves open to a
similar retort. If they mean what they say, their opinion must evidently be,
that men do not render the married condition so desirable to women, as to
induce them to accept it for its own recommendations. It is not a sign of one's
thinking the boon one offers very attractive, when one allows only Hobson's choice,
'that or none'.... And if men are determined that the law of marriage shall be
a law of despotism, they are quite right in point of mere policy, in leaving to
women only Hobson's choice. But, in that case, all that has been done in the
modern world to relax the chain on the minds of women, has been a mistake. They
should have never been allowed to receive a literary education.[7] A Hobson's choice is different from: Dilemma: a choice between two or more
options, none of which is attractive. False dilemma: only certain choices are
considered, when in fact there are others. Catch-22: a logical paradox arising
from a situation in which an individual needs something that can only be
acquired by not being in that very situation. Morton's fork, and a double bind:
choices yield equivalent, and often undesirable, results. Blackmail and
extortion: the choice between paying money (or some non-monetary good or deed)
or risk suffering an unpleasant action. A common error is to use the phrase
"Hobbesian choice" instead of "Hobson's choice", confusing
the philosopher Thomas Hobbes with the relatively obscure Thomas
Hobson[8][9][10] (It's possible they may be confusing "Hobson's
choice" with "Hobbesian trap", which refers to the trap into
which a state falls when it attacks another out of fear).[11] Notwithstanding
that confused usage, the phrase "Hobbesian choice" is historically
incorrect.[12][13][14] Common law In
Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Chadha (1983), Justice Byron White
dissented and classified the majority's decision to strike down the
"one-house veto" as unconstitutional as leaving Congress with a
Hobson's choice. Congress may choose between "refrain[ing] from delegating
the necessary authority, leaving itself with a hopeless task of writing laws
with the requisite specificity to cover endless special circumstances across
the entire policy landscape, or in the alternative, to abdicate its lawmaking
function to the executive branch and independent agency". In Philadelphia v. New Jersey, 437 U.S. 617
(1978),[15] the majority opinion ruled that a New Jersey law which prohibited
the importation of solid or liquid waste from other states into New Jersey was
unconstitutional based on the Commerce Clause. The majority reasoned that New
Jersey cannot discriminate between the intrastate waste and the interstate
waste with out due justification. In dissent, Justice Rehnquist stated: [According to the Court,] New Jersey must
either prohibit all landfill operations, leaving itself to cast about for a
presently nonexistent solution to the serious problem of disposing of the waste
generated within its own borders, or it must accept waste from every portion of
the United States, thereby multiplying the health and safety problems which
would result if it dealt only with such wastes generated within the State.
Because past precedents establish that the Commerce Clause does not present
appellees with such a Hobson's choice, I dissent. In Monell v. Department of Social Services of
the City of New York, 436 U.S. 658 (1978)[16] the judgement of the court was
that [T]here was ample support for
Blair's view that the Sherman Amendment, by putting municipalities to the
Hobson's choice of keeping the peace or paying civil damages, attempted to
impose obligations to municipalities by indirection that could not be imposed
directly, thereby threatening to "destroy the government of the
states". In the South African
Constitutional Case MEC for Education, Kwa-Zulu Natal and Others v Pillay, 2008
(1) SA 474 (CC)[17] Chief Justice Langa for the majority of the Court (in
Paragraph 62 of the judgement) writes that:
The traditional basis for invalidating laws that prohibit the exercise
of an obligatory religious practice is that it confronts the adherents with a
Hobson's choice between observance of their faith and adherence to the law.
There is however more to the protection of religious and cultural practices
than saving believers from hard choices. As stated above, religious and
cultural practices are protected because they are central to human identity and
hence to human dignity which is in turn central to equality. Are voluntary
practices any less a part of a person's identity or do they affect human
dignity any less seriously because they are not mandatory? In Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis (2018),
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented and added in one of the footnotes that
the petitioners "faced a Hobson’s choice: accept arbitration on their
employer’s terms or give up their jobs".
In Trump et al v. Mazars USA, LLP, US Court of Appeals for the District
of Columbia No. 19-5142, 49 (D.C. Cir. 11 October 2019) ("[w]orse still,
the dissent’s novel approach would now impose upon the courts the job of
ordering the cessation of the legislative function and putting Congress to the
Hobson’s Choice of impeachment or nothing."). Popular culture Hobson's Choice is a
full-length stage comedy written by Harold Brighouse in 1915. At the end of the
play, the central character, Henry Horatio Hobson, formerly a wealthy,
self-made businessman but now a sick and broken man, faces the unpalatable
prospect of being looked after by his daughter Maggie and her husband Will
Mossop, who used to be one of Hobson's underlings. His other daughters have
refused to take him in, so he has no choice but to accept Maggie's offer which
comes with the condition that he must surrender control of his entire business
to her and her husband, Will. The play
was adapted for film several times, including versions from 1920 by Percy Nash,
1931 by Thomas Bentley, 1954 by David Lean and a 1983 TV movie. Alfred Bester's 1952 short story Hobson's
Choice describes a world in which time travel is possible, and the option is to
travel or to stay in one's native time.
In the 1951 Robert Heinlein book Between Planets, the main character Don
Harvey incorrectly mentions he has a Hobson's choice. While on a space station
orbiting Earth, Don needs to get to Mars, where his parents are. The only
rockets available are back to Earth (where he is not welcome) or on to Venus. In The Grim Grotto by Lemony Snicket, the
Baudelaire orphans and Fiona are said to be faced with a Hobson's Choice when
they are trapped by the Medusoid Mycelium Mushrooms in the Gorgonian Grotto:
"We can wait until the mushrooms disappear, or we can find ourselves poisoned".In
Bram Stoker's short story "The Burial of Rats", the narrator advises
he has a case of Hobson's Choice while being chased by villains. The story was
written around 1874. The Terminal
Experiment, a 1995 science fiction novel by Robert J. Sawyer, was originally
serialised under the title Hobson's Choice.
Half-Life, a video game created in 1998 by Valve includes a Hobson's
Choice in the final chapter. A human-like entity, known only as the 'G-Man',
offers the protagonist Gordon Freeman a job, working under his control. If
Gordon were to refuse this offer, he would be killed in an unwinnable battle,
thus creating the 'illusion of free choice'.
In Early Edition, the lead character Gary Hobson is named after the choices
he regularly makes during his adventures.
In an episode of Inspector George Gently, a character claims her
resignation was a Hobson's choice, prompting a debate among other police
officers as to who Hobson is. In
"Cape May" (The Blacklist season 3, episode 19), Raymond Reddington
describes having faced a Hobson's choice in the previous episode where he was
faced with the choice of saving Elizabeth Keen's baby and losing Elizabeth Keen
or losing them both. In his 1984 novel
Job: A Comedy of Justice, Robert A. Heinlein's protagonist is said to have
Hobson's Choice when he has the options of boarding the wrong cruise ship or
staying on the island. Remarking about
the 1909 Ford Model T, US industrialist Henry Ford is credited as saying “Any
customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is
black”[19] In 'The Jolly Boys' Outing',
a 1989 Christmas Special episode of Only Fools and Horses, Alan states they are
left with Hobson's Choice after their coach has blown up (due to a dodgy radio,
supplied by Del). There's a rail strike, the last bus has gone, and their coach
is out of action. They can't hitch-hike as there's 27 of them, and the
replacement coach doesn't come till the next morning, thus their only choice is
to stay in Margate for the night. See
also Buckley's Chance Buridan's ass Boulwarism Death and Taxes Locus of control
Morton's fork No-win situation Standard form contract Sophie's Choice Zugzwang
References Barrett, Grant.
"Hobson's Choice", A Way with Words
"Thomas Hobson: Hobson's Choice and Hobson's Conduit".
Historyworks. See Samuel Fisher.
"Rusticus ad academicos in exercitationibus expostulatoriis, apologeticis
quatuor the rustick's alarm to the rabbies or The country correcting the
university and clergy, and ... contesting for the truth ... : in four
apologeticall and expostulatory exercitations : wherein is contained, as well a
general account to all enquirers, as a general answer to all opposers of the
most truly catholike and most truly Christ-like Chistians called Quakers, and
of the true divinity of their doctrine : by way of entire entercourse held in
special with four of the clergies chieftanes, viz, John Owen ... Tho. Danson
... John Tombes ... Rich. Baxter ." Europeana. Retrieved 8 August
2014. See The Spectator with Notes and
General Index, the Twelve Volumes Comprised in Two. Philadelphia: J.J.
Woodward. 1832. p. 272. Retrieved 4 August 2014. via Google Books Ward, Thomas (1853). English Reformation, A
Poem. New York: D.& J. Sadlier & Co. p. 373. Retrieved 8 August 2014.
via Internet Archive See Mill, John
Stuart (1861). Considerations on Representative Government (1 ed.). London:
Parker, Son, & Bourn. p. 145. Retrieved 23 June 2014. via Google Books Mill, John Stuart (1869). The Subjection of
Women (1869 first ed.). London: Longmans, Green, Reader & Dyer. pp. 51–2.
Retrieved 28 July 2014. Hobbes, Thomas
(1982) [1651]. Leviathan, or the Matter, Form, and Power of a Commonwealth,
Ecclesiastical and Civil. New York: Viking Press. Martinich, A. P. (1999). Hobbes: A Biography.
Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN
978-0-521-49583-7. Martin, Gary.
"Hobson's Choice". The Phrase Finder. Archived from the original on 6
March 2009. Retrieved 7 August 2010.
"The Hobbesian Trap" (PDF). 21 September 2010. Retrieved 8
April 2012. "Sunday
Lexico-Neuroticism". boaltalk.blogspot.com. 27 July 2008. Retrieved 7
August 2010. Levy, Jacob (10 June 2003).
"The Volokh Conspiracy". volokh.com. Retrieved 7 August 2010. Oxford English Dictionary, Editor:
"Amazingly, some writers have confused the obscure Thomas Hobson with his
famous contemporary, the philosopher Thomas Hobbes. The resulting malapropism
is beautifully grotesque". Garner, Bryan (1995). A Dictionary of Modern
Legal Usage (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. pp. 404–405. https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/437/617/ "Monell v. Department of Soc. Svcs. -
436 U.S. 658 (1978)". justicia.com. US Supreme Court. 6 June 1978. 436
U.S. 658. Retrieved 19 February 2014.
"MEC for Education: Kwazulu-Natal and Others v Pillay (CCT 51/06)
[2007] ZACC 21; 2008 (1) SA 474 (CC); 2008 (2) BCLR 99 (CC) (5 October
2007)". www.saflii.org. Snicket,
Lemony (2004) The Grim Grotto, New York: HarperCollins Publishers p.145 - 147 Henry Ford in collaboration with Samuel
Crowther in My Life and Work. 1922. Page 72 External links Chisholm, Hugh, ed.
(1911). "Hobson's Choice" . Encyclopædia Britannica. 13 (11th ed.).
Cambridge University Press. p. 553. Categories: English-language idiomsFree
willMetaphors referring to peopleDilemmas. Refs.: H. P. Grice and D. F. Pears,
The philosophy of action, Pears, Choosing and deciding. The H. P. Grice Papers,
BANC.
I:
particularis dedicativa.. See Grice, “Circling the Square of Opposition.
Ichthyological
necessity: topic-neutral: Originally, Ryle’s
term for logical constants, such as “of ” “not,” “every.” They are not endowed
with special meanings, and are applicable to discourse about any
subject-matter. They do not refer to any external object but function to
organize meaningful discourse. J. J. C. Smart calls a term topic-neutral if it
is noncommittal about designating something mental or something physical.
Instead, it simply describes an event without judging the question of its
intrinsic nature. In his central-state theory of mind, Smart develops a topic-neutral
analysis of mental expressions and argues that it is possible to account for
the situations described by mental concepts in purely physical and
topic-neutral terms. “In this respect, statements like ‘I am thinking now’ are,
as J. J. C. Smart puts it, topic-neutral. They say that something is going on
within us, something apt for the causing of certain sorts of behaviour, but
they say nothing of the nature of this process.” D. Armstrong, A Materialist
Theory of the Mind
ideationalism.
Alston calls Grice an ideationalist, and Grice takes it as a term of abuse. Grice
would occasionally use ‘mental.’ Short and Lewis have "mens.” “terra corpus
est, at mentis ignis est;” so too, “istic est de sole sumptus; isque totus
mentis est;” f. from the root ‘men,’ whence
‘memini,’ and ‘comminiscor.’ Lewis and
Short render ‘mens’ as ‘the mind, disposition; the heart, soul.’ Lewis and
Short have ‘commĭniscor,’ originally conminiscor ), mentus, from ‘miniscor,’ whence
also ‘reminiscor,’ stem ‘men,’ whence ‘mens’ and ‘memini,’ cf. Varro, Lingua Latina 6, § 44. Lewis and
Short render the verb as, literally, ‘to ponder carefully, to reflect upon;’ ‘hence,
as a result of reflection; cf. 1. commentor, II.), to devise something by
careful thought, to contrive, invent, feign. Myro is perhaps unaware of the
implicata of ‘mental’ when he qualifies his -ism with ‘modest.’ Grice would
seldom use mind (Grecian nous) or mental (Grecian noetikos vs. æsthetikos). His
sympathies go for more over-arching Grecian terms like the very Aristotelian
soul, the anima, i. e. the psyche and the psychological. Grice discusses G.
Myro’s essay, ‘In defence of a modal mentalism,’ with attending commentary by
R. Albritton and S. Cavell. Grice himself would hardly use mental, mentalist,
or mentalism himself, but perhaps psychologism. Grice would use mental, on
occasion, but his Grecianism was deeply rooted, unlike Myro’s. At Clifton and
under Hardie (let us recall he came up to Oxford under a classics scholarship
to enrol in the Lit. Hum.) he knows that mental translates mentalis translates
nous, only ONE part, one third, actually, of the soul, and even then it may not
include the ‘practical rational’ one! Cf. below on ‘telementational.’ Refs.:
The reference to mentalism in the essay on ‘modest mentalism,’ after Myro, in
The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC.
ideatum.
Quite used by Grice. Cf. Conceptum. Sub-perceptual.
idem
A key
philosophical notion that encompasses linguistic, logic, and metaphysical
issues, and also epistemology. Possibly the central question in philosophy.
Vide the principle of ‘identity.’ amicus est tamquam alter idem,” a second self, Identicum. Grecian ‘tautotes.’ late L. identitās (Martianus
Capella, c425), peculiarly formed from ident(i)-, for L. idem ‘same’ + -tās,
-tātem: see -ty. Various suggestions have been offered as to the
formation. Need was evidently felt of a noun of condition or quality from
idem to express the notion of ‘sameness’, side by side with those of ‘likeness’
and ‘oneness’ expressed by similitās and ūnitās: hence the form of the
suffix. But idem had no combining stem. Some have thought that
ident(i)- was taken from the L. adv. "identidem" ‘over and over
again, repeatedly’, connexion with which appears to be suggested by Du Cange's
explanation of identitās as ‘quævis actio repetita’. Meyer-Lübke suggests
that in the formation there was present some association between idem and id
ens ‘that being’, whence "identitās" like "entitās." But
assimilation to "entitās" may have been merely to avoid the solecism
of *idemitās or *idemtās. sameness. However originated,
"ident(i)-" (either from adverb "identidem" or an assimilation
of "id ens," "id ens," that being, "id entitas"
"that entity") became the combining stem of idem, and the series
ūnitās, ūnicus, ūnificus, ūnificāre, was paralleled by identitās, identicus,
identificus, identificāre: see identic, identific, identify above.] to
OED 3rd: identity, n. Pronunciation: Brit./ʌɪˈdɛntᵻti/ , U.S.
/aɪˈdɛn(t)ədi/ Forms: 15 idemptitie, 15 ydemptyte, 15–16 identitie, 15–
identity, 16 idemptity. Etymology: < Middle French identité, ydemtité,
ydemptité, ydentité (French identité) quality or condition of being the same
(a1310; 1756 in sense ‘individuality, personality’, 1801 in sense ‘distinct
impression of a single person or thing presented to or perceived by others’)
and its etymon post-classical Latin identitat-, identitas quality of
being the same (4th cent.), condition or fact that a person or thing is itself
and not something else (8th cent. in a British source), fact of being the same
(from 12th cent. in British sources), continual sameness, lack of variety,
monotony (from 12th cent. in British sources; 14th cent. in a continental
source) < classical Latin idem same (see idem n.) + -tās (see -ty
suffix1) [sameness], after post-classical Latin essentitas ‘being’ (4th
cent.).The Latin word was formed to provide a translation equivalent for
ancient Greek ταὐτότης (tautotes) identity. identity: identity was a key
concept for Grice. Under identity, he views both identity simpliciter and
personal identity. Grice advocates psychological or soul criterianism.
Psychological or soul criterianism has been advocated, in one form or another,
by philosophers such as Locke, Butler, Duncan-Jones, Berkeley, Gallie, Grice,
Flew, Haugeland, Jones, Perry, Shoemaker and Parfit, and Quinton. What all
of these theories have in common is the idea that, even if it is the case that
some kind of physical states are necessary for being a person, it is the unity
of consciousness which is of decisive importance for personal identity over
time. In this sense, person is a term which picks out a psychological, or
mental, "thing". In claiming this, all Psychological Criterianists
entail the view that personal identity consists in the continuity of
psychological features. It is interesting that Flew has an earlier
"Selves," earlier than his essay on Locke on personal identity. The
first, for Mind, criticising Jones, "The self in sensory cognition";
the second for Philosophy. Surely under the tutelage of Grice. Cf. Jones,
Selves: A reply to Flew, Philosophy. The stronger thesis asserts
that there is no conceivable situation in which bodily identity would be necessary,
some other conditions being always both necessary and sufficient. Grice takes
it that Locke’s theory (II, 27) is an example of this latter type. To say
"Grice remembers that he heard a noise", without irony or
inverted commas, is to imply that Grice did hear a noise. In this respect
remember is like, know, a factive. It does not follow from this, nor is it
true, that each claim to remember, any more than each claim to know, is alethic
or veridical; or, not everything one seems to remember is something one really
remembers. So much is obvious, although Locke -- although admittedly
referring only to the memory of actions, section 13 -- is forced to invoke
the providence of God to deny the latter. These points have been emphasised by
Flew in his discussion of Locke’s views on personal identity. In formulating
Locke’ thesis, however, Flew makes a mistake; for he offers Lockes thesis in
the form if Grice can remember Hardies doing such-and-such, Grice and Hardie
are the same person. But this obviously will not do, even for Locke, for we
constantly say things like I remember my brother Derek joining the army without
implying that I and my brother are the same person. So if we are to formulate
such a criterion, it looks as though we have to say something like the
following. If Derek Grice remembers joining my, he is the person who did that
thing. But since remembers doing means remembers himself doing, this is
trivially tautologous, and moreover lends colour to Butlers famous objection
that memory, so far from constituting personal identity, presupposes
it. As Butler puts it, one should really think it self-evident that
consciousness of personal identity presupposes, and therefore cannot
constitute, personal identity; any more than knowledge, in any other case, can
constitute truth, which it presupposes. Butler then asserts that Locke’s
misstep stems from his methodology. This wonderful mistake may possibly have
arisen from hence; that to be endued with consciousness is inseparable from the
idea of a person, or intelligent being. For this might be expressed
inaccurately thus, that consciousness makes personality: and from hence it
might be concluded to make personal identity. One of the points that Locke
emphasizes—that persistence conditions are determined via defining kind
terms—is what, according to Butler, leads Locke astray. Butler
additionally makes the point that memory is not required for personal
persistence. But though present consciousness of what we at present do and feel
is necessary to our being the persons we now are; yet present consciousness of
past actions or feelings is not necessary to our being the same persons who
performed those actions, or had those feelings. This is a point that others
develop when they assert that Lockes view results in contradiction. Hence
the criterion should rather run as follows. If Derek Grice claims to remember
joining the army. We must then ask how such a criterion might be
used. Grices example is: I remember I smelled a smell. He needs two
experiences to use same. I heard a noise and I smelled a smell.The singular
defines the hearing of a noise is the object of some consciousness. The pair
defines, "The hearing of a noise and the smelling of a smell are objects
of the same -- cognate with self as in I hurt me self, -- consciousness. The
standard form of an identity question is Is this x the same x as that x
which E and in the simpler situation we are at least presented with just
the materials for constructing such a question; but in the more complicated
situation we are baffled even in asking the question, since both the
transformed persons are equally good candidates for being its Subjects, and the
question Are these two xs the same (x?) as the x which E is not a recognizable
form of identity question. Thus, it might be argued, the fact that we could not
speak of identity in the latter situation is no kind of proof that we could not
do so in the former. Certainly it is not a proof, as Strawson points out to
Grice. This is not to say that they are identical at all. The only case in
which identity and exact similarity could be distinguished, as we have just
seen, is that of the body, same body and exactly similar body really do mark a
difference. Thus one may claim that the omission of the body takes away all
content from the idea of personal identity, as Pears pointed out to
Grice. Leaving aside memory, which only partially applies to the case,
character and attainments are quite clearly general things. Joness character
is, in a sense, a particular; just because Jones’s character refers to the
instantiation of certain properties by a particular (and bodily) man, as
Strawson points out to Grice (Particular and general). If in ‘Negation and
privation,’ Grice tackles Aristotle, he now tackles Locke. Indeed, seeing that
Grice went years later to the topic as motivated by, of all people, Haugeland,
rather than perhaps the more academic milieu that Perry offers, Grice became
obsessed with Hume’s sceptical doubts! Hume writes in the Appendix that when he
turns his reflection on himself, Hume never can perceive this self without
some one or more perceptions. Nor can Hume ever perceive any
thing but the perceptions. It is the composition of these, therefore,
which forms the self, Hume thinks. Hume grants that one can conceive a thinking
being to have either many or few perceptions. Suppose, says Hume, the mind to
be reduced even below the life of an oyster. Suppose the oyster to have only
one perception, as of thirst or hunger. Consider the oyster in that situation.
Does the oyster conceive any thing but merely that perception? Has the oyster
any notion of, to use Gallies pretentious Aristotelian jargon, self or
substance? If not, the addition of this or other perception can never give
the oyster that notion. The annihilation, which this or that philosopher,
including Grices first post-war tutee, Flew, supposes to follow upon
death, and which entirely destroys the oysters self, is nothing but
an extinction of all particular perceptions; love and hatred, pain
and pleasure, thought and sensation. These therefore must be the same with
self; since the one cannot survive the other. Is self the same with
substance? If it be, how can that question have place, concerning the
subsistence of self, under a change of substance? If they be distinct,
what is the difference betwixt them? For his part, Hume claims, he has a notion
of neither, when conceived distinct from this or that particular
perception. However extraordinary Hume’s conclusion may
seem, it need not surprise us. Most philosophers, such as
Locke, seems inclined to think, that personal identity arises
from consciousness. But consciousness is nothing but a reflected
thought or perception, Hume suggests. This is Grices quandary about personal
identity and its implicata. Some philosophers have taken Grice as trying to
provide an exegesis of Locke. However, their approaches surely differ. What
works for Grice may not work for Locke. For Grice it is analytically true that
it is not the case that Person1 and Person may have the
same experience. Grice explicitly states that he thinks that his
logical-construction theory is a modification of Locke’s theory. Grice does not
seem terribly interested to find why it may not, even if the York-based Locke
Society might! Rather than introjecting into Lockes shoes, Grices strategy
seems to dismiss Locke, shoes and all. Specifically, it not clear to Grice what
Lockes answer in the Essay would be to Grices question about this or that I
utterance that he sets his analysis with. Admittedly, Grice does quote, albeit
briefly, directly from Lockes Essay. As far as any intelligent being can repeat
the idea of any past action with the same consciousness it had of it at first,
and with the same consciousness it has of any present action, Locke claims, so
far the being is the same personal self. Grice tackles Lockes claim with four
objections. These are important to consider since Grice sees as improving on
Locke. A first objection concerns icircularity, with which Grice easily
disposes by following Hume and appealing to the experience of memory or
introspection. A second objection is Reid’s alleged counterexample about the
long-term memory of the admiral who cannot remember that he was flogged as a
boy. Grice dismisses this as involving too long-term of a memory. A third
objection concerns Locke’s vagueness about the aboutness of consciousness,
a point made by Hume in the Appendix. A fourth objection concerns again
circularity, this time in Locke’s use of same in the definiens ‒ cf. Wiggins,
Sameness and substance. It’s extraordinary that Wiggins is philosophising on
anything Griceian. Grice is concerned with the implicatum involved in the use
of the first person singular. I will be fighting soon. Grice means in body and
soul. The utterance also indicates that this is Grices pre-war days at Oxford.
No wonder his choice of an example. What else could he have in his soul? The
topic of personal identity, which label Hume and Austin found pretentious, and
preferred to talk about the illocutionary force of I, has a special Oxonian
pedigree, perhaps as motivated by Humes challenge, that Grice has occasion to
study and explore for his M. A. Lit. Hum. with Locke’s Essay as mandatory
reading. Locke, a philosopher with whom Oxford identifies most, infamously
defends this memory-based account of I. Up in Scotland, Reid reads it and
concocts this alleged counter-example. Hume, or Home, if you must, enjoys it.
In fact, while in the Mind essay he is not too specific about Hume, Grice will,
due mainly to his joint investigations with Haugeland, approach, introjecting
into the shoes of Hume ‒ who is idolised in The New World ‒ in ways he does not
introject into Lockes. But Grices quandary is Hume’s quandary, too. In his own
approach to I, the Cartesian ego, made transcendental and apperceptive by Kant,
Grice updates the time-honoured empiricist mnemonic analysis by Locke. The
first update is in style. Grice embraces, as he does with negation, a logical
construction, alla Russell, via Broad, of this or that “I” (first-person) utterance,
ending up with an analysis of a “someone,” third-person, less informative,
utterance. Grices immediate source is Gallie’s essay on self and substance in
Mind. Mind is still a review of psychology and philosophy, so poor Grice has
not much choice. In fact, Grice is being heterodoxical or heretic enough to use
Broad’s taxonomy, straight from the other place of I utterances. The
logical-construction theory is a third proposal, next to the Bradleyian
idealist pure-ego theory and the misleading covert-description theory.
Grice deals with the Reids alleged counterexample of the brave
officer. Suppose, Reid says, and Grice quotes verbatim, a brave officer to
have been flogged when a boy at school, for robbing an orchard, to have taken a
standard from the enemy in his first campaign, and to have been made a general
in advanced life. Suppose also, which must be admitted to be possible, that
when he2 took the standard, he2 was conscious
of his having been flogged at school, and that, when made a general, he3 was
conscious of his2 taking the standard, but had absolutely lost
the consciousness of his1 flogging. These things being supposed, it follows,
from Lockes doctrine, that he1 who is flogged at school is the same person as
him2 who later takes the standard, and that he2 who
later takes the standard is the same person as him3 who is
still later made a general. When it follows, if there be any truth in logic,
that the general is the same person with him1 who is flogged at
school. But the general’s consciousness does emphatically not reach so far back
as his1 flogging. Therefore, according to Locke’s doctrine, he3 is
emphatically not the same person as him1 who is flogged. Therefore, we can say
about the general that he3 is, and at the same time, that he3 is
not the same person as him1 who was flogged at
school. Grice, wholl later add a temporal suffix to =t yielding, by
transitivity. The flogged boy =t1 the brave officer. And the
brave officer =t2 the admiral. But the admiral ≠t3 the
flogged boy. In Mind, Grice tackles the basic analysans, and comes up with a
rather elaborate analysans for a simple I or Someone statement. Grice just
turns to a generic affirmative variant of the utterance he had used in
Negation. It is now someone, viz. I, who hears that the bell tolls. It is the
affirmative counterpart of the focus of his earlier essay on negation, I do not
hear that the bell tolls. Grice dismisses what, in the other place, was
referred to as privileged-access, and the indexicality of I, an approach that
will be made popular by Perry, who however reprints Grices essay in his
influential collection for the University of California Press. By allowing for
someone, viz. I, Grice seems to be relying on a piece of reasoning which hell
later, in his first Locke lecture, refer to as too good. I hear that the bell
tolls; therefore, someone hears that the bell tolls. Grice attempts to reduce
this or that I utterance (Someone, viz. I, hears that the bell tolls) is in
terms of a chain or sequence of mnemonic states. It poses a few quandaries
itself. While quoting from this or that recent philosopher such as Gallie and
Broad, it is a good thing that Grice has occasion to go back to, or revisit,
Locke and contest this or that infamous and alleged counterexample presented by
Reid and Hume. Grice adds a methodological note to his proposed
logical-construction theory of personal identity. There is some intricacy of
his reductive analysis, indeed logical construction, for an apparently simple
and harmless utterance (cf. his earlier essay on I do not hear that the bell
tolls). But this intricacy does not prove the analysis wrong. Only that Grice
is too subtle. If the reductive analysis of not is in terms of each state which
I am experiencing is incompatible with phi), that should not be a minus, or
drawback, but a plus, and an advantage in terms of philosophical progress. The
same holds here in terms of the concept of a temporary state. Much later,
Grice reconsiders, or revisits, indeed, Broads remark and re-titles his
approach as the (or a) logical-construction theory of personal identity. And,
with Haugeland, Grice re-considers Humes own vagaries, or quandary, with
personal identity. Unlike the more conservative Locke that Grice favours in the
pages of Mind, eliminationist Hume sees ‘I’ as a conceptual muddle, indeed a
metaphysical chimæra. Hume presses the point for an empiricist verificationist
account of I. For, as Russell would rhetorically ask, ‘What can be more direct
that the experience of myself?’ The Hume Society should take notice of Grices
simplification of Hume’s implicatum on I, if The Locke Society won’t. As a
matter of fact, Grice calls one of his metaphysical construction routines the
Humeian projection, so it is not too adventurous to think that Grice considers
I as an intuitive concept that needs to be metaphysically re-constructed
and be given a legitimate Fregeian sense. Why that label for a construction
routine? Grice calls this metaphysical construction routine Humeian projection,
since the mind (or soul) as it were, spreads over its objects. But, by mind,
Hume does not necessarily mean the I. Cf. The minds I. Grice is especially
concerned with the poverty and weaknesses of Humes criticism to Lockes account
of personal identity. Grice opts to revisit the Lockeian memory-based of this
or that someone, viz. I utterance that Hume rather regards as vague, and
confusing. Unlike Humes, neither Lockes nor Grices reductive analysis of
personal identity is reductionist and eliminationist. The
reductive-reductionist distinction Grice draws in Retrospective epilogue as he
responds to Rountree-Jack on this or that alleged wrong on meaning that. It is
only natural that Grice would be sympathetic to Locke. Grice explores these
issues with Haugeland mainly at seminars. One may wonder why Grice spends so
much time in a philosopher such as Hume, with whom he agreed almost on nothing!
The answer is Humes influence in the Third World that forced Grice to focus on
this or that philosopher. Surely Locke is less popular in the New World than
Hume is. One supposes Grice is trying to save Hume at the implicatum level, at
least. The phrase or term of art, logical construction is Russells and Broads,
but Grice loved it. Rational reconstruction is not too dissimilar. Grice
prefers Russells and Broads more conservative label. This is more than a
terminological point. If Hume is right and there is NO intuitive concept behind
I, one cannot strictly re-construct it, only construct it. Ultimately, Grice
shows that, if only at the implicatum level, we are able to provide an
analysandum for this or that someone, viz. I utterance without using I, by
implicating only this or that mnemonic concept, which belongs, naturally, as
his theory of negation does, in a theory of philosophical psychology, and again
a lower branch of it, dealing with memory. The topic of personal identity
unites various interests of Grice. The first is identity “=” simpliciter.
Instead of talking of the meaning of I, as, say, Anscombe would, Grice sticks
to the traditional category, or keyword, for this, i. e. the theory-laden,
personal identity, or even personal sameness. Personal identity is a type of
identity, but personal adds something to it. Surely Hume was stretching person
a bit when using the example of a soul with a life lower than an oyster. Since
Grice follows Aristotles De Anima, he enjoys Hume’s choice, though. It may be
argued that personal adds Locke’s consciousness, and rational agency. Grice
plays with the body-soul distinction. I, viz someone or somebody, fell from the
stairs, perhaps differs from I will be fighting soon. This or that someone,
viz. I utterance may be purely bodily. Grice would think that the idea that his
soul fell from the stairs sounds, as it would to Berkeley, harsh. But then
theres this or that one may be mixed utterance. Someone, viz. I, plays cricket,
where surely your bodily mechanisms require some sort of control by the soul.
Finally, this or that may be purely souly ‒ the one Grice ends up analysing,
Someone, viz. I, hear that the bell tolls. At the time of his Mind essay, Grice
may have been unaware of the complications that the concept of a person may
bring as attached in adjective form to identity. Ayer did, and Strawson and
Wiggins will, and Grice learns much from Strawson. Since Parfit, this has become
a common-place topic for analysis at Oxford. A person as a complexum of a
body-soul spatio-temporal continuant substance. Ultimately, Grice finds a
theoretical counterpart here. A P may become a human, which Grice understands
physiologically. That is not enough. A P must aspire, via meteousis, to become
a person. Thus, person becomes a technical term in Grices grand metaphysical
scheme of things. Someone, viz. I, hear that the bell is tolls is analysed
as ≡df, or if and only if, a hearing that the bell tolls is a
part of a total temporary tn souly state S1 which is
one in a s. such that any state Sn, given this or that
condition, contains as a part a memory Mn of the
experience of hearing that the bell tolls, which is a component in some
pre-sequent t1n item, or contains an experience of hearing
that the bell tolls a memory M of which would, given this or that
condition, occur as a component in some sub-sequent t2>tn item,
there being no sub-set of items which is independent of the rest. Grice
simplifies the reductive analysans. Someone, viz. I, hears that the bell tolls
iff a hearing that the bell tolls is a component in an item of an interlocking
s. with emphasis on lock, s. of this or that memorable and memorative
total temporary tn state S1. Is Grice’s Personal
identity ever referred to in the Oxonian philosophical literature? Indeeed.
Parfit mentions, which makes it especially memorable and memorative. P. Edwards
includes a reference to Grices Mind essay in the entry for Personal identity,
as a reference to Grice et al on Met. , is referenced in Edwardss encyclopædia
entry for metaphysics. Grice does not attribute privileged access or
incorrigibility to I or the first person. He always hastens to add that I can
always be substituted, salva veritate (if baffling your addressee A) by someone
or other, if not some-body or other, a colloquialism Grice especially detested.
Grices agency-based approach requires that. I am rational provided thou art,
too. If, by explicitly saying he is a Lockeian, Grice surely does not wish us
to see him as trying to be original, or the first to consider this or that
problem about I; i.e. someone. Still, Grice is the philosopher who explores
most deeply the reductive analysis of I, i.e. someone. Grice needs the
reductive analysis because human agency (philosophically, rather than
psychologically interpreted) is key for his approach to things. By uttering The
bell tolls, U means that someone, viz. himself, hears that the bell tolls, or
even, by uttering I, hear, viz. someone hears, that the bell tolls, U means
that the experience of a hearing that the bell tolls is a component in a
total temporary state which is a member of a s. such that each member
would, given certain conditions, contain as an component one memory of
an experience which is a component in a pre-sequent member, or contains as
a component some experience a memory of which would, given
certain conditions, occur as a component in a post-sequent member; there
being no sub-set of members which is independent of the rest. Thanks, the
addressee might reply. I didnt know that! The reductive bit to Grices analysis
needs to be emphasised. For Grice, a person, and consequently, a someone, viz.
I utterance, is, simpliciter, a logical construction out of this or that Humeian
experience. Whereas in Russell, as Broad notes, a logical construction of
this or that philosophical concept, in this case personal identity, or cf.
Grices earlier reductive analysis of not, is thought of as an improved,
rationally reconstructed conception. Neither Russell nor Broad need maintain
that the logical construction preserves the original meaning of the analysandum
someone, viz. I, hears that the bell tolls, or I do not hear that the bell
tolls ‒ hence their paradox of reductionist analysis. This change of Subjects
does not apply to Grice. Grice emphatically intends to be make explicit,
if rationally reconstructed (if that is not an improvement) through reductive
(if not reductionist) analysis, the concept Grice already claims to have. One particular
development to consider is within Grices play group, that of Quinton. Grice and
Quinton seem to have been the only two philosophers in Austins play group who
showed any interest on someone, viz. I. Or not. The fact that Quinton entitles
his thing “The soul” did not help. Note that Woozley was at the time editing
Reid on “Identity,” Cf. Duncan-Jones on mans mortality. Note that Quintons
immediate trigger is Shoemaker. Grice writes that he is not “merely a series of
perceptions,” for he is “conscious of a permanent self, an I who experiences
these perceptions and who is now identical with the I who experienced
perceptions yesterday.” So, leaving aside that he is using I with the third
person verb, but surely this is no use-mention fallacy, it is this puzzle that
provoked his thoughts on temporal-relative “=” later on. As Grice notes, Butler
argued that consciousness of experience can contribute to identity but not
define it. Grice will use Butler in his elaboration of conversational
benevolence versus conversational self-interest. Better than Quinton, it is
better to consider Flew in Philosophy, 96, on Locke and the problem of personal
identity, obviously suggested as a term paper by Grice! Wiggins cites Flew.
Flew actually notes that Berkeley saw Lockes problem earlier than Reid, which
concerns the transitiveness of =. Recall that Wigginss tutor at Oxford was a
tutee by Grice, Ackrill. Refs.: The main references covering identity
simpliciter are in “Vacuous Names,” and his joint work on metaphysics with G. Myro.
The main references relating to the second group, of personal identity, are his
“Mind” essay, an essay on ‘the logical-construction theory of personal
identity,’ and a second set of essays on Hume’s quandary, The H. P. Grice
Papers, BANC.
illatum,
f. illātĭo (inl- ), ōnis,
f. infero, a logical
inference, conclusion: “vel illativum rogamentum. quod ex acceptionibus colligitur et infertur,” App.
Dogm. Plat. 3, pp. 34, 15. – infero: to conclude, infer, draw an inference, Cic. Inv. 1, 47, 87; Quint. 5, 11, 27.
illusion: cf. veridical memories, who needs them? hallucination
is Grice’s topic.Malcolm argues in Dreaming and Skepticism and in his Dreaming
that the notion of a dream qua conscious experience that occurs at a definite
time and has definite duration during sleep, is unintelligible. This
contradicts the views of philosophers like Descartes (and indeed Moore!), who,
Malcolm holds, assume that a human being may have a conscious thought and a
conscious experience during sleep. Descartes claims that he had been deceived
during sleep. Malcolms point is that ordinary language contrasts consciousness
and sleep. The claim that one is conscious while one is sleep-walking is
stretching the use of the term. Malcolm rejects the alleged counter-examples
based on sleepwalking or sleep-talking, e.g. dreaming that one is climbing
stairs while one is actually doing so is not a counter-example because, in such
a case, the individual is not sound asleep after all. If a person is in any
state of consciousness, it logically follows that he is not sound asleep. The
concept of dreaming is based on our descriptions of dreams after we have
awakened in telling a dream. Thus, to have dreamt that one has a thought during
sleep is not to have a thought any more than to have dreamt that one has
climbed Everest is to have climbed Everest. Since one cannot have an experience
during sleep, one cannot have a mistaken experience during sleep, thereby
undermining the sort of scepticism based on the idea that our experience might
be wrong because we might be dreaming. Malcolm further argues that a report of
a conscious state during sleep is unverifiable. If Grice claims that he and
Strawson saw a big-foot in charge of the reserve desk at the Bodleian library,
one can verify that this took place by talking to Strawson and gathering
forensic evidence from the library. However, there is no way to verify Grices
claim that he dreamed that he and Strawson saw a big-foot working at the
Bodleian. Grices only basis for his claim that he dreamt this is that Grice
says so after he wakes up. How does one distinguish the case where Grice
dreamed that he saw a big-foot working at The Bodleian and the case in which he
dreamed that he saw a person in a big-foot suit working at the library but,
after awakening, mis-remembered that person in a big-foot suit as a big-foot
proper? If Grice should admit that he had earlier mis-reported his dream and
that he had actually dreamed he saw a person in a big-foot suit at The
Bodleian, there is no more independent verification for this new claim than
there was for the original one. Thus, there is, for Malcolm, no sense to the
idea of mis-remembering ones dreams. Malcolm here applies one of Witters ideas
from his private language argument. One would like to say: whatever is going to
seem right to me is right. And that only means that here we cannot talk about
right. For a similar reason, Malcolm challenges the idea that one can assign a
definite duration or time of occurrence to a dream. If Grice claims that he ran
the mile in 3.4 minutes, one could verify this in the usual ways. If, however,
Grice says he dreamt that he ran the mile in 3.4 minutes, how is one to measure
the duration of his dreamt run? If Grice says he was wearing a stopwatch in the
dream and clocked his run at 3.4 minutes, how can one know that the dreamt
stopwatch is not running at half speed (so that he really dreamt that he ran
the mile in 6.8 minutes)? Grice might argue that a dream report does not carry
such a conversational implicata. But Malcolm would say that just admits the
point. The ordinary criteria one uses for determining temporal duration do not
apply to dreamt events. The problem in both these cases (Grice dreaming one saw
a bigfoot working at The Bodleian and dreaming that he ran the mile in 3.4
minutes) is that there is no way to verify the truth of these dreamt events —
no direct way to access that dreamt inner experience, that mysterious glow of
consciousness inside the mind of Grice lying comatose on the couch, in order to
determine the facts of the matter. This is because, for Malcolm, there are no
facts of the matter apart from the report by the dreamer of the dream upon
awakening. Malcolm claims that the empirical evidence does not enable one to
decide between the view that a dream experience occurs during sleep and the
view that they are generated upon the moment of waking up. Dennett agrees with
Malcolm that nothing supports the received view that a dream involves a
conscious experience while one is asleep but holds that such issues might be
settled empirically. Malcolm also argues against the attempt to provide a
physiological mark of the duration of a dream, for example, the view that the
dream lasted as long as the rapid eye movements. Malcolm replies that there can
only be as much precision in that common concept of dreaming as is provided by
the common criterion of dreaming. These scientific researchers are misled by
the assumption that the provision for the duration of a dream is already there,
only somewhat obscured and in need of being made more precise. However, Malcolm
claims, it is not already there (in the ordinary concept of dreaming). These
scientific views are making radical conceptual changes in the concept of
dreaming, not further explaining our ordinary concept of dreaming. Malcolm
admits, however, that it might be natural to adopt such scientific views about
REM sleep as a convention. Malcolm points out, however, that if REM sleep is
adopted as a criterion for the occurrence of a dream, people would have to
be informed upon waking up that they had dreamed or not. As Pears observes,
Malcolm does not mean to deny that people have dreams in favour of the view
that they only have waking dream-behaviour. Of course it is no misuse of
language to speak of remembering a dream. His point is that since the concept
of dreaming is so closely tied to our concept of waking report of a dreams, one
cannot form a coherent concept of this alleged inner (private) something that
occurs with a definite duration during sleep. Malcolm rejects a certain
philosophical conception of dreaming, not the ordinary concept of dreaming,
which, he holds, is neither a hidden private something nor mere outward
behaviour.The account of dreaming by Malcolm has come in for considerable
criticism. Some argue that Malcolms claim that occurrences in dreams cannot be
verified by others does not require the strict criteria that Malcolm proposes
but can be justified by appeal to the simplicity, plausibility, and predictive
adequacy of an explanatory system as a whole. Some argue that Malcolms account
of the sentence I am awake is inconsistent. A comprehensive programme in
considerable detail has been offered for an empirical scientific investigation
of dreaming of the sort that Malcolm rejects. Others have proposed various
counterexamples and counter arguments against dreaming by Malcolm. Grices
emphasis is in Malcolms easy way out with statements to the effect that
implicata do or do not operate in dream reports. They do in mine! Grice
considers, I may be dreaming in the two essays opening the Part II:
Explorations on semantics and metaphysics in WOW. Cf. Urmson on ‘delusion’ in
‘Parentheticals’ as ‘conceptually impossible.’ Refs.: The main reference is
Grice’s essay on ‘Dreaming,’ but there are scattered references in his
treatment of Descartes, and “The causal theory of perception” (henceforth,
“Causal theory”), The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC.
Imperatum
– While an imperatus, m. is a command, ‘imperatum’ refers, diaphanously, to
what is commanded. “Impero” is actually a derivation from the intensive “in-“
and the “paro,” as in “prepare,” “Paratum” would thus reflect the ssame
cognateness with ‘imperatum.” Modus
imperativus -- imperative mode: At one point, Grice loved the “psi,” Actions
are alright, but we need to stop at the psi level. The emissor communicates
that the addressee thinks that the emissor has propositional attitude psi. No
need to get into the logical form of action. One can just do with the logical
form of a ‘that’-clause in the ascription of a state of the soul. This should
usually INVOLVE an action, as in Hare, “The door is shut, please.” like Hare, Grice
loves an imperative. In this essay, Grice attempts an exploration of the
logical form of Kant’s concoction. Grice is especially irritated by the ‘the.’
‘They speak of Kant’s categorical imperative, when he cared to formulate a few
versions of it!” Grice lists them all in Abbott’s version. There are nine of
them! Grice is interested in the
conceptual connection of the categorical imperative with the hypothetical or
suppositional imperative, in terms of the type of connection between the
protasis and the apodosis. Grice spends the full second Carus lecture on
the conception of value on this. Grice is aware that the topic is central
to Oxonian philosophers such as Hare, a member of Austin’s Play Group, too, who
regard the universability of an imperative as a mark of its categoricity, and
indeed, moral status. Grice chose some of the Kantian terminology on
purpose.Grice would refer to this or that ‘conversational maxim.’A
‘conversational maxim’ contributes to what Grice jocularly refers to as the
‘conversational immanuel.’But there is an admission test.The ‘conversational
maxim’ has to be shown that, qua items under an overarching principle of
conversational helpfulness, the maxim displays a quality associated with
conceptual, formal, and applicational generality. Grice never understood what
Kant meant by the categoric imperative. But for Grice, from the acceptability
of the the immanuel you can deduce the acceptability of this or that maxim, and
from the acceptability of the conversational immanuel, be conversationally
helpful, you can deduce the acceptability of this or that convesational maxim.
Grice hardly considered Kants approach to the categoric imperative other than
via the universability of this or that maxim. This or that conversational
maxim, provided by Grice, may be said to be universalisable if and only if it
displays what Grice sees as these three types of generality: conceptual,
formal, and applicational. He does the same for general maxims of conduct. The
results are compiled in a manual of universalisable maxims, the conversational
immanuel, an appendix to the general immanuel. The other justification by Kant
of the categoric imperative involve an approach other than the genitorial
justification, and an invocation of autonomy and freedom. It is the use by
Plato of imperative as per categoric imperative that has Grice expanding on
modes other than the doxastic, to bring in the buletic, where the categoric
imperative resides. Note that in the end Kant DOES formulate the categoric
imperative, as Grice notes, as a real imperative, rather than a command, etc.
Grice loved Kant, but he loved Kantotle best. In the last Kant lecture, he
proposes to define the categorical imperative as a counsel of prudence, with a
protasis Let Grice be happy. The derivation involves eight stages! Grice found
out that out of his play-group activities with this or that linguistic nuance
he had arrived at the principle, or imperative of conversational helpfulness,
indeed formulated as an imperative: Make your contribution such as is required,
at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose of the conversation in
which you are engaged. He notes that the rationality behind the idea of
conversation as rational co-operation does not preclude seeing rationality in
conversation as other than cooperation. The fact that he chooses maxim, and
explicitly echoes Kant, indicates where Grice is leading! An exploration on
Paton on the categorical imperative. Grice had previously explored the
logical form of hypothetical or suppositional imperatives in the Kant
(and later Locke) lectures, notably in Lecture IV, Further remarks on
practical and alethic reasons. Here he considers topics related to Hares
tropic-clistic neustic-phrastic quartet. What does it mean to say that
a command is conditional? The two successors of Grices post as
Tutorial Fellow at St. Johns, Baker Hacker, will tackle the same issue with
humour, in Sense and nonsense, published by Blackwell (too irreverent to be
published by the Clarendon). Is the logical form of a maxim, .p⊃!q, or !(.p ⊃.q),
etc. Kant thought that there is a special
sub-class of hypothetical or suppositional imperative (which he
called a counsels of prudence) which is like his class of technical imperative,
except in that the end specified in a full specfication of the imperative is
the special end of eudæmonia (the agents eudæmonia). For
Grice, understanding Kant’s first version of the categorical imperative
involves understanding what a maxim is supposed to be. Grice
explores at some length four alternative interpretations of an iffy
buletic (as opposed to a non-iffy buletic): three formal, one material. The
first interpretation is the horseshoe interpretation. A blind logical nose
might lead us or be led to the assumption of a link between a buletically
iffy utterance and a doxastically iffy utterance. Such a link no doubt
exists, but the most obvious version of it is plainly inadequate. At
least one other philosopher besides Grice has noticed that If he torments the
cat, have him arrested! is unlikely to express an buletically iffy
utterance, and that even if one restricts oneself to this or that case in
which the protasis specifies a will, we find pairs of examples like If you will
to go to Oxford, travel by AA via Richmond! or If you will to go to
Cambridge, see a psychiatrist! where it is plain that one is, and the other is
not, the expression of a buletically iffy utterance. For fun, Grice does not
tell which! A less easily eliminable suggestion, yet one which would still
interprets the notion of a buletically iffy utterance in terms of that
particular logical form to which if, hypothetical or suppositional and conditional attach, would be the
following. Let us assume that it is established, or conceded, as legitimate to
formulate an if utterance in which not only the apodosis is couched in some
mode other than the doxastic, as in this or that conditional command. If you
see the whites of their eyes, shoot fire! but also the protasis or some part
(clause) of them. In which case all of the following might be admissible
conditionals. Thus, we might have a doxastic protasis (If the cat is sick, take
it to the vet), or a mixed (buletic-cum-doxastic protasis (If you are to take
the cat to the vet and theres no cage available, put it on Marthas lap!), and
buletic protasis (If you are to take the cat to the vet, put it in a cage!). If
this suggestion seems rebarbative, think of this or that quaint if utterance
(when it is quaint) as conditionalised versions of this or that
therefore-sequence, such as: buletic-cum-doxastic premises (Take the cat
to the vet! There isnt a cage. Therefore; Put the cat on Marthas lap!), buletic
premise (Take the cat to the vet! Put it in a cage!). And then, maybe, the
discomfort is reduced. Grice next considers a second formal interpretation or
approach to the buletically iffy/non-iffy utterance. Among if utterances with a
buletic apodosis some will have, then, a mixed doxastic-cum buletic protasis
(partly doxastic, partly buletic), and some will have a purely doxastic
protasis (If the cat is sick, take him to the vet!). Grice proposes a
definition of the iffy/non-iffy distinction. A buletically iffy utterance is an
iffy utterance the apodosis of which is buletic and the protasis of which is
buletic or mixed (buletic-cum-dxastic) or it is an elliptical version of such
an iffy utterance. A buletically non-iffy utterance is a buletic utterance
which is not iffy or else, if it is iffy, has a purely doxastic protasis. Grice
makes three quick comments on this second interpretation. First, re: a real
imperative. The structures which are being offered as a way of interpreting an
iffy and a non-iffy imperative do not, as they stand, offer any room for
the appearance this or that buletic modality like ought and should which are so
prominently visible in the standard examples of those kinds of imperatives. The
imperatives suggested by Grice are explicit imperatives. An explicit buletic
utterance is Do such-and-such! and not You ought to do such and such or, worse,
One ought to do such and such. Grice thinks, however, that one can modify this
suggestion to meet the demand for the appearance or occurrence of ought (etc)
if such occurrence is needed. Second, it would remain to be decided how close
the preferred reading of Grices deviant conditional imperatives would be to the
accepted interpretation of standard hypothetical or
suppositional imperatives. But even if there were some divergence that
might be acceptable if the new interpretation turns out to embody a more
precise notion than the standard conception. Then theres the neustical versus
tropical protases. There are, Grice thinks, serious doubts of the admissibility
of conditionals with a NON-doxastic protasis, which are for Grice connected
with the very difficult question whether the doxastic and the buletic modes are
co-ordinate or whether the doxastic mode is in some crucial fashion (but
not in other) prior (to use Suppess qualification) to the buletic. Grice
confesses he does not know the answer to that question. A third formal
interpretation links the iffy/non-iffy distinction to the
absolute-relative value distinction. An iffy imperatives would be end-relative
and might be analogous to an evidence-relative probability. A
non-iffy imperatives would not be end-relative. Finally, a fourth
Interpretation is not formal, but material. This is close to part of what
Kant says on the topic. It is a distinction between an imperative
being escapable (iffy), through the absence of a particular will and its
not being escapable (non-iffy). If we understand the idea of escabability
sufficiently widely, the following imperatives are all escapable, even
though their logical form is not in every case the same: Give up popcorn!,
To get slim, give up popcorn!, If you will to get slim, give up
popcorn! Suppose Grice has no will to get slim. One might say that the
first imperative (Give up popcorn!) is escaped, provided giving up popcorn
has nothing else to recommend it, by falsifying You should give up
popcorn. The second and the third imperatives (To get slim, give up pocorn!
and If you will to get slim, give up popcorn!) would not, perhaps, involve
falsification but they would, in the circumstances, be inapplicable
to Grice – and inapplicability, too, counts, as escape. A non-iffy
imperative however, is in no way escapable. Re: the Dynamics of
Imperatives in Discourse, Grice then gives three examples which he had
discussed in “Aspects,” which concern arguments (or therefore-chains). This we
may see as an elucidation to grasp the logical form of buletically iffy
utterance (elided by the therefore, which is an if in the metalanguage)
in its dynamics in argumentation. We should, Grice suggests,
consider not merely imperatives of each sort, together with the range
of possible characterisations, but also the possible forms of argument into
which_particular_ hypothetical or suppositional imperatives might enter.
Consider: Defend the Philosophy Department! If you are to defend the
philosophy department, learn to use bows and arrows! Therefore, learn to
use bows and arrows! Grice says he is using the dichotomy of original-derived
value. In this example, in the first premise, it is not specified whether the
will is original or derived, the second premise specifies conducive to (means),
and the conclusion would involve a derived will, provided the second premise is
doxastically satisfactory. Another example would be: Fight for your country! If
you are to fight for your country, join up one of the services! Therefore, join
up! Here, the first premise and the conclusion do not specify the protasis. If
the conclusion did, it would repeat the second premise. Then theres Increase
your holdings in oil shares! If you visit your father, hell give you some oil
shares. Therefore, visit your father! This argument (purportedly) transmits
value. Let us explore these characterisations by Grice with the aid of
Hares distinctions. For Hare in a hypothetical or suppositional imperative, the
protasis contains a neustic-cum-tropic. A distinction may be made between this
or that hypothetical or suppositional imperative and a term used by Grice
in his first interpretation of the hypothetical or suppositional
imperative, that of conditional command (If you see the whites of their
eyes, shoot fire!). A hypothetical or suppositional imperative can
be distinguished from a conditional imperative (If you want to make bread,
use yeast! If you see anything suspicious, telephone the police!) by the
fact that modus ponens is not valid for it. One may use hypothetical,
suppositional or conditional imperative for a buletic utterance which features
if, and reserve conditional command for a command which is expressed by an
imperative, and which is conditional on the satisfaction of the protasis.
Thus, on this view, treating the major premise of an argument as a
hypothetical or suppositional imperative turns the therefore-chain invalid.
Consider the sequence with the major premise as a hypothetical or suppositional
imperative. If you will to make someone mad, give him drug D! You
will to make Peter mad; therefore, give Peter drug D! By uttering this
hypothetical or suppositional imperative, the utterer tells his addressee A
only what means to adopt to achieve a given end in a way which
does not necessarily endorse the adoption of that end, and hence of
the means to it. Someone might similarly say, if you will to make
someone mad, give him drug D! But, of course, even if you will to do
that, you must not try to do so. On the other hand, the
following is arguably valid because the major premise is a
conditional imperative and not a mere hypothetical or suppositional
one. We have a case of major premise as a conditional imperative: You will to
make someone mad, give him drug D! Make Peter mad! Therefore, give
Peter drug D!. We can explain this in terms of the presence of the neustic
in the antecedent of the imperative working as the major premise.
The supposition that the protasis of a hypothetical or suppositional
imperative contains a clause in the buletic mode neatly explains why the
argument with the major premise as a hypothetical or suppositional imperative
is not valid. But the argument with the major premise as a conditional
imperative is, as well as helping to differentiate a suppositional or
hypothetical or suppositional iffy imperative from a conditional iffy
imperative. For, if the protasis of the major premise in the hypothetical or
suppositional imperative is volitival, the mere fact that you will to make
Peter mad does not license the inference of the imperative to
give him the drug; but this _can_ be inferred from the major premise
of the hypothetical or suppositional imperative together with an
imperative, the minor premise in the conditional
imperative, to make Peter mad. Whether the subordinate
clause contains a neustic thus does have have a consequence as
to the validity of inferences into which the complex sentence
enters. Then theres an alleged principle of mode constancy in buletic and
and doxastic inference. One may tries to elucidate Grices ideas on the
logical form of the hypothetical or suppositional imperative proper.
His suggestion is, admittedly, rather tentative. But it might be
argued, in the spirit of it, that an iffy imperative is of the
form ((!p⊃!q) Λ .p)) ∴ !q
But this violates a principle of mode constancy. A phrastic must
remain in the same mode (within the scope of the same tropic) throughout
an argument. A conditional imperative does not violate the principle of
Modal Constancy, since it is of the form ((p⊃!q) Λ
!p)) ∴ !q The question of the logical form of
the hypothetical or suppositional imperative is
too obscure to base much on arguments concerning it. There is an
alternative to Grices account of the validity of an argument featuring a
conditional imperative. This is to treat the major premise of a
conditional imperative, as some have urged it should be as a doxastic utterance
tantamount to In order to make someone mad, you have to give him drug D.
Then an utterer who explicitly conveys or asserts the major premise of a
conditional imperative and commands the second premise is in
consistency committed to commanding the conclusion. If does not
always connect phrastic with phrastic but sometimes
connects two expressions consisting of a phrastic and a
tropic. Consider: If you walk past the post office, post the
letter! The antecedent of this imperative states, it seems, the
condition under which the imperative expressed becomes operative,
and so can not be construed buletically, since by uttering a buletic
utterance, an utterer cannot explicitly convey or assert that a condition
obtains. Hence, the protasis ought not be within the scope of the
buletic !, and whatever we take to represent the form of the
utterance above we must not take !(if p, q) to do so. One way out. On
certain interpretation of the isomorphism or æqui-vocality Thesis between
Indicative and Imperative Inference the utterance has to be construed
as an imperative (in the generic reading) to make the doxasatic
conditional If you will walk past the post office, you will post
the letter satisfactory. Leaving aside issues of the implicature of if,
that the utterance can not be so construed seems to be shown by
the fact that the imperative to make the associated doxastically iffy
utterance satisfactory is conformed with by one who does not walk past the
post office. But it seems strange at best to say that the utterance
is conformed with in the same circumstances. This strangeness or
bafflingliness, as Grice prefers, is aptly explained away in terms of the implicatum.
At Oxford, Dummett is endorsing this idea that a
conditional imperative be construed as an imperative to make an
indicative if utterance true. Dummett urges to divide conditional
imperatives into those whose antecedent is within the power of
the addressee, like the utterance in question, and those in which it
is not. Consider: If you go out, wear your coat! One may be not so much
concerned with how to escape this, as Grice is, but how to conform it. A child
may choose not to go out in order to comply with the imperative. For an
imperative whose protasis is_not_ within the power of the addressee (If anyone
tries to escape, shoot him!) it is indifferent whether we treat it as a
conditional imperative or not, so why bother. A small
caveat here. If no one tries to escape, the imperative is *not violated*.
One might ask, might there not be an important practical difference
bewteen saying that an imperative has not been violated and that
it has been complied with? Dummett ignores this distinction. One may
feel think there is much of a practical difference there. Is Grice
an intuitionist? Suppose that you are a frontier guard and
the antecedent has remained unfulfilled. Then, whether we say that you
complied with it, or simply did not *violate* it will make a great
deal of difference if you appear before a war crimes tribunal.
For Dummett, the fact that in the case of an imperative expressed by a
conditional imperative in which the antecedent is not within the agents power,
we should *not* say that the agent had obeyed just on the ground that the
protassi is false, is no ground for construing an imperative as expressing a
conditional command: for there is no question of fixing what shall
constitute obedience independently of the determination of what shall
constitute disobedience. This complicates the issues. One may with Grice (and
Hare, and Edgley) defend imperative inference against other Oxonian
philosophers, such as Kenny or Williams. What is questioned by the sceptics
about imperative inference is whether if each one of a set of imperatives
is used with the force of a command, one can infer a _further_ imperative
with that force from them. Cf. Wiggins on Aristotle on the practical
syllogism. One may be more conservative than Hare, if not Grice. Consider If
you stand by Jane, dont look at her! You stand by Jane; therefore, dont look at
her! This is valid. However, the following, obtained by anti-logism, is not: If
you stand by Jane, dont look at her! Look at her! Therefore, you dont stand by
Jane. It may seem more reasonable to some to deny Kants thesis, and maintain
that anti-logism is valid in imperative inference than it is to hold onto Kants
thesis and deny that antilogism is valid in the case in question. Then theres
the question of the implicata involved in the ordering of modes. Consider:
Varnish every piece of furniture you make! You are going to make a table;
therefore, varnish it! This is prima facie valid. The following, however,
switching the order of the modes in the premises is not. You are going to
varnish every piece of furniture that you make. Make a table! Therefore;
varnish it! The connection between the if and the therefore is metalinguistic,
obviously – the validity of the therefore chain is proved by the associated if
that takes the premise as, literally, the protasis and the consequence as the
apodosis. Conversational Implicature at the Rescue. Problems with
or: Consider Rosss infamous example: Post the letter! Therefore, post the
letter or burn it! as invalid, Ross – and endorsed at Oxford by Williams.
To permit to do p or q is to permit to do p and to permit to do q.
Similarly, to give permission to do something is to lift a prohibition
against doing it. Admittedly, Williams does not need this so we are
stating his claim more strongly than he does. One may review Grices way
out (defense of the validity of the utterance above in terms of the
implicatum. Grice claims that in Rosss infamous example (valid, for Grice),
whilst (to state it roughly) the premises permissive presupposition (to
use the rather clumsy term introduced by Williams) is entailed by it, the
conclusions is only conversationally implicated. Typically for an
isomorphist, Grice says this is something shared by
indicative inferences. If, being absent-minded, Grice asks his wife, What
have I done with the letter? And she replies, You have posted it or burnt it,
she conversationally implicates that she is not in a position to say which
Grice has done. She also conversationally implicates that Grice may not have
post it, so long as he has burnt it. Similarly, the future tense indicative, You
are going to post the letter has the conversational implicature You may be not
going to post the letter so long as you are going to burn it. But this
surely does not validate the introduction rule for OR, to wit: p;
therefore, p or q. One can similarly, say: Eclipse will win. He may not, of
course, if it rains. And I *know* it will *not* rain. Problems with and.
Consider: Put on your parachute AND jump out! Therefore, jump out! Someone who
_only_ jumps out of an æroplane does not fulfil Put on your parachute and
jump out! He has done only what is necessary, but not sufficient to
fulfil it. Imperatives do not differ from indicatives in this respect,
except that fulfilment takes the place of belief or doxa, which is the form of
acceptance apprpriate to a doxasatic utterance, as the Names implies.
Someone who is told Smith put on his parachute AND jumped out is entitled
to believe that Smith jumped out. But if he believes that this is _all_
Smith did he is in error (Cf. Edgley). One may discuss Grices test of
cancellability in the case of the transport officer who says: Go via Coldstream
or Berwick! It seems the transport officers way of expressing himself is
extremely eccentric, or conversationally baffling, as Grice prefers – yet
validly. If the transport officer is not sure if a storm may block one
of the routes, what he should say is _Prepare_ to go via Coldstream or
Berwick! As for the application of Grices test of explicit cancellation here,
it yield, in the circumstances, the transport officer uttering Go either via
Coldstream or Berwick! But you may not go via Coldstream if you do
not go via Berwick, and you may not go via Berwick if you do not go via
Coldstream. Such qualifications ‒ what Grice calls explicit
cancellation of the implicature ‒ seem to the addressee to empty the
buletic mode of utterance of all content and is thus reminiscent of Henry Fords
utterance to the effect that people can choose what colour car they like
provided it is black. But then Grice doesnt think Ford is being illogical, only
Griceian and implicatural! Refs.: There is at least one essay just about the
categorical imperative, but there are scattered references wherever Grice
considers the mood markers, The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC.
implicatum,
or Grice’s implication. Grice makes an important distinction which he thinks
Austin doesn’t make because what a philosopher EXPLICITLY conveys and what he
IMPLICITLY conveys. It was only a few years Grice was interacting
philosophically with Austin and was reading some material by Witters, when
Grice comes with this criticism and complaint. Austin ignores “all too
frequently” a distinction that Witters apparently dnies. This is a distinction
between what an emissor communicates (e. g. that p), which can be either
explicitly (that p1) or implicitly (that p2) and what, metabolically, and
derivatively, the emissum ‘communictates’ (explicitly or implicitly). At the
Oxford Philosophical Society, he is considering Moore’s ‘entailment.’ This is
not a vernacular expression, but a borrowing from a Romance language. But
basically, Moore’s idea is that ‘p’ may be said to ‘entail’ q iff at least two
conditions follow. Surely ‘entail’ has only one sense. In this metabolically
usage where it is a ‘p’ that ‘entails’ the conditions are that there is a
property and that there is a limitation. Now suppose Grice is discussing with
Austin or reading Witters. Grice wants to distinguish various things: what the
emissor communicates (explicitly or implicitly) and the attending diaphanous
but metabolical, what WHAT THE EMSSOR COMMUNICATES (explicitly or implicitly)
ENTAILS, AND the purely metabolical what the emissum ‘entails’ (explicitly or
implicitly). This is Grice’s wording:“If we can elucidate the meaning of
"A meantNN by x that p (on a particular occasion)," this might
reasonably be expected to help us with the explication of "entails.”The
second important occasion is in the interlude or excursus of his Aristotelian
Society talk. How does he introduce the topic of ‘implication’? At that time
there was a lot being written about ‘contextual’ or ‘pragmatic’ implication –
even within Grice’s circle – as in D. K. Grant’s essay on pragmatic implication
for Philosophy, and even earlier Nowell-Smith’s on ‘contextual implication’ in
“Ethics,” and even earlier, and this is perhaps Grice’s main trigger, P. F.
Strawson’s criticism of Whitehead and Russell, with Strawson having that, by
uttering ‘The king of France is not bald,’ the emissor IMPLIES that there is a
king of France (Strawson later changes the idiom from ‘imply,’ and the
attending ‘implication, to ‘presuppose,’ but he keeps ‘imply’ in all the
reprints of his earlier essays). In “Causal Theory,” Grice surely cannot
just ‘break’ the narrative and start with ‘implication’ in an excursus. So the
first stage is to explore the use of ‘implication’ or related concepts in the
first part of “Causal Theory” LEADING to the excursus for which need he felt. The
first use appears in section 2. The use is the noun, ‘implication.’ And
Grice is reporting the view of an objector, so does not care to be to careful
himself.“the OBJECTION MIGHT run as follows.” “… When someone makes a remark
such as “The pillar box seems red” A CERTAIN IMPLICATION IS CARRIED.” He goes
on “This implication is “DISJUNCTIVE IN FORM,” which should not concerns us
here. Since we are considering the status of the implication, as seen by the
objector as reported by Grice. He does not give a source, so we may assume G. A.
Paul reading Witters, and trying to indoctrinate a few Oxonians into
Wittgensteinianism (Grice notes that besides the playgroup there was Ryle’s
group at Oxford and a THIRD, “perhaps more disciplined” group, that tended
towards Witters.Grice goes on:“It IS implied that…” p. Again, he expands it,
and obviously shows that he doesn’t care to be careful. And he is being ironic,
because the implication is pretty lengthy! Yet he says, typically:“This may not
be an absolutely EXACT or complete characterisation of the implication, but it
is, perhaps, good ENOUGH to be going with!” Grice goes on to have his objector
a Strawsonian, i. e. as REFUSING TO ASSIGN A TRUTH-VALUE to the utterance,
while Grice would have that it is ‘uninterestingly true. In view of this it may
to explore the affirmative and negative versions. Because the truth-values may
change:In Grice’s view: “The pillar box seems red to me” IS “UNINTERESTINGLY
TRUE,” in spite of the implication.As for “It is not the case that the pillar
box seems red,” this is more of a trick. In “Negation,” Grice has a similar
example. “That pillar box is red; therefore, it is not blue.”He is concerned
with “The pillar box is not blue,” or “It is not the case that the pillar box
is blue.”What about the truth-value now of the utterance in connection with the
implication attached to it?Surely, Grice would like, unless accepting
‘illogical’ conversationalists (who want to make that something is UNASSERTIBLE
or MISLEADING by adding ‘not’), the utterance ‘It is not the case that the
pillar box seems red to me’ is FALSE in the scenario where the emissor would be
truthful in uttering ‘The pillar box seems red to me.” Since Grice allows that
the affirmative is ‘uninterestingly true,’ he is committed to having ‘It is not
the case that the pillar box seems red’ as FALSE.For the Strawsonian
Wittgensteinian, or truth-value gap theorist, the situation is easier to
characterise. Both ‘The pillar box seems red to me” and its negation, “The
pillar box does not seem red to me” lack a truth value, or in Grice’s word, as
applied to the affirmative, “far from being uninterestingly true, is neither
true nor false,” i. e. ‘neuter.’ It wold not be true but it would not be false
either – breakdown of bivalence. Grice’s case is a complicated one because he
distinguishes between the sub-perceptual “The pillar box seems red” from the
perceptual ‘vision’ statement, “Grice sees that the pillar box is red.” So the
truth of “The pillar box seems red” is a necessary condition for the statement
about ‘seeing.’ This is itself controversial. Some philosophers have claimed
that “Grice knows that p” does NOT entail “Grice believes that p,” for example.
But for the causal theory Grice is thinking of an analysis of “Grice sees that
the pillar box is red” in terms of three conditions: First, the pillar box
seems red to Grice. Second, the pillar box is red. And third, it is the pillar
box being red that causes it seeming red to Grice. Grice goes to reformulate
the idea that “The pillar box seems red” being true. But now not
“uninterestingly true,” but “true (under certain conditions),” or as he puts it
“(subject to certain qualifications) true.” He may be having in mind a clown in
a circus confronted with the blue pillar box and making a joke about it. Those
‘certain qualifications’ would not apply to the circus case. Grice goes on to
change the adverb, it’s ‘boringly true,’ or ‘highly boringly true.’ He adds
‘suggestio falsi,’ which seems alright but which would not please the
Wittgensteinian who would also reject the ‘false.’ We need a ‘suggestio
neutri.’ In this second section, he gives the theoretical explanation. The “implication”
arises “in virtue of a GENERAL FEATURE OR PRINCIPLE” of conversation, or
pertaining to a system put in ‘communication,’ or a general feature or
principle governing an emissor communicating that p. Note that ‘feature’ and
‘principle’ are appropriately ‘vague.’ “Feature” can be descriptive.
“Principle” is Aristotelian. Boethius’s translation for Aristotle’s ‘arche.’ It
can be descriptive. The first use of ‘principle’ in a ‘moral’ or ‘practical’
context seems to post-date its use in, say, geometry – Euclid’s axioms as
‘principia mathematica,’ or Newton’s “Principia.” Grice may be having in mind
Moore’s ‘paradox’ (true, surely) when Grice adds ‘it is raining.’Grice’s
careful wording is worth exploring.
“The
mistake [incorrectness, falsehood] of supposing the implication to constitute a
"part of the meaning [sense]” of "The Alpha seems Beta" is
somewhat similar to, though MORE INSIDUOUS …”[moral implication here: 1540s, from Middle French insidieux "insidious"
(15c.) or directly from Latin insidiosus "deceitful, cunning, artful,
treacherous," from insidiae (plural) "plot, snare, ambush,"
from insidere "sit
on, occupy," from in- "in" (from PIE root *en "in")
+ sedere "to
sit," from PIE root *sed- (1) "to
sit." Figurative, usually with a suggestion of lying in wait and the
intent to entrap. Related: Insidiously; insidiousness]“than,
the mistake which one IF one supposes that the SO-CALLED [‘pragmatic’ or
‘contextual – implicatum, “as I would not,” and indeed he does not – he prefers
“expresses” here, not the weak ‘imply’] “implication” that one believes it to
be raining is "a part of the meaning [or sense]" of the expression
[or emissum] "It is raining.”Grice allows that no philosopher may have
made this mistake. He will later reject the view that one conversationally
implicates that one believes that it is raining by uttering ‘It is raining.’
But again he does not give sources. In these case, while without the
paraphernalia about the ‘a part of the ‘sense’” bit, can be ascribed at Oxford
to Nowell-Smith and Grant (but not, we hope to Strawson). Nowell-Smith is clear
that it is a contextual implication, but one would not think he would make the
mistake of bringing in ‘sense’ into the bargain. Grice goes on:“The short and
literally inaccurate reply to such a supposition [mistake] might be that the so-called
“implication” attaches because the expression (or emissum) is a PROPOSITIONAL
one [expressable by a ‘that so-and-so’ clause] not because it is the particular
propositional expression which it happens to be.”By ‘long,’ Grice implicates:
“And it is part of the function of the informative mode that you utter an
utterance in the informative mode if you express your belief in the content of
the propositonal expression.”Grice goes on to analyse ‘implication’ in terms of
‘petitio principii.’ This is very interesting and requires exploration. Grice
claims that his success the implicature in the field of the philosophy of
perception led his efforts against Strawson on the syncategoremata.But here we
see Grice dealing what will be his success.One might, for example, suggest that
it is open to the champion of sense_data to lay down that the sense-datum
sentence " I have a pink sense-datum " should express truth if and
only if the facts are as they would have to be for it to be true, if it were in
order, to say .. Something looks pink to me ", even though it may not
actually be in ordei to say this (because the D-or-D condition is unfulfilled).
But this attempt to by-pass the objector's position would be met by the reply
that it begs the question; for it assumes that there is some way of specifying
the facts in isolation from the implication standardly carried by such a
specification; and this is precisely what the objector is denying.Rephrasing
that:“One might, for example, suggest that it is open to the champion of
sense_data to lay down that the sense-datum sentence "The pillar box seems
red” is TRUE if and only if the facts are as the facts WOULD HAVE to be for
“The pillar box seems red” to be true, IF (or provided that) it were IN ORDER
[i. e. conversationally appropriate], to utter or ‘state’ or explicitly convey
that the pillar box seems red, even though it may NOT actually be in order
[conversationally appropriate] to explicitly convey that the pillar box seems
red (because the condition specified in the implication is unfulfilled).”“But
this attempt to by-pass the objector's position would be met by a charge of
‘petitio principia,’ i. e. the reply that it begs the question.”“Such a manoeuvre is invalid in that it assumes that
there IS some way of providing a SPECIFICATION of the facts of the matter in
isolation from, or without recourse to, the implication that is standardly
carried by such a specification.”“This is precisely what the objector is
denying, i. e. the objector believes it is NOT the case that there is a way of
giving a specification of the scenario without bringing in the implication.”Grice
refers to the above as one of the “frustrations,” implicating that the above,
the ‘petitio principia,’ is just one of the trials Grice underwent before
coming with the explanation in terms of the general feature of communication,
or as he will late express, in terms of ‘what the hell’ the
‘communication-function’ of “The pillar seems red to me” might be when the
implicatum is not meant – and you have to go on and cancel it (“That pillar box
seems red; mind, I’m not suggesting that it’s not – I’m practicing my
sub-perceptual proficiency.”).Grice goes on to note the generality he saw in
the idea of the ‘implication.’ Even if “The pillar box seems red” was his FIRST
attack, the reason he was willing to do the attacking was that the
neo-Wittgensteinian was saying things that went against THE TENOR OF THE THINGS
GRICE would say with regard to other ‘linguistic philosophical’ cases OTHER
than in the philosophy of perception, notably his explorations were against
Malcolm reading of Moore, about Moore ‘misusing’ “know.”Grice:“I was inclined
to rule against my objector, partly because his opponent's position was more in
line with the kind of thing I was inclined to say about other linguistic
phenomena which are in some degree comparable.”Rephrase:“My natural inclination
was to oppose the objector.”“And that was because his opponent's position is
more “in line” with the kind of thing Grice is inclined to say – or thesis he
is willing to put forward-- about OTHER phenomena involving this or that
‘communication-function’ of this or that philosophical adage, which are in some
degree comparable to “The pillar box seems red.””So just before the ‘excursus,’
or ‘discursus,’ as he has it – which is then not numbered – but subtitlted
(‘Implication’), he embark on a discursus about “certain ASPECTS of the concept
OR CONCEPTS of implication.”He interestingly adds: “using some more or less
well-worn examples.” This is not just a reference to Strawson, Grant, Moore,
Hungerland and Nowell-Smith, but to the scholastics and the idea of the
‘suppositio’ as an ‘implicatio,’: “Tu non cessas edere ferrum.” Grice says he
will consider only four aspects or FOUR IDEAS (used each as a ‘catalyst’) in
particular illustrations.“Smith has not ceased beating his wife.”“Smith’s girlfriend
is poor, but honest.”“Smith’s handwriting is beautiful”“Smith’s wife is in the
kitchen or in the bathroom.”Each is a case, as Grice puts it, “in which in
ordinary parlance, or at least in Oxonian philosophical parlance, something
might be said to be ‘implied’ (hopefully by the emissor) -- as distinct from
being ‘stated,’ or ‘explicitly put.’One first illustrationEXPLICITLY CONVEYED:
“Smith has not ceased beating his wife.” IMPLICITLY CONVEYED, but cancellable:
“Smith has been beating his wife.”CANCELLATION: “Smith has not ceased beating
his wife; he never started.”APPLY THREE OTHER IDEAS.A second
illustrationEXPLICITLY CONVEYED:“Smith’s girlfriend is poor, but honest.”IMPLICITLY
CONVEYED: “There is some contrast between Smith’s girlfriend’s honesty and her
poverty; and possibly between Smith and the utterer.”CANCELLATION: “I’m sorry,
I cannot cancel that.”TRY OTHER THREE IDEAS.A third illustrationEXPLICITLY
CONVEYED “Smith’s handwriting is beautiful” – “Or “If only his outbursts were
more angelic.”IMPLICITLY CONVEYED: “He possibly cannot read Hegel in German.”CANCELLATION:
“Smith’s handwriting is beautiful; on top, he reads Hegel in German.”TRY
THREEOTHER IDEASA fourth illustration:EXPLICITLY CONVEYED: “Smith’s wife is in
the kitchen or in the bathroom.”IMPLICITLY CONVEYED: “It is not the case that I
have truth-functional grounds to express disjunct D1, and it is not the case
that I have truth-functional grounds to express disjunct D2; therefore, I am
introducting the disjunction EITHER than by the way favoured by Gentzen.”
(Grice actually focuses on the specific ‘doxastic’ condition: emissor believes
…CANCELLATION: “I know perfectly well where she is, but I want you to find out
for yourself.”TRY THREE OTHER IDEAS.Within the discursus he gives SIX (a
sextet) other examples, of the philosophical type, because he is implicating
the above are NOT of the really of philosophical type, hence his reference to
‘ordinary parlance.’ He points out that he has no doubt there are other
candidates besides his sextet.FIRST IN THE SEXTETEXPLICITLY CONVEYED: “You
cannot see a knife as a knife, though you may see what is not a knife as a
knife.”IMPLICITLY CONVEYED: “”AS” REQUIRES A GESTALT.”CANCELLATION: “I see the
horse as a horse, because my gestalt is mine.”TRY THREE OTHER IDEASSECOND IN
THE SEXTET:EXPLICITLY CONVEYED:“When Moore said he knew that the objects before
him were human hands, he was guilty of misusing the word "know".”IMPLICITLY
CONVEYED: “You can only use ‘know’ for ‘difficult cases.’CANCELLATION: “If I
know that p iff I believe that p, p, and p causes my belief in p, I know that
the objects before me are human hands.”TRY THREE OTHER IDEAS.THIRD IN THE
SEXTETEXPLICITLY CONVEYED: “For an occurrence to be properly said to have a
‘cause,’ the occurrence must be something abnormal or unusual.”IMPLICILTY
CONVEYED: “Refrain from using ‘cause’ when the thing is normal and usual.”CANCELLATION:
“If I see that the pillar box is red iff the pillar box seems red, the pillar
box is red, and the pillar box being red causes the pillar box seeming red, the
cause of the pillar box seeming red is that the pillar box is red.”TRY OTHER
THREE IDEAS.FOURTH IN THE SEXTET: EXPLICITLY
CONVEYED: “For an action to be properly described as one for which the agent is
responsible, it must be the sort of action for which people are condemned.”IMPLICITLY
CONVEYED: “Refrain ascribing ‘responsibility’ to Timmy having cleaned up his
bedroom.”CANCELLATION: “Timmy is very responsible. He engages in an action for
which people are not condemned.”TRY THREE OTHER IDEAS.FIFTH IN THE SEXTET:EXPLICITLY
CONVEYED: “What is actual is not also possible.”IMPLICITLY CONVEYED: “There is
a realm of possibilities which does not overlap with the realm of
actualities.”CANCELLATION: “If p is actual iff p obtains in world w1, and p is
possible iff p obtains in any world wn which includes w1, p is possible.”TRY
THREE OTHER IDEAS.SIXTH IN THE SEXTETEXPLICITLY CONVEYED: “What is known by me to
be the case is not also believed by me to be the case.”IMPLICITLY CONVEYED: “To
know is magical!”CANCELLATION: “If I know that p iff I believe that p, p, and p
causes my believing that p, then what is known by me to be the case is also believed
by me to be the case.”TRY THREE OTHER IDEAS.CASE IN QUESTION:EXPLICITLY
CONVEYED: “The pillar box seems red.”IMPLICITLY CONVEYED: “One will doubt it
is.”CANCELLATION: “The pillar box seems red and I hope no one doubt it is.”TRY
THREE OTHER IDEAS. THAT LISTING became commonplace for Grice. In
ProlegomenaGROUP A: EXAMPLE I: RYLE on ‘voluntarily’ and “involuntarily” in
“The Concept of Mind.” RYLE WAS LISTENING! BUT GRICE WAS without reach! Grice
would nothavecriticised Ryle at a shorter distance.EXAMPLE II: MALCOLM IN
“Defending common sense” in the Philosophical Review, on Moore’s misuse of
‘know’ – also in Causal, above, as second in the sextet.EXPLICITLY CONVEYED:“When
Moore said he knew that the objects before him were human hands, he was guilty
of misusing the word "know".REPHRASE IN “PROLEGOMENA.”IMPLICITLY
CONVEYED: “You can only use ‘know’ for ‘difficult cases.’CANCELLATION: “If I
know that p iff I believe that p, p, and p causes my belief in p, I know that
the objects before me are human hands.”EXAMPLE III: BENJAMIN ON BROAD ON THE
“SENSE” OF “REMEMBERING”EXPLICITLY CONVEYED;IMPLICITLY CONVEYEDCANCELLATIONEXAMPLES,
GROUP A, CLASS IV: philosophy of perception FIRST EXAMPLE: Witters on ‘seeing
as’ in Philosophical InvestigationsEXPLICITLY CONVEYEDIMPLICITLY CONVEYEDCANCELLATION.Previously
used in Causal as first in the sextet: FIRST IN THE SEXTETEXPLICITLY CONVEYED:
“You cannot see a knife as a knife, though you may see what is not a knife as a
knife.”Rephrased in Prolegomena. IMPLICITLY CONVEYED: “”AS” REQUIRES A GESTALT.”CANCELLATION:
“I see the horse as a horse, because my gestalt is mine.”GROUP A – CLASS IV –
PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTIONEXAMPLE II – “The pillar box seems red to me.”Used
in“Causal”EXPLICITLY CONVEYED: “The pillar box seems red.”IMPLICITLY CONVEYED:
“One will doubt it is.”CANCELLATION: “The pillar box seems red and I hope no
one doubt it is.”GROUP A – CLASS V – PHILOSOPHY OF ACTION – Here unlike Class
IV, he uses (a), etc.EXAMPLE A: WITTERS AND OTHERS on ‘trying’ EXPLICITLY
CONVEYEDIMPLICITLY CONVEYED:CANCELLATIONGROUP A – CLASS V – “ACTION,” not
‘philosophy of action’ – cf. ‘ordinary parlance.’EXAMPLE B: Hart on
‘carefully.’EXPLICITLY CONVEYEDIMPLICITLY CONVEYEDCANCELLATION
GROUP A – CLASS V – ACTIONEXAMPLE C:
Austin in “A plea for excuses” on ‘voluntarily’ and ‘involuntarily’ – a
refinement on Ryle above – using variable “Mly” – Grice would not have
criticised Austin in the play group. He rather took it against his tutee,
Strawson.EXPLICITLY CONVEYED
IMPLICITLY CONVEYEDCANCELLATIONGROUP B:
syncategorema – not lettered butFIRST EXAMPLE: “AND” (not ‘not’)SECOND EXAMPLE:
“OR”THIRD EXAMPLE: “IF” – particularly relevant under ‘implication.’ STRAWSON, Introduction
to logical theory.GRICE’S PHRASING: “if p, q” ENTAILS ‘p horseshoe q.’ The
reverse does not hold: it is not the case that ‘p horseshoe q’ ENTAILS ‘if p,
q’. Odd way of putting it, but it was all from Strawson. It may be argued that
‘entail’ belongs in a system, and ‘p horseshoe q’ and ‘if p, q’ are DISPARATE. Grice
quotes verbatim from Strawson:a ‘primary
or standard’ use of “if … then …,” or “if,” of which the main characteristics
were: that for each hypothetical statement made by this use of “if,” there
could be made just one statement which would be the antecedent of the
hypothetical and just onestatement which would be its consequent; that the
hypothetical statement is acceptable (true, reasonable) if the antecedent
statement, if made or accepted, would, in the circumstances, be a good ground
or reason for accepting the consequent statement; and that the making of the
hypothetical statement carries the implicationeither of uncertainty about, or
of disbelief in, the fulfilment of both antecedent and consequent.Grice
rephrases that by stating that for Grice “a primary or standard use of ‘if,
then’” is characterised as follows:“for each hypothetical statement made by
this use of “if,” there could be made just one statement which would be the
antecedent of the hypothetical and just one statement which would be its
consequent; that the hypothetical statement is acceptable (true, reasonable) if
the antecedent statement, if made or accepted, would, in the circumstances, be
a good ground or reason for accepting the consequent statement; and that the
making of the hypothetical statement carries the implication either of
uncertainty about, or of disbelief in, the fulfilment of both antecedent and
consequent.”Grice rephrases the characterisation as from “each” and eliding a
middle part, but Grice does not care to add the fastidious “[…],” or quote,
unquote.“each hypothetical ‘statement’ made by this use of “if” is acceptable
(TRUE, reasonable) if the antecedent ‘statement,’ IF made or accepted, would,
in the circumstances, be a good ground or reason for accepting the consequent
‘statement;’ and that the making of thehypothetical statement carries the
implication either of uncertainty about, or of disbelief in, the fulfilment of
both antecedent and consequent. “A
hypothetical, or conditional ‘statement’ or composite proposition such as “If
it is day, I talk”is acceptable (or TRUE, or ‘reasonable’) if (but not only
if), first, the antecedent ‘statement,’ ‘It is day,’ IF made on its own, or
accepted on its own, i. e. simpliciter, would, in the circumstances, be a good
ground or ‘reason’ for accepting the consequent ‘statement,’ to wit: “I talk;”
and, second, that the making of the conditional proposition or hypothetical ‘statement’
carries the implication, or rather the emissor of the emissum IMPLIES, either it
is not the case that the emissor is CERTAIN about or that it is day and CERTAIN
about or that he talks, or BELIEVES that it is day and BELIEVES that he
talks.”More or less Grice’s denial or doubt. Or rather ‘doubt’ (Strawson’s
‘uncertainty about’) or denial (‘disbelief in’). But it will do at this point
to explore the argument by Strawson to which Grice is responding. First two
comments. Strawson has occasion to respond to Grice’s response in more than one
opportunity. But Grice never took up the issue again in a detailed fashion –
after dedicating a full lecture to it. One occasion was Strawson’s review of
the reprint of Grice in 1989. Another is in the BA memorial. The crucial one is
repr. by Strawson (in a rather otiose way) in his compilation, straight from
PGRICE. This is an essay which Strawson composed soon after the delivery by
Grice of the lecture without consulting. Once Stawson is aware of Grice’s
terminology, he is ready to frame his view in Grice’s terms: for Strawson,
there IS an implicature, but it is a conventional one. His analogy is with the
‘asserted’ “therefore” or “so.” Since this for Grice was at least the second
exemplar of his manoeuvre, it will do to revise the argument from which Grice
extracts the passage in “Prolegomena.” In the body of the full lecture IV,
Grice does not care to mention Strawson at all; in fact, he makes rather hasty
commentaries generalising on both parties of the debate: the formalists, who
are now ‘blue-collared practitioners of the sciences,” i. e. not philosophers
like Grice and Strawson; and the informalists or ‘traditionalists’ like
Strawson who feel offended by the interlopers to the tranquil Elysium of
philosophy. Grice confesses a sympathy for the latter, of course. So here is
straight from the tranquil Elysium of philosophy. For Strawson, the relations
between “if” and “⊃” have already, but only in part, been discussed (Ch. 2, S.
7).” So one may need to review those passages. But now he has a special section
that finishes up the discussion which has been so far only partial. So Strawson
resumes the points of the previous partial discussion and comes up with the
‘traditionalist’ tenet. The sign “⊃” is called the material implication sign. Only by Whitehead
and Russell, that is, ‘blue-collared practitioners of the sciences,’ in Grice’s
wording. Whitehead and Russell think that ‘material’ is a nice opposite to
‘formal,’ and ‘formal implication’ is something pretty complex that only they
know to which it refers! Strawson goes on to explain, and this is a reminder of
his “Introduction” to his “Philosophical Logic” where he reprints Grice’s
Meaning (for some reason). There Strawson has a footnote quoting from Quine’s
“Methods of Logic,” where the phrasing is indeed about the rough phrase, ‘the
meaning of ‘if’’ – cf. Grice’s laughter at philosophers talking of ‘the sense
of ‘or’’ – “Why, one must should as well talk of the ‘sense’ of ‘to,’ or ‘of’!’
– Grice’s implicature is to O. P. Wood, whose claim to fame is for having
turned Oxford into the place where ‘the sense of ‘or’’ was the key issue with
which philosophers were engaged. Strawson goes on to say that its meaning is
given by the ‘rule’ that any statement of the form ‘p⊃q’ is FALSE in the case in which the first of its
constituent statements is true and the second false, and is true in every other
case considered in the system; i. e., the falsity of the first constituent
statement or the truth of the second are, equally, sufficient conditions of the
truth of a statement of material implication. The combination of truth in the
first with falsity in the second is the single, NECESSARY AND SUFFICIENT,
condition of its falsity. The standard or primary -- the importance of this
qualifying phrase, ‘primary,’ can scarcely be overemphasized – Grice omits this
bracket when he expolates the quote. The bracket continues. The place where
Strawson opens the bracket is a curious one: it is obvious he is talking about
the primary use of ‘if’. So here he continues the bracket with the observation
that there are uses of “if” which do not
answer to the description given here, or to any other descriptions given in
this [essay] -- use of “if” sentence, on the other hand [these are
Strawson’s two hands], are seen to be in circumstances where, not knowing
whether some statement which could be made by the use of a sentence
corresponding in a certain way to the sub-ordinated clause of the utterance is
true or not, or believing it to be false, the emissor nevertheless considers that
a step in reasoning from THAT statement to a statement related in a similar way
to the main clause would be a sound or reasonable step [a reasonable reasoning,
that is]; this statement related to the main clause also being one of whose
truth the emissor is in doubt, or which the emissor believes to be false. Even
in such circumstances as these a philosopher may sometimes hesitate to apply
‘true’ to a conditional or hypothetical statement, i.e., a statement which
could be made by the use of “if ”(Philo’s ‘ei,’ Cicero’s ‘si’) in its standard significance, preferring to
call a conditional statement reasonable or well-founded. But if the philosopher
does apply ‘true’ to an ‘if’ utterance at all, it will be in such circumstances
as these. Now one of the sufficient conditions of the truth of a ‘statement’ or
formula of material implication may very well be fulfilled without the
conditions for the truth, or reasonableness, of the corresponding hypothetical
or conditional statement being fulfilled. A statement of the form ‘p ⊃ q’ (where the horseshoe is meant to represent an inverted
‘c’ for ‘contentum’ or ‘consequutum’ -- does not entail the corresponding statement
of the ‘form’ “if p, q.” But if the emissor is prepared to accept the hypothetical
statement, he must in consistency be prepared to deny the conjunction of the
statement corresponding to the sub-ordinated clause of the sentence used to
make the hypothetical statement with the negation of the statement
corresponding to its main or super-ordinated clause. A statement of the ‘form’
“if p, q” does entail the corresponding statement of the form ‘p ⊃ q.’ The force of “corresponding” may need some elucidation.
Consider the following very ‘ordinary’ or ‘natural’ specimens of a hypothetical
sentence. Strawson starts with a totally unordinary subjective counterfactual
‘if,’ an abyss with Philo, “If it’s day, I talk.” Strawson surely involves The
Hun. ‘If the Germans had invaded England in 1940, they, viz. the Germans, would
have won the war.’ Because for the Germans, invading England MEANT winning the
war. They never cared much for Wales or Scotland, never mind Northern Ireland.
Possibly ‘invaded London’ would suffice. Strawson’s second instantiation again
is the odd subjective counter-factual ‘if,’ an abyss or chasm from Philo, ‘If
it’s day, I talk.’ “If Smith were in charge, half the staff would have been
dismissed.’ Strawson is thinking Noel Coward, who used to make fun of the
music-hall artist Wade. “If you WERE the only girl in the world, and I WAS the
only boy…’. The use of ‘were’ is Oxonian. A Cockney is forbidden to use it,
using ‘was’ instead. The rationale is Philonian. ‘was’ is indicative. “If Smith were in charge, half the staff
would have been dismissed.’ Strawson’s third instantiation is, at last, more or
less Philonian, a plain indicative ‘weather’ protasis, etc. “If it rains, the
match will be cancelled.” The only reservation Philo would have is ‘will’.
Matches do not have ‘will,’ and the sea battle may never take place – the world
may be destroyed by then. “If it rains, the match will be cancelled.” Or “If it
rains, the match is cancelled – but there is a ‘rain date.’” The sentence which
could be used to make a statement corresponding in the required ‘sense’ to the
sub-ordinate clause can be ascertained by considering what it is that the
emissor of each hypothetical sentence must (in general) be assumed either to be
in doubt about or to believe to be not the case. Thus, the corresponding
sentences. ‘The Germans invaded England in 1940.’ Or ‘The Germans invade
England’ – historical present -- ‘The Germans won the war.’ Or ‘The Germans win
the war’ – historical present. ‘Smith is in charge.’ ‘Half the staff has been
dismissed.’ Or ‘Half the staff is dismissed.’ ‘It will rain.’ Or ‘It
rains.’‘The match will be cancelled.’ Or ‘The match is cancelled.’ A sentence could
be used to make a statement of material implication corresponding to the
hypothetical statement made by the sentence
is framed, in each case, from these pairs of sentences as follows. ‘The Germans
invaded England in 1940 ⊃ they won the war.’ Or in the historical present,’The
Germans invade London ⊃ The Germans win the war. ‘ ‘Smith is in charge ⊃ half the staff has been, dismissed.’ Or in the present
tense, ‘Smith is in charge ⊃ half the staff is dismissed.’ ‘ It
will rain ⊃ the match will be cancelled.’ Or in the present ‘It rains ⊃ the match is cancelled.’ The very fact that a few verbal modifications
are necessary to please the Oxonian ear, in order to obtain from the clauses of
the hypothetical sentence the clauses of the corresponding material implication
sentence is itself a symptom of the radical difference between a hypothetical
statement and a truth-functional statement. Some detailed differences are also
evident from these instantiations. The falsity of a statement made by the use
of ‘The Germans invade London in 1940’ or ‘Smith is in charge’ is a sufficient
condition of the truth of the corresponding statements made by the use of the ⊃-utterances. But not, of course, of the corresponding
statement made by the use of the ‘if’ utterance. Otherwise, there would
normally be no point in using an ‘if’ sentence at all.An ‘if’ sentence would
normally carry – but not necessarily: one may use the pluperfect or the
imperfect subjunctive when one is simply working out the consequences of an
hypothesis which one may be prepared eventually to accept -- in the tense or
mode of the verb, an implication (or implicature) of the emissor’s belief in
the FALSITY of the statements corresponding to the clauses of the hypothetical.That
it is not the case that it rains is sufficient to verify (or truth-functionally
confirm) a statement made by the use of “⊃,”
but not a statement made by the use of ‘if.’ That it is not the case that it
rains is also sufficient to verify (or truth-functionally confirm) a statement
made by the use of ‘It will rain ⊃
the match will not be cancelled.’ Or ‘It rains ⊃
the match is cancelled.’ The formulae ‘p ⊃
q’ and ‘p ⊃ ~ q' are consistent with one another.The joint assertion of
corresponding statements of these forms is equivalent to the assertion of the
corresponding statement of the form ‘~ p.’ But, and here is one of Philo’s
‘paradoxes’: “If it rains, the match will be cancelled” (or ‘If it rains, the
match is cancelled’) seems (or sounds) inconsistent with “If it rains, the match
will not be cancelled,’ or ‘If it rains, it is not the case that the match is
cancelled.’But here we add ‘not,’ so Philo explains the paradox away by noting
that his account is meant for ‘pure’ uses of “ei,” or “si.”Their joint assertion
in the same context sounds self-contradictory. But cf. Philo, who wisely said
of ‘If it is
day, it is
night’ “is true only at night.” (Diog. Laert. Repr. in Long, The Hellenistic
Philosophers). Suppose we call the statement
corresponding to the sub-ordinated clause of a sentence used to make a
hypothetical statement the antecedent of the hypothetical statement; and the
statement corresponding to the super-ordinated clause, its consequent. It is
sometimes fancied that, whereas the futility of identifying a conditional ‘if’
statement with material implication is obvious in those cases where the
implication of the falsity of the antecedent is normally carried by the mode or
tense of the verb – as in “If the Germans invade London in 1940, they, viz. the
Germans, win the war’ and ‘If Smith is in charge, half the staff is dismissed’
-- there is something to be said for at least a PARTIAL identification in cases
where no such implication is involved, i.e., where the possibility of the truth
of both antecedent and consequent is left open – as in ‘If it rains, the match
is cancelled.’ In cases of the first kind (an ‘unfulfilled,’ counterfactual, or
‘subjunctive’ conditional) the intended addressee’s attention is directed, as
Grice taught J. L. Mackie, in terms of the principle of conversational
helpfulness, ONLY TO THE LAST TWO ROWS of the truth-tables for ‘ p ⊃ q,’ where the antecedent has the truth-value, falsity. Th
suggestion that ‘~p’ ‘entails’ ‘if p, q’ is felt or to be or ‘sounds’ – if not
to Philo’s or Grice’s ears -- obviously wrong. But in cases of the second kind one inspects
also the first two ROWS. The possibility of the antecedent's being fulfilled is
left open. It is claimed that it is NOT the case that the suggestion that ‘p ⊃ q’ ‘entails’ ‘if p, q’ is felt to be or sound obviously
wrong, to ANYBODY, not just the bodies of Grice and Philo. This Strawson calls,
to infuriate Grice, ‘an illusion,’ ‘engendered by a reality.’The fulfilment of
both antecedent and consequent of a hypothetical statement does not show that
the man who made the hypothetical statement is right. It is not the case that
the man would be right, Strawson claims, if the consequent is made true as a
result of this or that factor unconnected with, or in spite of, rather than ‘because’
of, the fulfilment of the antecedent. E.
g. if Grice’s unmissable match is missed because the Germans invade – and not
because of the ‘weather.’ – but cf. “The weather in the streets.” Strawson is prepared
to say that the man (e. g., Grice, or Philo) who makes the hypothetical
statement is right only if Strawson is also prepared to say that the antecedent
being true is, at least in part, the ‘explanation’ of the consequent being
true. The reality behind the illusion Strawson naturally finds ‘complex,’ for
surely there ain’t one! Strawson thinks that this is due to two phenomena. First,
Strawson claims, in many cases, the fulfilment of both antecedent and
consequent provides confirmation for the view that the existence of states of
affairs like those described by the antecedent IS a good ‘reason’ for expecting
(alla Hume, assuming the uniformity of nature, etc.) a states of affair like
that described by the consequent. Second, Starwson claims, a man (e. g. Philo,
or Grice) who (with a straight Grecian or Griceian face) says, e. g. ‘If it
rains, the match is cancelled’ makes a bit of a prediction, assuming the
‘consequent’ to be referring to t2>t1 – but cf. if he is reporting an event
taking place at THE OTHER PLACE. The prediction Strawson takes it to be ‘The
match is cancelled.’And the man is making the prediction ONLY under what Strawson
aptly calls a “proviso,” or “caveat,” – first used by Boethius to translate
Aristotle -- “It rains.” Boethius’s terminology later taken up by the lawyers
in Genoa. mid-15c., from Medieval Latin proviso (quod) "provided
(that)," phrase at the beginning of clauses in legal documents (mid-14c.),
from Latin proviso "it
being provided," ablative neuter of provisus, past participle
of providere (see provide).
Related: Provisory. And that the cancellation of the match because of the rain
therefore leads us to say, not only that the reasonableness of the prediction
was confirmed, but also that the prediction itself was confirmed. Because it is not the case that a statement of
the form ‘ p ⊃ q’ entails the corresponding statement of the form ' if p, q
' (in its standard employment), Strawson thinks he can find a divergence
between this or that ‘rule’ for '⊃'
and this or that ‘rule’ for '’if ,’ in its standard employment. Because ‘if p, q’
does entail ‘p ⊃ q,’ we shall also expect to find some degree of parallelism
between the rules. For whatever is entailed by ‘p ⊃ q’ is entailed by ‘if p, q,’ though not everything which
entails ‘p ⊃ q’ does Strawson claims, entail ‘if p, q.’ Indeed, we find further parallels than those
which follow simply from the facts that ‘if p, q’ entails ‘p ⊃ q’ and that entailment is transitive. To some laws for ‘⊃,’ Strawson finds no parallels for ‘if.’ Strawson notes that
for at least four laws for ‘⊃,’ we find that parallel laws ‘hold’
good for ‘if. The first law is mentioned by Grice, modus ponendo ponens, as
elimination of ‘⊃.’ Strawson does not consider the introduction of the
horseshoe, where p an q forms a collection of all active
assumptions previously introduced which could have been used in the deduction
of ‘if p, q.’ When inferring ‘if p, q’ one is allowed to discharge
assumptions of the form p. The fact that after deduction of ‘if p, q’
this assumption is discharged (not active is pointed out by using [ ] in
vertical notation, and by deletion from the set of assumptions in horizontal
notation. The latter notation shows better the character of the rule; one
deduction is transformed into the other. It shows also that the rule for
the introduction of ‘if’ corresponds to an important metatheorem, the
Deduction Theorem, which has to be proved in axiomatic formalizations of logic. But back to the elimination of ‘if’. Modus ponendo ponens.
‘‘((p ⊃ q).p) ⊃ q.’ For some reason, Strawson here mixes horseshoes and ifs
as if Boethius is alive! Grice calls these “half-natural, half-artificial.’ Chomsky
prefers ‘semi-native.’ ‘(If p, q, and p) ⊃q.’
Surely what Strawson wants is a purely ‘if’ one, such as ‘If, if p, q, and p,
q.’ Some conversational implicature! As
Grice notes: “Strawson thinks that one can converse using his converses, but we
hardly.’ The second law. Modus tollendo tollens. ‘((p⊃q). ~ q)) ⊃ (~ p).’ Again, Strawson uses a
‘mixed’ formula: (if p, q, and it is not the case that q) ⊃ it is not the case that p. Purely unartificial: If, if p,
q, and it is not the case that q, it is not the case that p. The third law,
which Strawson finds problematic, and involves an operator that Grice does not even
consider. ‘(p ⊃ q) ≡ (~ q ⊃
~ p). Mixed version, Strawson simplifies ‘iff’ to ‘if’ (in any case, as Pears
notes, ‘if’ IMPLICATES ‘iff.’). (If p, q) ⊃
if it is not the case that q, it is not the case that p. Unartificial: If, if
p, q, it is not the case that if q, it is not the case that p. The fourth law. ((p
⊃ q).(q ⊃ r)) ⊃ (p ⊃ r). Mixed: (if p, q, and if q, r) ⊃ (if p, r). Unartificial: ‘If, if p, q, and if q, r, if p,
r.’ Try to say that to Mrs. Grice! (Grice: “It’s VERY SURPRISING that Strawson
think we can converse in his lingo!”). Now Strawson displays this or that
‘reservation.’ Mainly it is an appeal to J. Austen and J. Austin. Strawson’s
implicature is that Philo, in Megara, has hardly a right to unquiet the
tranquil Elysium. This or that ‘reservation’ by Strawson takes TWO pages of his
essay. Strawson claims that the reservations are important. It is, e. g., often
impossible to apply entailment-rule (iii) directly without obtaining incorrect
or absurd results. Some modification of the structure of the clauses of the
hypothetical is commonly necessary. Alas, Whitehead and Russell give us little
guide as to which modifications are required. If we apply rule (iii) to our specimen
hypothetical sentences, without modifying at all the tenses or moods of the
individual clauses, we obtain expressions which Austin would not call ‘ordinary
language,’ or Austen, for that matter, if not Macaulay. If we preserve as nearly as possible the
tense-mode structure, in the simplest way consistent with grammatical requirements,
we obtain this or that sentence. TOLLENDO TOLLENS. ‘If it is not the case that
the Germans win the war, it is not the case that they, viz. the Germans, invade
England in 1940.’ ‘If it is not the case that half the staff is dismissed, it
is not the case that Smith is in charge.’ ‘If it is not the case that the match
is cancelled, it is not the case that it rains.’ But, Strawson claims, these
sentences, so far from SOUNDING or seeming logically equivalent to the
originals, have in each case a quite different ‘sense.’ It is possible, at
least in some cases, to frame, via tollendo tollens a target setence of more or
less the appropriate pattern for which one can imagine a use and which DOES
stand in the required relationship to the source sentence. ‘If it is not the
case that the Germans win the war, (trust) it is not the case that they, viz.
the Germans, invade England in 1940,’ with the attending imlicatum: “only
because they did not invade England in 1940.’ or even, should historical
evidence be scanty). ‘If it is not the case that the Germans win the war, it
SURELY is not the case that they, viz. the Germans, invade London in 1940.’ ‘If
it is not the case that half the staff is dismissed, it surely is not the case
that Smith is in charge.’ These changes reflect differences in the
circumstances in which one might use these, as opposed to the original,
sentences. The sentence beginning ‘If
Smith is in charge …’ is normally, though not necessarily, used by a man who
antecedently knows that it is not the case that Smith is in charge. The
sentence beginning ‘If it is not the case that half the staff is dismissed …’ is normally, though not necessarily, used by
by a man who is, as Cook Wilson would put it, ‘working’ towards the ‘consequent’
conclusion that Smith is not in charge. To
say that the sentences are nevertheless truth-functionally equivalent seems to
point to the fact that, given the introduction rule for ‘if,’ the grounds for
accepting the original ‘if’-utterance AND the ‘tollendo tollens’ correlatum, would,
in two different scenarios, have been grounds for accepting the soundness or
validity of the passage or move from a premise ‘Smith is in charge’ to its
‘consequentia’ ‘consequutum,’ or ‘conclusion,’ ‘Half the staff is dismissed.’ One
must remember that calling each formula (i)-(iv) a LAW or a THEOREM is the same
as saying that, e.g., in the case of (iii), ‘If p, q’ ‘ENTAILS’ ‘If it is not
the case that q, it is not the case that p.’ Similarly, Strawson thinks, for
some steps which would be invalid for ‘if,’ there are corresponding steps that
would be invalid for ‘⊃.’ He gives two example using a symbol Grice does not
consider, for ‘therefore,’ or ‘ergo,’ and lists a fallacy. First example. ‘(p ⊃ q).q ∴ p.’ Second example of a fallacy:‘(p ⊃ q). ~p ∴
~q.’ These are invalid
inference-patterns, and so are the correlative patterns with ‘if’: ‘If p, q; and
q ∴ p’ ‘If p, q; and it is not the case
that p ∴
it is not the case that q. The formal analogy here may be described
by saying that neither ‘p ⊃ q’ nor ‘if p, q’ is
a simply convertible (“nor hardly conversable” – Grice) formula. Strawson
thinks, and we are getting closer to Philo’s paradoxes, revisied, that there
may be this or that laws which holds for ‘p ⊃
q’ and not for ‘If p, q.’ As an example
of a law which holds for ‘if’ but not for ‘⊃,’
one may give an analytic formula. ~[(if p, q) . (if p, it is not the case that
q)]’. The corresponding formula with the horseshoe is not analytic. ‘~[(p ⊃ q) . (p ⊃ ~q)]’ is not analytic, and is
equivalent to the contingent formula ‘~ ~p.’ The rules to the effect that this
or that formula is analytic is referred to by Johnson, in the other place, as
the ‘paradox of implication.’ This Strawson finds a Cantabrigian misnomer. If Whitehead’s
and Russell’s ‘⊃’ is taken as identical either with Moore’s ‘entails’ or, more
widely, with Aelfric’s‘if’ – as in his
“Poem to the If,” MSS Northumberland – “If” meant trouble in Anglo-Saxon -- in
its standard use, the rules that yield this or that so-called ‘paradox’ -- are
not, for Strawson, “just paradoxical.” With an attitude, he adds. “They are
simply incorrect.”This is slightly illogical.“That’s not paradoxical; that’s
incorrect.”Cf. Grice, “What is paradoxical is not also incorrect.” And cf. Grice:
“Philo defines a ‘paradox’ as something that surprises _his father_.’ He is
‘using’ “father,” metaphorically, to refer to his tutor. His father was unknown
(to him). On the other hand (vide Strawson’s Two Hands), with signs you can
introduce alla Peirce and Johnson by way of ostensive definition any way you
wish! If ‘⊃’ is given the meaning it is given by what Grice calls the
‘truth-table definition,’ or ‘stipulation’ in the system of truth functions,
the rules and the statements they represent, may be informally dubbed
‘paradoxical,’ in that they don’t agree with the ‘man in the street,’ or ‘the
man on High.’ The so-called ‘paradox’ would be a simple and platitudinous
consequence of the meaning given to the symbol. Strawson had expanded on the
paradoxes in an essay he compiled while away from Oxford. On his return to
Oxford, he submitted it to “Mind,” under the editorship by G. Ryle, where it
was published. The essay concerns the ‘paradoxes’ of ‘entailment’ in detail,
and mentions Moore and C. I. Lewis. He makes use of modal operators, nec. and
poss. to render the ‘necessity’ behind ‘entail.’ He thinks the paradoxes of
‘entailment’ arise from inattention to this modality. At the time, Grice and
Strawson were pretty sure that nobody then accepted, if indeed anyone ever did
and did make, the identification of the relation symbolised by the horseshoe, ⊃, with the relation which Moore calls ‘entailment,’ p⊃q, i. e. The mere truth-functional ‘if,’ as in ‘p ⊃ q,’ ‘~(pΛ~q)’ is rejected as an analysis of the
meta-linguistic ‘p entails q.’ Strawson thinks that the identification is
rejected because ‘p ⊃ q’ involves this or that allegedly paradoxical implicatum.Starwson
explicitly mentions ‘ex falso quodlibeet.’ Any FALSE proposition entails any
proposition, true or false. And any TRUE proposition is entailed by any
proposition, true or falso (consequentia mirabilis). It is a commonplace that
Lewis, whom Grice calls a ‘blue-collared practioner of the sciences,’
Strawson thinks, hardly solved the thing. The amendment by Lewis, for Strawson,
has consequences scarcely less paradoxical in terms of the implicata. For if p
is impossible, i.e. self-contradictory, it is impossible that p and ~q.
And if q is necessary, ~q is impossible and it is impossible that p and ~q; i.
e., if p entails q means it is impossible that p and ~q any necessary
proposition is entailed by any proposition and any self-contradictory
proposition entails any proposition. On the other hand, the definition by Lewis
of ‘strict’ implication or entailment (i.e. of the relation which holds from p
to q whenever q is deducible from p), Strawson thinks, obviously commends
itself in some respects. Now, it is clear that the emphasis laid on the
expression-mentioning character of the intensional contingent statement by
writing ‘ ‘pΛ~q’ is impossible instead’ of ‘It is impossible that p and ~q’
does not avoid the alleged paradoxes of entailment. But, Starwson
optimistically thinks, it is equally clear that the addition of some provision
does avoid them. Strawson proposes that one should use “p entails q” such that
no necessary statement and no negation of a necessary statement can
significantly be said to “entail” or be entailed by any statement; i. e. the
function “p entails q” cannot take necessary or self-contradictory statements
as arguments. The expression “p entails q” is to be used to mean “ ‘p ⊃ q’ is necessary, and neither ‘p’ nor ‘q’ is either necessary
or self-contradictory.” Alternatively, “p entails q” should be used only to
mean “ ‘pΛ~q’ is impossible and neither ‘p’ nor ‘q,’ nor either of their
contradictories, is necessary. In this way, Strawson thinks the paradoxes are
avoided. Strawson’s proof. Let us assume that p1 expresses a contingent, and q1
a necessary, proposition. p1 and ~q1 is now impossible because ~q1 is
impossible. But q1 is necessary. So, by that provision, p1 does not entail q1.
We may avoid the paradoxical assertion “p1 entails q2” as merely falling into
the equally paradoxical assertion “ “p1 entails q1” is necessary.” For: If ‘q’ is
necessary, ‘q is necessary’ is, though true, not necessary, but a CONTINGENT
INTENSIONAL (Latinate) statement. This
becomes part of the philosophers lexicon: intensĭo, f. intendo, which L and S
render as a stretching out, straining, effort. E. g. oculorum, Scrib.
Comp. 255. Also an intensifying, increase. Calorem suum (sol) intensionibus ac
remissionibus temperando fovet,” Sen. Q. N. 7, 1, 3. The tune: “gravis, media,
acuta,” Censor. 12. Hence: ‘~ (‘q’ is necessary)’ is, though false,
possible. Hence “p1 Λ ~ (q1 is necessary)” is, though false, possible. Hence ‘p1’ does NOT entail ‘q1 is necessary.’ Thus,
by adopting the view that an entailment statement, and other intensional
statements, are contingent, viz. non-necessary, and that no necessary statement
or its contradictory can entail or be entailed by any statement, Strawson
thinks he can avoid the paradox that a necessary proposition is entailed by any
proposition, and indeed all the other associated paradoxes of entailment. Grice objects that the alleged cure by
Strawson is worse than disease of Moore! The denial that a necessary proposition can
entail or be entailed by any proposition, and, therefore, that necessary
propositions can be related to each other by the entailment relation, is too
high a price to pay for the solution of the paradoxes, which are perfectly true
utterances with only this or that attending cancellable implicature. Strawson’s
introduction of ‘acc.’ makes sense. Which makes sense in that Philo first
supplied his truth-functional account of ‘if’ to criticise his tutor Diodorus
on modality. Philo reported to Diodorus something he had heard from Neptune. In
dreams, Neptune appeared to Philo and told him: “I saw down deep in the waters a
wooden trunk of a plant that only grows under weather – algae -- The trunk can
burn!” Neptune said.Awakening, Philo ran to Diodorus: “A wooden trunk deep down
in the ocean can burn.” Throughout this section, Strawson refers to a
‘primary or standard’ use of ‘if,’ of which the main characteristics are
various. First, that for each hypothetical statement made by this use of ‘if,’ there
could be made just one statement which would be the antecedent of the
hypothetical and just one statement which would be its consequent. Second, that
the hypothetical statement is acceptable (true, reasonable) if the antecedent
statement, if made or accepted, would, in the circumstances, be a good ground
or reason for accepting the consequent statement. Third, the making of the
hypothetical statement carries the implication either of uncertainty about, or
of disbelief in, the fulfilment of both antecedent and consequent.’ This above
is the passage extrapolated by Grice. Grice does not care to report the
platitudionous ‘first’ ‘characteristic’ as Strawson rather verbosely puts it.
The way Grice reports it, it is not clear Strawson is listing THREE
characteristics. Notably, from the extrapolated quote, it would seem as if
Grice wishes his addressee to believe that Strawson thinks that characteristic
2 and characteristic 3 mix. On top, Grice omits a caveat immediately after the
passage he extrapolates. Strawso notes: “There is much more than this to be
said about this way of using ‘if;’ in particular, about the meaning of the
question whether the antecedent would be a GOOD ground or reason for accepting
the consequent, and about the exact way in which THIS question is related to
the question of whether the hypothetical is TRUE {acceptable, reasonable) or
not.’ Grice does not care to include a caveat by Strawson: “Not all uses of ‘if
,’ however, exhibit all these three characteristics.” In particular, there is a
use which has an equal claim to rank as standard ‘if’ and which is closely
connected with the use described, but which does not exhibit the first
characteristic and for which the description of the remainder must consequently
be modified. Strawson has in mind what
is sometimes called a ‘formal’ (by Whitehead and Russell) or 'variable' or
'general’ or ‘generic’ hypothetical. Strawson gives three examples. The first
example is ‘lf ice is left in the sun, it melts.’ This is Kantian. Cf. Grice on
indicative conditionals in the last Immanuel Kant Lecture. Grice: "It should
be, given that it is the case that one smears one's skin with peanut butter
before retiring and that it is the case that one has a relatively insensitive
skin, that it is the case that one preserves a youthful complexion." More
generally, there is some plausibility to the idea that an exemplar of the form 'Should
(! E, ⊢F;
! G)' is true just in case a corresponding examplar of the form 'Should (⊢ F, ⊢G; ⊢E)' is true. Before
proceeding further, I will attempt to deal briefly with a possible objection
which might be raised at this point. I can end imagine an ardent descriptivist,
who first complains, in the face of someone who wishes to allow a legitimate
autonomous status to practical acceptability generalizations, that
truth-conditions for such generalizations are not available, and perhaps are in
principle not available; so such generalizations are not to be taken seriously.
We then point out to him that, at least for a class of such cases,
truth-conditions are available, and that they are to be found in related
alethic generalizations, a kind of generalization he accepts. He then complains
that, if finding truth-conditions involves representing the practical
acceptability generalizations as being true just in case related alethic
generalizations are true, then practical acceptability generalizations are
simply reducible to alethic generalizations, and so are not to be taken
seriously for another reason, namely, that they are simply transformations of
alethic generalizations, and we could perfectly well get on without them. Maybe
some of you have heard some ardent descriptivists arguing in a style not so
very different from this. Now a deep reply to such an objection would involve
(I think) a display of the need for a system of reasoning in which the value to
be transmitted by acceptable inference is not truth but practical value,
together with a demonstration of the role of practical acceptability
generalizations in such a system. I suspect that such a reply could be
constructed, but I do not have it at my fingertips (or tongue-tip), so I shall
not try to produce it. An interim reply, however, might take the following
form: even though it may be true (which is by no means certain) that certain
practical acceptability generalizations have the same truth-conditions as
certain corresponding alethic generalizations, it is not to be supposed that
the former generalizations are simply reducible to the latter (in some
disrespectful sense of 'reducible'). For though both kinds of generalization are defeasible, they are not defeasible in the same
way; more exactly, what is a defeating condition for a given practical
generalization is not a defeating condition for its alethic counterpart. A
generalization of the form 'should (! E, ⊢F; ! G)' may have, as a defeating condition, 'E*'; that is
to say, consistently with the truth of this generalization, it may be true that
'should (! E & ! E*, ⊢F;
! G*)' where 'G*' is
inconsistent with 'G'. But since, in the
alethic counterpart generalization 'should (⊢ F, ⊢G; ⊢E)', 'E' does not occur
in the antecedent, 'E*' cannot be a defeating end p.92 condition for this
generalization. And, since liability to defeat by a certain range of defeating
conditions is essential to the role which acceptability generalizations play in
reasoning, this difference between a practical generalization and its alethic
counterpart is sufficient to eliminate the reducibility of the former to the
latter. To return to the main theme of this section. If, without further ado,
we were to accept at this point the suggestion that 'should (! E, ⊢F; ! G)' is true just
in case 'should (⊢
F, ⊢G;
⊢E)'
is true, we should be accepting it simply on the basis of intuition (including,
of course, linguistic or logical intuition under the head of 'intuition'). If
the suggestion is correct then we should attain, at the same time, a stronger
assurance that it is correct and a better theoretical understanding of the
alethic and practical acceptability, if we could show why it is correct by
deriving it from some general principle(s). Kant, in fact, for reasons not
unlike these, sought to show the validity of a different but fairly closely
related Technical Imperative by just such a method. The form which he selects
is one which, in my terms, would be represented by "It is fully
acceptable, given let it be that B, that let it be that A" or "It is
necessary, given let it be that B, that let it be that A". Applying this
to the one fully stated technical imperative given in Grundlegung, we get
Kant’s hypothetical which is of the type Strawson calls ‘variable,’ formal,
‘generic,’ or ‘generic.’ Kant: “It is necessary, given let it be that one
bisect a line on an unerring principle, that let it be that I draw from its
extremities two intersecting arcs". Call this statement, (α). Though he
does not express himself very clearly, I am certain that his claim is that this
imperative is validated in virtue of the fact that it is, analytically, a
consequence of an indicative statement which is true and, in the present
context, unproblematic, namely, the statement vouched for by geometry, that if
one bisects a line on an unerring principle, then one does so only as a result
of having drawn from its extremities two intersecting arcs. Call this
statement, (β). His argument seems to be expressible as follows. (1) It is
analytic that he who wills the end (so far as reason decides his conduct),
wills the indispensable means thereto. (2) So it is analytic that (so far as
one is rational) if one wills that A, and judges that if A, then A as a result
of B, then one wills that B. end p.93 (3) So it is analytic that (so far as one
is rational) if one judges that if A, then A as a result of B, then if one
wills that A then one wills that B. (4) So it is analytic that, if it is true
that if A, then A as a result of B, then if let it be that A, then it must be
that let it be that B. From which, by substitution, we derive (5): it is
analytic that if β then α. Now it seems to me to be meritorious, on Kant's
part, first that he saw a need to justify hypothetical imperatives of this
sort, which it is only too easy to take for granted, and second that he invoked
the principle that "he who wills the end, wills the means";
intuitively, this invocation seems right. Unfortunately, however, the step from
(3) to (4) seems open to dispute on two different counts. (1) It looks as if an
unwarranted 'must' has appeared in the consequent of the conditional which is
claimed, in (4), as analytic; the most that, to all appearances, could be
claimed as being true of the antecedent is that 'if let it be that A then let
it be that B'. (2) (Perhaps more serious.) It is by no means clear by what
right the psychological verbs 'judge' and 'will', which appear in (3), are
omitted in (4); how does an (alleged) analytic connection between (i) judging
that if A, A as a result of B and (ii) its being the case that if one wills
that A then one wills that B yield an analytic connection between (i) it's
being the case that if A, A as a result of B and (ii) the 'proposition' that if
let it be that A then let it be that B? Can the presence in (3) of the phrase
"in so far as one is rational" legitimize this step? I do not know
what remedy to propose for the first of these two difficulties; but I will
attempt a reconstruction of Kant's line of argument which might provide relief
from the second. It might, indeed, even be an expansion of Kant's actual
thinking; but whether or not this is so, I am a very long way from being
confident in its adequacy. Back to
Strawson. First example: ‘lf ice is left
in the sun, it melts.’Or “If apple goes up, apple goes down.” – Newton,
“Principia Mathematica.” “If ice is left in the sun, it, viz. ice, melts.” Strawson’s
second example of a formal, variable, generic, or general ‘if’ ‘If the side of
a triangle is produced, the exterior angle is equal to the sum of the two interior
and opposite angles.’ Cf. Kant: “If a line on an unerring principle
is bisected, two intersecting arcs are drawn from its extremities.” Synthetical
propositions must no doubt be employed in defining the means to a proposed end;
but they do not concern the principle, the act of the will, but the object and
its realization. E.g., that in order to bisect a line on an unerring principle
I must draw from its extremities two intersecting arcs; this no doubt is taught
by mathematics only in synthetical propositions; but if I know that it is only
by this process that the intended operation can be performed, then to say that,
if I fully will the operation, I also will the action required for it, is an
analytical proposition; for it is one and the same thing to conceive something
as an effect which I can produce in a certain way, and to conceive myself as
acting in this way. Strawson’s third example: ‘If a child is very strictly
disciplined in the nursery, it, viz. the child, that should be seen but not
heard, will develop aggressive tendencies in adult life.’ To a statement made
by the use of a sentence such as these there corresponds no single pair of
statements which are, respectively, its antecedent and consequent. On the other hand, for every such statement
there is an indefinite number of NON-general, or not generic, hypothetical
statements which might be called exemplifications, applications, of the
variable hypothetical; e.g., a statement made by the use of the sentence ‘If
THIS piece of ice is left in the sun, it, viz. this piece, melts.’Strawson,
about to finish his section on “ ‘⊃’
and ‘if’,” – the expression, ‘’ ⊃’ and ‘if’” only occurs in the
“Table of Contents,” on p. viii, not in the body of the essay, as found
redundant – it is also the same title Strawson used for his essay which
circulated (or ‘made the rounds’) soon after Grice delivered his attack on Strawson,
and which Strawson had, first, the cheek to present it to PGRICE, and then,
voiding the idea of a festschrift, reprint it in his own compilation of essays.
-- from which Grice extracted the quote for “Prolegomena,” notes that there are
two ‘relatively uncommon uses of ‘if.’‘If he felt embarrassed, he showed no
signs of it.’It is this example that Grice is having in mind in the fourth
lecture on ‘indicative conditionals.’ “he didn’t show it.”Grice is giving an
instantiation of an IMPLICIT, or as he prefers, ‘contextual,’ cancellation of
the implicatum of ‘if.’ He does this to
show that even if the implicatum of ‘if’ is a ‘generalised,’ not ‘generic,’ or
‘general,’ one, it need not obtain or be present in every PARTICULAR case.
“That is why I use the weakened form ‘generalISED, not general. It’s all ceteris
paribus always with me).” The example Grice gives corresponds to the one
Strawson listed as one of the two ‘relatively uncommon’ uses of ‘if.’ By
sticking with the biscuit conditional, Grice is showing Strawson that this use
is ‘relatively uncommon’ because it is absolutely otiose! “If he was surprised, he didn’t show it.”Or
cf. AustinIf you are hungry, there are. Variants by Grice on his own example:“If
Strawson was surprised, he did not show it.”“If he was surprised, it is not the
case that Strawson showed it, viz. that he was surprised.”Grice (on the phone
with Strawson’s friend) in front of Strawson – present tense version:“If he IS
surprised, it is not th case that he, Strawson, is showing it, viz. the clause
that he is surprised. Are you implicating he SHOULD?”and a second group:‘If Rembrandt passes the exam at the Koninklijke
Academie van Beeldende Kunsten, I am a
Dutchman.’‘If the Mad Hatter is not mad, I'll eat my hat.’(as opposed to ‘If
the Mad Hatter IS mad, I’ll eat HIS hat.’)Hats were made at Oxford in a
previous generation, by mad ‘hatters.’ “To eat one’s hat,” at Oxford, became
synonymous with ‘I’ll poison myself and die.’ The reason of the prevalence of
Oxonian ‘lunatic’ hatters is chemical. Strawson is referring to what he calls
an ‘old wives’ tale’As
every grandmother at Oxford knows, the chemicals used in hat-making include
mercurious nitrate, which is used in ‘curing’ felt. Now exposure to the mercury
vapours cause mercury poisoning. Or, to use an ‘if’: “If Kant is exposed to
mercury vapour, Kant gets poisoned. A poisoned victim develops a severe and uncontrollable muscular
tremors and twitching limbs, distorted vision and confused speech,
hallucinations and psychosis, if not death. For a time, it was at Oxford
believed that a wearer of a hat could similarly die, especially by eating the
felt containing the mercurial nitrate. The
sufficient and necessary condition of the truth of a statement made by “If he
was surprised, it is not the case that Strawson showed it, viz. that he was
surprised” is that it is not the case that Strawson showed that he was
surprised. The antecedent is otiose. Cf. “If you are hungry, there are biscuits
in the cupboard.’ Austin used to expand the otiose antecedent further, ‘If you
are hungry – AND EVEN IF YOU ARE NOT – there are biscuits in the cupboard,”
just in case someone was ignorant of Grice’s principle of conversational
helpfulness. Consequently, Strawson claims that such a statement cannot be
treated either as a standard hypothetical or as a material implication. This is
funny because by the time Grice is criticizing Strawson he does take “If
Strawson is surprised, it is not the case that he is showing it, viz. that he
is surprised.” But when it comes to “Touch the beast and it will bite you” he
is ready to say that here we do not have a case of ‘conjunction.’Why?
Stanford.Stanford is the answer.Grice had prepared the text to deliver at
Stanford, of all places. Surely, AT STANFORD, you don’t want to treat your
addressee idiotically. What Grice means is:“Now let us consider ‘Touch the
beast and it will bite you.’ Symbolise it: !p et !q. Turn it into the
indicative: You tell your love and love bites you (variant on William Blake).”
Grice: “One may object to the use of
‘p.q’ on Whiteheadian grounds. Blue-collared practitioners of the sciences will
usually proclaim that they do not care about the ‘realisability’ of this or
that operator. In fact, the very noun, ‘realisability,’ irritated me so that I
coined non-detachability as a balance. The blue-collared scientist will say
that ‘and’ is really Polish, and should be PRE-FIXED as an “if,” or condition,
or proviso. So that the conjunction becomes “Provided you tell your love, love
bites you.”Strawson gives his reason about the ‘implicatum’ of what P. L.
Gardiner called the ‘dutchman’ ‘if,’ after G. F. Stout’s “ ‘hat-eating’ if.” Examples of the second kind are sometimes
erroneously treated as evidence that Philo was not crazy, and that ‘if’ does,
after all, behave somewhat as ‘⊃’ behaves. Boethius appropriately comments: “Philo had
two drawbacks against his favour. He had no drawing board, and he couldn’t
write. Therefore he never symbolized, other than ‘via verba,’ his ‘ei’ utterance, “If it is day, it is night,”
which he held to be true “at night only.”” Strawson echoes Grice. The evidence
for this conversational explanation of the oddity of the ‘dutcham’ if, as
called by Gardiner, and the ‘hat-eating’ if, as called by Stout, is,
presumably, the facts, first, that the relation between antecedent and
consequent is non-Kantian. Recall that Kant has a ‘Funktion’ which, after
Aristotle’s ‘pros ti,’ and Boethius’s ‘relatio,’ he called ‘Relation’ where he
considers the HYPOTHETICAL. Kant expands in section 8.5. “In the hypothetical,
‘If God exists, I’ll eat my hat,’ existence is no predicate.”Strawson appeals
to a second, “more convincing,” fact, viz. that the consequent is obviously not
– in the Dutchman ‘if,’ or not to be, in the ‘hat-eating’ if, fulfilled, or true.Grice’s
passing for a Dutchman and sitting for an exam at the Koninklijke
Academie van Beeldende Kunsten, hardly makes him a Dutchman.Dickens was well
aware of the idiocy of people blaming hatters for the increases of deaths at
Oxford. He would often expand the consequent in a way that turned it “almost a
Wittgensteinian ‘contradiction’” (“The Cricket in the House, vii). “If the
Hatter is not mad, I will eat my hat, with my head in it.”Grice comments:
“While it is analytic that you see with your eyes, it is not analytic that you
eat with your mouth. And one can imagine Dickens’s mouth to be situated in his
right hand. Therefore, on realizing that the mad hatter is not mad, Dickens is
allowing for it to be the case that he shall eat his hat, with his head in it.
Since not everybody may be aware of the position of Dickens’s mouth, I shall
not allot this common-ground status.”Strawson
gives a third Griciean fact.“The intention of the emissor, by uttering a
‘consequens falsum’ that renders the ‘conditionalis’ ‘verum’ only if the
‘antecedens’ is ‘falsum, is an emphatic, indeed, rude, gesture, with a
gratuitious nod to Philo, to the conviction that the antecedens is not
fulfilled either. The emissor is further abiding by what Grice calls the
‘principle of truth,’ for the emissor would rather see himself dead than
uttering a falsehood, even if he has to fill the conversational space with
idiocies like ‘dutchman-being’ and ‘hat-eating.’ The fourth Griceian fact is
obviously Modus Tollendo Tollens, viz. that “(p ⊃
q) . ~q” entails “~p,” or rather, to avoid the metalanguage (Grice’s Bootlace:
Don’t use a metalanguage: you can only implicate that your object-language is
not objectual.”), “[(p ⊃ q) . ~ q] ⊃ ~ p.”At this point, Strawson
reminisces: “I was slightly surprised that on my first tutorial with Grice, he
gave me “What the Tortoise Said To Achilles,” with the hint, which I later took
as a defeasible implicatum, “See if you can resolve this!” ACHILLEs had
overtaken the Tortoise, and had seated himself comfortably on its back.
"So you've got to the end of our race-course?" said the Tortoise.
"Even though it does consist of an infinite series of distances ? I
thought some wiseacre or other had proved that the thing couldnl't be doiie ?
" " It can be done," said Achilles. " It has been done!
Solvitur ambulando. You see the distances were constaiitly diminishing; and
so-" "But if they had beenl constantly increasing?" the Tortoise
interrupted. "How then?" "Then I shouldn't be here,"
Achilles modestly replied; "and you would have got several times round the
world, by this time! " "You flatter me-flatten, I mean," said
the Tortoise; "for you are a heavy weight, and no mistake! Well now, would
you like to hear of a race-course, that most people fancy they can get to the end
of in two or three steps, while it really consists of an infinite number of
distances, each one longer than the previous one? " "Very much indeed
!" said the Grecian warrior, as he drew from his helmet (few Grecian
warriors possessed pockets in those days) an enormous note-book and a pencil.
"Proceed! And speak slowly, please! Shorthand isn't invented yet !"
"That beautiful First Proposition of Euclid! " the Tortoise miurmured
dreamily. "You admire Euclid?" "Passionately! So far, at least,
as one can admire a treatise that wo'n't be published for some centuries to
come ! " "Well, now, let's take a little bit of the argument in that
First Proposition-just two steps, and the conclusion drawn from them. Kindly
enter them in your note-book. And in order to refer to them conveniently, let's
call them A, B, and Z:- (A) Things that are equal to the same are equal to each
other. (B) The two sides of this Triangle are things that are equal to the
same. (Z) The two sides of this Triangle are equal to each other. Readers of
Euclid will grant, I suppose, that Z follows logically from A and B, so that
any one who accepts A and B as true, must accept Z as true?" "
Undoubtedly! The youngest child in a High School-as. soon as High Schools are
invented, which will not be till some two thousand years later-will grant
that." " And if some reader had not yet accepted A and B as true, he
might still accept the sequence as a valid one, I suppose?" NOTES. 279
"No doubt such a reader might exist. He might say 'I accept as true the Hypothetical
Proposition that, if A and B be true, Z must be true; but, I don't accept A and
B as true.' Such a reader would do wisely in abandoning Euclid, and taking to
football." " And might there not also be some reader who would say '
I accept A anld B as true, but I don't accept the Hypothetical'?"
"Certainly there might. He, also, had better take to football."
"And neither of these readers," the Tortoise continued, "is as
yet under any logical necessity to accept Z as true?" "Quite
so," Achilles assented. "Well, now, I want you to consider me as a
reader of the second kind, and to force me, logically, to accept Z as
true." " A tortoise playing football would be--" Achilles was
beginning " -an anomaly, of course," the Tortoise hastily
interrupted. "Don't wander from the point. Let's have Z first, and
football afterwards !" " I'm to force you to accept Z, am I?"
Achilles said musingly. "And your present position is that you accept A
and B, but you don't accept the Hypothetical-" " Let's call it
C," said the Tortoise. "-but you don't accept (C) If A and B are
true, Z must be true." "That is my present position," said the
Tortoise. "Then I must ask you to accept C." - "I'll do
so," said the Tortoise, "as soon as you've entered it in that
note-book of yours. What else have you got in it?" " Only a few
memoranda," said Achilles, nervously fluttering the leaves: "a few
memoranda of-of the battles in which I have distinguished myself!"
"Plenty of blank leaves, I see !" the Tortoise cheerily remarked.
"We shall need them all !" (Achilles shuddered.) "Now write as I
dictate: (A) Things that are equal to the same are equal to each other. (B) The
two sides of this Triangle are things that are equal to the same. (C) If A and
B are true, Z must be true. (Z) The two sides of this Triangle are equal to
each other." " You should call it D, not Z," said Achilles.
" It comes next to the other three. If you accept A and B and C, you must
accept Z." "And why must I?" "Because it follows logically
from them. If A and B and C are true, Z must be true. You don't dispute that, I
imagine ?" "If A and B and C are true, Z must be true," the
Tortoise thoughtfully repeated. " That's another Hypothetical, isn't it?
And, if I failed to see its truth, I might accept A and B and C, and still not
accept Z, mightn't I?" "You might," the candid hero admitted;
"though such obtuseness would certainly be phenomenal. Still, the event is
possible. So I must ask you to grant one more Hypothetical." " Very
good. I'm quite willing to grant it, as soon as you've written it down. We will
call it (D) If A and B and C are true, Z must be true. Have you entered that in
your note-book ? " " I have! " Achilles joyfully exclaimed, as
he ran the pencil into its sheath. "And at last we've got to the end of
this ideal race-course! Now that you accept A and B and C and D, of course you
accept Z." " Do I ? " said the Tortoise innocently. " Let's
make that quite clear. I accept A and B and C and D. Suppose I still refused to
accept Z? " 280 NOTES. " Then Logic would take you by the throat, and
force you to do it !" Achilles triumphantly replied. "Logic would
tell you 'You ca'n't help yourself. Now that you've accepted A and B and C and
D, you mvust accept Z!' So you've no choice, you see." "Whatever
Logic is good enough to tell me is worth writing down," said the Tortoise.
" So enter it in your book, please. We will call it (E) If A and B and C
and Dare true, Zmust be true. Until I've granted that, of course I needn't
grant Z. So it's quite a necessary step, you see?" "I see," said
Achilles; and there was a touch of sadness in his tone. Here the narrator,
having pressing business at the Bank, was obliged to leave the happy pair, and
did not again pass the spot until some months afterwards. When he did so,
Achilles was still seated on the back of the much-enduring Tortoise, and was
writing in his note-book, which appeared to be nearly full. The Tortoise was
saying " Have you got that last step written down ? Unless I've lost
count, that makes a thousand and one. There are several millions more to come.
And would you mind, as a personal favour, considering what a lot of instruction
this colloquy of ours will provide for the Logicians of the Nineteenth
Century-would you mnind adopting a pun that my cousin the Mock-Turtle will then
make, and allowing yourself to be re-named Taught- Us ?" "As you
please !" replied the weary warrior, in the hollow tones of despair, as he
buried his face in his hands. " Provided that you, for your part, will
adopt a pun the Mock-Turtle never made, and allow yourself to be re-named A
Kill-Ease !"Strawon protests:“But this is a
strange piece of logic.”Grice corrects: “Piece – you mean ‘piece’ simpliciter.”“But
what do you protest that much!?”“Well, it seems that, on any possible
interpretation, “if p, q” has, in respect of modus tollendo tollens the same powers
as ‘p ⊃ q.’“And it is just these
powers that you, and Cook Wilson before you, are jokingly (or
fantastically) exploiting!”“Fantastically?” “You call Cook Wilson
‘fantastical’? You can call me exploitative.’Strawson: “It is the absence of
Kantian ‘Relation,’ Boethius’s ‘relatio,’ Aristotle’s ‘pros ti,’ referred to in
that makes both Stout’s hat-eating if and Gardiner’s dutchman if quirks (as per
Sir Randolph Quirk, another Manx, like Quine), a verbal or conversational
flourish, an otiosity, alla Albritton, an odd, call it Philonian, use of ‘if.’
If a hypothetical statement IS, as Grice, after Philo, claims, is what
Whitehead and Russell have as a ‘material’ implication, the statements would be
not a quirkish oddity, but a linguistic sobriety and a simple truth. Or rather
they are each, the dutchman if and the
hat-eating if, each a ‘quirkish oddity’ BECAUSE each is a simple, sober, truth.
“Recall my adage,” Grice reminded Strawson, “Obscurely baffling, but Hegelianly
true!”Strawson notes, as a final commentary on the relevant section, that
‘if’ can be employed PERFORMATORILY,
which will have Grice finding his topic for the Kant lectures at Stanford:
“must” is univocal in “Apples must fall,” and “You must not lie.”An ‘if’ is
used ‘performatorily’ when it is used not simply in making this or that
statement, but in, e.g., making a provisional announcement of an intention.
Strawson’s example:“If it rains, I shall stay at home.”Grice corrected:“*I*
*will* stay at home. *YOU* *shall.*”“His quadruple implicata never ceased to
amaze me.”Grice will take this up later in ‘Ifs and cans.’“If I can, I intend
to climb Mt Everest on hands and knees, if I may disimplicate that to Davidson.”This
hich, like an unconditional announcement of intention, Strawson “would rather
not” call ‘truly true’ or ‘falsely false.’ “I would rather describe it in some
other way – Griceian perhaps.” “A quessertion, not to be iterated.”“If the man
who utters the quoted sentence leaves home in spite of the rain, we do not say
that what he said was false, though we might say that he lied (never really
intended to stay in) ; or that he changed his mind – which, Strawson adds, “is
a form of lying to your former self.” “I agreed with you!” Grice screamed from
the other side of the Quadrangle!Strawson notes: “There are further uses of ‘if’
which I shall not discuss.”This is a pantomime for Austin (Strawson’s letter to
Grice, “Austin wants me to go through the dictionary with ‘if.’ Can you believe
it, Grice, that the OED has NINE big pages on it?! And the sad thing is that
Austin has already did ‘if’ in “Ifs and cans.” Why is he always telling OTHERS
what to do?”Strawson’s Q. E. D.: “The safest way to read the material implication
sign is, perhaps, ‘not both … and not …,” and avoid the ‘doubt’ altogether.
(NB: “Mr. H. P. Grice, from whom I never ceased to learn about logic since he
was my tutor for my Logic paper in my PPE at St. John’s back in the day,
illustrates me that ‘if’ in Frisian means ‘doubt.’ And he adds, “Bread, butter,
green cheese; very good English, very good Friese!”. GROUP C – “Performatory”
theories – descriptive, quasi-descriptive, prescriptive – examples not
lettered.EXAMPLE I: Strawson on ‘true’ in Analysis.EXAMPLE II: Austin on ‘know’
EXAMPLE III: Hare on ‘good.’EXPLICITLY CONVEYED: if p, qIMPLICITLY CONVEYED: p is
the consequensCANCELLATION: “I know perfectly well where your wife is, but all
I’ll say is that if she is not in kitchen she is in the bedroom.”Next would be
to consider uses of ‘implication’ in the essay on the ‘indicative conditional.’
We should remember that the titling came out in 1987. The lecture circulated
without a title for twenty years. And in fact, it is about ‘indicative conditional’
AND MORE BESIDES, including Cook Wilson, if that’s a plus. Grice states the
indirectness condition in two terms:One in the obviously false terms “q is
INFERRABLE, that’s the word Grice uses, from p”The other one is in terms of
truth-value assignment:The emissor has NON-TRUTH-FUNCTIONAL GROUNDS for the
emissum, ‘if p, q’. In Grice’s parlance: “Grounds for ACCEPTING “p ⊃
q.”This way Grice chooses is controversial in that usually he holds ‘accept’ as
followed by the ‘that’-clause. So ‘accepting ‘p ⊃ q’” is not clear
in that respect. A rephrase would be, accepting that the emissor is in a
position to emit, ‘if p, q’ provided that what he EXPLICITLY CONVEYS by that is
what is explicitly conveyed by the Philonian ‘if,’ in other words, that the
emissor is explicitly conveying that it is the case of p or it is not the case
of q, or that it is not the case that a situation obtains such that it is the
case that p and it is not the case that q.“p ⊃ q” is F only in
the third row. It is no wonder that Grice says that the use-mention was only
used correctly ONCE.For Grice freely uses ‘the proposition that p ⊃
q.’ But this may be licensed because it was meant as for ‘oral delivery.’ THE
FIRST INSTANTIATION GRICE GIVES (WoW:58) is“If Smith is in London, he, viz. Smith,
is attending the meeting.”Grice goes on (WoW:59) to give FIVE alternatives to
the ‘if’ utterance, NOT using ‘if.’ For the first four, he notes that he fells
the ‘implicature’ of ‘indirectness’ seems ‘persistent.’On WoW:59, Grice refers
to Strawson as a ‘strong theorist,’ and himself as a ‘weak theorist,’ i. e. an
Occamist. Grice gives a truth-table or the ‘appropriate truth table,’ and its
formulation, and notes that he can still detect the indirectness condition
implication. Grice challenges Strawson. How is one to learn that what one
conveys by the scenario formulated in the truth-table for the pair “Smith is in
London” and “Smith is attending the meeting” – without using ‘if’ because this
is Grice’s exercise in detachment – is WEAKER than what one would convey by “If
Smith is in London, he, viz. Smith, is attending the meeting”?This sort of
rhetorical questions – “Of course he can’t” are a bit insidious. Grice failed
to give Strawson a copy of the thing. And Strawson is then invited to
collaborate with P. G. R. I. C. E., so he submits a rather vague “If and ⊃,”
getting the rebuke by Grice’s friend Bennett – “Strawson could at least say
that Grice’s views were published in three different loci.” BUT: Strawson
compiled that essay in 1968. And Strawson was NOT relying on a specific essay
by Grice, but on his memory of the general manoeuvre. Grice had been lecturing
on ‘if’ before at Oxford, in seminars entitled “Logic and Convesation.” But
surely at Oxford you are not supposed to ‘air’ your seminar views. Outside
Oxford it might be different. It shoud not!And surely knowing Grice, why would
*GRICE* provide the input to Strawson. For Grice, philosophy is very personal,
and while Grice might have thought that Sir Peter was slightly interested in
what his former tutor would say about ‘if,’ it would be inappropriate of the
tutor to overwhelm the tutee, or keep informing the tutee how wrong he is. For
a tutor, once a tutee, always a tutee. On WoW:59, Grice provides the FIRST
CANCELLATION of an ‘if,’ and changes it slightly from the one on p. 58. The
‘if’ now becomesIf Smith is in the library, he, viz. Smith, is working.’In
Wiltshire:“If Smith is in the swimming-pool library, he, viz. Smith, is
swimming.”THE CANCELLATION GOES by ‘opting out’:“I know just where Smith is and
what he, viz. Smith, is doing, but all I will tell you is that if he is in the
library he is working.”Grice had to keep adding his ‘vizes’ – viz. Smith –
because of the insidious contextualists – some of them philosophical!“What do
you mean ‘he,’ – are you sure you are keeping the denotatum constant?”Grice is
challenging Strawson’s ‘uncertainty and disbelief.’No one would be surprised if
Grice’s basis for his saying “I know just where Smith is and what he, viz.
Smith, is doing, but all I will tell you is that if he is in the library, he is
working” is that Grice has just looked in the library and found Smith working. So,
Grice IS uttering “If Smith is in the library, he is working” WHEN THE INDIRECT
(strong) condition ceteris-paribus carried by what Grice ceteris paribus
IMPLIES by uttering “If Smith is in the library, Smith is working.”The
situation is a bit of the blue, because Grice presents it on purpose as
UNVOLUNTEERED. The ‘communication-function’ does the trick. GRICE THEN GIVES
(between pages WoW: 59 and 60) TWO IMPLICIT cancellations of an implicature,
or, to avoid the alliteration, ‘contextual’ cancellation. Note incidentally
that Grice is aware of the explicit/implicit when he calls the cancellation,
first, EXPLICIT, and then contextual. By ‘explicit,’ he means, ‘conveying
explicitly’ in a way that commits you. THE THIRD INSTANTIATION refers to this
in what he calls a ‘logical’ puzzle, which may be a bit question-begging, cf.
‘appropriate truth-table.’ For Strawson would say that Grice is using ‘if’ as a
conscript, when it’s a civil. “If Smith has black, Mrs. Smith has black.”Grice
refers to ‘truth-table definition’ OR STIPULATION. Note that the horseshoe is
an inverted “C” for ‘contentum.’F. Cajori, “A history of mathematical
notations,” SYMBOLS IN MATHEMATICAL LOGIC, §667-on : [§674] “A theory of the ‘meccanisme
du raisonnement’ is offered by J. D. Gergonne in his “Essai de dialectique
rationnelle.”In Gergonne’s “Essai,” “H” stands for complete logical disjunction,
X” for logical product, “I” for "identity," [cf. Grize on izzing] “C”
for "contains," and "Ɔ (inverted C)" for "is contained
in." [§685] Gergonne is using the
Latinate, contineoIn rhet., the neuter substantive “contĭnens”
is rendered as “that on which something rests or depends, the chief point, hinge: “causae,” Cic. Part. Or. 29, 103; id. Top. 25, 95: “intuendum videtur, quid sit quaestio, ratio, judicatio, continens, vel ut alii vocant, firmamentum,” Quint. 3, 11, 1; cf. id. ib. § 18 sqq.—Adv.: contĭnen-ter .
So it is a natural evolution in matters of implication. while Giusberti
(“Materiale per studio,” 31) always reads “pro constanti,” the MSS occasionally
has the pretty Griciean “precontenti,” from “prae” and “contenti.” Cf. Quine,
“If my father was a bachelor, he was male. And I can say that, because ‘male’
is CONTAINED in ‘bachelor.’”E. Schröder, in his “Vorlesungen über die Algebra
der Logik,” [§690] Leipzig, uses “⊂”
for "untergeordnet”, roughly, “is included in,” and the inverted “⊃”
for the passive voice, "übergeordnet,” or includes. Some additional symbols are introduced by
Peano into Number 2 of Volume II of his influential “Formulaire.” Thus "ɔ"
becomes ⊃. By “p.⊃ x ... z. q” is
expressed “from p one DEDUCES, whatever x ... z may be, and q." In “Il calcolo geometrico,” – “according to
the Ausdehnungslehre of H. Grassmann, preceded by the operations of deductive
logic,” Peano stresses the duality of interpretations of “p.⊃
x ... z. q” in terms of classes and propositions. “We shall indicate [the
universal affirmative proposition] by the expression A < B, or B > A, which can be read "every A is a B,"
or "the class B CONTAINS A." [...]
Hence, if a,b,... are CONDITIONAL propositions, we have: a < b, or b > a, ‘says’ that "the
class defined by the condition a is part of that defined by b," or [...]
"b is a CONSEQUENCE of a," "if a is true, b is true." In Peano’s “Arithmetices principia: nova
methodo exposita,” we have: “II.
Propositions.” “The sign “C” means is a consequence of [“est consequentia.” Thus
b C a is read b is a consequence of the proposition a.” “The sign “Ɔ” means one
deduces [DEDUCITUR]; thus “a Ɔ b” ‘means’ the same as b C a. [...] IV. Classes “The sign Ɔ ‘means’ is contained
in. Thus a Ɔ b means class a is contained in class b. a, b ∈ K Ɔ (a Ɔ b) :=: (x)(x
∈ a Ɔ x ∈ b). In his “Formulaire,” Peano writes: “Soient a et b des Cls. a ⊃
b signifie "tout a est b".
Soient p et q des propositions contenant une variable x; p ⊃x
q, signifie "de p on déduit, quel que soit x, la q", c'est-à-dire:
"les x qui satisfont à la condition p satisferont aussi à la q". Russell criticizes Peano’s dualism in “The
Principles of mathematics,” §13. “The subject of Symbolic Logic consists of
three parts, the calculus of propositions, the calculus of classes and the
calculus of relations. Between the first two, there is, within limits, a
certain parallelism, which arises as follows: In any symbolic expression, the
letters may be interpreted as classes or as propositions, and the relation of
inclusion in the one case may be replaced by that of formal implication in the
other. A great deal has been made of
this duality, and in the later editions of his “Formulaire,” Peano appears to
have sacrificed logical precision to its preservation. But, as a matter of
fact, there are many ways in which the calculus of propositions differs from
that of classes.” Whiehead and Russell borrow the basic logical symbolism from
Peano, but they freed it from the "dual" interpretation. Thus, Whitehead and Russell adopt Schröder's ⊂
for class inclusion: a ⊂
b :=: (x)(x ∈ a Ɔ x ∈ b) Df. and restricted the use of the
"horseshoe" ⊃ to the connective "if’: “p⊃q.’
Whitehead’s and Russell’s decision isobvious, if we consider the following
example from Cesare Burali-Forti, “Logica Matematica,” a Ɔ b . b Ɔ c : Ɔ : a Ɔ
c [...] The first, second and fourth
[occurrences] of the sign Ɔ mean is contained, the third one means one deduces.So
the horseshoe is actually an inverted “C” meant to read “contentum” or
“consequens” (“consequutum”). Active Nominal Forms Infinitive: implicā́re
Present participle: implicāns; implicántis Future participle: implicītúrus;
implicātúrus Gerund: implicándum Gerundive: implicándus Passive Nominal Forms Infinitive: implicā́re
Perfect participle: implicī́tum; implicā́tumGRICE’s second implicit or
contextual cancellation does not involve a ‘logical puzzle’ but bridge – and
it’s his fourth instantiation:“If I have a red king, I also have a black king.”
– to announce to your competititve opponents upon inquiry a bid of five no
trumps. Cf. Alice, “The red Queen” which is a chess queen, as opposed to the
white queen. After a precis, he gives a FIFTH instantiation to prove that ‘if’
is always EXPLICITLY cancellable.WoW:60“If you put that bit of sugar in water, it
will dissolve, though so far as I know there can be no way of knowing in
advance that this will happen.”This is complex. The cancellation turns the ‘if
p, q’ into a ‘guess,’ in which case it is odd that the emissor would be
guessing and yet be being so fortunate as to make such a good guess. At the end
of page 60, Grice gives THREE FURTHER instantations which are both of
philosophical importance and a pose a problem to such a strong theorist as
Strawson.The first of the trio is:“If the Australians win the first Test, they
will win the series, you mark my words.”The second of the trio is:“Perhaps if
he comes, he will be in a good mood.”The third in the trio is:“See that, if he
comes, he gets his money.”Grice’s point is that in the three, the implicature
is cancelled. So the strong theorist has to modify the thesis ‘a sub-primary
case of a sub-primary use of ‘if’ is…” which seems like a heavy penalty for the
strong theorist. For Grice, the strong theorist is attaching the implicatum to
the ‘meaning’ of ‘if,’ where, if attached at all, should attach to some
mode-marker, such as ‘probably,’ which may be contextual. On p. 61 he is
finding play and using ‘logically weaker’ for the first time, i. e. in terms of
entailment. If it is logically weaker, it is less informative. “To deny that p,
or to assert that q.”Grice notes it’s ceteris paribus.“Provided it would be
worth contributing with the ‘more informative’ move (“why deny p? Why assert
q?) While the presumption that one is interested in the truth-values of at
least p or q, this is ceteris paribus. A philosopher may just be interested in
“if p, q” for the sake of exploring the range of the relation between p and q,
or the powers of p and q. On p. 62 he uses the phrase “non-truth functional” as
applied not to grounds but to ‘evidence’: “non-truth-functional evidence.”Grice
wants to say that emissor has implicated, in a cancellable way, that he has
non-truth-functional evidence for “if p, q,” i. e. evidence that proceeds by
his inability to utter “if p, q” on truth-functional grounds. The emissor is
signaling that he is uttering “if p, q” because he cannot deny p, or that he
cannot assert q(p ⊃ q) ≡
((~p) v q)Back to the first instantiation“If Smith is in London, he, viz. Smith
is attending the meeting there, viz. in London”I IMPLICATE, in a cancellable
way, that I have no evidence for “Smith is not in London”I IMPLICATE, in a
cancellable way, that I have no evidence for “Smith is attending the lecture.On
p. 61 he gives an example of an contextual cancellation to show that even if the
implicatum is a generalised one, it need not be present in every PARTICULAR case
(hence the weakned form ‘generalISED, not general). “If he was surprised, he
didn’t show it.”Or cf. AustinIf you are hungry, there are biscuits in the
cupboard. Traditionalist Grice on the tranquil Elysium of philosophyĒlysĭum ,
ii, n., = Ἠλύσιον, the abode of the blest, I.Elysium, Verg. A. 5, 735 Serv.; 6,
542; 744 al.; cf. Heyne Verg. A. 6, 675 sq.; and ejusd. libri Exc. VIII. p.
1019 Wagn.—Hence, II. Ēlysĭus , a, um, adj., Elysian: “campi,” Verg. G. 1, 38;
Tib. 1, 3, 58; Ov. Ib. 175; cf. “ager,” Mart. 10, 101: “plagae,” id. 6, 58:
“domus,” Ov. M. 14, 111; cf. “sedes,” Luc. 3, 12: “Chaos,” Stat. Th. 4, 520:
“rosae,” Prop. 4 (5), 7, 60. “puella,” i. e. Proserpine, Mart. 10, 24.—On p.
63, Grice uses ‘sense’ for the first time to apply to a Philonian ‘if p, q.’He
is exploring that what Strawson would have as a ‘natural’ if, not an artificial
‘if’ like Philo’s, may have a sense that descends from the sense of the Philonian
‘if,’ as in Darwin’s descent of man. Grice then explores the ‘then’ in some
formulations, ‘if p, then q’, and notes that Philo never used it, “ei”
simpliciter – or the Romans, “si.”Grice plays with the otiosity of “if p, in
that case q.”And then there’s one that Grice dismisses as ultra-otiose:“if p,
then, in that case, viz. p., q.”Grice then explores ‘truth-functional’ now
applied not to ‘evidence’ but to ‘confirmation.’“p or q” is said to be
truth-functionally confirmable.While “p horseshoe q’ is of course truth-functionally
confirmable.Grice has doubts that ‘if p, q’ may be regarded by Strawson as NOT
being ‘truth-functionally confirmable.’ If would involve what he previously
called a ‘metaphysical excrescence.’Grice then reverts to his bridge example“If
I have a red king, I have a black king.”And provides three scenarios for a
post-mortem truth-functional confirmability.For each of the three rowsNo red,
no blackRed, no blackRed, blackWhich goes ditto for the ‘logical’ puzzleIf Jones has black, Mrs.
Jones has black. The next crop of instantiations come from PM, and begins on p.
64.He kept revising these notes. And by the time he was submitting the essay to
the publisher, he gives up and kept the last (but not least, never latter)
version. Grice uses the second-floor ‘disagree,’ and not an explicit ‘not.’ So
is partially agreeing a form of disagreeing? In 1970, Conservative Heath won to
Labour Wilson.He uses ‘validate’ – for ‘confirm’. ‘p v q’ is validated iff
proved factually satisfactory.On p. 66 he expands“if p, q”as a triple
disjunction of the three rows when ‘if p, q’ is true:“(not-p and not-q) or
(not-p and q) or (p and q)”The only left out is “(p and not-q).”Grice gives an
instantiation for [p et]q“The innings closed at 3:15, Smith no batting.”as
opposed to“The inning close at 3:15, and Smith did not bat.”as displayed byp.qAfter
using ‘or’ for elections he gives the first instantation with ‘if’:“If Wilson
will not be prime minister, it will be Heath.”“If Wilson loses, he loses to
Heath.”‘if’ is noncommutative – the only noncommutative of the three dyadic
truth-functors he considers (‘and,’ ‘or’ and ‘if’).This means that there is a
‘semantic’ emphasis here.There is a distinction between ‘p’ and ‘q’. In the
case of ‘and’ and ‘or’ there is not, since ‘p and q’ iff ‘q and p’ and ‘p or q’
iff ‘q or p.’The distinction is expressed in terms of truth-sufficiency and
false-sufficiency.The antecedent or protasis, ‘p’ is FALSE-SUFFICIENT for the
TRUTH of ‘if p, q.’The apodosis is TRUE-sufficient for the truth of ‘if p, q.’On
p. 67 he raises three questions.FIRST QUESTIONHe is trying to see ‘if’ as
simpler:The three instantiations areIf Smith rings, the butler will let Smith
inIt is not the case that Smith rings, or the butler will let Smith in.It is not
the case both Smith rings and it is not the the butler will let Smith in. (Grice
changes the tense, since the apodosis sometimes requires the future tense)
(“Either Smith WILL RING…”)SECOND QUESTIONWhy did the Anglo-Saxons feel the
need for ‘if’ – German ‘ob’? After all, if Whitehead and Russell are right, the
Anglo-Saxons could have done with ‘not’ and ‘and,’ or indeed with
‘incompatible.’The reason is that ‘if’ is cognate with ‘doubt,’ but The
Anglo-Saxons left the doubt across the North Sea. it
originally from an oblique case of the substantive which may be rendered as
"doubt,” and cognate with archaic German “iba,” which may be rendered as
“condition, stipulation, doubt," Old Norse if "doubt,
hesitation," modern Swedish jäf "exception,
challenge")It’s all different with ‘ei’ and ‘si.’For sisī (orig.
and ante-class. form seī ),I.conj. [from a pronominal stem = Gr. ἑ; Sanscr.
sva-, self; cf. Corss. Ausspr. 1, 778; Georg Curtius Gr. Etym. 396],
a conditional particle, if.As for “ei”εἰ ,
Att.-Ion. and Arc. (for εἰκ, v.
infr. 11 ad
init.), = Dor. and Aeol. αἰ, αἰκ (q.
v.), Cypr.A.“ἤ” Inscr.Cypr.135.10 H.,
both εἰ and αἰ in
Ep.:— Particle used interjectionally with imper. and to express a wish, but
usu. either in conditions, if,
or in indirect questions, whether. In
the former use its regular negative is μή; in the
latter, οὐ.THIRD
QUESTION. Forgetting Grecian neutral apodosis and protasis, why did the Romans
think that while ‘antecedens’ is a good Humeian rendition of ‘protasis,’ yet
instead they chose for the Grecian Humeian ‘apodosis,’ the not necessarily
Humeian ‘con-sequens,’ rather than mere ‘post-sequens’?The Latin terminology is antecedens and consequens, the ancestors and ... tothem the way the Greek grammatical termsή
πρότασιs and ήαπόδοσιsBRADWARDINE: Note that a consequence is an argumentation
made up of an antecedent and a consequent. He starts with the métiers.For ‘or’
he speaks of ‘semiotic economy’ (p. 69). Grice’s Unitarianism – unitary
particle.If, like iff, is subordinating, but only if is
non-commutative. Gazdar considers how many dyadic particles are possible and
why such a small bunch is chosen. Grice did not even care, as Strawson did, to take
care of ‘if and only if.’ Grice tells us the history behind the ‘nursery rhyme’
about Cock Robin. He learned it from his mother,
Mabel Fenton, at Harborne. Clifton almost made it forget it! But he recovered
in the New World, after reading from Colin Sharp that many of those nursery
rhymes travelled “with the Mayflower.” "Who Killed Cock Robin" is an
English nursery rhyme, which has been much used as a murder archetype[citation
needed] in world culture. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 494. Contents 1 Lyrics
2Origin and meaning 3Notes 4 External
links Lyrics[edit] The earliest record of the rhyme is in Tommy Thumb's Pretty
Song Book, published c. 1744, which noted only the first four verses. The
extended version given below was not printed until c. 1770.[1] Who killed Cock Robin? I, said the Sparrow,
with my bow and arrow, I killed Cock Robin. Who saw him die? I, said the Fly,
with my little eye, I saw him die. Who caught his blood? I, said the Fish, with
my little dish, I caught his blood. Who'll make the shroud? I, said the Beetle,
with my thread and needle, I'll make the shroud. Who'll dig his grave? I, said
the Owl, with my little trowel, I'll dig his grave. Who'll be the parson? I,
said the Rook, with my little book, I'll be the parson. Who'll be the clerk? I,
said the Lark, if it's not in the dark, I'll be the clerk. Who'll carry the
link? I, said the Linnet, I'll fetch it in a minute, I'll carry the link.
Who'll be chief mourner? I, said the Dove, I mourn for my love, I'll be chief
mourner. Who'll carry the coffin? I, said the Kite, if it's not through the
night, I'll carry the coffin. Who'll bear the pall? We, said the Wren, both the
cock and the hen, We'll bear the pall. Who'll sing a psalm? I, said the Thrush,
as she sat on a bush, I'll sing a psalm. Who'll toll the bell? I, said the
Bull, because I can pull, I'll toll the bell. All the birds of the air fell
a-sighing and a-sobbing, when they heard the bell toll for poor Cock Robin. The
rhyme has often been reprinted with illustrations, as suitable reading material
for small children.[citation needed] The rhyme also has an alternative ending,
in which the sparrow who killed Cock Robin is hanged for his crime.[2] Several
early versions picture a stocky, strong-billed bullfinch tolling the bell,
which may have been the original intention of the rhyme.[3] Origin and meaning[edit] Although the song
was not recorded until the mid-eighteenth century,[4] there is some evidence
that it is much older. The death of a robin by an arrow is depicted in a
15th-century stained glass window at Buckland Rectory, Gloucestershire,[5] and
the rhyme is similar to a story, Phyllyp Sparowe, written by John Skelton about
1508.[1] The use of the rhyme 'owl' with 'shovel', could suggest that it was
originally used in older middle English pronunciation.[1] Versions of the story
appear to exist in other countries, including Germany.[1] A number of the stories have been advanced to
explain the meaning of the rhyme: The
rhyme records a mythological event, such as the death of the god Balder from
Norse mythology,[1] or the ritual sacrifice of a king figure, as proposed by
early folklorists as in the 'Cutty Wren' theory of a 'pagan survival'.[6][7] It
is a parody of the death of King William II, who was killed by an arrow while
hunting in the New Forest (Hampshire) in 1100, and who was known as William
Rufus, meaning "red".[8] The rhyme is connected with the fall of
Robert Walpole's government in 1742, since Robin is a diminutive form of Robert
and the first printing is close to the time of the events mentioned.[1] All of
these theories are based on perceived similarities in the text to legendary or
historical events, or on the similarities of names. Peter Opie pointed out that
an existing rhyme could have been adapted to fit the circumstances of political
events in the eighteenth century.[1] The
theme of Cock Robin's death as well as the poem's distinctive cadence have
become archetypes, much used in literary fiction and other works of art, from
poems, to murder mysteries, to cartoons.[1]
Notes[edit] ^ Jump up to:a b c d e f g h I. Opie and P. Opie, The Oxford
Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (Oxford University Press, 1951, 2nd edn., 1997),
pp. 130–3. ^ * Cock Robin at Project Gutenberg ^ M. C. Maloney, ed., English
illustrated books for children: a descriptive companion to a selection from the
Osborne Collection (Bodley Head, 1981), p. 31. ^ Lockwood, W. B. "The
Marriage of the Robin and the Wren." Folklore 100.2 (1989): 237–239. ^ The
gentry house that became the old rectory at Buckland has an impressive timbered
hall that dates from the fifteenth century with two lights of contemporary
stained glass in the west wall with the rebus of William Grafton and arms of
Gloucester Abbey in one and the rising sun of Edward IV in the other light;
birds in various attitudes hold scrolls "In Nomine Jesu"; none is
reported transfixed by an arrow in Anthony Emery, Greater Medieval Houses of
England and Wales, 1300–1500: Southern England, s.v. "Buckland Old
Rectory, Gloucestershire", (Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 80. ^ R.
J. Stewart, Where is St. George? Pagan Imagery in English Folksong (1976). ^ B.
Forbes, Make Merry in Step and Song: A Seasonal Treasury of Music, Mummer's
Plays & Celebrations in the English Folk Tradition (Llewellyn Worldwide,
2009), p. 5. ^ J. Harrowven, The origins of rhymes, songs and sayings (Kaye
& Ward, 1977), p. 92. External links[edit] Children's literature portal
Death and Burial of Poor Cock Robin, by H. L. Stephens, from Project Gutenberg
Death and Burial of Poor Cock Robin From the Collections at the Library of
Congress Categories: Robert Walpole1744 songsFictional passerine birdsEnglish
nursery rhymesSongwriter unknownEnglish folk songsEnglish children's
songsTraditional children's songsSongs about birdsSongs about deathMurder
balladsThe train from Oakland to
Berkeley.Grice's aunt once visited him, and he picked her up at the Oakland
Railway Station. On
p. 74, Grice in terms of his aunt, mentions for the first time ‘premise’ and
‘conclusion.’On same p. for the record he uses ‘quality’ for affirmative,
negative or infinite. On p. 74 he uses for the first time, with a point, the
expression ‘conditional’ as attached to ‘if.’Oddly on the first line of p. 75,
he uses ‘material conditional,’ which almost nobody does – except for a
blue-collared practitioner of the sciences. ‘Material’ was first introduced by
blue-collared Whitehead and Russell, practictioners of the sciences. They used
‘material’ as applied to ‘implication,’ to distinguish it, oddly, and
unclassily, from ‘formal’ implication. It is only then he quotes Wilson
verbatim in quotes“The question whether so and so is a case of a question
whether such and such” This actually influenced Collingwood, and Grice is
trying to tutor Strawson here once more!For the
logic of question and
answer has roots in the very philosophy that it was ... is John Cook Wilson,
whose Statement and Inference can
be regarded as the STATEMENT AND ITS RELATION TO THINKING AND APREHENSIOTHE
DISTINCTION OF SUBJECT AND PREDICATE IN LOGIC AND GRAMMAR The influence of
Strawson on Cook Wilson.“The building is the Bodleian.”As answer to“What is
that building?”“Which building is the Bodleian”If the proposition is answer to
first question, ‘that building’ is the subject, if the proposition is answer to
second question, ‘the bodleian’ is the subject. Cf. “The exhibition was not
visited by a bald king – of France, as it doesn’t happen.SUBJECT AS
TOPICPREDICATE AS COMMENT.Cf. Grice, “The dog is a shaggy thig”What is
shaggy?What is the dog?THIS DOG – Subject – TopicTHAT SHAGGY THING – Subject –
occasionally, but usually Predicate, Comment.In fact, Wilson bases on StoutI am
hungryWho is hungry?: subject IIs there anything amiss with you? ‘hungry’ is
the subjectAre you really hungry? ‘am’ is the subject.Grice used to be a
neo-Stoutian before he turned a neo-Prichardian so he knew. But perhaps Grice
thought better of Cook Wilson. More of a philosopher. Stout seemed to have been
seen as a blue-collared practioner of the SCIENCE of psychology, not
philosophical psychology! Cf. Leicester-born B. Mayo, e: Magdalen, Lit. Hum.
(Philosophy) under? on ‘if’ and Cook Wilson in Analysis.Other example by
Wilson:“Glass is elastic.”Grice is motivated to defend Cook Wilson because
Chomsky was criticizing him (via a student who had been at Oxford). [S]uppose
instruction was being given in the properties of glass, and the instructor said
‘glass is elastic’, it would be natural to say that what was being talkedabout
and thought about was ‘glass’, and that what was said of it was that it was
elastic. Thus glass would be the subject and that it is elastic would be the
predicate. (Cook Wilson 1926/1969, Vol. 1:117f.) What Cook Wilson discusses
here is a categorical sentence. The next two quotes are concerned with an
identificational sentence. [I]n the statement ‘glass is elastic’, if the matter
of inquiry was elasticity and the question was what substances possessed the
property of elasticity, glass, in accordance with the principle of the
definition, would no longer be subject, and the kind of stress which fell upon
‘elastic’ when glass was the subject, would now be transferred to ‘glass’. [. .
.] Thus the same form of words should be analyzed differently according as the
words are the answer to one question or another. (Cook Wilson 1926/1969, Vol.
1:119f.) When the stress falls upon ‘glass’, in ‘glass is elastic’, there is no
word in the sentence which denotes the actual subject elasticity; the word
‘elastic’ refers to what is already known of the subject, and glass, which has
the stress, is the only word which refers to the supposed new fact in the
nature of elasticity, that it is found in glass. Thus, according to the
proposed formula, ‘glass’ would have to be the predicate. [. . .] Introduction
and overview But the ordinary analysis would never admit that ‘glass’ was the
predicate in the given sentence and elasticity the subject. (Cook Wilson
1926/1969, Vol. 1:121)H. P. Grice knew that P. F. Strawson knew of J. C.
Wilson on “That building is the
Bodleian” via Sellars’s criticism.There is a strong suggestion
in Sellars' paper that I would have done better if I had
stuck to Cook Wilson. This suggestion I want equally strongly to
repudiate. Certainly Cook Wilson draws attention
to an interesting difference in ways in which items may
appear in discourse. It may be roughly expressed as follows. When
we say Glass is elastic we may be talking about glass or we may be
talking about elasticity (and we may, in the relevant sense of 'about' be
doing neither). We are talking about glass if we are citing
elasticity as one of the properties of glass, we
are talking about elasticity if we are citing
glass as one of the substances which are elastic. Similarly
when we say Socrates is wise, we may be citing Socrates as an
instance of wisdom or wisdom as one of the proper- ties
of Socrates. And of course we may be doing
neither but, e.g., just imparting miscellaneous
information. Now how, if at all, could this
difference help me with my question? Would it help at all, for example,
if it were plausible (which it is not) to say that we were
inevitably more interested in determining what properties a given
particular had,than in determining what particular had a given property?
Wouldn't this at least suggest that particulars were the natural
subjects, in the sense of subjects of &erest? Let
me answer this question by the reminder that what I
have to do is to establish a connexion between
some formal linguistic difference and a category
difference; and a formal linguistic difference is
one which logic can take cognizance of, in abstraction from pragmatic
considerations, like the direction of interest. Such
a formal ditference exists in the difference between appearing in
discourse directly designated and appearing in discourse
under the cloak of quantification. ““But the difference in the
use of unquantified statements to which Cook Wilson draws
attention is not a formal difference at all.”Both glass and elasticity,
Socrates and wisdom appear named in such statements,
whichever, in Cook Wilson's sense, we are talking
about. An appeal to pragmatic considerations is,
certainly, an essential part of my own
account at a certain point: but this is the point at which
such considerations are in- voked to explain why a certain formal
difference should be particularly closely linked, in common speech, with
a certain category difference. The difference of which Cook
Wilson speaks is, then, though interesting in itself, irrelevant to my
question. Cook Wilson is, and I am not, concerned with what Sellars
calls dialectical distinctions.”
On p.76 Grice mentions
for the first time the “ROLE” of if in an indefinite series of ‘interrogative
subordination.”For
Cook Wilson,as Price knew (he quotes him in Belief), the function of ‘if’ is to
LINK TWO QUESTIONS. You’re the cream in my coffee as ‘absurd’ if literally (p.
83). STATEMENT
In
this entry we will explore how Grice sees the ‘implicatum’ that he regards as
‘conversational’ as applied to the emissor and in reference to the Graeco-Roman
classical tradition. Wht is implicated may not be the result of any maxim, and
yet not conventional – depending on a feature of context. But nothing like a
maxim – Strawson Wiggins p. 523. Only a CONVERSATIONAL IMPLICATUM is the result
of a CONVERSATIONAL MAXIM and the principle of conversational helpfulness. In a
‘one-off’ predicament, there may be an ‘implicatum’ that springs from the
interaction itself. If E draws a skull, he communicates that there is danger.
If addressee runs away, this is not part of the implicatum. This Grice
considers in “Meaning.” “What is meant” should cover the immediate effect, and
not any effect that transpires out of the addressee’s own will. Cf. Patton on
Kripke. One thief to another: “The cops are coming!” The expressiom
“IMPLICATION” is figures, qua entry, in a philosophical dictionary that Grice
consulted at Oxford. In the vernacular, there are two prominent relata:
entailment and implicature, the FRENCH have their “implication.” When it comes
to the Germans, it’s more of a trick. There’s the “nachsichziehen,” the
“zurfolgehaben,” the “Folge(-rung),” the “Schluß,” the “Konsequenz,” and of
course the “Implikation” and the “Implikatur,” inter alia. In Grecian, which Grice learned at Clifton, we
have the “sumpeplegmenon,” or “συμπεπλεγμένον,” if you must, i. e. the
“sum-peplegmenon,” but there’s also the “sumperasma,” or “συμπέϱασμα,” if you
must, “sum-perasma;” and then there’s the “sunêmmenon,” or “συνημμένον,” “sun-emmenon,”
not to mention (then why does Grice?) the “akolouthia,” or “ἀϰολουθία,” if you
must, “akolouthia,” and the “antakolouthia,” ἀνταϰολουθία,” “ana-kolouthia.”
Trust clever Cicero to regard anything ‘Grecian’ as not displaying enough
gravitas, and thus rendering everything into Roman. There’s the “illatio,” from
‘in-fero.’ The Romans adopted two different roots for this, and saw them as
having the same ‘sense’ – cf. referro, relatum, proferro, prolatum; and then
there’s the “inferentia,”– in-fero; and then there’s the “consequentia,” --
con-sequentia. The seq- root is present in ‘sequitur,’ non sequitur. The ‘con-‘
is transliterating Greek ‘syn-’ in the three expressions with ‘syn’:
sympleplegmenon, symperasma, and synemmenon. The Germans, avoiding the
Latinate, have a ‘follow’ root: in “Folge,” “Folgerung,” and the verb
“zur-folge-haben. And perhaps ‘implicatio,’
which is the root Grice is playing with. In Italian and French it
underwent changes, making ‘to imply’ a doublet with Grice’s ‘to implicate’ (the
form already present, “She was implicated in the crime.”). The strict opposite
is ‘ex-plicatio,’ as in ‘explicate.’ ‘implico’ gives both ‘implicatum’ and
‘implicitum.’ Consequently, ‘explico’ gives both ‘explicatum’ and ‘explicitum.’
In English Grice often uses ‘impicit,’ and ‘explicit,’ as they relate to
communication, as his ‘implicatum’ does. His ‘implicatum’ has more to do with
the contrast with what is ‘explicit’ than with ‘what follows’ from a premise.
Although in his formulation, both readings are valid: “by uttering x,
implicitly conveying that q, the emissor CONVERSATIONALY implicates that p’ if
he has explicitly conveyed that p, and ‘q’ is what is required to ‘rationalise’
his conversational behavioiur. In terms of the emissor, the distinction is
between what the emissor has explicitly conveyed and what he has
conversationally implicated. This in turn contrasts what some philosophers
refer metabolically as an ‘expression,’ the ‘x’ ‘implying’ that p – Grice does
not bother with this because, as Strawson and Wiggins point out, while an
emissor cannot be true, it’s only what he has either explicitly or implicitly
conveyed that can be true. As Austin says, it’s always a FIELD where you do the
linguistic botany. So, you’ll have to vide and explore: ANALOGY, PROPOSITION, SENSE,
SUPPOSITION, and TRUTH. Implication denotes a relation between propositions and
statements such that, from the truth-value of the protasis or antecedent (true
or false), one can derive the truth of the apodosis or consequent. More
broadly, we can say that one idea ‘implies’ another if the first idea cannot be
thought without the second one -- RT: Lalande, Vocabulaire technique et
critique de la philosophie. Common usage makes no strict differentiation
between “to imply,” “to infer,” and “to lead to.” Against Dorothy Parker. She
noted that those of her friends who used ‘imply’ for ‘infer’ were not invited
at the Algonquin. The verb “to infer,” (from Latin, ‘infero,’ that gives both
‘inferentia,’ inference, and ‘illatio,’ ‘illatum’) meaning “to draw a
consequence, to deduce” (a use dating to 1372), and the noun “inference,”
meaning “consequence” (from 1606), do not on the face of it seem to be
manifestly different from “to imply” and “implication.” But in Oxonian usage,
Dodgson avoided a confusion. “There are two ways of confusing ‘imply’ with
‘infer’: to use ‘imply’ to mean ‘infer,’ and vice versa. Alice usually does the
latter; the Dodo the former.” Indeed, nothing originally distinguishes
“implication” as Lalande defines it — “a relation by which one thing ‘implies’
another”— from “inference” as it is defined in Diderot and d’Alembert’s
Encyclopédie (1765): “An operation by which one ACCEPTS (to use a Griceism) a
proposition because of its connection to other propositions held to be true.” The
same phenomenon can be seen in the German language, in which the terms corresponding
to “implication,” “Nach-sich-ziehen,” “Zur-folge-haben,” “inference,”
“Schluß”-“Folgerung,” “Schluß,” “to infer,” “schließen,” “consequence,” “Folge”
“-rung,” “Schluß,” “Konsequenz,” “reasoning,” “”Schluß-“ “Folgerung,” and “to
reason,” “schließen,” “Schluß-folger-ung-en ziehen,” intersect or overlap to a
large extent. In the French language, the expression “impliquer” reveals
several characteristics that the expression does not seem to share with “to
infer” or “to lead to.” First of all, “impliquer” is originally (1663)
connected to the notion of contradiction, as shown in the use of impliquer in
“impliquer contradiction,” in the sense of “to be contradictory.” The
connection between ‘impliquer’ and ‘contradiction’ does not, however, explain
how “impliquer” has passed into its most commonly accepted meaning —
“implicitly entail” — viz. to lead to a consequence. Indeed, the two usages
(“impliquer” connected with contradiction” and otherwise) constantly interfere
with one another, which certainly poses a number of difficult problems. An
analogous phenomenon can be found in the case of “import,” commonly given used
as “MEAN” or “imply,” but often wavering instead, in certain cases, between
“ENTAIL” and “imply.” In French, the noun “import” itself is generally left as
it I (“import existentiel,” v. SENSE, Box 4, and cf. that’s unimportant,
meaningless). “Importer,” as used by
Rabelais, 1536, “to necessitate, to entail,” forms via It.“importare,” as used by Dante), from the
Fr. “emporter,” “to entail, to have as a consequence,” dropped out of usage,
and was brought back through Engl. “import.” The nature of the connection
between the two primary usages of L. ‘implicare,’ It. ‘implicare,’ and Fr.
‘impliquer,’ “to entail IMPLICITitly” and “to lead to a consequence,”
nonetheless remains obscure, but not to a Griceian, or Grecian. Another
difficulty is understanding how the transition occurs from Fr. “impliquer,” “to
lead to a consequence,” to “implication,” “a logical relation in which one
statement necessarily supposes another one,” and how we can determine what in
this precise case distinguishes “implication” from “PRAE-suppositio.” We
therefore need to be attentive to what is implicit in Fr. “impliquer” and
“implication,” to the dimension of Fr. “pli,” a pleat or fold, of Fr. “re-pli,”
folding back, and of the Fr. “pliure,” folding, in order to separate out
“imply,” “infer,” “lead to,” or “implication,” “inference,” “consequence”—which
requires us to go back to Latin, and especially to medieval Latin. Once we
clarify the relationship between the usage of “implication” and the medieval
usage of “implicatio,” we will be able to examine certain derivations (as in
Sidonius’s ‘implicatura,” and H. P. Grice’s “implicature,” after ‘temperature,’
from ‘temperare,’) or substitutes (“entailment”) of terms related to the
generic field (for linguistic botanising) of “implicatio,” assuming that it is
difficulties with the concept of implication (e. g., the ‘paradoxes,’ true but
misleading, of material versus formal implication – ‘paradox of implication’
first used by Johnson 1921) that have given rise to this or that newly coined
expression corresponding to this or that original attempt. This whole set of
difficulties certainly becomes clearer as we leave Roman and go further
upstream to Grecian, using the same vocabulary of implication, through the
conflation of several heterogeneous gestures that come from the systematics in
Aristotle and the Stoics. The Roman Vocabulary of Implication and the
Implicatio has the necessary ‘gravitas,’ but Grice, being a Grecian at heart,
found it had ‘too much gravitas,’ hence his ‘implicature,’ “which is like the
old Roman ‘implicare,’ but for fun!” A number of different expressions in
medieval Latin can express in a more or less equivalent manner the relationship
between propositions and statements such that, from the truth-value of the
antecedent (true or false), one can derive the truth-value of the consequent.
There is “illatio,” and of course “illatum,” which Varro thought fell under
‘inferre.’ Then there’s the feminine noun, ‘inferentia,’ from the ‘participium
praesens’ of ‘inferre,’ cf. ‘inferens’ and ‘ilatum.’ There is also
‘consequentia,’ which is a complex transliterating the Greek ‘syn-,’ in this
case with ‘’sequentia,’ from the deponent verb. “I follow you.” Peter Abelard
(Petrus Abelardus, v. Abelardus) makes no distinction in using the expression
“consequentia” for the ‘propositio conditionalis,’ hypothetical. Si est homo,
est animal. If Grice is a man, Grice is an animal (Dialectica, 473 – Abelardus
uses ‘Greek man,’ not Grice.’ His implicature is ‘if a Greek man is a man, he
is therefore also some sort of an animal’). But Abelardus also uses the
expression “inferentia” for ‘same old same old’ (cf. “Implicature happens.”). Si
non est iustus homo, est non iustus homo. Grice to Strawson on the examiner
having given him a second. “If it is not the case that your examiner was a fair
man, it follows thereby that your examiner was not a fair man, if that helps.”
(Dialectica., 414). For some reason,
which Grice found obscure, ‘illatio” appears “almost always” in the context of commenting
on Aristotle’s “Topics,” – “why people found the topic commenting escapes me”
-- aand denotes more specifically a reasoning, or “argumentum,” in Boethius, allowing
for a “consequentia” to be drawn from a given place. So Abelardus
distinguishes: “illatio a causa.” But there is also “illatio a simili.” And
there is “iillatio a pari.” And there is “illatio a partibus.” “Con-sequentia”
sometimes has a very generic usage, even if not as generic as ‘sequentia.” “Consequentia
est quaedam habitudo inter antecedens et consequens,” “Logica modernorum,”
2.1:38 – Cfr. Grice on Whitehead as a ‘modernist’! Grice draws his ‘habit’ from
the scholastic ‘habitudo.’ Noe that ‘antededens’ and ‘consequens.’ The point is
a tautological formula, in terms of formation. Surely ‘consequentia’ relates to
a ‘consequens,’ where the ‘consequens’ is the ‘participium praesens’ of the
verb from which ‘consequentia’ derives. It’s like deving ‘love’ by ‘to have a
beloved.’ “Consequentia” is in any case present, in some way, without the
intensifier ‘syn,’ which the Roman gravitas added to transliterate the Greek
‘syn,’ i. e. ‘cum.’ -- in the expression “sequitur” and in the expression
“con-sequitur,” literally, ‘to follow,’ ‘to ensue,’ ‘to result in’). Keenan
told Grice that this irritated him. “If there is an order between a premise and
a conclusion, I will stop using ‘follow,’ because that reverts the order. I’ll
use ‘… yields …’ and write that ‘p yields q.’” “Inferentia,” which is cognate
(in the Roman way of using this expression broadly) with ‘illatio,’ and
‘illatum,’ -- frequently appears, by contrast, and “for another Grecian
reason,” as Grice would put it -- in the context of the Aristotle’s “De Interpretatione,”
on which Grice lectures only with J. L. Austin (Grice lectured with Strawson on
“Categoriae,” only – but with Austin, from whom Grice learned – Grice lectured
on both “Categoriae’ AND “De Interpretatione.” -- whether it is as part of a commentarium on Apuleius’s
Isagoge and the Square of Oppositions (‘figura quadrata spectare”), in order to
explain this or that “law” underlying any of the four sides of the square. So,
between A and E we have ‘propositio opposita.’ Between A and I, and between E
and O, we have propositio sub-alterna. Between A and O, and between E and I, we
have propositio contradictoria. And between I and O, we have “propositio
sub-alterna.” -- Logica modernorum, 2.1:115. This was irritatingly explored by
P. F. Strawson and brought to H. P. Grice’s attention, who refused to accept
Strawson’s changes and restrictions of the ‘classical’ validities (or “laws”)
because Strawson felt that the ‘implication’ violated some ‘pragmatic rule,’
while still yielding a true statement. Then there’s the odd use of “inferentia”
to apply to the different ‘laws’ of ‘conversio’ -- from ‘convertire,’
converting one proposition into another (Logica modernorum 131–39). Nevertheless,
“inferentia” is used for the dyadic (or triadic, alla Peirce) relationship of ‘implicatio,’
which for some reason, the grave Romans were using for less entertaining
things, and not this or that expressions from the “implication” family, or sub-field. Surprisingly, a philosopher without a
classical Graeco-Roman background could well be mislead into thinking that
“implicatio” and “implication” are disparate! A number of treatises, usually
written by monks – St. John’s, were Grice teaches, is a Cicercian monastery --
explore the “implicits.” Such a “tractatus” is not called
‘logico-philosophicus,’ but a “tractatus implicitarum,” literally a treatise on
this or that ‘semantic’ property of the
proposition said to be an ‘implicatum’ or an ‘implication,’ or ‘propositio re-lativa.’
This is Grice’s reference to the conversational category of ‘re-lation.’
“Re-latio” and “Il-latio” are surely cognate. The ‘referre’ is a bring back;
while the ‘inferre’ is the bring in. The propositio is not just ‘brought’
(latum, or lata) it is brought back. Proposition Q is brought back (relata) to
Proposition P. P and Q become ‘co-relative.’ This is the terminology behind the
idea of a ‘relative clause,’ or ‘oratio relativa.’ E.g. “Si Plato tutee
Socrates est, Socratos tutor Platonis est,” translated by Grice, “If Strawson was
my tutee, it didn’t show!”. Now, closer to Grice “implicitus,” with an “i”
following the ‘implic-‘ rather than the expected ‘a’ (implica), “implicita,”
and “implicitum,” is an alternative “participium passatum” from “im-plic-are,”
in Roman is used for “to be joined, mixed, enveloped.” implĭco (inpl- ), āvi,
ātum, or (twice in Cic., and freq. since the Aug. per.) ŭi, ĭtum (v. Neue,
Formenl. 2, 550 sq.), 1, v. a. in-plico, to fold into; hence, I.to infold,
involve, entangle, entwine, inwrap, envelop, encircle, embrace, clasp, grasp
(freq. and class.; cf.: irretio, impedio). I. Lit.: “involvulus in pampini
folio se,” Plaut. Cist. 4, 2, 64: “ut tenax hedera huc et illuc Arborem
implicat errans,” Cat. 61, 35; cf. id. ib. 107 sq.: “et nunc huc inde huc
incertos implicat orbes,” Verg. A. 12, 743: “dextrae se parvus Iulus
Implicuit,” id. ib. 2, 724; cf.: “implicuit materno bracchia collo,” Ov. M. 1,
762: “implicuitque suos circum mea colla lacertos,” id. Am. 2, 18, 9:
“implicuitque comam laevā,” grasped, Verg. A. 2, 552: “sertis comas,” Tib. 3,
6, 64: “crinem auro,” Verg. A. 4, 148: “frondenti tempora ramo,” id. ib. 7,
136; cf. Ov. F. 5, 220: in parte inferiore hic implicabatur caput, Afran. ap.
Non. 123, 16 (implicare positum pro ornare, Non.): “aquila implicuit pedes
atque unguibus haesit,” Verg. A. 11, 752: “effusumque equitem super ipse
(equus) secutus Implicat,” id. ib. 10, 894: “congressi in proelia totas
Implicuere inter se acies,” id. ib. 11, 632: “implicare ac perturbare aciem,”
Sall. J. 59, 3: “(lues) ossibus implicat ignem,” Verg. A. 7, 355.—In part.
perf.: “quini erant ordines conjuncti inter se atque implicati,” Caes. B. G. 7,
73, 4: “Canidia brevibus implicata viperis Crines,” Hor. Epod. 5, 15: “folium
implicatum,” Plin. 21, 17, 65, § 105: “intestinum implicatum,” id. 11, 4, 3, §
9: “impliciti laqueis,” Ov. A. A. 2, 580: “Cerberos implicitis angue minante
comis,” id. H. 9, 94: “implicitamque sinu absstulit,” id. A. A. 1, 561:
“impliciti Peleus rapit oscula nati,” held in his arms, Val. Fl. 1, 264. II.
Trop. A. In gen., to entangle, implicate, involve, envelop, engage: “di
immortales vim suam ... tum terrae cavernis includunt, tum hominum naturis
implicant,” Cic. Div. 1, 36, 79: “contrahendis negotiis implicari,” id. Off. 2,
11, 40: “alienis (rebus) nimis implicari molestum esse,” id. Lael. 13, 45:
“implicari aliquo certo genere cursuque vivendi,” id. Off. 1, 32, 117:
“implicari negotio,” id. Leg. 1, 3: “ipse te impedies, ipse tua defensione
implicabere,” Cic. Verr. 2, 2, 18, § 44; cf.: multis implicari erroribus, id.
Tusc. 4, 27, 58: “bello,” Verg. A. 11, 109: “eum primo incertis implicantes
responsis,” Liv. 27, 43, 3: “nisi forte implacabiles irae vestrae implicaverint
animos vestros,” perplexed, confounded, id. 40, 46, 6: “paucitas in partitione
servatur, si genera ipsa rerum ponuntur, neque permixte cum partibus
implicantur,” are mingled, mixed up, Cic. Inv. 1, 22, 32: ut omnibus copiis
conductis te implicet, ne ad me iter tibi expeditum sit, Pompei. ap. Cic. Att.
8, 12, D, 1: “tanti errores implicant temporum, ut nec qui consules nec quid
quoque anno actum sit digerere possis,” Liv. 2, 21, 4.—In part. perf.: “dum rei
publicae quaedam procuratio multis officiis implicatum et constrictum tenebat,”
Cic. Ac. 1, 3, 11: “Deus nullis occupationibus est implicatus,” id. N. D. 1,
19, 51; cf.: “implicatus molestis negotiis et operosis,” id. ib. 1, 20, 52:
“animos dederit suis angoribus et molestiis implicatos,” id. Tusc. 5, 1, 3:
“Agrippina morbo corporis implicata,” Tac. A. 4, 53: “inconstantia tua cum
levitate, tum etiam perjurio implicata,” Cic. Vatin. 1, 3; cf. id. Phil. 2, 32,
81: “intervalla, quibus implicata atque permixta oratio est,” id. Or. 56, 187:
“(voluptas) penitus in omni sensu implicata insidet,” id. Leg. 1, 17, 47: “quae
quatuor inter se colligata atque implicata,” id. Off. 1, 5, 15: “natura non tam
propensus ad misericordiam quam implicatus ad severitatem videbatur,” id. Rosc.
Am. 30, 85; “and in the form implicitus, esp. with morbo (in morbum): quies
necessaria morbo implicitum exercitum tenuit,” Liv. 3, 2, 1; 7, 23, 2; 23, 40,
1: “ubi se quisque videbat Implicitum morbo,” Lucr. 6, 1232: “graviore morbo
implicitus,” Caes. B. C. 3, 18, 1; cf.: “implicitus in morbum,” Nep. Ages. 8,
6; Liv. 23, 34, 11: “implicitus suspicionibus,” Plin. Ep. 3, 9, 19; cf.:
“implicitus terrore,” Luc. 3, 432: “litibus implicitus,” Hor. A. P. 424:
“implicitam sinu abstulit,” Ov. A. A. 1, 562: “(vinum) jam sanos implicitos
facit,” Cael. Aur. Acut. 3, 8, 87.— B. In partic., to attach closely, connect
intimately, to unite, join; in pass., to be intimately connected, associated,
or related: “(homo) profectus a caritate domesticorum ac suorum serpat longius
et se implicet primum civium, deinde mortalium omnium societate,” Cic. Fin. 2,
14, 45: “omnes qui nostris familiaritatibus implicantur,” id. Balb. 27, 60:
“(L. Gellius) ita diu vixit, ut multarum aetatum oratoribus implicaretur,” id.
Brut. 47, 174: “quibus applicari expediet, non implicari,” Sen. Ep. 105, 5.— In
part. perf.: “aliquos habere implicatos consuetudine et benevolentia,” Cic.
Fam. 6, 12, 2: “implicatus amicitiis,” id. Att. 1, 19, 8: “familiaritate,” id.
Pis. 29, 70: “implicati ultro et citro vel usu diuturno vel etiam officiis,”
id. Lael. 22, 85. —Hence, 1. implĭcātus (inpl- ), a, um, P. a., entangled,
perplexed, confused, intricate: “nec in Torquati sermone quicquam implicatum
aut tortuosum fuit,” Cic. Fin. 3, 1, 3: “reliquae (partes orationis) sunt
magnae, implicatae, variae, graves, etc.,” id. de Or. 3, 14, 52: vox rauca et
implicata, Sen. Apocol. med. — Comp.: “implicatior ad loquendum,” Amm. 26, 6,
18. — Sup.: “obscurissima et implicatissima quaestio,” Gell. 6, 2, 15: “ista
tortuosissima et implicatissima nodositas,” Aug. Conf. 2, 10 init.— 2.
im-plĭcĭtē (inpl- ), adv., intricately (rare): “non implicite et abscondite,
sed patentius et expeditius,” Cic. Inv. 2, 23, 69. -- “Implicare” adds to these
usages the idea of an unforeseen difficulty, i. e. a hint of “impedire,” and
even of deceit, i. e. a hint of “fallere.” Why imply what you can exply? Cf.
subreptitious. subreption (n.)"act
of obtaining a favor by fraudulent suppression of facts," c. 1600, from
Latin subreptionem (nominative subreptio),
noun of action from past-participle stem of subripere, surripere (see surreptitious).
Related: Subreptitious.
surreptitious (adj.)mid-15c., from Latin surrepticius "stolen,
furtive, clandestine," from surreptus, past participle
of surripere "seize
secretly, take away, steal, plagiarize," from assimilated form of sub "from
under" (hence, "secretly;" see sub-) + rapere "to
snatch" (see rapid). Related: Surreptitiously.
The source of the philosophers’s usage of ‘implicare’ is a passage from
Aristotle’s “De Int.” on the contrariety of proposition A and E (14.23b25–27),
in which “implicita” (that sould be ‘com-plicita,’ and ‘the emissor complicates
that p”) renders Gk. “sum-pepleg-menê,” “συμ-πεπλεγμένη,” f. “sum-plek-ein,”
“συμ-πλέϰein,” “to bind together,” as in ‘com-plicatio,’ complication, and
Sidonius’s ‘complicature,’ and Grice’s ‘complicature,’ as in ‘temperature,’
from ‘temperare.’ “One problem with P. F. Strawson’s exegesis of J. L. Austin
is the complicature is brings.” This is from the same family or field as
“sum-plokê,” “συμ-πλοϰή,” which Plato (Pol. 278b; Soph. 262c) uses for the
‘second articulation,’ the “com-bination” of sounds (phone) that make up a word
(logos), and, more philosophically interesting, for ‘praedicatio,’ viz., the
interrelation within a ‘logos’ or ‘oratio’ of a noun, or onoma or nomen, as in
“the dog,” and a verb, or rhema, or verbum, -- as in ‘shaggisising’ -- that
makes up a propositional complex, as “The dog is shaggy,” or “The dog
shaggisises.” (H. P. Grice, “Verbing from adjectiving.”). In De Int. 23b25-27,
referring to the contrariety of A and O, Aristotle, “let’s grant it” – as Grice
puts it – “is hardly clear.” Aristotle writes: “hê de tou hoti kakon to agathon
SUM-PEPLEG-MENÊ estin.” “Kai gar hoti ouk agathon anagkê isôs hupolambanein ton
auton.”“ἡ δὲ τοῦ ὅτι ϰαϰὸν τὸ ἀγαθὸν συμπεπλεγμένη ἐστίν.”“ϰαὶ γὰϱ ὅτι οὐϰ ἀγαθὸν
ἀνάγϰη ἴσως ὑπολαμϐάνειν τὸν αὐτόν.” Back in Rome, Boethius thought of bring
some gravitas to this. “Illa vero quae est,” Boethius goes,” Quoniam malum est
quod est bonum, IMPLICATA est. Et enim: “Quoniam non bonum est.” necesse est
idem ipsum opinari (repr. in Aristoteles latinus, 2.1–2.4–6. In a later vulgar
Romance, we have J. Tricot). “Quant au jugement, “Le bon est mal” ce n’est en
réalité qu’une COMBINAISON de jugements, cars sans doute est-il nécessaire de
sous-entendre en même temps “le bon n’est pas le bon.” Cf. Mill on ‘sous-entendu’
of conversation. This was discussed by H. P. Grice in a tutorial with
Reading-born English philosopher J. L. Ackrill at St. John’s. With the help of H. P. Grice, J. L. Ackrill
tries to render Boethius into the vernacular (just to please Austin) as
follows. “Hê de tou hoti kakon to agathon SUM-PEPLEG-MENÊ estin, kai gar hoti
OUK agathon ANAGKê isôs hupo-lambanein ton auton” “Illa vero quae est, ‘Quoniam
malum est quod est bonum,’ IMPLICATA est, et enim, ‘Quoniam non bonum est,’ necesse
est idem ipsum OPINARI. In the vernacular: “The belief expressed by the
proposition, ‘The good is bad,’ is COM-PLICATED or com-plex, for the same
person MUST, perhaps, suppose also the proposition, ‘The good it is not good.’”
Aristotle goes on, “For what kind of utterance is “The good is not good,” or as
they say in Sparta, “The good is no good”? Surely otiose. “The good” is a
Platonic ideal, a universal, separate from this or that good thing. So surely,
‘the good,’ qua idea ain’t good in the sense that playing cricket is good. But
playing cricket is NOT “THE” good: philosophising is.” H. P. Grice found
Boethius’s commentary “perfectly elucidatory,” but Ackrill was perplexed, and
Grice intended Ackrill’s perplexity to go ‘unnoticed’ (“He is trying to
communicate his perplexity, but I keep ignoring it.” For Ackrill was
surreptitiously trying to ‘correct’ his tutor. Aristotle, Acrkill thought, is
wishing to define the ‘contrariety’ between two statements or opinions, or not
to use a metalanguage second order, that what is expressed by ‘The good is bad’
is a contrarium of what is expressed by ‘The good is no good.’” Aristotle starts,
surely, from a principle. The principle states that a maximally false
proposition, set in opposition to a maximally true proposition (such as “The
good is good”), deserves the name “contraria” – and ‘contrarium’ to what is
expressed by it. In a second phase, Aristotle then tries to demonstrate, in a
succession of this or that stage, that ‘The good is good’ understood as a
propositio universalis dedicativa – for all x, if x is (the) good, x is good (To
agathon agathon estin,’ “Bonum est bonum”) is a maximally true proposition.” And
the reason for this is that “To agathon agathon estin,” or “Bonum bonum est,”
applies to the essence (essentia) of “good,” and ‘predicates’ “the same of the
same,” tautologically. Now consider Aristotle’s other proposition “The good is
the not-bad,” the correlative E form, For all x, if x is good, x is not bad. This
does not do. This is not a maximally true proposition. Unlike “The good is
good,” The good is not bad” does not apply to the essence of ‘the good,’ and it
does not predicate ‘the same of the same’ tautologically. Rather, ‘The good is
not bad,’ unless you bring one of those ‘meaning postulates’ that Grice rightly
defends against Quine in “In defense of a dogma,” – in this case, (x)(Bx iff
~Gx) – we stipulate something ‘bad’ if it ain’t good -- is only true notably
NOT by virtue of a necessary logical implication, but, to echo my tutor, by
implicature, viz. by accident, and not by essence (or essential) involved in
the ‘sense’ of either ‘good’ or ‘bad,’ or ‘not’ for that matter. Surely Aristotle
equivocates slightly when he convinced Grice that an allegedly maximally false
proposition (‘the good is bad’) entails or yields the negation of the same
attribute, viz., ‘The good is not good,’ or more correctly, ‘It is not the case
that the good is good,’ for this is axiomatically contradictory, or
tautologically and necessarily false without appeal to any meaning postulate.
For any predicate, Fx and ~Fx. The question then is one of knowing whether ‘The
good is bad’ deserves to be called the contrary proposition (propositio contraria)
of ‘The good is good.’ Aristotle notes that the proposition, ‘The good is bad,’
“To agathon kakon estin,” “Bonum malum est,” is NOT the maximally false
proposition opposed to the maximally true, tautological, and empty,
proposition, “The good is good,” ‘To agathon agathon estin,’ “Bonum bonum est.”
“Indeed, “the good is bad” is sumpeplegmenê, or COMPLICATA. What the emissor
means is a complicatum, or as Grice preferred, a ‘complicature. Grice’s
complicature (roughly rendered as ‘complification’) condenses all of the
moments of the transition from the simple idea of a container (cum-tainer) to
the “modern” ideas of implication, Grice’s implicature, and prae-suppositio.
The ‘propositio complicate,’ is, as Boethius puts it, duplex, or equivocal. The
proposition has a double meaning – one
explicit, the other implicit. “A ‘propositio complicata’ contains within itself
[“continet in se, intra se”]: bonum non est.” Boethius then goes rightly to
conclude (or infer), or stipulate, that only a “simplex” proposition, not a
propositio complicata, involving some ‘relative clause,’ can be said to be
contrary to another -- Commentarii in librum Aristotelis Peri hermêneais, 219.
Boethius’s exegesis thesis is faithful to Aristotle. For Aristotle, nothing
like “the good is not bad,” but only the tautologically false “the good is not
good,” or it is not the case that the good is good, (to agathon agathon esti,
bonum bonum est), a propositio simplex, and not a propositio complicate, is the
opposite (oppositum, -- as per the ‘figura quadrata’ of ‘oppoista’ -- of “the
good is good,” another propositio simplex. Boethius’s analysis of “the good is
bad,” a proposition that Boethius calls ‘propositio complicate or ‘propositio
implicita’ are manifestly NOT the same as Aristotle’s. For Aristotle, the “doxa
hoti kakon to agathon [δόξα ὅτι ϰαϰὸν τὸ ἀγαθόν],” the opinion according to
which the good is bad, is only ‘contrary’ to “the good is good” to the extent
that it “con-tains” (in Boethius’s jargon) the tautologically false ‘The good is
not good.’ For Boethius, ‘The good is bad’ is contrary to ‘the good is good’ is
to the extent that ‘the good is bad’ contains, implicitly, the belief which
Boethius expresses as ‘Bonum NON est —“ cf. Grice on ‘love that never told can
be” – Featuring “it is not the case that,” the proposition ‘bonum non est’ is a
remarkably complicated expression in Latin, a proposition complicata indeed.
‘Bonum non est’ can mean, in the vernacular, “the good is not.” “Bonum non est”
can only be rendered as “there is nothing good.’ “Bonum non est’ may also be
rendered, when expanded with a repeated property, the tautologically false ‘The
good is not good” (Bonum non bonum est). Strangely, Abelard goes in the same
direction as Aristotle, contra Boethius. “The good is bad” (Bonum malum est) is “implicit” (propositio implicita or
complicate) with respect to the tautologically false ‘Bonum bonum non est’ “the
good is not good.”Abelardus, having read Grice – vide Strawson, “The influence
of Grice on Abelardus” -- explains clearly the meaning of “propositio
implicita”: “IMPLYING implicitly ‘bonum non bonum est,’ ‘the good is not good’
within itself, and in a certain wa containing it [“IM-PLICANS eam in se, et
quodammodo continens.” Glossa super Periermeneias, 99–100. But Abelard expands
on Aristotle. “Whoever thinks ‘bonum malum est,’ ‘the good is bad’ also thinks
‘bonum non bonum est,’ ‘the good is not good,’ whereas the reverse does not
hold true, i. e. it is not the case that whoever thinks the tautologically false
‘the good is not good’ (“bonum bonum non est”) also think ‘the good is bad’
(‘bonum malum est’). He may refuse to even ‘pronounce’ ‘malum’ (‘malum malum
est’) -- “sed non convertitur.” Abelard’s explanation is decisive for the natural
history of Grice’s implication. One can certainly express in terms of
“implication” what Abelard expresses when he notes the non-reciprocity or
non-convertibility of the two propositions. ‘The good is bad,’ or ‘Bonum malum
est’ implies or presupposes the tautologically true “the good is not good;’It
is not the case that the tautologically false “the good is not good” (‘Bonum
bonum non est’) implies ridiculous “the good is bad.” Followers of Aristotle
inherit these difficulties. Boethius and
Abelard bequeath to posterity an interpretation of the passage in Aristotle’s
“De Interpretatione” according to which “bonum malum est” “the good is bad” can
only be considered the ‘propositio opposita’ of the tautologically true ‘bonum
bonum est’ (“the good is good”) insofar as, a ‘propositio implicita’ or
‘relativa’ or ‘complicata,’ it contains the ‘propositio contradictoria, viz.
‘the good is not good,’ the tautologically false ‘Bonum non bonum est,’ of the
tautologically true ‘Bonum bonum est’ “the good is good.” It is this meaning of
“to contain a contradiction” that, in a still rather obscure way, takes up this
analysis by specifying a usage of “impliquer.” The first attested use in French
of the verb “impliquer” is in 1377 in Oresme, in the syntagm “impliquer
contradiction” (RT: DHLF, 1793). These same texts give rise to another
analysis. A propositio implicita or pregnant, or complicate, is a proposition
that “implies,” that is, that in fact contains two propositions, one
principalis, and the other relative, each a ‘propositio explicita,’ and that
are equivalent or equipollent to the ‘propositio complicata’ when paraphrased.
Consider. “Homo qui est albus est animal quod currit,” “A man who is white is
an animal who runs.” This ‘propositio complicate contains the the propositio
implicita, “homo est albus” (“a man is white”) and the propositio implicita,
“animal currit” (“an animal runs.”). Only
by “exposing” or “resolving” (via ex-positio, or via re-solutio) such an ‘propositio
complicata’ can one assign it a truth-value. “Omnis proposition implicita habet
duas propositiones explicitas.” “A proposition implicita “P-im” has (at least)
a proposition implicita P-im-1 and a different proposition implicita P-im-2.”
“Verbi gratia.” “Socrates est id quod est homo.” “Haec propositio IMplicita
aequivalet huic copulativae constanti ex duis propositionis explicitis. Socrates
est aliquid est illud est homo. Haec proposition est vera, quare et propositio
implicita vera. Every “implicit proposition” has two explicit propositions.”
“Socrates is something (aliquid) which is a man.” This implicit proposition,
“Socrates is something shich is a man,” is equivalent or equipoent to the
following conjunctive proposition made up of two now EXplicit propositions, to
wit, “Socrates is something,” and “That something is a man.” This latter
conjunctive proposition of the two explicit propositions is true. Therefore,
the “implicit” proposition is also true” (Tractatus implicitarum, in Giusberti –
Materiale per studum, 43). The two “contained” propositions are usually relative
propositions. Each is called an ‘implicatio.’ ‘Implicatio’ (rather than
‘implicitio’) becomes shorthand for “PROPOSITIO implicita.” An ‘implicatio’
becomes one type of ‘propositio
exponibilis,’ i. e. a proposition that is to be “exposed” or paraphrased for
its form or structure to be understood. In
the treatises of Terminist logic, one chapter is by custom devoted to the
phenomenon of “restrictio,” viz. a restriction in the denotation or the
suppositio of the noun (v. SUPPOSITION). A relative expression (an
implication), along with others, has a restrictive function (viz., “officium
implicandi”), just like a sub-propositional expression like an adjective or a
participle. Consider. “A man, Grice, who
argues, runs to the second base.” “Man,”
because of the relative expression or clause “who runs,” is restricted to
denoting the present time (it is not Grice, who argues NOW but ran YESTERDAY).
Moreover there is an equivalence or equipolence between the relative expression
“qui currit” and the present participle “currens.” Running Grice argues. Grice
who runs argues. Summe metenses, Logica modernorum, 2.1:464. In the case in
which a relative expression is restrictive, its function is to “leave something
that is constant,” “aliquid pro constanti relinquere,” viz., to produce a pre-assertion
that conditions the truth of the main super-ordinate assertion without being
its primary object or topic or signification or intentio. “Implicare est pro
constanti et involute aliquid significare.” “Ut cum dicitur homo qui est albus
currit.” “Pro constanti” dico, quia
praeter hoc quod assertitur ibi cursus de homine, aliquid datur intelligi,
scilicet hominem album; “involute” dico quia praeter hoc quod ibi proprie et
principaliter significatur hominem currere, aliquid intus intelligitur,
scilicet hominem esse album. Per hoc patet quod implicare est intus plicare. Id
enim quod intus “plicamus” sive “ponimus,” pro constanti relinquimus. Unde
implicare nil aliud est quam subiectum sub aliqua dispositione pro constanti
relinquere et de illo sic disposito aliquid affirmare. Ackrill translates to
Grice: “To imply” is to signify something by stating it as constant, and in a pretty
‘hidden’ manner – “involute.” When I state that the man
runs, I state, stating it as constant, because, beyond (“praeter”) the main
supra-ordinate assertion or proposition that predicates the running of the man,
my addressee is given to understand something else (“aliquid intus
intelligitur”), viz. that the man is white; This is communicated in a hidden
manner (“involute”) because, beyond (“praeter”) what is communicated (“significatur”)
primarily, principally (“principaliter”) properly (“proprie”), literally, and
explicitly, viz. that the man is running, we are given to understand something
else (“aliquid intus intelligutur”) within (“intus”), viz. that the man is white. It follows from this that implicare is
nothing other than what the form of the expression literally conveys, intus
plicare (“folded within”). What we fold
or state within, we leave as a constant.
It follows from this that “to imply” is nothing other than leaving
something as a constant in the subject (‘subjectum’), such that the subject (subjectum,
‘homo qui est albus”) is under a certain disposition, and that it is only under
this disposition that something about the subjectum is affirmed” -- De
implicationibus, Nota, 100) For the record: while Giusberti (“Materiale per
studio,” 31) always reads “pro constanti,” the MSS occasionally has the pretty
Griciean “precontenti.” This is a case of what the “Logique du Port-Royal”
describes as an “in-cidental” assertion. The situation is even more complex,
however, insofar as this operation only relates to one usage of a relative proposition,
viz. when the proposition is restrictive. A restriction can sometimes be
blocked, or cancelled, and the reinscriptions are then different for a nonrestrictive and a restrictive relative
proposition. One such case of a blockage is that of “false implication”
(Johnson’s ‘paradox of ‘implicatio’) as in “a [or the] man who is a donkey
runs,” (but cf. the centaur, the man who is a horse, runs) where there is a
conflict (“repugnantia”) between what the determinate term itself denotes (homo,
man) and the determination (ansinus, donkey). The truth-values of a proposition
containing a relative clause or propositio thus varies according to whether it
is restrictive, and of composite meaning, as in “homo, qui est albus, currit”
(A man, who is white, runs), or non-restrictive, and of divided meaning, as in
“Homo currit qui est albus” (Rendered in the vernacular in the same way, the
Germanic languages not having the syntactic freedom the classical languages do:
A man, who is white, is running. When the relative is restrictive, as in “Homo,
qui est albus, curris”, the propositio implicits only produces one single
assertion, since the relative corresponds to a pre-assertion. Thus, it is the
equivalent, at the level of the underlying form, to a proposition conditionalis
or hypothetical. Only in the second case can there be a “resolution” of the proposition
implicita into the pair of this and that ‘propositio explicita, to wit, “homo
currit,” “homo est albus.”—and an equipolence
between the complex proposition implicita and the conjunction of the first
proposition explicita and the second proposition explicitta. Homo currit et
ille est albus. So it is only in this second case of proposition irrestrictiva that one can say that “Homo currit, qui est
albus implies “Homo currit,” and “Homo est albus” and therefore, “Homo qui est
albus currit.” The poor grave Romans are having trouble with Grecisms. The
Grecist vocabulary of implication is both disparate and systematic, in a
Griceian oxymoronic way. The grave Latin “implicare” covers and translates an
extremely varied Grecian field of expressions ready to be botanized, that bears
the mark of heterogeneous rather than systematic operations, whether one is
dealing Aristotle or the Stoics. The passage through grave Roman allows us to
understand retrospectively the connection in Aristotle’s jargon between the “implicatio”
of the “propositio implicita,” sum-pepleg-menê, as an interweaving or
interlacing, and conclusive or con-sequential implicatio, sumperasma, “συμπέϱασμα,”
or “sumpeperasmenon,” “συμπεπεϱασμένον,” “sumpeperasmenê,” “συμπεπεϱασμένη,” f.
perainein, “πεϱαίνein, “to limit,” which is the jargon Aristotle uses in the
Organon to denote the conclusion of a syllogism (Pr. Anal. 1.15.34a21–24). If
one designates as A the premise, tas protaseis, “τὰς πϱοτάσεις,” and as B the
con-clusion, “to sumperasma,” συμπέϱασμα.” Cf. the Germanic puns with
‘closure,’ etc. When translating
Aristotle’s definition of the syllogism at Prior Analytics 1.1.24b18–21, Tricot
chooses to render as the “con-sequence” Aristotle’s verb “sum-bainei,” “συμ-ϐαίνει,”
that which “goes with” the premise and results from it. A syllogism is a
discourse, “logos,” “λόγος,” in which, certain things being stated, something
other than what is stated necessarily results simply from the fact of what is
stated. Simply from the fact of what is stated, I mean that it is because of
this that the consequence is obtained, “legô de tôi tauta einai to dia tauta
sumbainei,” “λέγω δὲ τῷ ταῦτα εἶναι τὸ διὰ ταῦτα συμϐαίνει.” (Pr. Anal. 1.1,
24b18–21). To make the connection with “implication,” though, we also have to
take into account, as is most often the case, the Stoics’ own jargon. What the
Stoics call “sumpeplegmenon,” “συμπεπλεγμένον,” is a “conjunctive” proposition;
e. g. “It is daytime, and it is light” (it is true both that A and that B). The
conjunctive is a type of molecular proposition, along with the “conditional”
(sunêmmenon [συνημμένον] -- “If it is daytime, it is light”) and the
“subconditional” (para-sunêmmenon [παϱασυνημμένον]; “SINCE it is daytime, it is
light”), and the “disjunctive” (diezeugmenon [διεζευγμένον] -- “It is daytime, or it is night.” Diog. Laert.
7.71–72; cf. RT: Long and Sedley, A35, 2:209 and 1:208). One can see that there
is no ‘implicatio’ in the conjunctive, whereas there is one in the ‘sunêmmenon’
(“if p, q”), which constitutes the Stoic expression par excellence, as distinct
from the Aristotelian categoric syllogism.Indeed, it is around the propositio conditionalis
that the question and the vocabulary of ‘implicatio’ re-opens. The Aristotelian
sumbainein [συμϐαίνειν], which denotes the accidental nature of a result,
however clearly it has been demonstrated (and we should not forget that
sumbebêkos [συμϐεϐηϰός] denotes accident; see SUBJECT, I), is replaced by “akolouthein”
[ἀϰολουθεῖν] (from the copulative a- and keleuthos [ϰέλευθος], “path” [RT:
Chantraine, Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque, s.v. ἀϰόλουθος]),
which denotes instead being accompanied by a consequent conformity. This
connector, i. e. the “if” (ei, si) indicates that the second proposition, the
con-sequens (“it is light”) follows (akolouthei [ἀϰολουθεῖ]) from the first
(“it is daytime”) (Diog. Laert, 7.71). Attempts, beginning with Philo or
Diodorus Cronus up to Grice and Strawson to determine the criteria of a “valid”
conditional (to hugies sunêmmenon [τὸ ὑγιὲς συνημμένον] offer, among other
possibilities, the notion of emphasis [ἔμφασις], which Long and Sedley
translate as “G. E. Moore’s entailment” and Brunschwig and Pellegrin as
“implication” (Sextus Empiricus, The Skeptic Way, in RT: Long and Sedley, The
Hellenistic Philosophers, 35B, 2:211 and 1:209), a term that is normally used
to refer to a reflected image and to the force, including rhetorical force, of
an impression. Elsewhere, this “emphasis” is explained in terms of dunamis [δύναμις],
of “virtual” content (“When we have the premise which results in a certain
conclusion, we also have this conclusion virtually [dunamei (δυνάμει)] in the
premise, even if it is not explicitly indicated [kan kat’ ekphoran mê legetai (ϰἂν
ϰατ̕ ἐϰφοϱὰν μὴ λέγεται)], Sextus Empiricus, Against the Grammarians 8.229ff., D.
L. Blank, 49 = RT: Long and Sedley, G36 (4), 2:219 and 1:209)—where connecting
the different usages of “implication” creates new problems. One has to understand
that the type of implicatio represented by the proposition conditionalis
implies, in the double usage of “contains implicitly” and “has as its
consequence,” the entire Stoic system. It is a matter of to akolouthon en zôêi
[τὸ ἀϰόλουθον ἐν ζωῇ], “consequentiality in life,” or ‘rational life, as Grice
prefers, as Long and Sedley translate it (Stobeus 2.85.13 = RT: Long and Sedley,
59B, 2:356; Cicero prefers “congruere,” (congruential) De finibus 3.17 = RT:
Long and Sedley, 59D, 2:356). It is akolouthia [ἀϰολουθία] that refers to the
conduct con-sequent upon itself that is the conduct of the wise man, the chain
of causes defining will or fate, and finally the relationship that joins the
antecedent to the con-sequent in a true proposition. Goldschmidt, having cited
Bréhier (Le système stoïcien), puts the emphasis on antakolouthia [ἀνταϰολουθία],
a Stoic neologism that may be translated as “reciprocal” implicatio,” and that
refers specifically to the solidarity of virtues (antakolouthia tôn aretôn [ἀνταϰολουθία
τῶν ἀϱετῶν], Diog. Laert. 7.125; Goldschmidt, as a group that would be
encompassed by dialectical virtue, immobilizing akolouthia in the absolute
present of the wise man. “Implicatio” is, in the final analysis, from then on,
the most literal name of the Stoic system. Refs.: Aristotle. Anal. Pr.. ed. H. Tredennick, in Organon, Harvard; Goldschmidt, Le système
stoïcien et l’idée de temps. Paris: Vrin, Sextus Empiricus. Against the Grammarians,
ed. D. L. Blank. Oxford: Oxford. END OF INTERLUDE. Now for
“Implication”/“Implicature.” Implicatura was used by Sidonius in a letter (that
Grice found funny) and used by Grice in seminars on conversational helpfulness
at Oxford. Grice sets out the basis of a systematic approach to communication,
viz, concerning the relation between a proposition p and a proposition q in a
conversational context. The need is felt by Sidonius and Grice for
‘implicature,’ tdistinct from “implication,” insofar as “implication” is used
for a relation between a proposition p and a proposition q, whereas an
“implicature” is a relation between this or that statement, within a given
context, that results from an EMISSOR having utterered an utterance (thereby
explicitly conveying that p) and thereby implicitly conveying and implicating
that q. Grice thought the distinction was ‘frequently ignored by Austin,’ and
Grice thought it solved a few problems, initially in G. A. Paul’s
neo-Wttigensteinian objections to Price’s causal theory of perception (“The
pillar box seems red to me; which does not surprise me, seeing that it is
red”). An “implication” is a relation
bearing on the truth or falsity of this or that proposition (e. g. “The pillar
box seems red” and, say, “The pillar box MAY NOT be red”) whereas an “implicature”
brings an extra meaning to this or that statement it governs (By uttering “The
pillar box seems red” thereby explicitly conveying that the pillar box seems
red, the emissor implicates in a cancellable way that the pillar box MAY NOT be
red.”). Whenever “implicature” is determined according to its context (as at
Collections, “Strawson has beautiful handwriting; a mark of his character. And
he learned quite a bit in spite of the not precisely angelic temperament of his
tutor Mabbott”) it enters the field of pragmatics, and therefore has to be
distinguished from a presupposition. Implicatio simpliciter is a relation
between two propositions, one of which is the consequence of the other (Quine’s
example: “My father is a bachelor; therefore, he is male”). An equivalent of “implication”
is “entailment,” as used by Moore. Now, Moore was being witty. ‘Entail’ is
derived from “tail” (Fr. taille; ME entaill or entailen = en + tail), and prior
to its logical use, the meaning of “entailment” is “restriction,” “tail” having
the sense of “limitation.” As Moore explains in his lecture: “An entailment is
a limitation on the transfer or handing down of a property or an inheritance.
*My* use of ‘entailment’ has two features in common with the Legalese that
Father used to use; to wit: the handing down of a property; and; the limitation
on one of the poles of this transfer. As I stipulate we should use “entailment”
(at Cambridge, but also at Oxford), a PROPERTY is transferred from the antecedent
to the con-sequent. And also, normally in semantics, some LIMITATION (or
restriction, or ‘stricting,’ or ‘relevancing’) on the antecedent is stressed.”
The mutation from the legalese to Moore’s usage explicitly occurs by analogy on
the basis of these two shared common elements. Now, Whitehead had made a
distinction between a material (involving a truth-value) implication and formal
(empty) implication. A material implication (“if,” symbolized by the horseshoe
“ ⊃,” because “it resembles an arrow,”
Whitehead said – “Some arrow!” was Russell’s response) is a Philonian
implication as defined semantically in terms of a truth-table by Philo of
Megara. “If p, q” is false only when the antecedent is true and the con-sequent
false. In terms of a formalization of communication, this has the flaw of
bringing with it a counter-intuitive feeling of ‘baffleness’ (cf. “The pillar
box seems red, because it is”), since a false proposition implies materially
any proposition: If the moon is made of green cheese, 2 + 2 = 4. This “ex falso
quodlibet sequitur” has a pedigreed history. For the Stoics and the Megarian
philosophers, “ex falso quodlibet sequitur” is what distinguishes Philonian
implication and Diodorean implication. It traverses the theory of consequence
and is ONE of the paradoxes of material implication that is perfectly summed up
in these two rules of Buridan: First, if P is false, Q follows from P; Second, if
P is true, P follows from Q (Bochenski, History of Formal Logic). A formal (empty)
implication (see Russell, Principles of Mathematics, 36–41) is a universal
conditional implication: Ɐx (Ax ⊃ Bx), for any x, if
Ax, then Bx. Different means of resolving the paradoxes of implication have
been proposed. All failed except Grice’s. An American, C. I. Lewis’s “strict”
implication (Lewis and Langford, Symbolic Logic) is defined as an implication
that is ‘reinforced’ such that it is impossible for the antecedent to be true
and the con-sequent false. Unfortunately, as Grice tells Lewis in a
correspondence, “your strict implication, I regret to prove, has the same
alleged flaw as the ‘material’ implication that your strict implication was
meant to improve on. (an impossible—viz., necessarily false—proposition strictly
implies any proposition). The relation of entailment introduced by Moore in
1923 is a relation that seems to avoid this or that paradox (but cf. Grice,
“Paradoxes of entailment, followed by paradoxes of implication – all
conversationally resolved”) by requiring a derivation of the antecedent from
the con-sequent. In this case, “If 2 + 2 = 5, 2 + 3 = 5” is false, since the
con-sequent is stipulated not be derivable from the antecedent. Occasionally,
one has to call upon the pair “entailment”/“implication” in order to
distinguish between an implication in qua material implication and an
implication in Moore’s usage (metalinguistic – the associated material
implication is a theorem), which is also sometimes called “relevant” if not
strictc implication (Anderson and Belnap, Entailment), to ensure that the entire
network of expressions is covered. Along with this first series of expressions
in which “entailment” and “implication” alternate with one another, there is a
second series of expressions that contrasts two kinds of “implicature,” or
‘implicata.’ “Implicature” (Fr. implicature, G. Implikatur) is formed from
“implicatio” and the suffix –ture, which expresses, as Grice knew since his
Clifton days, a ‘resultant aspect,’ ‘aspectum resultativus’ (as in “signature”;
cf. L. temperatura, from temperare). “Implicatio”
may be thought as derived from “to imply” (if not ‘employ’) and “implicature”
may be thought as deriving from “imply”’s doulet, “to implicate” (from L. “in-“
+ “plicare,” from plex; cf. the IE. plek), which has the same meaning. Some
mistakenly see Grice’s “implicature” as an extension and modification of the
concept of presupposition, which differs from ‘material’ implication in that
the negation of the antecedent implies the consequent (the question “Have you
stopped beating your wife?” presupposes the existence of a wife in both cases).
An implicature escapes the paradoxes of material implication from the outset.
In fact, Grice, the ever Oxonian, distinguishes “at least” two kinds of
implicature, conventional and non-conventional, the latter sub-divided into
non-conventional non-converastional, and non-conventional conversational. A
non-conventional non-conversational implicatum may occur in a one-off
predicament. A Conventional implicature and a conventional implicatum is
practically equivalent, Strawson wrongly thought, to presupposition
prae-suppositum, since it refers to the presuppositions attached by linguistic
convention to a lexical item or expression.
E. g. “Mary EVEN loves Peter” has a relation of conventional implicature
to “Mary loves other entities than Peter.” This is equivalent to: “ ‘Mary EVEN
loves Peter’ presupposes ‘Mary loves other entities than Peter.’ With this kind
of implicature, we remain within the expression, and thus the semantic, field.
A conventional implicature, however, is surely different from a material
implicatio. It does not concern the truth-values. With conversational
implicature, we are no longer dependent on this or that emissum, but move into
pragmatics (the area that covers the relation between statements and contexts. Grice
gives the following example: If, in answer to A’s question about how C is
getting on in his new job at a bank, B utters, “Well, he likes his colleagues,
and he hasn’t been to in prison yet,” what B implicates by the proposition that
it is not the case that C has been to prison yet depends on the context. It compatible
with two very different contexts: one in which C, naïve as he is, is expected
to be entrapped by unscrupulous colleagues in some shady deal, or, more likely,
C is well-known by A and B to tend towards dishonesty (hence the initial
question). References: Abelard, Peter. Dialectica. Edited by L. M. De Rijk.
Assen, Neth.: Van Gorcum, 1956. 2nd rev. ed., 1970. Glossae super
Periermeneias. Edited by Lorenzo Minio-Paluello. In TwelfthCentury Logic: Texts
and Studies, vol. 2, Abelaerdiana inedita. Rome: Edizioni di Storia e
Letteratura, 1958. Anderson, Allan Ross, and Nuel Belnap. Entailment: The Logic
of Relevance and Necessity. Vol. 1. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
1975. Aristotle. De interpretatione. English translation by J. L. Ackrill:
Aristotle’s Categories and De interpretatione. Notes by J. L. Ackrill. Oxford:
Clarendon, 1963. French translation by J. Tricot: Organon. Paris: Vrin, 1966. Auroux,
Sylvain, and Irène Rosier. “Les sources historiques de la conception des deux
types de relatives.” Langages 88 (1987): 9–29. Bochenski, Joseph M. A History
of Formal Logic. Translated by Ivo Thomas. New York: Chelsea, 1961. Boethius.
Aristoteles latinus. Edited by Lorenzo Minio-Paluello. Paris: Descleé de
Brouwer, 1965. Translation by Lorenzo Minio-Paluello: The Latin Aristotle.
Toronto: Hakkert, 1972. Commentarii in librum Aristotelis Peri hermêneias.
Edited by K. Meiser. Leipzig: Teubner, 1877. 2nd ed., 1880. De Rijk, Lambertus
Marie. Logica modernorum: A Contribution to the History of Early Terminist
Logic. 2 vols. Assen, Neth.: Van Gorcum, 1962–67. “Some Notes on the Mediaeval Tract De
insolubilibus, with the Edition of a Tract Dating from the End of the
Twelfth-Century.” Vivarium 4 (1966): 100–103. Giusberti, Franco. Materials for
a Study on Twelfth-Century Scholasticism. Naples, It.: Bibliopolis, 1982.
Grice, H. P. “Logic and Conversation.” In Syntax and Semantics 3: Speech Acts,
edited by P. Cole and J. Morgan, 41–58. New York: Academic Press, 1975. (Also
in The Logic of Grammar, edited by D. Davidson and G. Harman, 64–74. Encino,
CA: Dickenson, 1975.) Lewis, Clarence Irving, and Cooper Harold Langford.
Symbolic Logic. New York: New York Century, 1932. Meggle, Georg. Grundbegriffe
der Kommunikation. 2nd ed. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1997. Meggle, Georg, and
Christian Plunze, eds. Saying, Meaning, Implicating. Leipzig: Leipziger
Universitätsverlag, 2003. Moore, G. E.. Philosophical Studies. London: Kegan
Paul, 1923. Rosier, I. “Relatifs et relatives dans les traits terministes des
XIIe et XIIIe siècles: (2) Propositions relatives (implicationes), distinction
entre restrictives et non restrictives.” Vivarium 24: 1 (1986): 1–21. Russell,
Bertrand. The Principles of Mathematics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1903. Speranza, Luigi. Join the Grice Club! Strawson, P. F.. “On Referring.”
Mind 59 (1950): 320–44.
incorrigibility:
On WoW: 142, Grice refers to the ‘authority’ of the utterer as a ‘rational
being’ to DEEM that an M-intention is an antecedent condition for his act of
meaning. Grice uses ‘privilege’ as synonym for ‘authority’ here. But not in the
phrase ‘privileged access.’ His point is not so much about the TRUTH (which
‘incorrigibility’ suggests), but about the DEEMING. It is part of the authority
or privilege of the utterer as rational to provide an ACCEPTABLE assignment of
an M-intention behind his utterance.
indicatum.
Οριστική oristike. Grice distinguishes between the indicative
mode and the informational mode. One can hardly inform oneself. Yet one can
utter an utterance in the indicative mode without it being in what he calls the
informational sub-mode.
Inferentia – see illatum
-- Cf. illatio. Consequentia. Implicatio. Grice’s implicature and what the
emissor implicates as a variation on the logical usage.
Infinite-off
predicament, or ∞-off predicament.
inscriptum
-- inscriptionalism -- nominalism. While Grice pours scorn on the American
School of Latter-Day Nominalists,
nominalism, as used by Grice is possibly a misnomer. He doesn’t mean Occam, and
Occam did not use ‘nominalismus.’ “Terminimus’ at most. So one has to be
careful. The implicature is that the nominalist calls a ‘name’ what others
shouldn’t. Mind, Grice had two
nominalist friends: S. N. Hamphsire (Scepticism and meaning”) and A. M.
Quinton, of the play group! In “Properties and classes,” for the Aristotelian
Society. And the best Oxford philosophical stylist, Bradley, is also a
nominalist. There are other, more specific arguments against universals.
One is that postulating such things leads to a vicious infinite regress. For
suppose there are universals, both monadic and relational, and that when an
entity instantiates a universal, or a group of entities instantiate a
relational universal, they are linked by an instantiation relation. Suppose now
that a instantiates the universal F. Since there are many things that
instantiate many universals, it is plausible to suppose that instantiation is a
relational universal. But if instantiation is a relational universal,
when a instantiates F, a, F and
the instantiation relation are linked by an instantiation relation. Call this
instantiation relation i2 (and suppose it, as is
plausible, to be distinct from the instantiation relation (i1)
that links a and F). Then since i2 is
also a universal, it looks as if a, F, i1 and i2 will
have to be linked by another instantiation relation i3,
and so on ad infinitum. (This argument has its source in Bradley
1893, 27–8.)
insinuatum: insinuation insinuate. A bit of linguistic botany, “E
implicates that p” – implicate to do duty for, in alphabetic order: mean,
suggest, hint, insinuate, indicate, implicitly convey, indirectly convey,
imply.
intellectum (dianoia) “intelligere,” originally meaning to comprehend,
appeared frequently in Cicero, then underwent a slippage in its passive form,
“intelligetur,” toward to understand, to communicate, to mean, ‘to give it to
be understood.’ What is understood – INTELLECTUM -- by an expression can be not
only its obvious sense but also something that is connoted, implied,
insinuated, IMPLICATED, as Grice would prefer. Verstand, corresponding to Greek
dianoia and Latin intellectio] Kant distinguished understanding from
sensibility and reason. While sensibility is receptive, understanding is
spontaneous. While understanding is concerned with the range of phenomena and
is empty without intuition, reason, which moves from judgment to judgment
concerning phenomena, is tempted to extend beyond the limits of experience to
generate fallacious inferences. Kant claimed that the main act of understanding
is judgment and called it a faculty of judgment. He claimed that there is an a
priori concept or category corresponding to each kind of judgment as its
logical function and that understanding is constituted by twelve categories.
Hence understanding is also a faculty of concepts. Understanding gives the
synthetic unity of appearance through the categories. It thus brings together
intuitions and concepts and makes experience possible. It is a lawgiver of
nature. Herder criticized Kant for separating sensibility and understanding.
Fichte and Hegel criticized him for separating understanding and reason. Some
neo-Kantians criticized him for deriving the structure of understanding from
the act of judgment. “Now we can reduce all acts of the understanding to
judgements, and the understanding may therefore be represented as a faculty of
judgement.” Kant, Critique of Pure Reason
intensionalism: Grice finds a way to relieve a predicate that is vacuous
from the embarrassing consequence of denoting or being satisfied by the empty
set. Grice exploits the nonvoidness of a predicate which is part of the
definition of the void predicate. Consider the vacuous predicate:‘... is
married to a daughter of an English queen and a pope.'The class '... is a
daugther of an English queen and a pope.'is co-extensive with the
predicate '... stands in relation to a sequence composed of the
class married to, daughters, English queens, and popes.'We correlate the
void predicate with the sequence composed of relation R, the set ‘married
to,’ the set ‘daughters,’ the set ‘English queens,’ and the set ‘popes.'Grice
uses this sequence, rather than the empty set, to determine the explanatory
potentiality of a void predicate. The admissibility of a nonvoid predicate
in an explanation of a possible phenomenon (why it would happen if it did
happen) may depends on the availability of a generalisation whithin which the
predicate specifies the antecedent condition. A non-trivial generalisations
of this sort is certainly available if derivable from some further
generalisation involving a less specific antecedent condition, supported by an
antecedent condition that is specified by means a nonvoid predicate.
intentionalism: Cf. Suppes’s specific section. when Anscombe comes out
with her “Intention,” Grice’s Play Group does not know what to do. Hampshire is
almost finished with his “Thought and action” that came out the following year.
Grice is lecturing on how a “dispositional” reductive analysis of ‘intention’
falls short of his favoured instrospectionalism. Had he not fallen for an
intention-based semantics (or strictly, an analysis of "U means that
p" in terms of U intends that p"), Grice would be obsessed with
an analysis of ‘intending that …’ James makes an observation about the
that-clause. I will that the distant table slides over the floor toward me. It
does not. The Anscombe Society. Irish-born Anscombe’s views are often discussed
by Oxonian philosophers. She brings Witters to the Dreaming Spires, as it
were. Grice is especially connected with Anscombes reflections on intention. While
he favoures an approach such as that of Hampshire in Thought and Action, Grice borrows
a few points from Anscombe, notably that of direction of fit, originally Austin’s. Grice
explicitly refers to Anscombe in “Uncertainty,” and in his reminiscences he
hastens to add that Anscombe would never attend any of the Saturday mornings of
the play group, as neither does Dummett. The view of Ryle is standardly
characterised as a weaker or softer version of behaviourism According to this
standard interpretation, the view by Ryle is that a statements containin this
or that term relating to the ‘soul’ can be translated, without loss of meaning,
into an ‘if’ utterance about what an agent does. So Ryle, on this account, is
to be construed as offering a dispositional analysis of a statement about the
soul into a statement about behaviour. It is conceded that Ryle does not
confine a description of what the agent does to purely physical behaviour—in
terms, e. g. of a skeletal or a muscular description. Ryle is happy to speak of
a full-bodied action like scoring a goal or paying a debt. But the soft
behaviourism attributed to Ryle still attempts an analysis or translation of
statement about the soul into this or that dispositional statement which is
itself construed as subjunctive if describing what the agent does. Even this
soft behaviourism fails. A description of the soul is not analysable or
translatable into a statement about behaviour or praxis even if this
is allowed to include a non-physical descriptions of action. The list of
conditions and possible behaviour is infinite since any one proffered
translation may be ‘defeated,’ as Hart and Hall would say, by a slight
alteration of the circumstances. The defeating condition in any particular case
may involve a reference to a fact about the agent’s soul, thereby rendering the
analysis circular. In sum, the standard interpretation of Ryle construes him as
offering a somewhat weakened form of reductive behaviourism whose reductivist
ambition, however weakened, is nonetheless futile. This characterisation
of Ryle’s programme is wrong. Although it is true that he is keen to point out
the disposition behind this or that concept about the soul, it would be wrong
to construe Ryle as offering a programme of analysis of a ‘soul’ predicate in
terms of an ‘if’ utterance. The relationship between a ‘soul’ predicate and the
‘if’ utterance with which he unpack it is other than that required by this kind
of analysis. It is helpful to keep in mind that Ryle’s target is the
official doctrine with its eschatological commitment. Ryle’s argument serves to
remind one that we have in a large number of cases ways of telling or settling
disputes, e. g., about someone’s character or intellect. If A disputes a
characterisation of Smith as willing that p, or judging that p, B may point to
what Smith says and does in defending the attribution, as well as to features
of the circumstances. But the practice of giving a reason of this kind to
defend or to challenge an ascription of a ‘soul’ predicates would be put under
substantial pressure if the official doctrine is correct. For Ryle to
remind us that we do, as a matter of fact, have a way of settling disputes
about whether Smith wills that he eat an apple is much weaker than saying that
the concept of willing is meaningless unless it is observable or verifiable; or
even that the successful application of a soul predicate requires that we have
a way of settling a dispute in every case. Showing that a concept is one for
which, in a large number of cases, we have an agreement-reaching procedure,
even if it do not always guarantee success, captures an important point,
however: it counts against any theory of, e. g., willing that would render it
unknowable in principle or in practice whether or not the concept is
correctly applied in every case. And this is precisely the problem with the
official doctrine (and is still a problem, with some of its progeny. Ryle
points out that there is a form of dilemma that pits the reductionist against
the dualist: those whose battle-cry is ‘nothing but…’ and those who insist
on ‘something else as well.’ Ryle attempts a dissolution of the dilemma by
rejecting the two horns; not by taking sides with either one, though part of
what dissolution requires in this case, as in others, is a description of how
each side is to be commended for seeing what the other side does not, and
criticised for failing to see what the other side does. The attraction of
behaviourism, Ryle reminds us, is simply that it does not insist on an occult
happening as the basis upon which a ‘soul’ term is given meaning, and points to
a perfectly observable criterion that is by and large employed when we are
called upon to defend or correct our employment of a ‘soul’ term. The problem
with behaviourism is that it has a too-narrow view both of what counts as
behaviour and of what counts as observable. Then comes Grice to play with
meaning and intending, and allowing for deeming an avowal of this or that souly
state as, in some fashion, incorrigible. For Grice, while U does have, ceteris
paribus privileged access to each state of his soul, only his or that avowal of
this or that souly state is deemed incorrigible. This concerns communication as
involving intending. Grice goes back to this at Brighton. He plays with G
judges that it is raining, G judges that G judges that it is raining. Again,
Grice uses a subscript: “G judges2 that it is raining.” If now G
expresses that it is raining, G judges2 that it is raining. A
second-order avowal is deemed incorrigible. It is not surprising the the
contemporary progeny of the official doctrine sees a behaviourist in Grice. Yet
a dualist is badly off the mark in his critique of Grice. While Grice does
appeal to a practice and a habif, and even the more technical ‘procedure’ in
the ordinary way as ‘procedure’ is used in ordinary discussion. Grice does not
make a technical concept out of them as one expect of some behavioural
psychologist, which he is not. He is at most a philosophical psychologist, and
a functionalist one, rather than a reductionist one. There is nothing in any
way that is ‘behaviourist’ or reductionist or physicalist about Grice’s talk.
It is just ordinary talk about behaviour. There is nothing exceptional in
talking about a practice, a customs, or a habit regarding communication. Grice
certainly does not intend that this or that notion, as he uses it, gives anything
like a detailed account of the creative open-endedness of a
communication-system. What this or that anti-Griceian has to say IS essentially
a diatribe first against empiricism (alla Quine), secondarily against a
Ryle-type of behaviourism, and in the third place, Grice. In more reasoned and
dispassionate terms, one would hardly think of Grice as a behaviourist (he in
fact rejects such a label in “Method”), but as an intentionalist. When we call
Grice an intentionalist, we are being serious. As a modista, Grice’s keyword is
intentionalism, as per the good old scholastic ‘intentio.’ We hope so. This is
Aunt Matilda’s conversational knack. Grice keeps a useful correspondence with
Suppes which was helpful. Suppes takes Chomsky more seriously than an Oxonian
philosopher would. An Oxonian philosopher never takes Chomsky too seriously. Granted,
Austin loves to quote “Syntactic Structures” sentence by sentence for fun,
knowing that it would never count as tutorial material. Surely “Syntactic Structures”
would not be a pamphlet a member of the play group would use to educate his
tutee. It is amusing that when he gives the Locke lectures, Chomsky cannot not think
of anything better to do but to criticise Grice, and citing him from just one
reprint in the collection edited by, of all people, Searle. Some gratitude. The
references are very specific to Grice. Grice feels he needs to provide, he
thinks, an analysis ‘mean’ as metabolically applied to an expression. Why?
Because of the implicatum. By uttering x (thereby explicitly conveying that p),
U implicitly conveys that q iff U relies on some procedure in his and A’s
repertoire of procedures of U’s and A’s communication-system. It is this talk
of U’s being ‘ready,’ and ‘having a procedure in his repertoire’ that sounds to
New-World Chomsky too Morrisian, as it does not to an Oxonian. Suppes, a
New-Worlder, puts himself in Old-Worlder Grice’s shoes about this. Chomsky
should never mind. When an Oxonian philosopher, not a psychologist, uses ‘procedure’
and ‘readiness,’ and having a procedure in a repertoire, he is being Oxonian
and not to be taken seriously, appealing to ordinary language, and so on.
Chomsky apparently does get it. Incidentally, Suppess has defended Grice
against two other targets, less influential. One is Hungarian-born J. I. Biro,
who does not distinguish between reductive analysis and reductionist analysis,
as Grice does in his response to Somervillian Rountree-Jack. The other target
is perhaps even less influential: P. Yu in a rather simplistic survey of the
Griceian programme for a journal that Grice finds too specialized to count, “Linguistics
and Philosophy.” Grice is always ashamed and avoided of being described as “our
man in the philosophy of language.” Something that could only have happened in
the Old World in a red-brick university, as Grice calls it. Suppes contributes to PGRICE with an
excellent ‘The primacy of utterers meaning,’ where he addresses what he rightly
sees as an unfair characterisations of Grice as a behaviourist. Suppes’s use of
“primacy” is genial, since its metabole which is all about. Biro actually responds
to Suppes’s commentary on Grice as proposing a reductive but not reductionist
analysis of meaning. Suppes rightly characterises Grice as an Oxonian ‘intentionalist’
(alla Ogden), as one would characterize Hampshire, with philosophical
empiricist, and slightly idealist, or better ideationalist, tendencies, rather.
Suppes rightly observes that Grice’ use of such jargon is meant to impress.
Surely there are more casual ways of referring to this or that utterer having a
basic procedure in his repertoire. It is informal and colloquial, enough,
though, rather than behaviouristically, as Ryle would have it. Grice is very
happy that in the New World Suppes teaches him how to use ‘primacy’ with a
straight face! Intentionalism is also all the vogue in Collingwood reading
Croce, and Gardiner reading Marty via Ogden, and relates to expression. In his
analysis of intending Grice is being very Oxonian, and pre-Austinian: relying,
just to tease leader Austin, on Stout, Wilson, Bosanquet, MacMurray, and
Pritchard. Refs.: There are two sets of essays. An early one on ‘disposition
and intention,’ and the essay for The British Academy (henceforth, BA). Also
his reply to Anscombe and his reply to Davidson. There is an essay on the
subjective condition on intention. Obviously, his account of communication has
been labeled the ‘intention-based semantic’ programme, so references under
‘communication’ above are useful. BANC.Grice's reductIOn, or partial reduction
anyway, of meamng to intention places a heavy load on the theory of intentions.
But in the articles he has written about these matters he has not been very
explicit about the structure of intentIOns. As I understand his position on
these matters, it is his view that the defence of the primacy of utterer's
meaning does not depend on having worked out any detailed theory of intention.
It IS enough to show how the reduction should be thought of in a schematic
fashion in order to make a convincing argument. I do think there is a fairly
straightforward extenSIOn of Grice's ideas that provides the right way of
developing a theory of intentIOns appropnate for Ius theory of utterer's
meaning. Slightly changing around some of the words m Grice we have the
following The Primacy of Utterer's Meaning 125 example. U utters '''Fido is
shaggy", if "U wants A to think that U thinks that Jones's dog is
hairy-coated.'" Put another way, U's intention is to want A to think U
thinks that Jones's dog is hairy-coated. Such intentions clearly have a
generative structure similar but different from the generated syntactic
structure we think of verbal utterances' having. But we can even say that the
deep structures talked about by grammarians of Chomsky's ilk could best be
thought of as intentions. This is not a suggestion I intend to pursue
seriously. The important point is that it is a mistake to think about
classifications of intentions; rather, we should think in terms of mechanisms
for generating intentions. Moreover, it seems to me that such mechanisms in the
case of animals are evident enough as expressed in purposeful pursuit of prey
or other kinds of food, and yet are not expressed in language. In that sense
once again there is an argument in defence of Grice's theory. The primacy of
utterer's meaning has primacy because of the primacy of intention. We can have
intentions without words, but we cannot have words of any interest without
intentions. In this general context, I now turn to Biro's (1979) interesting
criticisms of intentionalism in the theory of meaning. Biro deals from his own
standpoint with some of the issues I have raised already, but his central
thesis about intention I have not previously discussed. It goes to the heart of
controversies about the use of the concept of intention to explain the meaning
of utterances. Biro puts his point in a general way by insisting that utterance
meaning must be separate from and independent of speaker's meaning or, in the
terminology used here, utterer's meaning. The central part of his argument is
his objection to the possibility of explaining meaning in terms of intentions.
Biro's argument goes like this: 1. A central purpose of speech is to enable
others to learn about the speaker's intentions. 2. It will be impossible to
discover or understand the intentions of the speaker unless there are
independent means for understanding what he says, since what he says will be
primary evidence about his intentions. 3. Thus the meaning of an utterance must
be conceptually independent of the intentions of the speaker. This is an
appealing positivistic line.
The data relevant to a theory or
hypothesis must be known independently of the hypothesis. Biro is quick to
state that he is not against theoretical entities, but the way in which he
separates theoretical entities and observable facts makes clear the limited
role he wants them to play, in this case the theoretical entities being
intentions. The central idea is to be found in the following passage: The point
I am insisting on here is merely that the ascription of an intention to an
agent has the character of an hypothesis, something invoked to explain
phenomena which may be described independently of that explanation (though not
necessarily independently of the fact that they fall into a class for which the
hypothesis in question generally or normally provides an explanation). (pp.
250-1.) [The italics are Biro's.] Biro's aim is clear from this quotation. The
central point is that the data about intentions, namely, the utterance, must be
describable independently of hypotheses about the intentions. He says a little
later to reinforce this: 'The central pointis this: it is the intention-hypothesis
that is revisable, not the act-description' (p. 251). Biro's central mistake,
and a large one too, is to think that data can be described independently of
hypotheses and that somehow there is a clean and simple version of data that
makes such description a natural and inevitable thing to have. It would be easy
enough to wander off into a description of such problems in physics, where
experiments provide a veritable wonderland of seemingly arbitrary choices about
what to include and what to exclude from the experimental experience as
'relevant data', and where the arbitrariness can only be even partly understood
on the basis of understanding the theories bemg tested. Real data do not come
in simple linear strips like letters on the page. Real experiments are blooming
confusions that never get sorted out completely but only partially and
schematically, as appropriate to the theory or theories being tested, and in
accordance with the traditions and conventions of past similar experiments.
makes a point about the importance of convention that I agree but it is
irrelevant to my central of controversy with What I say about experiments is even more true
of undisciplined and unregulated human interactiono Experiments, especially in
physics, are presumably among the best examples of disciplined and structured
action. Most conversations, in contrast, are really examples of situations of
confusion that are only straightened out under strong hypotheses of intentions
on the of speakers and listeners as well. There is more than one level at which
the takes The Primacy of Utterer's Meaning 127 place through the beneficent use
of hypotheses about intentions. I shall not try to deal with all of them here
but only mention some salient aspects. At an earlier point, Biro says:The main
reason for introducing intentions into some of these analyses is precisely that
the public (broadly speaking) features of utterances -the sounds made, the
circumstances in which they are made and the syntactic and semantic properties
of these noises considered as linguistic items-are thought to be insufficient
for the specification of that aspect of the utterance which we call its
meaning. [po 244.] If we were to take this line of thought seriously and
literally, we would begin with the sound pressure waves that reach our ears and
that are given the subtle and intricate interpretation required to accept them
as speech. There is a great variety of evidence that purely acoustical concepts
are inadequate for the analysis of speech. To determine the speech content of a
sound pressure wave we need extensive hypotheses about the intentions that
speakers have in order to convert the public physical features of utterances
into intentional linguistic items. Biro might object at where I am drawing the
line between public and intentional, namely, at the difference between physical
and linguistic, but it would be part of my thesis that it is just because of
perceived and hypothesized intentions that we are mentally able to convert
sound pressure waves into meaningful speech. In fact, I can envisage a kind of
transcendental argument for the existence of intentions based on the
impossibility from the standpoint of physics alone of interpreting sound
pressure waves as speech. Biro seems to have in mind the nice printed sentences
of science and philosophy that can be found on the printed pages of treatises
around the world. But this is not the right place to begin to think about
meaning, only the end point. Grice, and everybody else who holds an intentional
thesis about meaning, recognizes the requirement to reach an account of such
timeless sentence meaning or linguistic meaning.In fact, Grice is perhaps more
ready than I am to concede that such a theory can be developed in a relatively
straightforward manner. One purpose of my detailed discussion of congruence of
meaning in the previous section is to point out some of the difficulties of
having an adequate detailed theory of these matters, certainly an adequate
detailed theory of the linguistic meaning or the sentence meaning. Even if I
were willing to grant the feasibility of such a theory, I would not grant the
use of it that Biro has made. For the purposes of this discussion printed text
may be accepted as well-defined, theoryindependent data. (There are even issues
to be raised about the printed page, but ones that I will set aside in the
present context. I have in mind the psychological difference between perception
of printed letters, words, phrases, or sentences, and that of related but
different nonlinguistic marks on paper.) But no such data assumptions can be
made about spoken speech. Still another point of attack on Biro's positivistic
line about data concerns the data of stress and prosody and their role in
fixing the meaning of an utterance. Stress and prosody are critical to the
interpretation of the intentions of speakers, but the data on stress and
prosody are fleeting and hard to catch on the fly_ Hypotheses about speakers'
intentions are needed even in the most humdrum interpret atins of what a given prosodic
contour or a given point of stress has contributed to the meaning of the
utterance spoken. The prosodic contour and the points of stress of an utterance
are linguistic data, but they do not have the independent physical description
Biro vainly hopes for. Let me put my point still another way. I do not deny for
a second that conventions and traditions of speech play a role in fixing the
meaning of a particular utterance on a particular occasion. It is not a matter
of interpretmg afresh, as if the universe had just begun, a particular
utterance in terms of particular intentions at that time and place without
dependence upon past prior mtentions and the traditions of spoken speech that
have evolved in the community of which the speaker and listener are a part. It
is rather that hypotheses about intentions are operating continually and
centrally in the interpretation of what is said. Loose, live speech depends
upon such active 'on-line' interpretation of intention to make sense of what
has been said. If there were some absolutely agreed-upon concept of firm and
definite linguistlc meaning that Biro and others could appeal to, then it might
be harder to make the case I am arguing for. But I have already argued in the
discussion of congruence of meaning that this is precisely what is not the
case. The absence of any definite and satisfactory theory of linguistic meaning
argues also for movmg back to the more concrete and psychologically richer
concept of utterer's meaning. This is the place to begin the theory of meaning,
and this Itself rests to a very large extent on the concept of intention
-ism: used by Grice
derogatorily. In his ascent to the City of the Eternal Truth, he meets twelve
–isms, which he orders alphabetically. These are: Empiricism. Extensionalism.
Functionalism. MaterialismMechanism. Naturalism. Nominalism. Phenomenalism.
Positivism. Physicalism. Reductionism. Scepticism. Grice’s implicatum is that
each is a form of, er, minimalism, as opposed to maximalism. He also seems to
implicate that, while embracing one of those –isms is a reductionist vice,
embracing their opposites is a Christian virtue – He explicitly refers to the
name of Bunyan’s protagonist, “Christian” – “in a much more publicized journey,
I grant.” So let’s see how we can correlate each vicious heathen ism with the
Griceian Christian virtuous ism. Empiricism. “Surely not all is experience. My
bones are not.” Opposite: Rationalism. Extensionalism. Surely the empty set
cannot end up being the fullest! Opposite Intensionalism. Functionalism. What
is the function of love? We have to extend functionalism to cover one’s concern
for the other – And also there’s otiosity. Opposite: Mentalism. Materialism –
My bones are ‘hyle,’ but my eternal soul isn’t. Opposite Spiritualism. Mechanism – Surely there is finality in
nature, and God designed it. Opposite Vitalism. Naturalism – Surely Aristotle
meant something by ‘ta meta ta physica,’ There is a transnatural realm.
Opposite: Transnaturalism. Nominalism.
Occam was good, except with his ‘sermo mentalis.’ Opposite: Realism.
Phenomenalism – Austin and Grice soon realised that Berlin was wrong. Opposite
‘thing’-language-ism. Positivism – And then there’s not. Opposite: Negativism. Physicalism – Surely my soul is not a brain
state. Opposite: Transnaturalism, since Physicalismm and Naturalism mean the
same thing, ony in Greek, the other in Latin. Reductionism – Julie is wrong when she thinks
I’m a reductionist. Opposite: Reductivism. Scepticism: Surely there’s common sense.
Opposite: Common-Sensism. Refs: H. P. Grice, “Prejudices and predilections;
which become, the life and opinions of H. P. Grice,” The Grice Papers, BANC.
izzing:
under ‘conjunctum,’ we see that there is an alternative vocabulary, of
‘copulatum.’ But Grice prefers to narrow the use of ‘copula’ to izzing’ and
‘hazzing.’ Oddly, Grice sees izzing as a ‘predicate,’ and symbolises it as Ixy.
While he prefers ‘x izzes y,’ he also uses ‘x izz y.’ Under izzing comes
Grice’s discussion of essential predicate, essence, and substance qua
predicabilia (secondary substance). As opposed to ‘hazzing,’ which covers all
the ‘ta sumbebeka,’ or ‘accidentia.’
Kennyism:
Cited by Grice in his British Academy lecture – Grice was pleased that Kenny
translated Vitters’s “Philosophical Grammar” – “He turned it into more of a
philosophical thing than I would have thought one could!”
labours:
the twelve labours of Grice. They are twelve. The first is Extensionalism. The
second is Nominalism. The third is Positivism. The fourth is Naturalism. The
fifth is Mechanism. The sixth is Phenomenalism. The seventh is Reductionism.
The eighth is physicalism. The ninth is materialism. The tenth is Empiricism.
The eleventh is Scepticism, and the twelfth is functionalism. “As I thread my way unsteadily along the tortuous mountain
path which is supposed to lead, in the long distance, to the City of Eternal
Truth, I find myself beset by a multitude of demons and perilous places,
bearing names like Extensionalism, Nominalism, Positivism, Naturalism,
Mechanism, Phenomenalism, Reductionism, Physicalism, Materialism, Empiricism,
Scepticism, and Functionalism; menaces which are, indeed, almost as numerous as
those encountered by a traveller called Christian on another well-publicized
journey.”“The items named in this catalogue are obviously, in many cases, not
to be identified with one another; and it is perfectly possible to maintain a
friendly attitude towards some of them while viewing others with hostility.” “There are many persons, for example, who view Naturalism
with favour while firmly rejecting Nominalism.”“And it is not easy to see how
anyone could couple support for Phenomenalism with support for
Physicalism.”“After a more tolerant (permissive) middle age, I have come to
entertain strong opposition to all of them, perhaps partly as a result of the
strong connection between a number of them and the philosophical technologies
which used to appeal to me a good deal more than they do now.“But how would I
justify the hardening of my heart?” “The
first question is, perhaps, what gives the list of items a unity, so that I can
think of myself as entertaining one twelve-fold antipathy, rather than twelve
discrete antipathies.”
“To this question my answer is that
all the items are forms of what I shall call Minimalism, a propensity which
seeks to keep to a minimum (which may in some cases be zero) the scope
allocated to some advertised philosophical commodity, such as abstract
entities, knowledge, absolute value, and so forth.”“In weighing the case for
and the case against a trend of so high a degree of generality as Minimalism,
kinds of consideration may legitimately enter which would be out of place were
the issue more specific in character; in particular, appeal may be made to
aesthetic considerations.”“In favour of Minimalism, for example, we might hear
an appeal, echoing Quine, to the beauty of ‘desert landscapes.’”“But such an
appeal I would regard as inappropriate.”“We are not being asked by a Minimalist
to give our vote to a special, and no doubt very fine, type of landscape.”“We
are being asked to express our preference for an ordinary sort of landscape at
a recognizably lean time; to rosebushes and cherry-trees in mid-winter, rather
than in spring or summer.”“To change the image somewhat, what bothers me about
whatI am being offered is not that it is bare, but that it has been
systematically and relentlessly undressed.”“I am also adversely influenced by a
different kind of unattractive feature which some, or perhaps even all of these
betes noires seem to possess.”“Many of them are guilty of restrictive practices
which, perhaps, ought to invite the attention of a Philosophical Trade Commission.”“They
limit in advance the range and resources of philosophical explanation.”“They
limit its range by limiting the kinds of phenomena whose presence calls for
explanation.”“Some prima-facie candidates are watered down, others are washed
away.”“And they limit its resources by forbidding the use of initially tempting
apparatus, such as the concepts expressed by psychological, or more generally
intensional, verbs.”“My own instincts operate in a reverse direction from
this.”“I am inclined to look first at how useful such and such explanatory
ideas might prove to be if admitted, and to waive or postpone enquiry into
their certificates of legitimacy.”“I am conscious that all I have so far said
against Minimalsim has been very general in character, and also perhaps a
little tinged with rhetoric.”“This is not surprising in view of the generality
of the topic.”“But all the same I should like to try to make some provision for
those in search of harder tack.”“I can hardly, in the present context, attempt
to provide fully elaborated arguments against all, or even against any one, of
the diverse items which fall under my label 'Minimalism.’”“The best I can do is
to try to give a preliminary sketch of what I would regard as the case against
just one of the possible forms of minimalism, choosing one which I should
regard it as particularly important to be in a position to reject.”“My
selection is Extensionalism, a position imbued with the spirit of Nominalism,
and dear both to those who feel that 'Because it is red' is no more informative
as an answer to the question 'Why is a pillar-box called ‘red’?' than would be
'Because he is Grice' as an answer to the question 'Why is that
distinguished-looking person called "Grice"?', and also to those who
are particularly impressed by the power of Set-theory.”“The picture which, I
suspect, is liable to go along with Extensionalism is that of the world of
particulars as a domain stocked with innumerable tiny pellets, internally
indistinguishable from one another, butdistinguished by the groups within which
they fall, by the 'clubs' to which they belong; and since the clubs are
distinguished only by their memberships, there can only be one club to which
nothing belongs.”“As one might have predicted from the outset, this leads to
trouble when it comes to the accommodation of explanation within such a
system.”“Explanation of the actual presence of a particular feature in a
particular subject depends crucially on the possibility of saying what would be
the consequence of the presence of such and such features in that subject,
regardless of whether the features in question even do appear in that subject,
or indeed in any subject.”“On the face of it, if one adopts an extensionalist
view-point, the presence of a feature in some particular will have to be
re-expressed in terms of that particular's membership of a certain set.”“But if
we proceed along those lines, since there is only one empty set, the potential
consequences of the possession of in fact unexemplified features would be
invariably the same, no matter how different in meaning the expressions used to
specify such features would ordinarily be judged to be.”“This is certainly not
a conclusion which one would care to accept.”“I can think of two ways of trying
to avoid its acceptance, both of which seem to me to suffer from serious
drawbacks.”
linguistic botany: Pretentious Austin, mocking continental philosophy called
this ‘linguistic phenomenology,’ meaning literally, the ‘language phenomena’
out there. Feeling Byzanthine. Possibly the only occasion when Grice engaged in
systematic botany. Like Hare, he would just rather ramble around. It was said
of Hare that he was ‘of a different world.’ In the West Country, he would go
with his mother to identify wild flowers, and they identied “more than a
hundred.” Austin is not clear about ‘botanising.’ Grice helps. Grice was a
meta-linguistic botanist. His point was to criticise ordinary-language
philosophers criticising philosophers. Say: Plato and Ayer say that episteme is
a kind of doxa. The contemporary, if dated, ordinary-language philosopher
detects a nuance, and embarks risking collision with the conversational facts
or data: rushes ahead to exploit the nuance without clarifying it, with wrong
dicta like: What I known to be the case I dont believe to be the case. Surely,
a cancellable implicatum generated by the rational principle of conversational
helpfulness is all there is to the nuance. Grice knew that unlike the
ordinary-language philosopher, he was not providing a taxonomy or description,
but a theoretical explanation. To not all philosophers analysis fits them to a
T. It did to Grice. It did not even fit Strawson. Grice had a natural talent
for analysis. He could not see philosophy as other than conceptual analysis.
“No more, no less.” Obviously, there is an evaluative side to the claim that
the province of philosophy is to be identified with conceptual analysis. Listen
to a theoretical physicist, and hell keep talking about concepts, and even
analysing them! The man in the street may not! So Grice finds himself fighting
with at least three enemies: the man in the street (and trying to reconcile
with him: What I do is to help you), the
scientists (My conceptual analysis is meta-conceptual), and synthetic
philosophers who disagree with Grice that analysis plays a key role in
philosophical methodology. Grice sees this as an update to his post-war Oxford
philosophy. But we have to remember that back when he read that paper, post-war
Oxford philosophy, was just around the corner and very fashionable. By the time
he composed the piece on conceptual analysis as overlapping with the province
of philosophy, he was aware that, in The New World, anaytic had become, thanks
to Quine, a bit of an abusive term, and that Grices natural talent for linguistic
botanising (at which post-war Oxford philosophy excelled) was not something he
could trust to encounter outside Oxford, and his Play Group! Since his Negation
and Personal identity Grice is concerned with reductive analysis. How many
angels can dance on a needles point? A needless point? This is Grices update to
his Post-war Oxford philosophy. More generally concerned with the province of
philosophy in general and conceptual analysis beyond ordinary language. It can
become pretty technical. Note the Roman overtone of province. Grice is
implicating that the other province is perhaps science, even folk science, and
the claims and ta legomena of the man in the street. He also likes to play with
the idea that a conceptual enquiry need not be philosophical. Witness the very
opening to Logic and conversation, Prolegomena. Surely not all inquiries need
be philosophical. In fact, a claim to infame of Grice at the Play Group is
having once raised the infamous, most subtle, question: what is it that makes a
conceptual enquiry philosophically interesting or important? As a result,
Austin and his kindergarten spend three weeks analysing the distinct
inappropriate implicata of adverbial collocations of intensifiers like highly
depressed, versus very depressed, or very red, but not highly red, to no avail.
Actually the logical form of very is pretty complicated, and Grice seems to
minimise the point. Grices moralising implicature, by retelling the story, is
that he has since realised (as he hoped Austin knew) that there is no way he or
any philosopher can dictate to any other philosopher, or himself, what is it
that makes a conceptual enquiry philosophically interesting or important.
Whether it is fun is all that matters. Refs.: The main references are
meta-philosophical, i. e. Grice talking about linguistic botany, rather than
practicing it. “Reply to Richards,” and the references under “Oxonianism” below
are helpful. For actual practice, under ‘rationality.’ There is a specific
essay on linguistic botanising, too. The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC.
lit. hum. (philos.): While Grice would take tutees under different curricula, he
preferred Lit. Hum. So how much philosophy did this include. Plato, Aristotle,
Locke, Kant, and Mill. And that was mainly it. We are referring to the
‘philosophy’ component. Ayer used to say that he would rather have been a
judge. But at Oxford of that generation, having a Lit. Hum. perfectly qualified
you as a philosopher. And people like Ayer, who would rather be a juddge, end
up being a philosopher after going through the Lit. Hum. Grice himself comes as
a “Midlands scholarship boy” straight from Clifton on a classics scholarship,
and being from the Midlands, straight to Corpus. The fact that he got on so
well with Hardie helped. The fact that his interim at Merton worked was good.
The fact that the thing at Rossall did NOT work was good. The fact that he
becamse a fellow at St. John’s OBVIOUSLY helped. The fact that he had Strawson
as a tutee ALSO helped helped. H. P. Grice, Literae Humaniores (Philosophy),
Oxon.
logical form: What other form is there? Grammatical? Surface versus deep
structure? God knows. It’s not even clear with Witters! Grice at least has a
theory. You draw a skull to communicate there is danger. So you are concerned
with the logical form of “there is danger.” An exploration on logical form can
start and SHOULD INCLUDE what Grice calls the ‘one-off predicament,” of an open
GAIIB.” To use Carruthers’s example and Blackburn: You draw an arrow to have
your followers choose one way on the fork of the road. The logical form is that
of the communicatum. The emissor means that his follower should follow the left
path. What is the logical form of this? It may be said that “p” has a simplex
logical form, the A is B – predicate calculus, or ‘predicative’ calculus, as
Starwson more traditionally puts it! Then there is molecular complex logical
form with ‘negation,’ ‘and’, ‘or’, and ‘if.’. you can’t put it in symbols, it’s
not worth saying. Oh, no, if you can put it in symbols, it’s not worth saying.
Grice loved the adage, “quod per litteras demonstrare volumus, universaliter
demonstramus.”
low-subjective contraster: in WoW: 140, Grice distinguishes between a subjective
contraster (such as “The pillar box seems red,” “I see that the pillar box is
red,” “I believe that the pillar box is red” and “I know that the pillar box is
red”) and an objective contraster (“The pillar box is red.”) Within these
subjective contraster, Grice proposes a sub-division between nonfactive
(“low-subjective”) and (“high-subjective”). Low-subjective contrasters are “The
pillar box seems red” and “I believe that the pillar box is red,” which do NOT
entail the corresponding objective contraster. The high-subjective contraster,
being factive or transparent, does. The entailment in the case of the
high-subjective contraster is explained via truth-coniditions: “A sees that the
pillar box is red” and “A knows that the pillar box is red” are analysed ‘iff’
the respective low-subjective contraster obtains (“The pillar box seems red,”
and “A believes that the pillar box is red”), the corresponding objective
contraster also obtains (“The pillar box is red”), and a third condition
specifying the objective contraster being the CAUSE of the low-subjective
contraster. Grice repeats his account of suprasegmental. Whereas in “Further
notes about logic and conversation,” he had focused on the accent on the
high-subjective contraster (“I KNOW”), he now focuses his attention on the
accent on the low subjective contraster. “I BELIEVE that the pillar box is
red.” It is the accented version that gives rise to the implicatum, generated
by the utterer’s intention that the addressee’s will perceive some restraint or
guardedness on the part of the utterer of ‘going all the way’ to utter a claim
to ‘seeing’ or ‘knowing’, the
high-subjective contraster, but stopping short at the low-subjective
contraster.
martian
conversational implicatum: “Oh, all
the difference in the world!” Grice converses with a
Martian. About Martian x-s that the pillar box is red. (upper x-ing
organ) Martian y-s that the pillar box is red. (lower y-ing organ). Grice: Is
x-ing that the pillar box is red LIKE y-ing that the pillar-box is red?
Martian: Oh, no; there's all the difference in the world! Analogy x smells
sweet. x tastes sweet. Martian x-s the the pillar box is red-x. Martian y-s
that the pillar box is red-y. Martian x-s the pillar box is medium red. Martian
y-s the pillar box is light red.
maximum: Grice uses ‘maximum’ variously. “Maximally effective
exchange of information.” Maximum is used in decision theory and in value
theory. Cfr. Kasher on maximin. “Maximally effective exchange of information”
(WOW: 28) is the exact phrase Grice uses, allowing it should be generalised. He
repeats the idea in “Epilogue.” Things did not change.
mentatum: Grice prefers psi-transmission. He knows that ‘mentatum’
sounds too much like ‘mind,’ and the mind is part of the ‘rational soul,’ not
even encompassing the rational pratical soul. If perhaps Grice was unhappy
about the artificial flavour to saying that a word is a sign, Grice surely
should have checked with all the Grecian-Roman cognates of mean, as in his
favourite memorative-memorable distinction, and the many Grecian realisations,
or with Old Roman mentire and mentare. Lewis and Short have
“mentĭor,” f. mentire, L and S note, is prob. from root men-, whence mens and
memini, q. v. The original meaning, they say, is to invent, hence, but
alla Umberto Eco with sign, mentire comes to mean in later use what Grice (if
not the Grecians) holds is the opposite of mean. Short and Lewis render mentire
as to lie, cheat, deceive, etc., to pretend, to declare falsely: mentior nisi
or si mentior, a form of asseveration, I am a liar, if, etc.: But also,
animistically (modest mentalism?) of things, as endowed with a mind. L and S go
on: to deceive, impose upon, to deceive ones self, mistake, to lie or speak
falsely about, to assert falsely, make a false promise about; to feign,
counterfeit, imitate a shape, nature, etc.: to devise a falsehood, to
assume falsely, to promise falsely, to invent, feign, of a poetical
fiction: “ita mentitur (sc. Homerus), Trop., of inanim. grammatical
Subjects, as in Semel fac illud, mentitur tua quod subinde tussis, Do what your
cough keeps falsely promising, i. e. die, Mart. 5, 39, 6. Do what your cough
means! =imp. die!; hence, mentĭens, a fallacy, sophism: quomodo
mentientem, quem ψευδόμενον vocant, dissolvas;” mentītus, imitated,
counterfeit, feigned (poet.): “mentita tela;” For “mentior,” indeed, there is a
Griceian implicatum involving rational control. The rendition of mentire as to
lie stems from a figurative shift from to be mindful, or inventive, to
have second thoughts" to "to lie, conjure up". But Grice would
also have a look at cognate “memini,” since this is also cognate with “mind,”
“mens,” and covers subtler instances of mean, as in Latinate, “mention,” as in
Grices “use-mention” distinction. mĕmĭni, cognate with "mean" and
German "meinen," to think = Grecian ὑπομένειν, await (cf. Schiffer,
"remnants of meaning," if I think, I hesitate, and therefore re-main,
cf. Grecian μεν- in μένω, Μέντωρ; μαν- in μαίνομαι, μάντις; μνᾶ- in μιμνήσκω,
etc.; cf.: maneo, or manere, as in remain. The idea, as Schiffer well
knows or means, being that if you think, you hesitate, and therefore, wait and
remain], moneo, reminiscor [cf. reminiscence], mens, Minerva, etc. which L and
S render as “to remember, recollect, to think of, be mindful of a
thing; not to have forgotten a person or thing, to bear in
mind (syn.: reminiscor, recordor).” Surely with a relative clause,
and to make mention of, to mention a thing, either in speaking or
writing (rare but class.). Hence. mĕmĭnens, mindful And then Grice would
have a look at moneo, as in adMONish, also cognate is “mŏnĕo,” monere,
causative from the root "men;" whence memini, q. v., mens (mind),
mentio (mention); lit. to cause to think, to re-mind, put in mind of, bring to
ones recollection; to admonish, advise, warn, instruct, teach (syn.: hortor,
suadeo, doceo). L and S are Griceian if not Grecian when they note that
‘monere’ can be used "without the accessory notion [implicatum or
entanglement, that is] of reminding or admonishing, in gen., to teach,
instruct, tell, inform, point out; also, to announce, predict,
foretell, even if also to punish, chastise (only in Tacitus): “puerili verbere moneri.” And surely,
since he loved to re-minisced, Grice would have allowed to just earlier on just
minisced. Short and Lewis indeed have rĕmĭniscor, which, as they point out,
features the root men; whence mens, memini; and which they compare to
comminiscere, v. comminiscor, to recall to mind, recollect, remember (syn.
recordor), often used by the Old Romans with with Grices beloved
that-clause, for sure. For what is the good of reminiscing or
comminiscing, if you cannot reminisce that Austin always reminded Grice that skipping
the dictionary was his big mistake! If Grice uses mention, cognate with mean,
he loved commenting Aristotle. And commentare is, again, cognate with mean. As
opposed to the development of the root in Grecian, or English, in Roman the
root for mens is quite represented in many Latinate cognates. But a Roman, if
not a Grecian, would perhaps be puzzled by a Grice claiming, by intuition, to
retrieve the necessary and sufficient conditions for the use of this or that
expression. When the Roman is told that the Griceian did it for fun, he
understands, and joins in the fun! Indeed, hardly a natural kind in the
architecture of the world, but one that fascinated Grice and the Grecian
philosophers before him! Communication.
merton: merton holds a portrait of H. P. Grice. And the
association is closer. Grice was sometime Hammondsworth Scholar at Merton. It
was at Merton he got the acquaintance with S. Watson, later historian at St.
John’s. Merton is the see of the Sub-Faculty of Philosophy. What does that
mean? It means that the Lit. Hum. covers more than philosophy. Grice was Lit.
Hum. (Phil.), which means that his focus was on this ‘sub-faculty.’ The faculty
itself is for Lit. Hum. in general, and it is not held anywhere specifically.
Grice loved Ryle’s games with this:: “Oxford is a universale, with St. John’s
being a particulare which can become your sense-datum.’
meta-ethics. Surely the philosophical mode does not change when he goes
into ethics or other disciplines. Philosophy is ENTIRE. Ethics relates to
metaphysics, but this does not mean that the philosopher is a moralist. In this
respect, unlike, say Philippa Foot, Grice remains a meta-ethicist. Grice is
‘meta-ethically’ an futilitarian, since he provides a utilitarian backing of
Kantian rationalism, within his empiricist, naturalist, temperament. For Grice
it is complicated, since there is an ethical or practical side even to an
eschatological argument. Grice’s views on ethics are Oxonian. At Oxford,
meta-ethics is a generational thing: there’s Grice, and the palaeo-Gricieans,
and the post-Gricieans. There’s Hampshire, and Hare, and Nowell-Smith, and
Warnock. P. H. Nowell Smith felt overwhelmed by Grice’s cleverness and they
would hardly engage in meta-ethical questions. But Nowell Smith felt that Grice
was ‘too clever.’ Grice objected Hare’s use of descriptivism and Strawsons use
of definite descriptor. Grice preferred to say “the the.”. “Surely Hare is
wrong when sticking with his anti-descriptivist diatribe. Even his dictum is
descriptive!” Grice was amused that it all started with Abbott BEFORE 1879,
since Abbott’s first attempt was entitled, “Kant’s theory of ethics, or
practical philosophy” (1873). ”! Grices explorations on morals are language
based. With a substantial knowledge of the classical languages (that are so
good at verb systems and modes like the optative, that English lacks), Grice
explores modals like should, (Hampshire) ought to (Hare) and, must
(Grice ‒ necessity). Grice is well aware of Hares reflections on the neustic
qualifications on the phrastic. The imperative has usually been one source for
the philosophers concern with the language of morals. Grice attempts to
balance this with a similar exploration on good, now regarded as the
value-paradeigmatic notion par excellence. We cannot understand, to echo
Strawson, the concept of a person unless we understand the concept of a good
person, i.e. the philosopher’s conception of a good person. Morals
is very Oxonian. There were in Grices time only three chairs of philosophy at
Oxford: the three W: the Waynflete chair of metaphysical philosophy, the
Wykeham chair of logic (not philosophy, really), and the White chair of moral
philosophy. Later, the Wilde chair of philosophical psychology was
created. Grice was familiar with Austin’s cavalier attitude to morals as
Whites professor of moral philosophy, succeeding Kneale. When Hare
succeeds Austin, Grice knows that it is time to play with the neustic
implicatum! Grices approach to morals is very meta-ethical and starts with
a fastidious (to use Blackburns characterisation, not mine!) exploration of
modes related to propositional phrases involving should, ought to, and
must. For Hampshire, should is the moral word par excellence. For
Hare, it is ought. For Grice, it is only must that preserves that sort of
necessity that, as a Kantian rationalist, he is looking for. However, Grice
hastens to add that whatever hell say about the buletic, practical or boulomaic
must must also apply to the doxastic must, as in What goes up must come down.
That he did not hesitate to use necessity operators is clear from his axiomatic
treatment, undertaken with Code, on Aristotelian categories of izzing and
hazzing. To understand Grices view on ethics, we should return to the idea
of creature construction in more detail. Suppose we are
genitors-demigods-designing living creatures, creatures Grice calls Ps. To
design a type of P is to specify a diagram and table for that type plus
evaluative procedures, if any. The design is implemented in animal stuff-flesh
and bones typically. Let us focus on one type of P-a very sophisticated type
that Grice, borrowing from Locke, calls very intelligent rational Ps. Let me be
a little more explicit, and a great deal more speculative, about the possible
relation to ethics of my programme for philosophical psychology. I shall
suppose that the genitorial programme has been realized to the point at which
we have designed a class of Ps which, nearly following Locke, I might call very
intelligent rational Ps. These Ps will be capable of putting themselves in the
genitorial position, of asking how, if they were constructing themselves with a
view to their own survival, they would execute this task; and, if we have done
our work aright, their answer will be the same as ours . We might, indeed,
envisage the contents of a highly general practical manual, which these Ps
would be in a position to compile. The contents of the initial manual would
have various kinds of generality which are connected with familiar discussions
of universalizability. The Ps have, so far, been endowed only with the
characteristics which belong to the genitorial justified psychological theory;
so the manual will have to be formulated in terms of that theory, together with
the concepts involved in the very general description of livingconditions which
have been used to set up that theory; the manual will therefore have conceptual
generality. There will be no way of singling out a special subclass of
addressees, so the injunctions of the manual will have to be addressed,
indifferently, to any very intelligent rational P, and will thus have
generality of form. And since the manual can be thought of as being composed by
each of the so far indistinguishable Ps, no P would include in the manual
injunctions prescribing a certain line of conduct in circumstances to which he
was not likely to be Subjects; nor indeed could he do so even if he would. So
the circumstances for which conduct is prescribed could be presumed to be such
as to be satisfied, from time to time, by any addressee; the manual, then, will
have generality of application. Such a manual might, perhaps, without
ineptitude be called an immanuel; and the very intelligent rational Ps, each of
whom both composes it and from time to time heeds it, might indeed be ourselves
(in our better moments, of course). Refs.: Most of Grice’s theorizing on ethics
counts as ‘meta-ethic,’ especially in connection with R. M. Hare, but also with
less prescriptivist Oxonian philosophers such as Nowell-Smith, with his
bestseller for Penguin, Austin, Warnock, and Hampshire. Keywords then are
‘ethic,’ and ‘moral.’ There are many essays on both Kantotle, i.e. on Aristotle
and Kant. The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC.
metaphysical
deduction or argument. transcendental argument
Metaphysics, epistemology An argument that starts from some accepted experience
or fact to prove that there must be something which is beyond experience but
which is a necessary condition for making the accepted experience or fact possible.
The goal of a transcendental argument is to establish the transcendental dialectic truth of this precondition.
If there is something X of which Y is a necessary condition, then Y must be
true. This form of argument became prominent in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason,
where he argued that the existence of some fundamental a priori concepts,
namely the categories, and of space and time as pure forms of sensibility, are
necessary to make experience possible. In contemporary philosophy,
transcendental arguments are widely proposed as a way of refuting skepticism.
Wittgenstein used this form of argument to reject the possibility of a private
language that only the speaker could understand. Peter Strawson employs a
transcendental argument to prove the perception-independent existence of
material particulars and to reject a skeptical attitude toward the existence of
other minds. There is disagreement about the kind of necessity involved in
transcendental arguments, and Barry Stroud has raised important questions about
the possibility of transcendental arguments succeeding. “A transcendental
argument attempts to prove q by proving it is part of any correct explanation
of p, by proving it a precondition of p’s possibility.” Nozick Philosophical
Explanations transcendental deduction Metaphysics, epistemology, ethics,
aesthetics For Kant, the argument to prove that certain a priori concepts are
legitimately, universally, necessarily, and exclusively applicable to objects
of experience. Kant employed this form of argument to establish the legitimacy
of space and time as the forms of intuition, of the claims of the moral law in
the Critique of Practical Reason, and of the claims of the aesthetic judgment
of taste in the Critique of Judgement. However, the most influential example of
this form of argument appeared in the Critique of Pure Reason as the
transcendental deduction of the categories. The metaphysical deduction set out
the origin and character of the categories, and the task of the transcendental
deduction was to demonstrate that these a priori concepts do apply to objects
of experience and hence to prove the objective validity of the categories. The
strategy of the proof is to show that objects can be thought of only by means
of the categories. In sensibility, objects are subject to the forms of space
and time. In understanding, experienced
objects must stand under the conditions of the transcendental unity of
apperception. Because these conditions require the determination of objects by
the pure concepts of the understanding, there can be no experience that is not
subject to the categories. The categories, therefore, are justified in their
application to appearances as conditions of the possibility of experience. In
the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason (1787), Kant extensively
rewrote the transcendental deduction, although he held that the result remained
the same. The first version emphasized the subjective unity of consciousness,
while the second version stressed the objective character of the unity, and it
is therefore possible to distinguish between a subjective and objective
deduction. The second version was meant to clarify the argument, but remained
extremely difficult to interpret and assess. The presence of the two versions
of this fundamental argument makes interpretation even more demanding.
Generally speaking, European philosophers prefer the subjective version, while
Anglo-American philosophers prefer the objective version. The transcendental
deduction of the categories was a revolutionary development in modern
philosophy. It was the main device by which Kant sought to overcome the errors
and limitations of both rationalism and empiricism and propelled philosophy
into a new phase. “The explanation of the manner in which concepts can thus
relate a priori to objects I entitle their transcendental deduction.” Kant,
Critique of Pure Reason.
metaphysical wisdom: J. London-born philosopher, cited by H. P. Grice in his
third programme lecture on Metaphysics. “Wisdom used to say that metaphysics is
nonsense, but INTERESTING nonsense.” Some more “contemporary” accounts of
“metaphysics” sound, on the face of it at least, very different from either of
these. Consider, for example, from the
OTHER place, John Wisdom's description of a metaphysical, shall we say,
‘statement’ – I prefer ‘utterance’ or pronouncement! Wisdom says that a metaphysical, shall we
say, ‘proposition’ is, characteristically, a sort of illuminating falsehood, a
pointed paradox, which uses what Wisdom calls ‘ordinary language’ in a
disturbing, baffling, and even shocking way, but not otiosely, but in order to
make your tutee aware of a hidden difference or a hidden resemblance between
this thing and that thing – a difference and a resemblance hidden by our
ordinary ways of “talking.” The
metaphysician renders what is clear, obscure.
And the metaphysician MUST retort to some EXTRA-ordinary language, as
Wisdom calls it! Of course, to be fair
to Wisdom and the OTHER place, Wisdom does not claim this to be a complete
characterisation, nor perhaps a literally correct one. Since Wisdom loves a figure of speech and a
figure of thought! Perhaps what Wisdom
claims should *itself* be seen as an illuminating paradox, a meta-meta-physical
one! In any case, its relation to
Aristotle's, or, closer to us, F. H. Bradley's, account of the matter is not
obvious, is it? But perhaps a relation
CAN be established. Certainly not every
metaphysical statement is a paradox serving to call attention to an usually
unnoticed difference or resemblance.
For many a metaphysical statement is so obscure (or unperspicuous, as I
prefer) that it takes long training, usually at Oxford, before the
metaphysician’s meaning can be grasped.
A paradox, such as Socrates’s, must operate with this or that familiar
concept. For the essence of a paradox is
that it administers a shock, and you cannot shock your tutee when he is
standing on such unfamiliar ground that he has no particular expectations. Nevertheless there IS a connection between
“metaphysics” and Wisdom's kind of paradox.
He is not speaking otiosely!
Suppose we consider the paradox:
i. Everyone is really always alone.
Considered by itself, it is no more than an epigram -- rather a flat
one - about the human condition. The implicatum, via hyperbole, is “I am
being witty.” The pronouncement (i) might be said, at least, to minimise the
difference between “being BY oneself” and “being WITH other people,”
Heidegger’s “Mit-Sein.” But now consider
the pronouncement (i), not simply by itself, but surrounded and supported by a
certain kind of “metaphysical” argument: by a “metaphysical” argument to the
effect that what passes for “knowledge” of the other's mental or psychological
process is, at best, an unverifiable conjecture, since the mind (or soul) and
the body are totally distinct things, and the working of the mind (or soul, as
Aristotle would prefer, ‘psyche’) is always withdrawn behind the screen of its
bodily manifestations, as Witters would have it. (Not in vain Wisdom calls
himself or hisself a disciple of Witters!)
When this solitude-affirming paradox, (i) is seen in the context of a
general theory about the soul and the body and the possibilities and limits of
so-called “knowledge” (as in “Knowledge of other minds,” to use Wisdom’s fashionable
sobriquet), when it is seen as embodying such a “metaphysical” theory, indeed
the paradox BECOMES clearly a “metaphysical” statement. But the fact that the statement or
proposition is most clearly seen as “metaphysical” in such a setting does not mean
that there is no “metaphysics” at all in it when it is deprived of the setting.
(Cf. my “The general theory of context.”). An utterance like (ii) Everyone is alone. invites us to change, for a moment at least
and in one respect, our ordinary way of looking at and talking about things,
and hints (or the metaphysician implicates rather) that the changed view the
tutee gets is the truer, the profounder, view.
Cf. Cook Wilson, “What we know we know,” as delighting this air marshal.
minimal transformationalism. Grice was proud that his system PIROTESE ‘allowed for the
most minimal transformations.” transformational
grammar Philosophy of language The most powerful of the three kinds of grammar
distinguished by Chomsky. The other two are finite-state grammar and
phrasestructure grammar. Transformational grammar is a replacement for
phrase-structure grammar that (1) analyzes only the constituents in the
structure of a sentence; (2) provides a set of phrase-structure rules that
generate abstract phrase-structure representations; (and 3) holds that the
simplest sentences are produced according to these rules. Transformational
grammar provides a further set of transformational rules to show that all
complex sentences are formed from simple elements. These rules manipulate
elements and otherwise rearrange structures to give the surface structures of
sentences. Whereas phrase-structure rules only change one symbol to another in
a sentence, transformational rules show that items of a given grammatical form
can be transformed into items of a different grammatical form. For example,
they can show the transformation of negative sentences into positive ones,
question sentences into affirmative ones and passive sentences into active
ones. Transformational grammar is presented as an improvement over other forms
of grammar and provides a model to account for the ability of a speaker to
generate new sentences on the basis of limited data. “The central idea of
transformational grammar is determined by repeated application of certain
formal operations called ‘grammatical transformations’ to objects of a more
elementary sort.” Chomsky, Aspects of the Theory of Syntax
missum: Grice was out on a mission. Grice uses
‘emissor,’ but then there’s the ‘missor.’ This is in key with modern
communication theory as instituted by Shannon. The ‘missor’ ‘sends’ a ‘message’
to a recipient – or missee. But be careful, he may miss it. In any case, it
shows that e-missor is a compound of ‘ex-‘ plus ‘missor,’ so that makes sense.
It transliterates Grice’s ut-terer (which literally means ‘out-erer’). And then
there’s the prolatum, from proferre, which has the professor, as professing
that p, that is. As someone said, if H. P. Girce were to present a talk to the
Oxford Philosophical Society he would possibly call it “Messaging.” c. 1300, "a communication transmitted via a messenger,
a notice sent through some agency," from Old French message "message, news,
tidings, embassy" (11c.), from Medieval Latin missaticum, from Latin missus "a sending away, sending, dispatching; a
throwing, hurling," noun use of past participle of mittere "to release, let
go; send, throw" (see mission).
The Latin word is glossed in Old English by ærende. Specific religious sense of "divinely inspired
communication via a prophet" (1540s) led to transferred sense of "the
broad meaning (of something)," which is attested by 1828. To get the message "understand"
is by 1960.
modus: or mode. ἔγκλισις , enclisis, mood of a verb, D.H.Comp.6, D.T.638.7, A.D. Synt.248.14,
etc.Many times, under ‘mode,’ Grice describes what others call ‘aspect.’ Surely
‘tense’ did not affect him much, except when it concerned “=”. But when it came
to modes, he included ‘aspect,’ so there’s the optative, the imperative, the
indicative, the informational, and then the future intentional and the future
indicative, and the subjunctive, and the way they interact with the praesens,
praeteritum and futurum, and wih the axis of what Aristotle called ‘teleios’
and ‘ateleios,’ indefinite and definite, or ‘perfectum, and ‘imperfectum, ‘but
better ‘definitum’ and ‘indefinitum.’ Grice
uses psi-asrisk, to be read asterisk-sub-psi. He is not concerned with
specficics. All the specifics the philosopher can take or rather ‘assume’ as
‘given.’ The category of mode translates ‘tropos,’ modus. Kant wrongly assumed
it was Modalitat, which irritated Grice so much that he echoed Kant as saying
‘manner’! Grice is a modista. He sometimes uses ‘modus,’ after Abbott. The
earliest record is of course “Meaning.” After elucidating what he calls
‘informative cases,’ he moves to ‘imperative’ ones. Grice agreed with Thomas
Urquhart that English needed a few more moods! Grice’s seven modes.Thirteenthly,
In lieu of six moods which other languages have at most, this one injoyeth
seven in its conjugable words. Ayer had said that non-indicative
utterances are hardly significant. Grice had been freely using the very English
not Latinate ‘mood’ until Moravcsik, of all people, corrects him: What you
mean ain’t a mood. I shall call it mode just to please you, J. M. E. The
sergeant is to muster the men at dawn is a perfect imperative. They shall not
pass is a perfect intentional. A version of this essay was presented in a
conference whose proceedings were published, except for Grices essay, due to
technical complications, viz. his idiosyncratic use of idiosyncratic
symbology! By mode Grice means indicative or imperative. Following
Davidson, Grice attaches probability to the indicative, via the doxastic, and
desirability to the indicative, via the buletic-boulomaic. He also
allows for mixed utterances. Probability is qualified with a suboperator
indicating a degree d; ditto for desirability, degree d. In some of the drafts,
Grice kept using mode until Moravsik suggested to him that mode was a better
choice, seeing that Grices modality had little to do with what other authors
were referring to as mood. Probability, desirability, and modality, modality, desirability,
and probability; modality, probability, desirability. He would use mode
operator. Modality is the more correct term, for things like should,
ought, and must, in that order. One sense. The doxastic modals are
correlated to probability. The buletic or boulomaic modals are correlated to
desirability. There is probability to a degree d. But there is also
desirability to a degree d. They both combine in Grices attempt to
show how Kants categorical imperative reduces to the hypothetical or
suppositional. Kant uses modality in a way that Grice disfavours, preferring
modus. Grice is aware of the use by Kant of modality qua category in the reduction
by Kant to four of the original ten categories in Aristotle). The Jeffrey-style
entitled Probability, desirability, and mode operators finds Grice at his
formal-dress best. It predates the Kant lectures and it got into so much detail
that Grice had to leave it at that. So abstract it hurts. Going further than
Davidson, Grice argues that structures expressing probability and desirability
are not merely analogous. They can both be replaced by more complex structures
containing a common element. Generalising over attitudes using the symbol ψ,
which he had used before, repr. WoW:v, Grice proposes G ψ that p. Further,
Grice uses i as a dummy for sub-divisions of psychological attitudes. Grice
uses Op supra i sub α, read: operation supra i sub alpha, as Grice was
fastidious enough to provide reading versions for these, and where α is a dummy
taking the place of either A or B, i. e. Davidsons prima facie or desirably,
and probably. In all this, Grice keeps using the primitive !, where a more
detailed symbolism would have it correspond exactly to Freges composite
turnstile (horizontal stroke of thought and vertical stroke of assertoric
force, Urteilstrich) that Grice of course also uses, and for which it is proposed,
then: !─p. There are generalising movements here but also merely specificatory
ones. α is not generalised. α is a dummy to serve as a blanket for
this or that specifications. On the other hand, ψ is indeed generalised. As for
i, is it generalising or specificatory? i is a dummy for specifications, so it
is not really generalising. But Grice generalises over specifications. Grice
wants to find buletic, boulomaic or volitive as he prefers when he does not
prefer the Greek root for both his protreptic and exhibitive versions (operator
supra exhibitive, autophoric, and operator supra protreptic, or hetero-phoric).
Note that Grice (WoW:110) uses the asterisk * as a dummy for either assertoric,
i.e., Freges turnstile, and non-assertoric, the !─ the imperative turnstile, if
you wish. The operators A are not mode operators; they are such that they
represent some degree (d) or measure of acceptability or justification. Grice
prefers acceptability because it connects with accepting that which is a
psychological, souly attitude, if a general one. Thus, Grice wants to
have It is desirable that p and It is believable that p as
understood, each, by the concatenation of three elements. The first element is
the A-type operator. The second element is the protreptic-type operator. The
third element is the phrastic, root, content, or proposition itself. It is
desirable that p and It is believable that p share the
utterer-oriented-type operator and the neustic or proposition. They only differ
at the protreptic-type operator (buletic/volitive/boulomaic or
judicative/doxastic). Grice uses + for concatenation, but it is best to use ^,
just to echo who knows who. Grice speaks in that mimeo (which he delivers in
Texas, and is known as Grices Performadillo talk ‒ Armadillo + Performative) of
various things. Grice speaks, transparently enough, of acceptance: V-acceptance
and J-acceptance. V not for Victory but for volitional, and J for judicative.
The fact that both end with -acceptance would accept you to believe that both
are forms of acceptance. Grice irritatingly uses 1 to mean the doxastic, and 2
to mean the bulematic. At Princeton in Method, he defines the doxastic in terms
of the buletic and cares to do otherwise, i. e. define the buletic in terms of
the doxastic. So whenever he wrote buletic read doxastic, and vice versa. One
may omits this arithmetic when reporting on Grices use. Grice uses two further
numerals, though: 3 and 4. These, one may decipher – one finds oneself as an
archeologist in Tutankamons burial ground, as this or that relexive attitude.
Thus, 3, i. e. ψ3, where we need the general operator ψ, not just
specificatory dummy, but the idea that we accept something simpliciter. ψ3
stands for the attitude of buletically accepting an or utterance: doxastically
accepting that p or doxastically accepting that ~p. Why we should be concerned
with ~p is something to consider. G wants to decide whether to believe p
or not. I find that very Griceian. Suppose I am told that there is a volcano in
Iceland. Why would I not want to believe it? It seems that one may want to
decide whether to believe p or not when p involves a tacit appeal to value.
But, as Grice notes, even when it does not involve value, Grice still needs
trust and volition to reign supreme. On the other hand, theres 4, as attached
to an attitude, ψ4. This stands for an attitude of buletically accepting an or
utterance: buletically accepting that p, or G buletically accepting that ~p, i.
e. G wants to decide whether to will, now that p or not. This indeed is crucial,
since, for Grice, morality, as with Kantotle, does cash in desire, the buletic.
Grice smokes. He wills to smoke. But does he will to will to smoke? Possibly
yes. Does he will to will to will to smoke? Regardless of what Grice wills, one
may claim this holds for a serious imperatives (not Thou shalt not reek, but
Thou shalt not kill, say) or for any p if you must (because if you know that p
causes cancer (p stands for a proposition involving cigarette) you should know
you are killing yourself. But then time also kills, so what gives? So I would
submit that, for Kant, the categoric imperative is one which allows for an
indefinite chain, not of chain-smokers, but of good-willers. If, for some p, we
find that at some stage, the P does not will that he wills that he wills that
he wills that, p can not be universalisable. This is proposed in an essay
referred to in The Philosophers Index but Marlboro Cigarettes took no notice.
One may go on to note Grices obsession on make believe. If I say, I utter
expression e because the utterer wants his addressee to believe that the
utterer believes that p, there is utterer and addresse, i. e. there are two
people here ‒ or any soul-endowed creature ‒ for Grices
squarrel means things to Grice. It even implicates. It miaows to me while I was
in bed. He utters miaow. He means that he is hungry, he means (via implicatum)
that he wants a nut (as provided by me). On another occasion he miaowes
explicating, The door is closed, and implicating Open it, idiot. On the other
hand, an Andy-Capps cartoon read: When budgies get sarcastic Wild-life
programmes are repeating One may note that one can want some other person
to hold an attitude. Grice uses U or G1 for utterer and A or G2 for addressee.
These are merely roles. The important formalism is indeed G1 and G2. G1 is a
Griceish utterer-person; G2 is the other person, G1s addressee. Grice dislikes
a menage a trois, apparently, for he seldom symbolises a third party, G3. So, G
ψ-3-A that p is 1 just in case G ψ2(G ψ1 that p) or G ψ1 that ~p is 1. And here
the utterers addressee, G2 features: G1 ψ³ protreptically that p is 1 just
in case G buletically accepts ψ² (G buletically accepts ψ² (G doxastically
accepts ψ1 that p, or G doxastically accepts ψ1 that ~p))) is 1. Grice seems to
be happy with having reached four sets of operators, corresponding to four sets
of propositional attitudes, and for which Grice provides the paraphrases. The
first set is the doxastic proper. It is what Grice has as doxastic,and which
is, strictly, either indicative, of the utterers doxastic, exhibitive state, as
it were, or properly informative, if addressed to the addressee A, which is
different from U himself, for surely one rarely informs oneself. The second is
the buletic proper. What Grice dubs volitive, but sometimes he prefers the
Grecian root. This is again either self- or utterer-addressed, or
utterer-oriented, or auto-phoric, and it is intentional, or it is
other-addressed, or addressee-addressed, or addressee- oriented, or
hetero-phoric, and it is imperative, for surely one may not always say to
oneself, Dont smoke, idiot!. The third is the doxastic-interrogative, or
doxastic-erotetic. One may expand on ? here is minimal compared to the
vagaries of what I called the !─ (non-doxastic or buletic turnstile), and which
may be symbolised by ?─p, where ?─ stands for the erotetic turnstile. Geachs
and Althams erotetic somehow Grice ignores, as he more often uses the Latinate
interrogative. Lewis and Short have “interrŏgātĭo,” which they render as “a
questioning, inquiry, examination, interrogation;” “sententia per
interrogationem, Quint. 8, 5, 5; instare interrogation; testium; insidiosa; litteris
inclusæ; verbis obligatio fit ex interrogatione et responsione; as rhet. fig.,
Quint. 9, 2, 15; 9, 3, 98. B. A syllogism: recte genus hoc interrogationis
ignavum ac iners nominatum est, Cic. Fat. 13; Sen. Ep. 87 med. Surely more
people know what interrogative means what erotetic means, he would not say ‒
but he would. This attitude comes again in two varieties: self-addressed or
utterer-oriented, reflective (Should I go?) or again, addresee-addressed, or
addressee-oriented, imperative, as in Should you go?, with a strong hint that
the utterer is expecting is addressee to make up his mind in the proceeding,
not just inform the utterer. Last but not least, there is the fourth kind, the
buletic-cum-erotetic. Here again, there is one varietiy which is
reflective, autophoric, as Grice prefers, utterer-addressed, or
utterer-oriented, or inquisitive (for which Ill think of a Greek pantomime), or
addressee-addressed, or addressee-oriented. Grice regrets that Greek (and
Latin, of which he had less ‒ cfr. Shakespeare who had none) fares better in
this respect the Oxonian that would please Austen, if not Austin, or Maucalay,
and certainly not Urquhart -- his language has twelve parts of speech: each
declinable in eleven cases, four numbers, eleven genders (including god,
goddess, man, woman, animal, etc.); and conjugable in eleven tenses, seven
moods, and four voices.These vocal mannerisms will result in the production of
some pretty barbarous English sentences; but we must remember that what I shall
be trying to do, in uttering such sentences, will be to represent supposedly
underlying structure; if that is ones aim, one can hardly expect that ones
speech-forms will be such as to excite the approval of, let us say, Jane Austen
or Lord Macaulay. Cf. the quessertive, or quessertion, possibly iterable,
that Grice cherished. But then you cant have everything. Where would you put
it? Grice: The modal implicatum.
Grice sees two different, though connected questions about
mode. First, there is the obvious demand for a characterisation, or
partial characterisation, of this or that mode as it emerges in this or that
conversational move, which is plausible to regard as modes primary habitat)
both at the level of the explicatum or the implicatum, for surely an indicative
conversational move may be the vehicle of an imperatival implicatum. A second,
question is how, and to what extent, the representation of mode (Hares neustic)
which is suitable for application to this or that conversational move may be
legitimately exported into philosophical psychology, or rather, may be grounded
on questions of philosophical psychology, matters of this or that psychological
state, stance, or attitude (notably desire and belief, and their species). We
need to consider the second question, the philosophico- psychological question,
since, if the general rationality operator is to read as something like
acceptability, as in U accepts, or A accepts, the appearance of this or that
mode within its scope of accepting is proper only if it may properly occur
within the scope of a generic psychological verb I accept that . Lewis and
Short have “accepto,” “v. freq. a. accipio,” which Short and Lewis render as “to
take, receive, accept,” “argentum,” Plaut. Ps. 2, 2, 32; so Quint. 12, 7, 9;
Curt. 4, 6, 5; Dig. 34, 1, 9: “jugum,” to submit to, Sil. Ital. 7, 41. But in
Plin. 36, 25, 64, the correct read. is coeptavere; v. Sillig. a. h. l. The
easiest way Grice finds to expound his ideas on the first question is by
reference to a schematic table or diagram (Some have complained that I seldom
use a board, but I will today. Grice at this point reiterates his
temporary contempt for the use/mention distinction, which which Strawson
is obsessed. Perhaps Grices contempt is due to Strawsons obsession. Grices
exposition would make the hair stand on end in the soul of a person especially
sensitive in this area. And Im talking to you, Sir Peter! (He is on the
second row). But Grices guess is that the only historical philosophical
mistake properly attributable to use/mention confusion is Russells argument
against Frege in On denoting, and that there is virtually always an acceptable
way of eliminating disregard of the use-mention distinction in a particular
case, though the substitutes are usually lengthy, obscure, and
tedious. Grice makes three initial assumptions. He avails himself of
two species of acceptance, Namesly, volitive acceptance and judicative
acceptance, which he, on occasion, calls respectively willing that p and
willing that p. These are to be thought of as technical or
semi-technical, theoretical or semi-theoretical, though each is a state which
approximates to what we vulgarly call thinking that p and wanting that p,
especially in the way in which we can speak of a beast such as a little
squarrel as thinking or wanting something ‒ a nut, poor darling
little thing. Grice here treats each will and judge (and accept) as a
primitive. The proper interpretation would be determined by the role of
each in a folk-psychological theory (or sequence of folk-psychological
theories), of the type the Wilde reader in mental philosophy favours at Oxford,
designed to account for the behaviours of members of the animal kingdom, at
different levels of psychological complexity (some classes of creatures being
more complex than others, of course). As Grice suggests in Us meaning,
sentence-meaning, and word-meaning, at least at the point at which (Schema Of
Procedure-Specifiers For Mood-Operators) in ones syntactico-semantical
theory of Pirotese or Griceish, one is introducing this or that mode (and
possibly earlier), the proper form to use is a specifier for this or that
resultant procedure. Such a specifier is of the general form, For the
utterer U to utter x if C, where the blank is replaced by the appropriate
condition. Since in the preceding scheme x represents an utterance or
expression, and not a sentence or open sentence, there is no guarantee that this
or that actual sentence in Pirotese or Griceish contains a perspicuous and
unambiguous modal representation. A sentence may correspond to more than
one modal structure. The sentence is structurally ambiguous
(multiplex in meaning ‒ under the proviso that senses are not to be
multiplied beyond necessity) and will have more than one reading, or parsing,
as every schoolboy at Clifton knows when translating viva voce from Greek or
Latin, as the case might be. The general form of a procedure-specifier for a
modal operator involves a main clause and an antecedent clause, which follows
if. In the schematic representation of the main clause, U represents an
utterer, A his addressee, p the radix or neustic; and Opi represents that
operator whose number is i (1, 2, 3, or 4), e.g g., Op3A represents
Operator 3A, which, since ?⊢ appears in the Operator column for 3A)
would be ?A ⊢ p. This
reminds one of Grandys quessertions, for he did think they were iterable
(possibly)). The antecedent clause consists of a sequence whose elements
are a preamble, as it were, or preface, or prefix, a supplement to a
differential (which is present only in a B-type, or addressee-oriented case), a
differential, and a radix. The preamble, which is always present, is
invariant, and reads: The U U wills (that) A A judges (that) U (For surely meaning is a species of intending
is a species of willing that, alla Prichard, Whites professor,
Corpus). The supplement, if present, is also invariant. And the idea
behind its varying presence or absence is connected, in the first instance,
with the volitive mode. The difference between an ordinary expression of
intention ‒ such as I shall not fail, or They shall not
pass ‒ and an ordinary imperative (Like Be a little kinder to
him) is accommodated by treating each as a sub-mode of the volitive mode,
relates to willing that p) In the intentional case (I shall not fail), the
utterer U is concerned to reveal to his addressee A that he (the utterer U)
wills that p. In the imperative case (They shall not pass), the utterer U is
concerned to reveal to his addressee A that the utterer U wills that the
addresee A will that p. In each case, of course, it is to be
presumed that willing that p will have its standard outcome, viz., the
actualization, or realisation, or direction of fit, of the radix (from
expression to world, downwards). There is a corresponding distinction between
two uses of an indicative. The utterer U may be declaring or
affirming that p, in an exhibitive way, with the primary intention to get his
addressee A to judge that the utterer judges that p. Or the U is telling
(in a protreptic way) ones addressee that p, that is to say, hoping to get
his addressee to judge that p. In the case of an indicative, unlike that of a
volitive, there is no explicit pair of devices which would ordinarily be
thought of as sub-mode marker. The recognition of the sub-mode is
implicated, and comes from context, from the vocative use of the Names of the
addressee, from the presence of a speech-act verb, or from a sentence-adverbial
phrase (like for your information, so that you know, etc.). But Grice
has already, in his initial assumptions, allowed for such a situation. The
exhibitive-protreptic distinction or autophoric-heterophoric distinction, seems
to Grice to be also discernible in the interrogative mode (?).
Each differentials is associated with, and serve to distinguish, each of
the two basic modes (volitive or judicative) and, apart from one detail in the
case of the interrogative mode, is invariant between autophoric-exhibitive) and
heterophoric-protreptic sub-modes of any of the two basic modes. They are
merely unsupplemented or supplemented, the former for an exhibitive sub-mode
and the latter for a protreptic sub-mode. The radix needs (one hopes) no
further explanation, except that it might be useful to bear in mind that Grice
does not stipulated that the radix for an intentional (buletic exhibitive
utterer-based) incorporate a reference to the utterer, or be in the first
person, nor that the radix for an imperative (buletic protreptic
addressee-based) incorporate a reference of the addresee, and be in the second
person. They shall not pass is a legitimate intentional, as is You shall
not get away with it; and The sergeant is to muster the men at dawn, as uttered
said by the captain to the lieutenant) is a perfectly good
imperative. Grice gives in full the two specifiers derived from the
schema. U to utter to A autophoric-exhibitive ⊢ p if U wills that A judges that U judges
p. Again, U to utter to A ! heterophoric-protreptic p if U wills that A A
judges that U wills that A wills that p. Since, of the states denoted by
each differential, only willing that p and judging that p are strictly cases of
accepting that p, and Grices ultimate purpose of his introducing this
characterization of mode is to reach a general account of expressions which are
to be conjoined, according to his proposal, with an acceptability operator, the
first two numbered rows of the figure are (at most) what he has a direct use
for. But since it is of some importance to Grice that his treatment of
mode should be (and should be thought to be) on the right lines, he adds a
partial account of the interrogative mode. There are two varieties of
interrogatives, a yes/no interrogatives (e. g. Is his face clean? Is the king
of France bald? Is virtue a fire-shovel?) and x-interrogatives, on which Grice
qua philosopher was particularly interested, v. his The that and the why.
(Who killed Cock Robin?, Where has my beloved gone?, How did he fix it?). The
specifiers derivable from the schema provide only for yes/no interrogatives,
though the figure could be quite easily amended so as to yield a restricted but
very large class of x-interrogatives. Grice indicates how this could be
done. The distinction between a buletic and a doxastic interrogative
corresponds with the difference between a case in which the utterer U indicates
that he is, in one way or another, concerned to obtain information (Is he at
home?), and a case in which the utterer U indicates that he is concerned to
settle a problem about what he is to do ‒ Am I to leave the door open?, Shall I
go on reading? or, with an heterophoric Subjects, Is the prisoner to be
released? This difference is fairly well represented in grammar, and much better
represented in the grammars of some other languages. The
hetero-phoric-cum-protreptic/auto-phoric-cum- exhibitive difference may
not marked at all in this or that grammar, but it should be marked in Pirotese.
This or that sub-mode is, however, often quite easily detectable. There is
usually a recognizable difference between a case in which the utterer A says,
musingly or reflectively, Is he to be trusted? ‒ a case in which the
utterer might say that he is just wondering ‒ and a case in which he
utters a token of the same sentence as an enquiry. Similarly, one can usually
tell whether an utterer A who utters Shall I accept the invitation? is
just trying to make up his mind, or is trying to get advice or instruction from
his addressee. The employment of the variable α needs to be
explained. Grice borrows a little from an obscure branch of logic, once
(but maybe no longer) practised, called, Grice thinks, proto-thetic ‒ Why?
Because it deals with this or that first principle or axiom, or thesis), the
main rite in which is to quantify over, or through, this or that connective. α
is to have as its two substituents positively and negatively, which may modify
either will or judge, negatively willing or negatively judging that p is
judging or willing that ~p. The quantifier (∃1α) . . . has to be treated
substitutionally. If, for example, I ask someone whether John killed Cock
Robin (protreptic case), I do not want the addressee merely to will that I have
a particular logical quality in mind which I believe to apply. I want the
addressee to have one of the Qualities in mind which he wants me to believe to
apply. To meet this demand, supplementation must drag back the
quantifier. To extend the schema so as to provide specifiers for a single
x-interrogative (i. e., a question like What did the butler see? rather than a
question like Who went where with whom at 4 oclock yesterday afternoon?),
we need just a little extra apparatus. We need to be able to superscribe a
W in each interrogative operator e.g., together with the proviso that a radix
which follows a superscribed operator must be an open radix, which contains one
or more occurrences of just one free variable. And we need a chameleon
variable λ, to occur only in this or that quantifier. (∃λ).Fx is to be regarded as a way of
writing (∃x)Fx. (∃λ)Fy is a way of writing (∃y)Fy. To provide a specifier for a
x-superscribed operator, we simply delete the appearances of α in the specifier
for the corresponding un-superscribed operator, inserting instead the
quantifier (∃1λ) () at the
position previously occupied by (∃1α) (). E.g. the specifiers for Who
killed Cock Robin?, used as an enquiry, would be: U to utter to A killed Cock Robin if U wills A to judge U to
will that (∃1λ) (A should
will that U judges (x killed Cock Robin)); in which (∃1λ) takes on the shape (∃1x) since x is the free variable within
its scope. Grice compares his buletic-doxastic distinction to prohairesis/doxa
distinction by Aristotle in Ethica Nichomachea. Perhaps his simplest
formalisation is via subscripts: I will-b but will-d not. Refs.: The main
references are given above under ‘desirability.’ The most systematic treatment
is the excursus in “Aspects,” Clarendon. BANC.
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