conversational implicatum. A joke. Surely if he is going to use ‘implicatum’ in
Roman, this would be ‘implicatum conversationale,’ if there were such thing. And
there were! The Roman is formed from cum- plus ‘verso.’ So there’s Roman
‘conversatio.’ And –alis, ale is a productive suffix. Or implicitum. Grice is being philosophical
and sticking with ‘implicatio’ as used by logicians. Implicitum does not have
much of a philosophical pedigree. But even ‘implicatio’ was not THAT used,
‘consequentia’ was preferred, as in ‘non sequitur, and seguitur, quod
demonstrandumm erat. Strawson criticism of ‘the,’ only tentative by Grice,
unlike ‘if,’ so forgivable! See common-ground status. Grice loved an
implicatum. The use of ‘conversational’ by Grice is NEVER emphatic. In his
detailed, even fastidious, taxonomy of ‘implication,’ he decisively does not
want to have a mere conventional implicatum (as in “She was poor but she was
honest”) as conversational. Not even a “Thank you”, generated by the maxim “be
polite.” That would be an implicatum which is nonconventional and yet NOT
conversational, because ‘be polite’ is NOT a conversational maxim (moral,
aesthetic, and social maxims are not). And an implicature. An elaboration of
his Oxonian seminar on Logic and conversation. Theres a principle of
conversational helpfulness, which includes a desideratum of conversational
candour and a desideratum of conversational clarity, and the sub-principle of
conversational self-interest clashing with the sub-principle of conversational
benevolence. The whole point of the manoeuvre is to provide a rational basis
for a conversational implicatum, as his term of art goes. Observation of the
principle of conversational helpfulness is rational/reasonable along the
following lines: anyone who is interested in the two goals conversation is
supposed to serve ‒ give/receive information, influence/be influenced ‒ should
only care to enter a conversation that will be only profitable under the
assumption that it is conducted in accordance with the principle of
conversational helfpulness, and attending desiderata and sub-principles. Grice
takes special care in listing tests for the proof that an implicatum is
conversational in this rather technical usage: a conversational implicatum is
rationally calculable (it is the content of a psychological state, attitude or
stance that the addressee assigns to the utterer on condition that he is being
helpful), non-detachable, indeterminate, and very cancellable, thus never part
of the sense and never an entailment of this or that piece of philosophical
vocabulary, in Davidson and Harman, the logic of Grammar, also in Cole and
Morgan, repr. in a revised form in Grice, logic and conversation, the second
James lecture, : principle of conversational helpfulness, implicatum,
cancellability. While the essay was also repr. by Cole and Morgan. Grice
always cites it from the two-column reprint in The Logic of Grammar, ed. by
Davidson and Harman. Most people without a philosophical background first encounter
Grice through this essay. A philosopher usually gets first acquainted with his
In defence of a dogma, or Meaning. In Logic and Conversation, Grice
re-utilises the notion of an implicatum and the principle of conversational helpfulness
that he introduced at Oxford to a more select audience. The idea Grice is that
the observation of the principle of conversational helfpulness is rational
(reasonable) along the following lines: anyone who is concerned with the
two goals which are central to conversation (to give/receive information,
to influence/be influenced) should be interested in participating in a
conversation that is only going to be profitable on the assumption that it
is conducted along the lines of the principle of conversational
helfpulness. Grices point is methodological. He is not at all interested in conversational
exchanges as such. Unfortunately, the essay starts in media res, and skips
Grices careful list of Oxonian examples of disregard for the key idea of
what a conversant implicates by the conversational move he makes. His
concession is that there is an explicatum or explicitum (roughly, the logical
form) which is beyond pragmatic constraints. This concession is easily
explained in terms of his overarching irreverent, conservative, dissenting
rationalism. This lecture alone had been read by a few philosophers
leaving them confused. I do not know what Davidson and Harman were thinking
when they reprinted just this in The logic of grammar. I mean: it is obviously
in media res. Grice starts with the logical devices, and never again takes the
topic up. Then he explores metaphor, irony, and hyperbole, and surely the
philosopher who bought The logic of grammar must be left puzzled. He has to
wait sometime to see the thing in full completion. Oxonian philosophers would,
out of etiquette, hardly quote from unpublished material! Cohen had to rely on
memory, and thats why he got all his Grice wrong! And so did Strawson in If and
the horseshoe. Even Walker responding to Cohen is relying on memory. Few
philosophers quote from The logic of grammar. At Oxford, everybody knew what
Grice was up to. Hare was talking implicature in Mind, and Pears was talking
conversational implicature in Ifs and cans. And Platts was dedicating a full
chapter to “Causal Theory”. It seems the Oxonian etiquette was to quote from
Causal Theory. It was obvious that Grices implication excursus had to read
implicature! In a few dictionaries of philosophy, such as Hamlyns, under
implication, a reference to Grices locus classicus Causal theory is made –
Passmore quotes from Causal theory in Hundred years of philosophy. Very few
Oxonians would care to buy a volume published in Encino. Not many Oxonian
philosophers ever quoted The logic of grammar, though. At Oxford, Grices
implicata remained part of the unwritten doctrines of a few. And philosophers
would not cite a cajoled essay in the references. The implicatum allows a
display of truth-functional Grice. For substitutional-quantificational Grice we
have to wait for his treatment of the. In Prolegomena, Grice had quoted
verbatim from Strawsons infamous idea that there is a sense of inferrability
with if. While the lecture covers much more than if (He only said if; Oh, no,
he said a great deal more than that! the title was never meant to be original.
Grice in fact provides a rational justification for the three connectives (and,
or, and if) and before that, the unary functor not. Embedding, Indicative
conditionals: embedding, not and If, Sinton on Grice on denials of indicative
conditionals, not, if. Strawson had elaborated on what he felt was a divergence
between Whiteheads and Russells horseshoe, and if. Grice thought Strawsons
observations could be understood in terms of entailment + implicatum (Robbing
Peter to Pay Paul). But problems, as first noted to Grice, by Cohen, of Oxford,
remain, when it comes to the scope of the implicatum within the operation of,
say, negation. Analogous problems arise with implicata for the other earlier
dyadic functors, and and or, and Grice looks for a single explanation of the
phenomenon. The qualification indicative is modal. Ordinary language
allows for if utterances to be in modes other than the imperative.
Counter-factual, if you need to be philosophical krypto-technical, Subjectsive
is you are more of a classicist! Grice took a cavalier to the problem: Surely it
wont do to say You couldnt have done that, since you were in Seattle, to
someone who figuratively tells you hes spend the full summer cleaning the
Aegean stables. This, to philosophers, is the centerpiece of the lectures.
Grice takes good care of not, and, or, and concludes with the if of the title.
For each, he finds a métier, alla Cook Wilson in Statement and Inference. And
they all connect with rationality. So he is using material from his Oxford
seminars on the principle of conversational helpfulness. Plus Cook Wilson makes
more sense at Oxford than at Harvard! The last bit, citing Kripke and Dummett,
is meant as jocular. What is important is the teleological approach to the
operators, where a note should be made about dyadicity. In Prolegomena, when he
introduces the topic, he omits not (about which he was almost obsessed!). He
just gives an example for and (He went to bed and took off his dirty boots),
one for or (the garden becomes Oxford and the kitchen becomes London, and the
implicatum is in terms, oddly, of ignorance: My wife is either in town or
country,making fun of Town and Country), and if. His favourite illustration for
if is Cock Robin: If the Sparrow did not kill him, the Lark did! This is
because Grice is serious about the erotetic, i.e. question/answer, format Cook
Wilson gives to things, but he manages to bring Philonian and Megarian into the
picture, just to impress! Most importantly, he introduces the square brackets!
Hell use them again in Presupposition and Conversational Implicature and turns
them into subscripts in Vacuous Namess. This is central. For he wants to
impoverish the idea of the implicatum. The explicitum is minimal, and any
divergence is syntactic-cum-pragmatic import. The scope devices are syntactic
and eliminable, and as he knows: what the eye no longer sees, the heart no
longer grieves for! The modal implicatum. Since Grice uses
indicative, for the title of his third James lecture (Indicative Conditionals)
surely he implicates subjunctive ‒ i.e. that someone might be
thinking that he should give an account of indicative-cum-subjective. This
relates to an example Grice gives in Causal theory, that he does not reproduce
in Prolegomena. Grice states the philosophical mistake as follows. What is
actual is not also possible. Grice seems to be suggesting that a subjective
conditional would involve one or other of the modalities, he is not interested
in exploring. On the other hand, Mackie has noted that Grices conversationalist
hypothesis (Mackie quotes verbatim from Grices principle of conversational
helpfulness) allows for an explanation of the Subjectsive if that does not
involve Kripke-type paradoxes involving possible worlds, or other. In Causal
Theory, Grice notes that the issue with which he has been mainly concerned may
be thought rather a fine point, but it is certainly not an isolated one. There
are several philosophical theses or dicta which would he thinks need to be
examined in order to see whether or not they are sufficiently parallel to the
thesis which Grice has been discussing to be amenable to treatment of the same
general kind. An examples which occurs to me is the following. What is actual
is not also possible. I must emphasise that I am not saying that this example
is importantly similar to the thesis which I have been criticizing, only that,
for all I know, it may be. To put the matter more generally, the position
adopted by Grices objector seems to Grice to involve a type of manoeuvre which
is characteristic of more than one contemporary mode of philosophizing. He is
not condemning that kind of manoeuvre. He is merely suggesting that to embark
on it without due caution is to risk collision with the facts. Before we rush
ahead to exploit the linguistic nuances which we have detected, we should make
sure that we are reasonably clear what sort of nuances they are. If was also of
special interest to Grice for many other reasons. He defends a dispositional
account of intending that in terms of ifs and cans. He considers akrasia
conditionally. He explored the hypothetical-categorical distinction in the
buletic mode. He was concerned with therefore as involved with the associated
if of entailment. Refs.: “Implicatum” is introduced in Essay 2 in WoW –
but there are scattered references elsewhere. He often uses the plural
‘implicata’ too, as in “Retrospective Epilogue,” The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC.
An implicatum requires a complexum. Frege was the topic of the explorations by
Dummett. A tutee of Grices once brought Dummetts Frege to a tutorial and
told Grice that he intended to explore this. Have you read it? No I
havent, Grice answered. And after a pause, he went on: And I hope I will not.
Hardly promising, the tutee thought. Some authors, including Grice, but
alas, not Frege, have noted some similarities between Grices notion of a
conventional implicature and Freges schematic and genial rambles on colouring.
Aber Farbung, as Frege would state! Grice was more interested in the idea of a
Fregeian sense, but he felt that if he had to play with Freges aber he should!
One of Grices metaphysical construction-routines, the Humeian projection, is
aimed at the generation of concepts, in most cases the rational reconstruction
of an intuitive concept displayed in ordinary discourse. We arrive at something
like a Fregeian sense. Grice exclaimed, with an intonation of Eureka, almost.
And then he went back to Frege. Grices German was good, so he could read
Frege, in the vernacular. For fun, he read Frege to his children (Grices, not
Freges): In einem obliquen Kontext, Frege says, Grice says, kann ja z. B. die
Ersetzung eines „aber durch ein „und, die in einem direkten Kontext keinen
Unterschied des Wahrheitswerts ergibt, einen solchen Unterschied bewirken. Ill
make that easy for you, darlings: und is and, and aber is but. But surely, Papa,
aber is not cognate with but! Its not. That is Anglo-Saxon, for you. But is
strictly Anglo-Saxon short for by-out; we lost aber when we sailed the North
Sea. Grice went on: Damit wird eine Abgrenzung von Sinn und Färbung (oder
Konnotationen) eines Satzes fragwürdig. I. e. he is saying that She was poor
but she was honest only conventionally implicates that there is a contrast
between her poverty and her honesty. I guess he heard the ditty during the War?
Grice ignored that remark, and went on: Appell und Kundgabe wären ferner von
Sinn und Färbung genauer zu unterscheiden. Ich weiß so auf interessante
Bedeutungs Komponenten hin, bemüht sich aber nicht, sie genauer zu
differenzieren, da er letztlich nur betonen will, daß sie in der Sprache der
Logik keine Rolle spielen. They play a role in the lingo, that is! What do?
Stuff like but. But surely they are not rational conversational implicata!? No,
dear, just conventional tricks you can ignore on a nice summer day! Grice
however was never interested in what he dismissively labels the conventional
implicatum. He identifies it because he felt he must! Surely, the way some
Oxonian philosophers learn to use stuff like, on the one hand, and on the
other, (or how Grice learned how to use men and de in Grecian), or so, or
therefore, or but versus and, is just to allow that he would still use imply in
such cases. But surely he wants conversational to stick with rationality:
conversational maxim and converational implicatum only apply to things which
can be justified transcendentally, and not idiosyncrasies of usage! Grice
follows Church in noting that Russell misreads Frege as being guilty of
ignoring the use-mention distinction, when he doesnt. One thing that Grice
minimises is that Freges assertion sign is composite. Tha is why Baker prefers
to use the dot “.” as the doxastic correlative for the buletic sign ! which is
NOT composite. The sign „├‟ is composite. Frege explains his Urteilstrich, the
vertical component of his sign ├ as conveying assertoric force. The principal
role of the horizontal component as such is to prevent the appearance of
assertoric force belonging to a token of what does not express a thought (e.g.
the expression 22). ─p expresses a thought even if p does not.) cf. Hares four
sub-atomic particles: phrastic (dictum), neustic (dictor), tropic, and clistic.
Cf. Grice on the radix controversy: We do not want the “.” in p to become a
vanishing sign. Grices Frege, Frege, Words, and Sentences, Frege, Farbung,
aber. Frege was one of Grices obsessions. A Fregeian sense is an explicatum, or
implicitum, a concession to get his principle of conversational helpfulness
working in the generation of conversational implicata, that can only mean
progress for philosophy! Fregeian senses are not to be multiplied beyond
necessity. The employment of the routine of Humeian projection may be
expected to deliver for us, as its result, a concept – the
concept(ion) of value, say, in something like a Fregeian sense, rather than an
object. There is also a strong affinity between Freges treatment of
colouring (of the German particle aber, say) and Grices idea of a convetional
implicatum (She was poor, but she was honest,/and her parents were the
same,/till she met a city feller,/and she lost her honest Names, as the vulgar
Great War ditty went). Grice does not seem interested in providing a
philosophical exploration of conventional implicata, and there is a reason for
this. Conventional implicata are not essentially connected, as
conversational implicata are, with rationality. Conventional implicata cannot
be calculable. They have less of a philosophical interest, too, in that they
are not cancellable. Grice sees cancellability as a way to prove some
(contemporary to him, if dated) ordinary-language philosophers who analyse an expression
in terms of sense and entailment, where a cancellable conversational implicatum
is all there is (to it). He mentions Benjamin in Prolegomena, and is very
careful in noting how Benjamin misuses a Fregeian sense. In his Causal theory,
Grice lists another mistake: What is known to be the case is not believed to be
the case. Grice gives pretty few example of a conventional implicatum:
therefore, as in the utterance by Jill: Jack is an Englishman; he is,
therefore, brave. This is interesting because therefore compares to so
which Strawson, in PGRICE, claims is the asserted counterpart to if. But
Strawson is never associated with the type of linguistic botany that Grice is.
Grice also mentions the idiom, on the one hand/on the other hand, in some
detail in “Epilogue”: My aunt was a nurse in the Great War; my sister, on the
other hand, lives on a peak at Darien. Grice thinks that Frege misuses the
use-mention distinction but Russell corrects that. Grice bases this on Church.
And of course he is obsessed with the assertion sign by Frege, which Grice
thinks has one stroke tooo many. The main reference is give above for
‘complexum.’ Those without a philosophical background tend to ignore a joke by
Grice. His echoing Kant in the James is a joke, in the sense that he is using
Katns well-known to be pretty artificial quartet of ontological caegories to
apply to a totally different phenomenon: the taxonomy of the maxims! In his
earlier non-jocular attempts, he applied more philosophical concepts with a
more serious rationale. His key concept, conversation as rational co-operation,
underlies all his attempts. A pretty worked-out model is in terms then of this
central, or overarching principle of conversational helpfulness (where
conversation as cooperation need not be qualified as conversation as rational
co-operation) and being structured by two contrasting sub-principles: the
principle of conversational benevolence (which almost overlaps with the
principle of conversational helpfulness) and the slightly more jocular
principle of conversational self-love. There is something oxymoronic about
self-love being conversational, and this is what leads to replace the two
subprinciples by a principle of conversational helfpulness (as used in WoW:IV)
simpliciter. His desideratum of conversational candour is key. The clash
between the desideratum of conversational candour and the desideratum of
conversational clarity (call them supermaxims) explains why I believe that p
(less clear than p) shows the primacy of candour over clarity. The idea remains
of an overarching principle and a set of more specific guidelines. Non-Oxonian
philosophers would see Grices appeal to this or that guideline as ad hoc, but
not his tutees! Grice finds inspiration in Joseph Butler’s sermon on benevolence
and self-love, in his sermon 9, upon the love of our neighbour, preached on
advent Sunday. And if there be any other commandment, it is briefly
comprehended in this saying, Namesly, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself,
Romans xiii. 9. It is commonly observed, that there is a disposition in
men to complain of the viciousness and corruption of the age in which they
live, as greater than that of former ones: which is usually followed with this
further observation, that mankind has been in that respect much the same in all
times. Now, to determine whether this last be not contradicted by the accounts
of history: thus much can scarce be doubted, that vice and folly takes
different turns, and some particular kinds of it are more open and avowed in
some ages than in others; and, I suppose, it may be spoken of as very much the
distinction of the present, to profess a contracted spirit, and greater regards
to self-interest, than appears to have been done formerly. Upon this account it
seems worth while to inquire, whether private interest is likely to be promoted
in proportion to the degree in which self-love engrosses us, and prevails over
all other principles; "or whether the contracted affection may not
possibly be so prevalent as to disappoint itself, and even contradict its own
end, private good?" Repr. in revised form as WOW, I. Grice felt
the need to go back to his explantion (cf. Fisher, Never contradict. Never
explain) of the nuances about seem and cause (“Causal theory”.). Grice uses ‘My
wife is in the kitchen or the bedroom,’ by Smith, as relying on a requirement
of discourse. But there must be more to it. Variations on a theme by Grice.
Make your contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by
the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are
engaged. Variations on a theme by Grice. I wish to represent a
certain subclass of non-conventional implicaturcs, which I shall
call conversational implicaturcs, as being essentially connected with
certain general features of discourse; so my next step is to try to say what
these features are. The following may provide a first approximation to a
general principle. Our talk exchanges do not normally consist of a succession
of disconnected remarks, and would not be rational if they did. They are
characteristically, to some degree at least, cooperative efforts; and each
participant recognizes in them, to some extent, a common purpose or set of
purposes, or at least a mutually accepted direction. This purpose or direction
may be fixed from the start (e.g., by an initial proposal of a question for
discussion), or it may evolve during the exchange; it may be fairly definite,
or it may be so indefinite as to leave very considerable latitude to the
participants, as in a casual conversation. But at each stage, some possible
conversational moves would be excluded as conversationally unsuitable. We might
then formulate a rough general principle which participants will be expected
ceteris paribus to observe, viz.: Make your conversational contribution such as
is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or
direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged. One might label this
the co-operative principle. We might then formulate a rough general principle
which participants will be expected ceteris paribus to
observe, viz.: Make your contribution such as is required, at the
stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk
exchange in which you are engaged. One might label this the Cooperative
Principle. Strictly, the principle itself is not co-operative: conversants
are. Less literary variant: Make your move such as is required by the
accepted goal of the conversation in which you are engaged. But why logic and
conversation? Logica had been part of the trivium for ages ‒ Although they
called it dialectica, then. Grice on the seven liberal arts. Moved by
Strawsons treatment of the formal devices in “Introduction to logical theory”
(henceforth, “Logical theory”), Grice targets these, in their
ordinary-discourse counterparts. Strawson indeed characterizes Grice as his
logic tutor – Strawson was following a PPE., and his approach to logic is
practical. His philosophy tutor was Mabbott. For Grice, with a M. A. Lit.
Hum. the situation is different. Grice knows that the Categoriae and De Int. of
his beloved Aristotle are part of the Logical Organon which had been so
influential in the history of philosophy. Grice attempts to reconcile
Strawsons observations with the idea that the formal devices reproduce some
sort of explicatum, or explicitum, as identified by Whitehead and Russell in
Principia Mathematica. In the proceedings, Grice has to rely on some general
features of discourse, or conversation as a rational co-operation. The
alleged divergence between the ordinary-language operators and their formal
counterparts is explained in terms of the conversational implicata, then.
I.e. the content of the psychological attitude that the addressee A has to
ascribe to the utterer U to account for any divergence between the formal
device and its alleged ordinary-language counterpart, while still assuming that
U is engaged in a co-operative transaction. The utterer and his
addressee are seen as caring for the mutual goals of conversation ‒
the exchange of information and the institution of decisions ‒ and
judging that conversation will only be profitable (and thus reasonable and
rational) if conducted under some form of principle of conversational
helpfulness. The observation of a principle of conversational
helpfulness is reasonable (rational) along the following lines: anyone
who cares about the goals that are central to conversation/communication
(such as giving and receiving information, influencing and being influenced by
others) must be expected to have an interest, given suitable circumstances, in
participating in a conversation that will be profitable ONLY on the assumption
that it is conducted in general accordance with a principle of conversational
helpfulness. In titling his seminar Logic and conversation, Grice is
thinking Strawson. After all, in the seminal “Logical theory,” that every
Oxonian student was reading, Strawson had the cheek to admit that he never
ceased to learn logic from his tutor, Grice. Yet he elaborates a totally anti
Griceian view of things. To be fair to Strawson, the only segment where he
acknwoledges Grices difference of opinion is a brief footnote, concerning the
strength or lack thereof, of this or that quantified utterance. Strawson uses
an adjective that Grice will seldom do, pragmatic. On top, Strawson attributes
the adjective to rule. For Grice, in Strawsons wording, there is this or that
pragmatic rule to the effect that one should make a stronger rather than a
weaker conversational move. Strawsons Introduction was published before Grice
aired his views for the Aristotelian Society. In this seminar then Grice takes
the opportunity to correct a few misunderstandings. Important in that it
is Grices occasion to introduce the principle of conversational helpfulness as
generating implicata under the assumption of rationality. The lecture makes it
obvious that Grices interest is methodological, and not philological. He is not
interest in conversation per se, but only as the source for his principle of
conversational helpfulness and the notion of the conversational implicatum,
which springs from the distinction between what an utterer implies and what his
expression does, a distinction apparently denied by Witters and all too
frequently ignored by Austin. Logic and conversation, an Oxford seminar,
implicatum, principle of conversational helpfulness, eywords: conversational
implicature, conversational implicatum. Conversational
Implicature Grices main invention, one which trades on the distinction
between what an utterer implies and what his expression does. A
distinction apparently denied by Witters, and all too frequently ignored by, of
all people, Austin. Grice is implicating that Austins sympathies were for
the Subjectsification of Linguistic Nature. Grice remains an obdurate individualist,
and never loses sight of the distinction that gives rise to the conversational
implicatum, which can very well be hyper-contextualised, idiosyncratic, and
perfectly particularized. His gives an Oxonian example. I can very well mean
that my tutee is to bring me a philosophical essay next week by uttering It is
raining.Grice notes that since the object of the present exercise, is to
provide a bit of theory which will explain, for a certain family of
cases, why is it that a particular implicature is present, I
would suggest that the final test of the adequacy and utility of this
model should be: can it be used to construct an explanation of
the presence of such an implicature, and is it more comprehensive and
more economical than any rival? is the no
doubt pre-theoretical explanation which one would be prompted to give
of such an implicature consistent with, or better still a favourable pointer
towards the requirements involved in the model? cf. Sidonius: Far otherwise:
whoever disputes with you will find those protagonists of heresy, the Stoics,
Cynics, and Peripatetics, shattered with their own arms and their
own engines; for their heathen followers, if they resist the doctrine and
spirit of Christianity, will, under your teaching, be caught in their own
familiar entanglements, and fall headlong into their own toils; the barbed
syllogism of your arguments will hook the glib tongues of the
casuists, and it is you who will tie up their slippery
questions in categorical clews, after the manner of a clever
physician, who, when compelled by reasoned thought, prepares antidotes for
poison even from a serpent.qvin potivs experietvr qvisqve conflixerit stoicos
cynicos peripateticos hæresiarchas propriis armis propriis qvoqve concvti
machiNamesntis nam sectatores eorum Christiano dogmati ac sensvi si
repvgnaverint mox te magistro ligati vernaculis implicaturis in retia
sua præcipites implagabvntur syllogismis tuæ propositionis vncatis volvbilem
tergiversantvm lingvam inhamantibvs dum spiris categoricis lubricas qvæstiones
tv potivs innodas acrivm more medicorvm qui remedivm contra venena cum ratio
compellit et de serpente conficivnt. If he lectured on Logic and
Conversation on implicature, Grice must have thought that Strawsons area was
central. Yet, as he had done in Causal theory and as he will at Harvard, Grice
kept collecting philosophers mistakes. So its best to see Grice as a
methodologist, and as using logic and conversation as an illustration of his
favourite manoeuvre, indeed, central philosophical manoeuver that gave him a
place in the history of philosophy. Restricting this manoeuvre to just an area
minimises it. On the other hand, there has to be a balance: surely logic and
conversation is a topic of intrinsic interest, and we cannot expect all philosophers
– unless they are Griceians – to keep a broad unitarian view of philosophy
as a virtuous whole. Philosophy, like virtue, is entire. Destructive
implicature to it: Mr. Puddle is our man in æsthetics implicates that he is not
good at it. What is important to Grice is that the mistakes of these
philosophers (notably Strawson!) arise from some linguistic phenomena, or,
since we must use singular expressions this or that linguistic phenomenon. Or
as Grice puts it, it is this or that linguistic phenomenon which provides the
material for the philosopher to make his mistake! So, to solve it, his theory
of conversation as rational co-operation is posited – technically, as a way to
explain (never merely describe, which Grice found boring ‒ if English, cf. never
explain, never apologise ‒ Jacky Fisher: Never contradict. Never explain.)
these phenomena – his principle of conversational helpfulness and the idea of a
conversational implicatum. The latter is based not so much on rationality per
se, but on the implicit-explicit distinction that he constantly plays with,
since his earlier semiotic-oriented explorations of Peirce. But back to this or
that linguistic phenomenon, while he would make fun of Searle for providing
this or that linguistic phenomenon that no philosopher would ever feel excited
about, Grice himself was a bit of a master in illustrating this a philosophical
point with this or that linguistic phenomenon that would not be necessarily
connected with philosophy. Grice rarely quotes authors, but surely the section
in “Causal theory,” where he lists seven philosophical theses (which are
ripe for an implicatum treatment) would be familiar enough for anybody to be
able to drop a names to attach to each. At Harvard, almost every example Grice
gives of this or that linguistic phenomenon is UN-authored (and sometimes he
expands on his own view of them, just to amuse his audience – and show how
committed to this or that thesis he was), but some are not unauthored. And they
all belong to the linguistic turn: In his three groups of examples, Grice
quotes from Ryle (who thinks he knows about ordinary language), Witters, Austin
(he quotes him in great detail, from Pretending, Plea of excuses, and No
modification without aberration,), Strawson (in “Logical theory” and on Truth
for Analysis), Hart (as I have heard him expand on this), Grice, Searle, and
Benjamin. Grice implicates Hare on ‘good,’ etc. When we mention the
explicit/implicit distinction as source for the implicatum, we are referring to
Grices own wording in Retrospective epilogue where he mentions an utterer as
conveying in some explicit fashion this or that, as opposed to a gentler, more
(midland or southern) English, way, via implicature, or implIciture, if you
mustnt. Cf. Fowler: As a southern Englishman, Ive stopped trying teaching a
northern Englishman the distinction between ought and shall. He seems to get it
always wrong. It may be worth exploring how this connects with rationality. His
point would be that that an assumption that the rational principle of
conversational helpfulness is in order allows P-1 not just to convey in a
direct explicit fashion that p, but in an implicit fashion that q, where q is
the implicatum. The principle of conversational helpfulness as generator of
this or that implicata, to use Grices word (generate). Surely, He took off his
boots and went to bed; I wont say in which order sounds hardly in the vein of
conversational helpfulness – but provided Grice does not see it as logically
incoherent, it is still a rational (if not reasonable) thing to say. The point
may be difficult to discern, but you never know. The utterer may be conveying,
Viva Boole. Grices point about rationality is mentioned in his later
Prolegomena, on at least two occasions. Rational behaviour is the phrase he
uses (as applied first to communication and then to discourse) and in stark
opposition with a convention-based approach he rightly associates with Austin.
Grice is here less interested here as he will be on rationality, but
coooperation as such. Helpfulness as a reasonable expecation (normative?), a
mutual one between decent chaps, as he puts it. His charming decent chap is so
Oxonian. His tutee would expect no less ‒ and indeed no more! A rather obscure
exploration on the connection of semiotics and philosophical psychology. Grice
is aware that there is an allegation in the air about a possible vicious circle
in trying to define category of expression in terms of a category of
representation. He does not provide a solution to the problem which hell take
up in his Method in philosophical psychology, in his role of President of the
APA. It is the implicatum behind the lecture that matters, since Grice
will go back to it, notably in the Retrospective Epilogue. For Grice, its all
rational enough. Theres a P, in a situation, say of danger – a bull ‒. He
perceives the bull. The bulls attack causes this perception. Bull! the P1 G1
screams, and causes in P2 G2 a rearguard movement. So where is
the circularity? Some pedants would have it that Bull cannot be understood in a
belief about a bull which is about a bull. Not Grice. It is nice that he
brought back implicature, which had become obliterated in the lectures, back to
title position! But it is also noteworthy, that these are not explicitly
rationalist models for implicature. He had played with a model, and an
explanatory one at that, for implicature, in his Oxford seminar, in terms of a
principle of conversational helpfulness, a desideratum of conversational
clarity, a desideratum of conversational candour, and two sub-principles: a
principle of conversational benevolence, and a principle of conversational
self-interest! Surely Harvard could be spared of the details! Implicature.
Grice disliked a presupposition. BANC also contains a folder for Odd ends:
Urbana and non-Urbana. Grice continues with the elaboration of a formal
calculus. He originally baptised it System Q in honour of Quine. At a
later stage, Myro will re-Names it System G, in a special version, System GHP,
a highly powerful/hopefully plausible version of System G, in gratitude to
Grice. Odd Ends: Urbana and Not Urbana, Odds and ends: Urbana and not
Urbana, or not-Urbana, or Odds and ends: Urbana and non Urbana, or Oddents,
urbane and not urbane, semantics, Urbana lectures. The Urbana lectures are
on language and reality. Grice keeps revising them, as these items
show. Language and reality, The University of Illinois at Urbana, The
Urbana Lectures, Language and reference, language and reality, The Urbana
lectures, University of Illinois at Urbana, language, reference, reality. Grice
favours a transcendental approach to communication. A beliefs by a
communicator worth communicating has to be true. An order by a
communicator worth communicating has to be satisfactory. The fourth lecture is
the one Grice dates in WOW . Smith has not ceased from beating his wife,
presupposition and conversational implicature, in Radical pragmatics, ed. by R.
Cole, repr. in a revised form in Grice, WOW, II, Explorations in semantics and
metaphysics, essay, presupposition and implicature, presupposition,
conversational implicature, implicature, Strawson. Grice: The loyalty examiner
will not summon you, do not worry. The cancellation by Grice could be pretty
subtle. Well, the loyalty examiner will not be summoning you at any rate. Grice
goes back to the issue of negation and not. If, Grice notes, is is a matter of
dispute whether the government has a very undercover person who interrogates
those whose loyalty is suspect and who, if he existed, could be legitimately
referred to as the loyalty examiner; and if, further, I am known to be very
sceptical about the existence of such a person, I could perfectly well say to a
plainly loyal person, Well, the loyalty examiner will not be summoning you at
any rate, without, Grice would think, being taken to imply that such a
person exists. Further, if the utterer U is well known to disbelieve in the
existence of such a person, though others are inclined to believe in him, when
U finds a man who is apprised of Us position, but who is worried in case he is
summoned, U may try to reassure him by uttering, The loyalty examiner will not
summon you, do not worry. Then it would be clear that U uttered this because U
is sure there is no such person. The lecture was variously reprinted, but the
Urbana should remain the preferred citation. There are divergences in the
various drafts, though. The original source of this exploration was a
seminar. Grice is interested in re-conceptualising Strawsons manoeuvre
regarding presupposition as involving what Grice disregards as a metaphysical
concoction: the truth-value gap. In Grices view, based on a principle of
conversational tailoring that falls under his principle of conversational
helpfulness ‒ indeed under the desideratum of conversational clarity
(be perspicuous [sic]). The king of France is bald entails there is a king of
France; while The king of France aint bald merely implicates it. Grice
much preferred Collingwoods to Strawsons presuppositions! Grice thought, and
rightly, too, that if his notion of the conversational implicatum was to gain Oxonian
currency, it should supersede Strawsons idea of the præ-suppositum.
Strawson, in his attack to Russell, had been playing with Quines idea of a
truth-value gap. Grice shows that neither the metaphysical concoction of a
truth-value gap nor the philosophical tool of the præ-suppositum is needed. The
king of France is bald entails that there is a king of France. It is part of
what U is logically committed to by what he explicitly conveys. By uttering,
The king of France is not bald on the other hand, U merely implicitly conveys
or implicates that there is a king of France. A perfectly adequate, or
impeccable, as Grice prefers, cancellation, abiding with the principle of
conversational helpfulness is in the offing. The king of France ain’t bald.
What made you think he is? For starters, he ain’t real! Grice credits Sluga for
having pointed out to him the way to deal with the definite descriptor or
definite article or the iota quantifier the formally. One thing Russell
discovered is that the variable denoting function is to be deduced from the
variable propositional function, and is not to be taken as an indefinable.
Russell tries to do without the iota i as an indefinable, but fails. The success
by Russell later, in On denoting, is the source of all his subsequent progress.
The iota quantifier consists of an inverted iota to be read the individuum x,
as in (℩x).F(x). Grice opts for the Whiteheadian-Russellian standard
rendition, in terms of the iota operator. Grices take on Strawson is a strong
one. The king of France is bald; entails there is a king of France, and what
the utterer explicitly conveys is doxastically unsatisfactory. The king of
France aint bald does not. By uttering The king of France aint bald U only
implicates that there is a king of France, and what he explicitly conveys is
doxastically satisfactory. Grice knew he was not exactly robbing Peter to pay
Paul, or did he? It is worth placing the lecture in context. Soon after
delivering in the New World his exploration on the implicatum, Grice has no
better idea than to promote Strawsons philosophy in the New World. Strawson
will later reflect on the colder shores of the Old World, so we know what Grice
had in mind! Strawsons main claim to fame in the New World (and at least Oxford
in the Old World) was his On referring, where he had had the cheek to say that
by uttering, The king of France is not bald, the utterer implies that there is
a king of France (if not that, as Grice has it, that what U explicitly conveys
is doxastically satisfactory. Strawson later changed that to the utterer
presupposes that there is a king of France. So Grice knows what and who he was
dealing with. Grice and Strawson had entertained Quine at Oxford, and Strawson
was particularly keen on that turn of phrase he learned from Quine, the
truth-value gap. Grice, rather, found it pretty repulsive: Tertium exclusum!
So, Grice goes on to argue that by uttering The king of France is bald, one
entailment of what U explicitly conveys is indeed There is a king of France.
However, in its negative co-relate, things change. By uttering The king of
France aint bald, the utterer merely implicitly conveys or implicates (in a
pretty cancellable format) that there is a king of France. The king of France
aint bald: theres no king of France! The loyalty examiner is like the King of
France, in ways! The piece is crucial for Grices re-introduction of the
square-bracket device: [The king of France] is bald; [The king of France] aint
bald. Whatever falls within the scope of the square brackets is to be read as
having attained common-ground status and therefore, out of the question, to use
Collingwoods jargon! Grice was very familiar with Collingwood on
presupposition, meant as an attack on Ayer. Collingwoods reflections on
presuppositions being either relative or absolute may well lie behind Grices
metaphysical construction of absolute value! The earliest exploration by Grice
on this is his infamous, Smith has not ceased from beating his wife, discussed
by Ewing in Meaninglessness for Mind. Grice goes back to the example in the
excursus on implying that in Causal Theory, and it is best to revisit this
source. Note that in the reprint in WOW Grice does NOT go, one example of
presupposition, which eventually is a type of conversational implicature. Grices
antipathy to Strawsons presupposition is metaphysical: he dislikes the idea of
a satisfactory-value-gap, as he notes in the second paragraph to Logic and
conversation. And his antipathy crossed the buletic-doxastic divide! Using φ to represent a sentence in either mode,
he stipulate that ~φ is satisfactory just in case ⌈φ⌉ is unsatisfactory. A crunch,
as he puts it, becomes obvious: ~ ⊢The king of France is bald may perhaps be
treated as equivalent to ⊢~(The king of
France is bald). But what about ~!Arrest the intruder? What do we say in cases
like, perhaps, Let it be that I now put my hand on my head or Let it be that my
bicycle faces north, in which (at least on occasion) it seems to be that
neither !p nor !~p is either satisfactory or unsatisfactory? If !p is neither
satisfactory nor unsatisfactory (if that make sense, which doesnt to me), does
the philosopher assign a third buletically satisfactory value (0.5) to !p
(buletically neuter, or indifferent). Or does the philosopher say that we have
a buletically satisfactory value gap, as Strawson, following Quine, might
prefer? This may require careful consideration; but I cannot see that the
problem proves insoluble, any more than the analogous problem connected with
Strawsons doxastic presupposition is insoluble. The difficulty is not so much
to find a solution as to select the best solution from those which present
themselves. The main reference is Essay 2 in WoW, but there are scattered
references elsewhere. Refs.: The main sources are the two
sets of ‘logic and conversation,’ in BANC, but there are scattered essays on
‘implicature’ simpliciter, too -- “Presupposition
and conversational implicature,” c. 2-f. 25; and “Convesational implicature,”
c. 4-f. 9, “Happiness, discipline, and implicatures,” c. 7-f. 6;
“Presupposition and implicature,” c. 9-f. 3, The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC.
conversational manual: of conversational rational etiquette -- conversational iimmanuel,
cnversational manual. Before playing with ‘immanuel,’ Grice does use ‘manual’
more technically. A know-how. “Surely, I can have a manual, but don’t know how
to play bridge.” “That’s not how I’m using ‘manual.’” It should be pointed out
that it’s the visual thing that influenced. When people (especially non-philosophers)
saw the list of maxims, they thought: “Washington!” “A manual!”. In the Oxford
seminrs, Grice was never so ‘additive.’ His desideratum of conversational
clarity, his desideratum of conversational candour, his principle of
conversational self-love and his principle of conversational benevolence, plus
his principle of conversational helpfulness, were meant as ‘philosophical’
leads to explain this or that philosophical mistake. The seminars were given
for philosophy tutees. And Grice is playing on the ‘manuals of etiquette’ –
conversational etiquette. If you do not BELONG to this targeted audience, it is
likely that you’ll misconstrue Grice’s point, and you will! Especially R. T.
L.!The Gentlemen's Book of Etiquette and Manual of Politeness Being a Complete
Guide for a Gentleman's Conduct in All His Relations Towards Society by Cecil
B. Hartley. Wit and vivacity are two highly important ingredients in the
conversation of a man in polite society, yet a straining for effect, or forced
wit, is in excessively bad taste. There is no one more insupportable in society
than the everlasting talkers who scatter puns, witticisms, and jokes with so
profuse a hand that they become as tiresome as a comic newspaper, and whose
loud laugh at their own wit drowns other voices which might speak matter more
interesting. The really witty man does not shower forth his wit so
indiscriminately; his charm consists in wielding his powerful weapon delicately
and easily, and making each highly polished witticism come in the right place
and moment to be effectual. While real wit is a most delightful gift, and its
use a most charming accomplishment, it is, like many other bright weapons,
dangerous to use too often. You may wound where you meant only to amuse, and
remarks which you mean only in for general applications, may be construed into
personal affronts, so, if you have the gift, use it wisely, and not too freely.
The most important requisite for a good conversational power is education, and,
by this is meant, not merely the matter you may store in your memory from
observation or books, though this is of vast importance, but it also includes
the developing of the mental powers, and, above all, the comprehension. An
English writer says, “A man should be able, in order to enter into conversation,
to catch rapidly the meaning of anything that is advanced; for instance, though
you know nothing of science, you should not be obliged to stare and be silent,
when a man who does understand it is explaining a new discovery or a new
theory; though you have not read a word of Blackstone, your comprehensive
powers should be sufficiently acute to enable you to take in the statement that
may be made of a recent cause; though you may not have read some particular
book, you should be capable of appreciating the criticism which you hear of it.
Without such power—simple enough, and easily attained by attention and
practice, yet too seldom met with in general society—a conversation which
departs from the most ordinary topics cannot be maintained without the risk of
lapsing into a lecture; with such power, society becomes instructive as well as
amusing, and you have no remorse at an evening’s end at having wasted three or
four hours in profitless banter, or simpering platitudes. This facility of
comprehension often startles us in some women, whose education we know to have
been poor, and whose reading is limited. If they did not rapidly receive your
ideas, they could not, therefore, be fit companions for intellectual men, and
it is, perhaps, their consciousness of a deficiency which leads them to pay the
more attention to what you say. It is this which makes married women so much
more agreeable to men of thought than young ladies, as a rule, can be, for they
are accustomed to the society of a husband, and the effort to be a companion to
his mind has engrafted the habit of attention and ready reply.”
conversational maxim. The idea of a maxim implies freewill and freedom in
general. A beautiful thing about Grice’s conversational maxims is that surely
they do not ‘need to be necessarily’ independent, as Strawson and Wiggins emphatically
put it (p.520). The important thing is other. A conversational maxim is
UNIVERSALISABLE (v. universalierung) into a ‘manual,’ the “Immanuel,” strictly,
the “Conversational Immanuel.” Grice is making fun of those ‘conversational
manuals’ for the learning of some European language in the Grand Tour (as in
“Learn Swiss in five easy lessons”). Grice is echoing Kant. Maximen (subjektive
Grundsätze): selbstgesetzte Handlungsregeln, die ein Wollen ausdrücken, vs.
Imperative (objektive Grundsätze): durch praktische Vernunft bestimmt;
Ratschläge, moralisch relevante Grundsätze. („das Gesetz aber ist das objektive
Prinzip, gültig für jedes vernünftige Wesen, und der Grundsatz, nach dem es handeln
soll, d. i. ein Imperativ.“) das Problem ist jedoch die Subjektivität der
Maxime. When considering Grice’s concept of a ‘conversational maxim,’ one has
to be careful. First, he hesitated as to the choice of the label. He used
‘objective’ and ‘desideratum’ before. And while few cite this, in WoW:PandCI he
adds one – leading the number of maxims to ten, what he called the
‘conversational catalogue.’ So when exploring the maxims, it is not necessary
to see their dependence on the four functions that Kant tabulated: quantitas,
qualitas, relatio, and modus, or quantity, quality, relation, and mode (Grice
follows Meiklejohn’s translation), but in terms of their own formulation, one
by one. Grice
formulates the overarching principle: “We might then formulate a rough general
principle which participants will be expected (ceteris paribus) to observe,
namely: Make your conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage
at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange
in which you are engaged. One might label this the COOPEHATIVE PIUNCIPLE.”He
then goes on to introduce the concept of a ‘conversational maxim.’“On the
assumption that some such general principle as this is acceptable, one may
perhaps distinguish four categories under one or another of which will fall
certain more specific MAXIMS maxims and
submaxims, the following of which will, in general, yield results in accordance
with the Cooperative Principle.” Note that in his
comparative “more specific maxims,” he is implicating that, in terms of the
force, the principle is a MAXIM. Had he not wanted this implicature, he could
have expressed it as: “On the assumption that some such general principle as
this is acceptable, one may perhaps distinguish four categories under one or
another of which will fall certain MAXIMS.”
He is
comparing the principle with the maxims in terms of ‘specificity.’ I.e. the
principle is the ‘summun genus,’ as it were, the category is the ‘inferior
genus,’ and the maxim is the ‘species infima.’He is having in mind something
like arbor porphyriana. For why otherwise care to distinguish in the
introductory passage, between ‘maxims and submaxims.’ This use of ‘submaxim’ is
very interesting. Because it is unique. He would rather call the four maxims as
SUPRA-maxims, supermaxim, or supramaxim. And leaving ‘maxim’ for what here he
is calling the submaxim.Note that if one challenges the ‘species infima,’ one
may proceed to distinguish this or that sub-sub-maxim falling under the maxim.
Take “Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.” Since this, as he
grants, applies mainly to informative cases, one may consider that it is
actually a subsubmaxim. The submaxim would be: “Do not say that for which you
are not entitled” (alla Nowell-Smith). And then provide one subsubmaxim for the
desideratum: “Do not give an order which you are not entitled to give” or “Do
not order that for you lack adequate authority,” and the other subsubmaxim for
the creditum: “Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.”Grice: “Echoing
Kant, I call these categories Quantity, Quality, Relation, and Manner.” Or
Mode. “Manner” may be Ross’s translation of Aristotle’s ‘mode.’ Consider the
exploration of Aristotle on ‘modus’ in Categoriae. It is such a mixed bag that
surely ‘manner’ is not inappropriate!“The category of QUANTITY” – i. e. either
the conversational category of quantity, or as one might prefer, the category
of conversational quantity – “relates to the quantity of information to be
provided,”So it’s not just ANY QUANTUM, as Aristotle or Kant, or Ariskant have
it – just QUANTITY OF INFORMATION, whatever ‘information’ is, and how the
quantity of information is to be assessed. E g. Grice surely shed doubts re:
the pillar box seems red and the pillar box is red. He had till now used
‘strength,’ even ‘logical strength,’ in terms of entailment – and here, neither
the phenomenalist nor the physicalist utterance entail the other.“and under it
fall the following maxims:”That is, he goes straight to the ‘conversational maxim.’
He will provide supermaxim for the other three conversational categories.Why is
the category of conversational quantity lacking a supermaxim?The reason is that
it would seem redundant and verbose: ‘be appropriately informative.’ By having
TWO maxims, he is playing with a weighing in, or balance between one maxim and
the other. Cf.To say the truth, all the truth, and nothing but the truth.No
more no less.One maximm states the ‘at most,’ the other maxim states the ‘at
least.’One maxim states the ‘maxi,’ the other maxim states the ‘min.’ Together
they state the ‘maximin.’First, “Make your contribution as informative as is
required (for the current purposes of the exchange).”It’s the contribution
which is informative, not the utterer. Cf. “Be as informative as is required.”
Grice implicates that if you make your contribution as informative as is
required YOU are being as informative as is required. But there is a
category-shift here. Grice means, ‘required BY the goal of the exchange).
e.g.How are youFine thanks – the ‘and you’ depends on whether you are willing
to ‘keep the conversation going’ or your general mood. Second, “Do not make
your contribution more informative than is required.”“ (The second maxim is
disputable;”He goes on to give a different reason. But the primary reason is
that “Do not make your contribution more informative than is required” is
ENTAILED by “Make your contribution as informative as is required (for the
current purposes of the exchange)” – vide R. M. Hare on “Imperative inferences”
IN a diagram:Make your contribution as informative as is required (for the
current purposes of the exchange)Therefore, do not make your contribution more
informative than is required (by the current purposes of the exchange).Grice
gives another reason (he will give yet a further one) why the maxim is
‘disputable.’“it might be said that to be overinformative is not a
transgression of the CP but merely a waste of time.”For both
conversationalists, who are thereby abiding by Ferraro’s law of the least
conversational effort.”“A waste of time” relates to Grice’s previous
elaborations on ‘undue effort’ and ‘unnecessary trouble.’He is proposing a
conversational maximin.When he formulates his principle of economy of rational
effort, it is a waste of ‘time and energy.’Here it is just ‘time.’ “Energy” is
a more generic concept.“However, it might be answered that such
overinformativeness may be confusing in that it is liable to raise side
issues;”Methinks the lady doth protest too much.His example, “He was in a
blacked out city.”It does not seem to relate to the pillar boxA: What color is
the pillar boxB: It seems red.Such a ‘confusion’ and ‘side issue,’ if so
designed, is part of the implicatum.“and there may also be an indirect effect,
in that the hearers (or addressee) may be misled as a result of thinking that
there is some particular POINT in the provision of the excess of information.”Cf.
Peter Winch on “H. P. Grice’s Conversational Point.”More boringly, it is part
of the utterer’s INTENTION to provide an excess of information.”This may be
counterproductive, or not.“Meet Mr. Puddle”“Meet Mr. Puddle, our man in
nineteenth-century continental philosophy.”The introducer point: to keep the
conversation going.Effect on Grice: Mr. Puddle is hopeless at
nineteenth-century continental philosophy (OR HE IS BEING UNDERDESCRIBED). One
has to think of philosophically relevant examples here, which is all that Grice
cares for. Malcolm says, “Moore knows it; because he’s seen it!” – Malcolm
implicates that Grice will not take Malcolm’s word. So Malcom needs to provide
the excess of information, and add, to his use of ‘know,’ which Malcolm claims
Moore does not know how to use, the ‘reason’ – If knowledge is justified true
belief, Malcolm is conveying explicitly that Moore knows and ONE OF THE
CONDITIONS for it. Cf.I didn’t know you were pregnant.You still do not. (Here
the cancellation is to the third clause). Grice: “However this may be, there is
perhaps a different [second] reason for doubt about the admission of this
second maxim, viz., that its effect will be secured by a later maxim, which
concems relevance.)”He could be a lecturer. His use of ‘later’ entails he knows
in advance what he is going to say. Cf. Foucault:“there is another reason to
doubt. The effect is secured by a maxim concerning relevance.”No “later” about
it!Grice:“Under the category of QUALITY falls a supermaxim” – he forgets to
add, as per obvious, “The category of quality relates to the QUALITY of
information.” In this way, there is some reference to Aristotle’s summumm
genus. PROPOSITIO DEDICATIVA, PROPOSITIO ABDICATIVA, PROPOSITIO INFINITA. Cf.
Apuleius and Boethius on QUALITAS of propositio. Dedicatio takes priority over
abdicatio. So one expects one’s co-conversationalist to say that something IS
the case. Note too, that, if he used “more specific maxims and submaxims,” he
means “more specific supermaxims and maxims” – He is following Porophyry in
being confusing! Cf. supramaxim. Grice “-'Try to make your contribution one
that is true' –“This surely requires generality – and Grice spent the next two
decades about it. He introduced the predicate ‘acceptability.’ “Try to make
your contribution one that is acceptable”“True for your statements; good for
your desiderative-mode utterances.”“and two more specific maxims:”“1. Do not say
what you believe to be false.”There is logic here. It is easy to TRY to make
your contribution one that is true.” And it is easy NOT to say what you believe
to be false. Grice is forbidding Kant to have a maxim on us: “Be truthful!” “Say
the true!” “MAKE – don’t just TRY – to make your contribution one that is
true.”“I was only trying.”Cf. Moses, “Try not to kill” “Thou shalt trye not to
kylle.”Grice:“2. Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.”This is
involved with truth. In “Truth and other enigmas,” Dummett claims that truth
is, er, an enigma. For some philosophers, all you can guarantee is that you
have evidence. Lacking evidence for what?The qualification, “adequate,” turns
the maxim slightly otiose. Do not say that for you lack evidence which would
make your contribution not a true one.However, Grice is thinking Gettier. And
Gettier allows that one CAN have ADEQUATE EVIDENCE, and p NOT be true.If we are
talking ‘acceptability’ it’s more ‘ground’ or ‘reason’, rather than ‘evidential
justification.’ Grice is especially obsessed with this, in his explorations on
‘intending,’ where ‘acceptance’ is deemed even in the lack of ‘evidential
justification,’ and leaving him wondering what he means by ‘non-evidential
justification.’“Under the category of RELATION I place a single maxim, viz.,
'Be relevant.'”The category comes from Aristotle, ‘pros it.’ And ‘re-‘ in
relation is cognate with ‘re-‘ in ‘relevant.’RELATION refers to ‘refer,’ Roman
‘referre.’ But in Anglo-Norman, you do have ‘relate’ qua verb. To ‘refer’ or
‘re-late,’ is to bring y back to x. As Russell well knows in his fight with
Bradley’s theory of ‘relation,’ a relation involves x and y. A relation is a two-place
predicate. What about X = xIs identity a relation, in the case of x = x?Can a
thing relate to itself?In cases where we introduce two variables. The maxim
states that one brings y back to x.“Mrs. Smith is an old windbag.”“The weather
has been delightful for this time of year, hasn’t it.”If INTENDED to mean, “You
ARE ignorant!,” then the conversationalist IS bring back “totally otiose remark
about the weather” to the previous insulting comment.To utter an utterly
irrelevant second move you have to be Andre Breton.“Though the maxim itself is
terse, its formulation conceals a number of problems that exercise me a good
deal: questions about what different kinds and focuses of relevance there may
be, how these shift in the course of a talk exchange, how to allow for the fact
that subjects of conversation are legitimately changed, and so on. I find the
treatment of such questions exceedingly difficult, and I hope to revert to them
in a later work.”He is having in mind Nowell-Smith, who had ‘be relevant’ as
the most important of the rules of conversational etiquette, or how etiquette
becomes logical. But Nowell-Smith felt overwhelmed by Grice and left for the
north, to settle in the very fashionable Kent. Grice is also having in mind
Urmson’s appositeness (Criteria of intensionality). “Why did you title your
painting “Maga’s Daughter”? She’s your wife!” – and Grice is also having in
mind P. F. Strawson and what Strawson has as the principle of relevance
vis-à-vis the principles of presumption of ignorance and knowledge.So it was in
the Oxonian air.“Finally, under the category of MODE, which I understand as
relating not (like the previous categories) to what is said [THE CONTENT, THE
EXPLICITUM, THE COMMUNICATUM, THE EXPLICATUM] but, rather, to HOW what is said
is to be said,”Grice says that ‘meaning’ is diaphanous. An utterer means that p
reduces to what an utterer means by x. This diaphanousness ‘meaning’ shares
with ‘seeing.’ “To expand on the experience of seeing is just to expand on what
is seen.’He is having the form-content distinction.If that is a distinction. This
multi-layered dialectic displays the true nature of the speculative
form/content distinction: all content is form and all form is content, not in a
uniform way, but through being always more or less relatively indifferent or
posited. The Role of the Form/Content
Distinction in Hegel's Science of ...deontologistics.files.wordpress.com ›
2012/01 › formc... PDF Feedback About Featured Snippets Web results The Form-Content Distinction in Moral
Development Researchwww.karger.com › Article › PDF The form-content distinction
is a potentially useful conceptual device for understanding certain
characteristics of moral development. In the most general sense it ... by CG
Levine - 1979 - Cited by 25 - Related articles The Form-Content Distinction in Moral
Development Research ...www.karger.com › Article › Abstract Dec 23, 2009 - The
Form-Content Distinction in Moral Development Research. Levine C.G.. Author
affiliations. University of Western Ontario, London, Ont. by CG Levine - 1979
- Cited by 25 - Related articles
Preschool children's mastery of the form/content distinction in
...www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov › pubmed Preschool children's mastery of the
form/content distinction in communicative tasks. Hedelin L(1), Hjelmquist E.
Author information: (1)Department of Psychology, ... by L Hedelin - 1998 -
Cited by 10 - Related articles Form
and Content: An Introduction to Formal Logic - Digital
...digitalcommons.conncoll.edu › cgi › viewcontentPDF terminology has to do
with anything. In this context, 'material' means having to do with content.
This is our old friend, the form/content distinction again. Consider. by DD
Turner - 2020 Simmel's Dialectic of
Form and Content in Recent Work in ...www.tandfonline.com › doi › full May 1,
2019 - This suggests that for Simmel, the form/content distinction was not a
dualism; instead, it was a duality.11 Ronald L. Breiger, “The Duality of
... Are these distinctions between
“form” and “content” intentionally ...www.reddit.com › askphilosophy › comments
› are_th... The form/content distinction also doesn't quite fit the distinction
between form and matter (say, in Aristotle), although Hegel develops the
distinction between form ... Preschool
Children's Mastery of the Form/Content Distinction ...link.springer.com ›
article Preschoolers' mastery of the form/content distinction in language and
communication, along its contingency on the characteristics of p. by L Hedelin
- 1998 - Cited by 10 - Related articles
Verbal Art: A Philosophy of Literature and Literary Experiencebooks.google.com
› books Even if form and content were in fact inseparable in the sense
indicated, that would not make the form/content distinction unjustified. Form
and matter are clearly ... Anders Pettersson - 2001 - Literary Criticism One Century of Karl Jaspers' General
Psychopathologybooks.google.com › books He then outlines the most important
implications of the form–content distinction in a statement which is identical
in the first three editions, with only minor ... Giovanni Stanghellini, Thomas
Fuchs - 2013 - Medical“I include the supermaxim-'Be perspicuous' –” Or
supramaxim. So the “more specific maxims and submaxims” becomes the clumsier
“supermaxims and maxims”Note that in under the first category it is about
making your contribution, etc. Now it is the utterer himself who has to be
‘perspicuous,’ as it is the utterer who has to be relevant. It’s not the
weaker, “Make your contribution a perspicuous one.” Or “Make your contribution
a relevant one (to the purposes of the exchange).”Knowing that most confound
‘perspicacity’ with ‘perspicuity,’ he added “sic,” but forgot to pronounce it,
in case it was felt as insulting. He has another ‘sic’ under the prolixity
maxim.“and various maxims such as: The “such as” is a colloquialism.Surely it
was added in the ‘lecture’ format. In written, it becomes viz. The fact that
the numbers them makes for ‘such as’ rather disimplicatable. “1. Avoid
obscurity of expression.”Unless you are Heracleitus. THEY told me, Heraclitus,
they told me you were dead, /They
brought me bitter news to hear and bitter tears to shed./I wept as I remember'd
how often you and I/Had tired the sun with talking and sent him down the
sky./And now that thou art lying, my dear old Carian guest,/A handful of grey
ashes, long, long ago at rest,/Still are thy pleasant voices, thy nightingales,
awake;/For Death, he taketh all away, but them he cannot take. In a way this is
entailed by “Be perspicuous,” if that means ‘be clear,’ in obtuse English.Be
clearTherefore, or what is the same thing. Thou shalt not not be obscure.2.
Avoid ambiguity.”Except as a trope, or ‘figure, (schema, figura).
“Aequi-vocate, if that will please your clever addressee.” Cf. Parker’s zeugma:
“My apartment was so small, that I've barely enough room to lay a hat and a few
friends“3. Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity).”Here he added a ‘sic’ that
he failed to pronounce in case it may felt as insulting. But the idea of a
self-refuting conversational maxim is surely Griceian, in a quessertive way. Since
this concerns FORM rather than CONTENT, it is not meant to overlap with
‘informativeness.’So given that p and q are equally informative, if q is less
brief (longer – ars longa, vita brevis), utter p. This has nothing to do with
logical strength. It is just to be assessed in a SYNTACTICAL way.Vide
“Syntactics in Semiotics”“4. Be orderly.”This involves two moves in the
contribution or ‘turn.’ One cannot be ‘disorderly,’ if one just utters ‘p.’ So
this involves a molecular proposition. The ‘order’ can be of various types. Indeed,
one of Grice’s example is “Jones is between Smith and Williams” – order of
merit or size?‘Between’ is not ambiguous!There is LOGICAL order, which is
prior.But there is a more absolute use of ‘orderly.’ ‘keep your room tidy.’orderly
(adj.) 1570s, "arranged in order," from order (n.) + -ly (1). Meaning
"observant of rule or discipline, not unruly" is from 1590s. Related:
Orderliness.He does not in the lecture give a philosophical example, but later
will in revisiting the Urmson example and indeed Strawson, but mainly Urmson,
“He went to bed and took off his boots,” and indeed Ryle, “She felt frail and
took arsenic.”“And one might need others.”Regarding ‘mode,’ that is. “It is
obvious that the observance of some of these maxims is a matter of less urgency
than is the observance of others;”Not as per ‘moral’ demands, since he’ll say
these are not MORAL.“a man who has expressed himself with undue prolixity
would, in general, be open to milder comment than would a man who has said something
he believes to be false.”Except in Oscar Wilde’s circle, where they were
obsessed with commenting on prolixities! Cf. Hare against Kant, “Where is the
prisoner?” “He left [while he is hiding in the attic].”That’s why Grice has the
‘in general.’“Indeed, it might be felt that the importance of at least the
first maxim of Quality is such that it should not be included in a scheme of
the kind I am constructing;”But since ‘should’ is weak, I will. “other maxims
come into operation only on the assumption that this maxim of Quality is
satisfied.”So the keyword is co-ordination.“While this may be correct, so far
as the generation of implicatures is concerned it seems to play a role not
totally different from the other maxims, and it will be convenient, for the
present at least, to treat it as a member of the list of maxims.”He is having
weighing, and clashing in mind. And he wants a conversationalist to honour
truth over informativeness, which begs the question that as he puts it, ‘false’
“information” is no information.In the earlier lectures, tutoring, or as a
university lecturer, he was sure that his tutee will know that he was
introducing maxims ONLY WITH THE PURPOSE, NEVER TO MORALISE, but as GENERATORS
of implicata – in philosophers’s mistakes.But this manoeuver is only NOW disclosed.
Those without a philosophical background may not realise about this. “There
are, of course, all sorts of other maxims (aesthetic, social, or moral in
character), such as 'Be polite', that are also normally observed by
participants in talk exchanges, and these may also generate nonconventional
implicatures.”He is obviously aware that Émile
DurkheimWill Know that ‘conversational’ is subsumed
under ‘social,’ if not Williamson (perhaps).
– keyword: ‘norm.’ Grice excludes ‘moral’ because while a moral maxim
makes a man ‘good,’ a conversational maxim makes a man a ‘good’
conversationalist. Not because there is a distinction in principle!“The
conversational maxims, however, and the conversational implicatures connected
with them, are specially connected (I hope) with”He had this way with
idioms.Cf. Einstein,“E =, I hope, mc2.”“the particular purposes that talk (and
so, talk exchange)”He is playing Dutch.The English lost the Anglo-Saxon for
‘talk.’ They have ‘language,’ and the Hun has ‘Sprache.’ But only the Dutch
have ‘taal.’So he is distinguishing between the TOOL and the USE of the TOOL.“is
adapted lo serve and is primlarily employed to serve.”The ‘adapted’ is
mechanistic talk. He mentions ‘evolutionarily’ elsewhere. He means ‘the
particular goal language evolved to serve, viz.’ groom.Grooming, Gossip and the
Evolution of Language is a 1996 book by the anthropologist Robin Dunbar, in
which the author argues that language evolved from social grooming. He further
suggests that a stage of this evolution was the telling of gossip, an argument
supported by the observation that language is adapted for storytelling.
The book has been criticised on the grounds that since words are so cheap,
Dunbar's "vocal grooming" would fall short in amounting to an honest
signal. Further, the book provides no compelling story[citation needed] for how
meaningless vocal grooming sounds might become syntactical speech. Thesis
Dunbar argues that gossip does for group-living humans what manual grooming
does for other primates—it allows individuals to service their relationships
and thus maintain their alliances on the basis of the principle: if you scratch
my back, I'll scratch yours. Dunbar argues that as humans began living in
increasingly larger social groups, the task of manually grooming all one's
friends and acquaintances became so time-consuming as to be unaffordable.[1] In
response to this problem, Dunbar argues that humans invented 'a cheap and
ultra-efficient form of grooming'—vocal grooming. To keep allies happy, one now
needs only to 'groom' them with low-cost vocal sounds, servicing multiple
allies simultaneously while keeping both hands free for other tasks. Vocal
grooming then evolved gradually into vocal language—initially in the form of
'gossip'.[1] Dunbar's hypothesis seems to be supported by the fact that the
structure of language shows adaptations to the function of narration in
general.[2] Criticism Critics of Dunbar's theory point out that the very
efficiency of "vocal grooming"—the fact that words are so cheap—would
have undermined its capacity to signal honest commitment of the kind conveyed
by time-consuming and costly manual grooming.[3] A further criticism is that
the theory does nothing to explain the crucial transition from vocal
grooming—the production of pleasing but meaningless sounds—to the cognitive
complexities of syntactical speech.[citation needed] References
Dunbar, R. I. M. (1996). Grooming, gossip and the evolution of language.
London: Faber and Faber. ISBN 9780571173969. OCLC 34546743. von Heiseler,
Till Nikolaus (2014) Language evolved for storytelling in a super-fast
evolution. In: R. L. C. Cartmill, Eds. Evolution of Language. London: World
Scientific, pp. 114-121.
https://www.academia.edu/9648129/LANGUAGE_EVOLVED_FOR_STORYTELLING_IN_A_SUPER-FAST_EVOLUTION
Power, C. 1998. Old wives' tales: the gossip hypothesis and the reliability of
cheap signals. In J. R. Hurford, M. Studdert Kennedy and C. Knight (eds),
Approaches to the Evolution of Language: Social and Cognitive Bases. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, pp. 111 29. Categories: 1996 non-fiction
booksAmerican non-fiction booksBooks by Robin DunbarEnglish-language
booksEvolution of languageHarvard University Press booksPopular science
booksGrice: “I have stated my maxims”the maxims“as if this purpose were a
maximally effective exchange of information;”“MAXIMALLY EFFECTIVE”“this
specification is, of course, too narrow,”But who cares?This is slightly sad in
that he is thinking Strawson and forgetting his (Grice’s) own controversy with
G. A. Paul on the sense-datum, for ‘the pillar box seems red’ and ‘the pillar
box is red,’ involving an intensional context, are less amenable to fall under
the maxims.“and the scheme needs to be generalized to allow for such general
purposes as influencing or directing the actions of others.”He has a more
obvious way below:Giving and receving informationInfluencing and being
influenced by others.He never sees the purpose as MAXIMAL INFORMATION, but
maximally effective EXCHANGE of information – does he mean merely ‘transmission.’
It may well be.If I say, “I rain,” I have ex-changed information.I don’t need
anything in return.If so, it makes sense that he is equating INFORMING With INFLUENCING or better DIRECTION your
addresse’s talk.Note that, for all he loved introspection and conversational
avowals, and self-commands, these do not count.It’s informing your addressee
about some state of affairs, and directing his action. Grice is always clear
that the ULTIMATE GOAL is the utterer’s ACTION.“As one of my avowed aims is to
see talking as a special case or variety of purposive, indeed rational,
behavior, it may be worth noting that the specific expectations or presumptions
connected with at least some of the foregoing maxims have their analogues in
the sphere of transactions that are not talk exchanges.”Transaction is a good
one.TRANS-ACTIO“I list briefly one such analog for each conversational
category.”While he uses ‘conversational category,’ he also applies it to the
second bit: ‘category of conversational quantity,’ ‘category of conversational
quality,’ ‘category of conversational relation,’ and ‘category of
conversational mode.’ But it is THIS application that justifies the
sub-specifications.They are not categories of thought or ontological or
‘expression’.His focus is on the category as conversation.His focus is on the
‘conversational category.’“1. Quantity. If you are assisting me to mend a car,
I expect your contribution to be neither more nor less than is required; if, e.
g., at a particular stage I need fourscrews, I expect you to hand me four,
rather than two or six. He always passed six, since two will drop.“Make your
contribution neither more nor less informative than is required (for the
purposes of the exchange).”This would have covered the maxi and the min.“NEITHER
MORE NOR LESS” is the formula of effectiveness, and economy, and minimization
of expenditure.“2. Quality. I expect your contributions to be genuine and not
spurious.”Here again he gives an expansion of the conversational category,
which is more general than ‘try to make your contribution one that is true,’
and the point about the ‘quality of information,’ which he did not make.Perhaps
because it would have led him to realise that ‘false’ information, i.e.
‘information’ which is not genuine and spurious, is not ‘information.’But “Make
your contribution one that is genuine and not spurious.”Be candid.Does not need
a generalization as it covers both informational and directive utterances.“If I
need sugar as an ingredient in the cake you are assisting me to make, I do not
expect you to hand me salt;”Or you won’t eat the cake.“if I need a spoon, I do
not expect a trick spoon made of rubber.”Spurious and genuine are different.In
the ‘trick spoon,’ the conversationalist is just not being SERIOUS.But surely a
maxim, “Be serious” is too serious. – Seriously!“3. Relation. I expect a
partner's contribution to be appropriate to immediate needs at each stage of
the transaction;”Odd that he would use ‘appropriate,’ which was the topic of
the “Prolegomena,” and what he was supposed to EXPLAIN, not to use in the
explanation.For each of the philosophers making a mistake are giving a judgment
of ‘appropriateness,’ conversational appropriateness. Here it is good that he
relativises the ‘appropriateness’ TO the ‘need’.Grice is not quite sticking to
the etymology of ‘relatio’ and ‘refer,’ bring y back to x. Or he is. Bring y
(your contribution) back to the need x.Odd that he thinks he’ll expand more on
relation, when he did a good bit!“if I am mixing ingredients for a cake, I do
not expect to be handed a good book, or even an oven cloth (though this might
be an appropriate contribution at a later stage).”“I just expect you to be
silent.”“4. Manner. I expect a partner to make it clear what contribution he is
making, and to execute his performance with reasonable dispatch.” For Lewis,
clarity is not enough!The ‘Execute your performance with reasonable dispatch!’
seems quite different from “Be perspicuous.”“Execute your performance with
reasonable dispatch”Is more like“Execute your performance”And not just STAND
there!A: What time is it B just stands there“These analogies are relevant to
what I regard as a fundamental question about the principle of conversational
helpfulness and its attendant conversational maxims,”For Boethius, it is a
PRINCIPLE because it does not need an answer!“viz., what the basis is for the
assumption which we seem to make, and on which (I hope) it will appear that a
great range of implicatures depend [especially as we keep on EXPLOITING the
rather otiose maxims], that talkers will ingeneral (ceteris paribus and in the
absence of indications to the contrary) proceed in the manner that these
principles prescribe.”Grice really doesn’t care! He is into the EXPLOITING of
the maxim, as in his response to the Scots philosopher G. A. Paul:“Paul, I
surely do not mean to imply that you may end up believing that I have a doubt
about the pillar box being red: it seems red to me, as I have this sense-datum
of ‘redness’ which attaches to me as I am standing in front of the pillar box
in clear daylight.”Grice is EXPLOITING the desideratum, YET STILL SAYING
SOMETHING TRUE, so at least he is not VIOLATING the principle of conversational
helpfulness, or the category of conversational quality, or the desideratum of
conversational candour.And that is what he is concerned with. “A dull but, no doubt at a certain level,
adequate answer is that it is just a well-recognized empirical fact that *people*
(not pirots, although perhaps Oxonians, rather than from Malagasy) DO behave in
these ways;”Elinor Ochs was terrified Grice’s maxims are violated – never
exploited, she thought – in Madagascar.“they, i. e. people, or Oxonians, have
learned to do so in childhood and not lost the habit of doing so; and, indeed,
it would involve a good deal of effort to make a radical departure from the
habit. It is much easier, for example, to tell the truth than to invent lies.”Effort
again; least effort. And ease. Great Griceian guidelines!“I am, however, enough
of a rationalist to want to find a basis that underlies these facts,”OR
EXPLAIN.“undeniable though they may be;”BEIGIN OF A THEORY FOR A THEORY – not
the theory for the generation of implicate, but for the theory of conversation.He
is less interested in this than the other. “I would like to be able to think of
the standard type of conversational practice not merely as something that all
or most do IN FACT follow but as something that it is REASONABLE for us to
follow, that we SHOULD NOT abandon. For a time, I was attracted by the idea
that observance of the principle of conversational helpfulness and the conversational
maxims, in a talk exchange, could be thought of as a quasi-contractual matter,
with parallels outside the realm of discourse. If you pass by when I am
struggling with my stranded car, I no doubt have some degree of expectation
that you will offer help, but once you join me in tinkering under the hood, my
expectations become stronger and take more specific forms (in the absence of
indications that you are merely an incompetent meddler); and talk exchanges
seemed to me to exhibit, characteristically, certain features that jointly
distinguish cooperative transactions:”So how is this not
quasi-contractual? He is listing THIS OR
THAT FEATURE that jointly distinguishes a cooperative transaction – all grand
great words.But he wants to say that ‘quasi-contractual’ is NO RATIONAL!He is
playing, as a philosopher, with the very important point of what follows from
what.A1. Conversasation is purposiveA2. Conversation is rationalA3.
Conversation is cooperativeA4. There is such a thing as non-rational
cooperation (is there?)So he is aiming at the fact that the FEATURES that
jointly distinguish cooperative transactions NEED NOT BE PRESENT, and Grice
surely does not wish THAT to demolish his model. If he bases it in general
constraints of rationality, the better.“1. The participants have some common
immediate aim, like getting a car mended; their ultimate aims may, of course,
be independent and even in conflict-each may want to get the car mended in order
to drive off, leaving the other stranded. In characteristic talk exchanges,
there is a common aim even if, as in an over-the-wall chat, it is a
second-order one,”Is he being logical?“second-order predicate
calculus”“meta-language”He means higher or supervenientOr ‘operative’“, that
each party should, for the time being, identify himself with the transitory
conversational interests of the other.”By identify he means assume.YOU HAVE TO
DESIRE what your partner desires.The intersection between your desirability and
your addressee’s desirability is not NULL.And the way to do this is conditionalIF:
You perceive B has Goal G, you assume Goal G. “2. The contributions of the
participants .should be dovetailed, mutually dependent. Unless it’s one of
those seminars by Grice and J. F. Thomson!“3. There is some sort of
understanding (which may be explicit but which is often tacit)”i.e. implicated
rather than explicated – part of the implicatum, or implicitum, rather than the
explicatum or explicitum.“that, other things being equal, the transaction
should continue in appropriate style unless both parties are agreeable that it
should terminate. You do not just shove off or start doing something else.”This
is especially tricky over the phone (“He never ends!” Or in psychiatric
interviews!)Note that ‘starting doing something else’ may work. E. g. watch
your watch!“But while some such quasi-contractual basis as this may apply to
some cases, there are too many types of exchange, like quarreling and letter
writing, that it fails to fit comfortably.”TWO OPPOSITE EXAMPLES.Fighting is
arguing is competition, adversarial, epagogue, not conversation,
cooperation, friendly, collaborative
venture, and diagoge.Letter writing is usually otiose – “what, with the
tellyphone!” And letter writing is no conversation.“In any case, one feels that
the talker who is irrelevant or obscure has primarily let down not his audience
but himself.”And the talker who is mendacious has primarily let Kant down!”“So
I would like t< be able to show that observance of the principle of
conversational helfpulness and maxims is reasonal de (rational) along the
following lines”That any Aristkantian rationalist would agree to.“: that any
one who cares about the goals that are central to conversation/communication (e.g.,
giving and receiving information, influencing and being influenced by others)
must be expected to have an interest, given suitable circumstances, in
participation in talk exchanges that will be profitable only on the assumption
that they are conducted in general accordance with the principle of
conversational helpfulness and the maxims.”Where the keyword is: profit,
effort, least effort, no energy, no undue effort, no unnecessary trouble. That
conversation is reasonable unless it is unreasonable. That a conversational
exchange should be rational unless it shows features of irrationality.“Whether
any such conclusion can be reached, I am uncertain;”It’s not clear what the
premises are!Plus, he means DEDUCTIVELY reached? Transcendentally reached?
Empirically reached? Philosophically reached? Conclusively reached? Etc.It
seems the conclusion need not be reached, because we never departed from the
state of the affairs that the conclusion describes.“in any case, I am fairly
sure that I cannot reach it until I am a good deal clearer about the nature of
relevance and of the circumstances in which it is required.”For perhaps “I
don’t want to imply any doubt, but that pillar box seems red.”IS irrelevant,
yet true!“It is now time to show the connection between the principle of
conversational helfpulness and the conversational maxims, on the one hand, and
conversational implicature on the other.”This is clearer in the seminars. The
whole thing was a preamble “A participant in a talk exchange may fail to
fulfill a maxim in various ways, which include the following: 1. He may quietly
and unostentatiously VIOLATE (or fail to observe) a maxim; if so, in some cases
he will be liable to mislead.”And be blamed by Kant.Mislead should not worry
Grice, cf. “Misleading, but true.”The violate (or fail to observe) shows that
(1) covers two specifications. Tom may be unaware that there was such a maxim
as to ‘be brief, avoid unnecessary prolixity, unless you need to eschew
obfuscation!”This is Grice’s anti-Ryleism. He doesn’t want to say that there is
KNOWLEDGE of the maxims. For one may know what the maxims are and fail to
observe them “2. He may OPT OUT from the operation both of the maxim and of the
principle of conversational helpfulness; he may say, indicate, or allow it to
become plain that he is unwilling to cooperate in the way the maxim requires.
He may say, e. g., I cannot say more; my lips are sealed.” Where is the
criminal?I cannot say more; my lips are sealed.I shall unseal them. What do you
mean ‘cannot.’ You don’t mean ‘may not,’ do you?I think Grice means ‘may
not.’Is the universe finite? Einstein: I cannot say more; my lips are sealed. “3.
He may be faced by a CLASH of maxims [That’s why he needs more than one – or at
least two specifications of the same maxim]: He may be unable, e. g., to
fulfill the first maxim of Quantity (Be as informative as is required) without
violating the second maxim of Quality (Have adequate evidence for what you
say).” Odd that he doesn’t think this generates implicature: He has obviously studied
the sub-perceptualities here.For usually, a phenomenalist, like Sextus, thinks
that by utteringThe pillar box seems red to me – that is all I have adequate
evidence forHe is conveying that he is unable to answer the question (“What
colour is the pillar box?”) And being as ‘informative’ as is requiredWithout
saying something for which it is not the case that he has or will ever have
adequate evidence.Cf.Student at Koenigsberg to Kant: What’s the noumenon?Kant:
My lips are sealed.It may require some research to list ALL CLASHES.Because
each clash shows some EVALUATION qua reasoning, and it may be all VERY CETERIS
PARIBUS.Cf.Where is the criminal?My lips are sealed.The utterer has NOT opted
out. He has answered, via implicature, that he is not telling. He is being
relevant. He is not telling because he doesn’t want to DISCLOSE the whereabouts
of the alleged criminal, etc. For Kant, this is not a conversation! Odd that
Grice is ‘echoing Kant,’ where Kant would hardly allow a clash with ‘Be
truthful!’“4. He may FLOUT a maxim; that is, he may BLATANTLY fail to fulfill (or
observe) it.Mock? Taunt?The magic flute. Grice’s magic flute.flout (v.)
"treat with disdain or contempt" (transitive), 1550s, intransitive
sense "mock, jeer, scoff" is from 1570s; of uncertain origin; perhaps
a special use of Middle English “flowten,”"to play the flute"
(compare Middle Dutch “fluyten,” "to play the flute," also "to
jeer"). Related: Flouted; flouting.Grice: “One thing we do not know is if
the flute came to England via Holland.”“Or he may, as we may say, ‘play the
flute’ with a maxim, expecting others to be agreeable.”“Or he may, as we might
say, ‘play the flute’ with the conversational maxim, expecting others to join
with some other musical instrument – or something – occasionally the same.”“On
the assumption that the speaker is able to fulfill the maxim and to do so
without violating another maxim (because oi a clash), is not opting out, and is
not, in view of the blatancy of his performance, trying to mislead,”This is
interesting. It’s the TRYING to mislead.Grice and G. A. Paul:Grice cannot be
claimed to have TRIED to mislead, and thus deemed to have misled G. A. Paul,
even if he had, when he said, “I hardly think there is any doubt about it, but
that pillar box seems red to me.”“the hearer is faced with a minor problem:”Implicature:
This reasoning is all abductive – to the ‘best’ explanation“How can his saying
what he did say be reconciled with the supposition that he is observing the
overall principle of conversational helfpulness?”This was one of Grice’s
conversations with G. A. Paul:Paul (to Grice): This is what I do not
understand, Grice. How can your saying what you did say be reconciled with the
supposition that you are not going to mislead me?”Unfortunately, on that Saturday,
Paul went to the Irish Sea. Grice “This situation is one that
characteristically”There are others – vide clash, above – but not marked by
Grice as one such situation – “gives rise to a conversational implicature; and
when a conversational implicature is generated”Chomskyan jargon borrowed from
Austin (“I don’t see why Austin admired Chomsky so!”)“in this way, I shall say
that a maxim is being EXPLOITED.”Why not ‘flouted’? Some liked the idea of
playing the flute.EXPLOIT is figurative.Grice exploits a Griceian maxim.exploit (v.) c. 1400, espleiten, esploiten "to
accomplish, achieve, fulfill," from Old French esploitier, espleiter
"carry out, perform, accomplish," from esploit (see exploit (n.)).
The sense of "use selfishly" first recorded 1838, from a sense
development in French perhaps from use of the word with reference to mines,
etc. (compare exploitation). Related: Exploited; exploiting.exploit (n.) late
14c., "outcome of an action," from Old French esploit "a
carrying out; achievement, result; gain, advantage" (12c., Modern French
exploit), a very common word, used in senses of "action, deed, profit,
achievement," from Latin explicitum "a thing settled, ended, or
displayed," noun use of neuter of explicitus, past participle of explicare
"unfold, unroll, disentangle," from ex "out" (see ex-) +
plicare "to fold" (from PIE root *plek- "to plait").
Meaning "feat, achievement" is c. 1400. Sense evolution is from
"unfolding" to "bringing out" to "having
advantage" to "achievement." Related: Exploits. exploitative
(adj.) "serving for or used in exploitation," 1882, from French
exploitatif, from exploit (see exploit (n.)). Alternative exploitive (by 1859)
appears to be a native formation from exploit + -ive.exploitation (n.) 1803,
"productive working" of something, a positive word among those who
used it first, though regarded as a Gallicism, from French exploitation, noun
of action from exploiter (see exploit (v.)). Bad sense developed 1830s-50s, in
part from influence of French socialist writings (especially Saint Simon), also
perhaps influenced by use of the word in U.S. anti-slavery writing; and
exploitation was hurled in insult at activities it once had crowned as
praise. It follows from this science [conceived by Saint Simon] that the
tendency of the human race is from a state of antagonism to that of an
universal peaceful association -- from the dominating influence of the military
spirit to that of the industriel one; from what they call l'exploitation de
l'homme par l'homme to the exploitation of the globe by industry.
["Quarterly Review," April & July 1831] Grice: “I am now
in a position to characterize the notion of conversational implicature.”Not to
provide a reductive analysis. The concept is too dear for me to torture it with
one of my metaphysical routines.”“A man who, by (in, when) saying (or making as
if to say) that p”That seems good for the analysandumGrice loves the “by (in,
when)” “(or making as if to). Note the oratio obliqua.Or ‘that’-clause. So this
is not ‘uttering’As in the analysans of ‘meaning that.’“By uttering ‘x’ U means
that p.’The “by” already involves a clause with a ‘that’-clause.So this is not
a report of a physical event.It is a report embued already with intentionality.The
utterer is not just ‘uttering’The utterer is EXPLICITLY conveying that p.We
cannot say MEANING that p.Because Grice uses “mean” as opposed to “explicitly
convey”His borderline scenarios are such,“Keep me company, dear”“If we are to
say that when he uttererd that he means that his wife was to keep him company or
not is all that will count for me to change my definition of ‘mean’ or
not.”Also irony.But here it is more complicated. A man utters, “Grice defeated
Strawson”If he means it ironically, to mean that Strawson defeated Grice, it is
not the case that the utterer MEANT the opposite. He explicitly conveyed that.Grice
considers the Kantian ‘cause and effect,’“If I am dead, I shall have no time
for reading.”He is careful here that the utterer does not explicitly conveys
that he will have no time for reading – because it’s conditioned on he being
dead.“has implicated that q,” “may be said to have conversationally implicated
that q,”So this is a specification alla arbor porphyrana of ‘By explicitly
conveying that p, U implicitly conveys that q.’Where he is adding the second-order
adverb, ‘conversationally.’By explicitly conveying that p, U has implicitly
conveyed that q in a CONVERSATIONAL FASHION” iff or if“PROVIDED THAT”“(1) he is
to be presumed to be observing the conversational maxims, or at least the principle
of conversational helfpulness;”Especially AT LEAST, because he just said that
an implicatum is ‘generated’ (Chomskyan jargon) when AT LEAST A MAXIM IS played the flute.“(2) the
supposition that he is aware that, or thinks that, q is required in order to make
his saying or making as if to say p (or doing so in THOSE terms) consistent
with this presumption;”THIS IS THE CRUCIAL CLAUSE – and the one that not only
requires ONE’S RATIONALITY, but the expectation that one’s addressee, BEING
RATIONAL, will expect the utterer to BE RATIONAL.This is the ‘rationalisation’
he refers to in “Retrospective Epilogue.”Note that ‘q’ is obviously now the
content of a state in the utterer’s soul – a desideratum or a creditum --, at
least a CREDITUM, in view of Grice’s view of everything at least exhibitive and
perhaps protreptic --“and (3) the speaker thinks (and would expect the hearer
to think that the speaker thinks) that it is within the competence of the
hearer to work out, or grasp intuitively, that the supposition mentioned in (2)
IS required.”All that jargon about mutuality is a result of Strawson tutoring
Schiffer!“Apply this to my initial example, to B's remark that C has not yet
been to prison.”What made Grice think of such a convoluted example?He was
laughing at Searle for providing non-philosophical examples, and there he is!“In
a suitable setting A might reason as follows:”“(1) B has APPARENTLY violated –
indeed he has played the flute with -- the maxim 'Be relevant' and so may be
regarded as [ALSO] having flouted one of the maxims conjoining perspicuity,”In
previous versions, under the desideratum of conversational clarity Grice had it
that the desideratum included the expectation of this ‘relatedness’ AND that of
‘perspicuity’ (sic). In the above, Grice is stating that if you are irrelevant
(or provide an unrelated contribution) you are not being perspicuous.But “He
hasn’t been to prison” is perspicuous enough.And so is the link to the question
--.Plus, wasn’t perspicuity only to apply to the ‘mode,’ to the ‘form,’ rather
than the content.Here it is surely the CONTENT – that it is not the case that C
is a criminal – that triggers it all.So, since there is a “not,” here this is
parallel to the example examined by Strawson in the footnote to “Logical
Theory.”The utterer is saying that it is not the case that C has been in prison
yet.The ‘yet’ makes all the difference, even if a Fregeian colouring
‘convention’!“It is not the case that C has been in prison” Is, admittedly, not
very perspicuous.“So what, neither has the utterer nor the addressee.”So there
is an equivocation here as to the utterance perhaps not being perspicuous,
while the utterer IS perspicuous.“yet I have no reason to suppose that he is
opting out from the operation of the CP;”Or playing the flute with my beloved
principle of conversational helpfulness.“(2) given the circumstances, I can
regard his irrelevance as only apparent – as when we say that a plastic flower
is not a flower, or to use Austin’s example, “That decoy duck is surely not a
duck! That trick rubber spoon is no spoon! -- if, and only if, I suppose him to
think that C is potentially dishonest;”As many are!The potentially is the
trick.Recall Aristotle: “Will I say that I am potentially dishonest?! Not me!
PLATO was! Theophrastus WILL! Or is it ‘shall’?”“(3) B knows that I am capable
of working out step (2). So B implicates that C is potentially dishonest.'”Unless
he goes on like I go with G. A. Paul, “I do not mean of course to mean that I
mean that he is potentially dishonest, because although he is, he shouldn’t, or
rather, I don’t think you are expecting me to convey explicitly that he shouln’t
or should for that matter.”“The presence of a conversational implicature must
be capable of being worked out; for even if it can in fact be intuitively
grasped, unless the intuition is replaceable by an argument, the implicature
(if present at all) will not count as a CONVERSATIONAL implicature.”This is the
Humpty Dumpty in Grice.Cf. Provide the sixteen derivational steps in Jane
Austen’s Novel remark, “I sense and sensibilia” – This is what happens
sometimes when people who are not philosophers engage with Grice!For a
philosopher, it is clear Grice is not being serious there. He is mocking an
‘ideal’-language philosopher (as Waissmann called them). Let’s revise the
word:By “counting” he means “DEEM.” He has said that “She is poor, but she is
honest,” is NOT CALCULABLE. So if an argument is not produced, this may not be
a matter of argument.Philosophers are OBSESSED, and this is Grice’s trick, with
ARGUMENT. Recall Grice on Hardie, “Unlike my father, who was rather blunt,
Hardie taught me to ARGUE for this or that reason.”His mention of “INTUITION”
is not perspicuous. He told J. M. Rountree that meaning is a matter of
INTUITION, not a theoretical concept within a theory.So it’s not like Grice
does not trust the intuition. So the point is TERMINOLOGICAL and
methodological. Terminological, in that this is a specfification of
‘conversationally,’ rather than for cases like “How rude!” (he just flouted the
maxim ‘be polite!’ but ‘be polite’ is not a CONVERSATIONAL maxim. Is Grice
implicating that nonconversational nonconventional implicate are not
calculable? We don’t think so.But he might.I think he will. Because in the case
of ‘aesthetic maxim,’ ‘moral maxim,’ and ‘social maxim’ – such as “be polite,”
– the calculation may involve such degree of gradation that you better not get
Grice started!“it will be a CONVENTIONAL implicature.”OK – So perhaps he does
allow that non-conventional non-conversational implicate ARE calculable.But he
may add:“Unless the intuition is replaceable by an argument, it will not be a
conversational implicature; it will be a conventional implicature.”Strawson:
“And what nonconventional nonconversational implicate?Grice: You are right,
Strawon. Let me modify and refine the point: “It will be a dull, boring,
undetachable, conventional implicatum – OR any of those dull implicate that
follow from (or result – I won’t use ‘generate’) one of those maxims that I
have explicitly said they were NOT conversational maxims.“For surely, there is
something very ‘contradictory-sounding’ to me saying that the implicatum is
involved with the flouting of a maxim which is NOT a conversational maxim, and
yet that the maxim is a CONVERSATIONAL implicature.”“Therefore, I restrict
calculability to CONVERSATIONAL IMPLICATURE, because it involves the
conversational maxims that contributors are expected to be reciprocal; whereas
you’ll agree that Queen Victoria does not need to be abide with ‘be polite,’ as
she frequently did not – “We are not amused, you fools! Only Gilbert and
Sullivan amuse me!””“To work out that a particular CONVERSATIONAL [never mind
nonconversational nonconventional] implicature is present, the hearer will
reply on the following data:”As opposed to ‘sense-datum.’Perhaps assumption,
alla Gettier, is better:“ (1) the conventional meaning of the words used,
together with the identity of any references that may be involved;”WoW Quite a
Bit. This is the reason why Grice entitled WoW his first book.In he hasn’t been
to ‘prison’ we are not using ‘prison’ as Witters does (“My language is my
prison”).Strawson: But is that the CONVENTIONAL meaning? Even for King Alfred?He hasn't been to prisonprison (n.) early 12c., from Old
French prisoun "captivity, imprisonment; prison; prisoner, captive"
(11c., Modern French prison), altered (by influence of pris "taken;"
see prize (n.2)) from earlier preson, from Vulgar Latin *presionem, from Latin
prensionem (nominative prensio), shortening of prehensionem (nominative *prehensio)
"a taking," noun of action from past participle stem of prehendere
"to take" (from prae- "before," see pre-, + -hendere, from
PIE root *ghend- "to seize, take"). "Captivity," hence
by extension "a place for captives," the MAIN modern sense.” (There
are 34 other unmain ones). He hasn't been to a place for captives yet.You mean
he is one.Cf. He hasn't been to asylum.You mean Foucault?(2) the principle
of conversational helpfulness and this and that conversational maxim;”This is
more crucial seeing that the utterer may utter something which has no
conventional meaning?Cf. Austin, “Don’t ask for the meaning of a word! Less so
for the ‘conventional’ one!”What Grice needs is ‘the letter,’ so he can have
the ‘spirit’ as the implicatum. Or he needs the lines, so he can have the
implicatum as a reading ‘between the lines.’If the utterance is a gesture, like
showing a bandaged leg, or a Neapolitan rude gesture, it is difficult to
distinguish or to identify what is EXPLICITLY conveyed.By showing his bandaged leg,
U EXPLICITLY conveys that he has a bandaged leg. And IMPLICITLY conveys that he
cannot really play cricket.The requirement of ‘denotatum’ is even tricker,
“Swans are beautiful.” Denotata? Quantificational? Substitutional?In any case,
Grice is not being circular in requiring that the addressee should use as an
assumption or datum that U thinks that the expression E is generally uttered by
utterers when they m-intend that p.But there are tricks here.“(3) the context,
linguistic or otherwise, of the utterance;”Cf. Grice, “Is there a general
context for a general theory of context?”“(4) other items of background
knowledge;”So you don’t get:How is C getting on at the bank? My lips are sealed
Why do you care Mind your own business. Note that “he hasn’t been to prison
yet” (meaning the tautologous ‘he is potentially dishonest’) is the sort of
tricky answer to a tricky question! In asking, the asker KNOWS that he’ll get
that sort of reply knowing the utterer as he does. “and (5) the fact (or
supposed fact) that all relevant items falling under the previous headings are
available to both participants and both participants know or assume this to be
the case.”This is Schiffer reported by Strawson.“A general pattern for the
working out of a conversational implicature might be given as follows:”Again
the abductive argument that any tutee worth of Hardie might expect 'He has said
that p;”Ie explicitly conveys that p.Note the essential oratio obliqua, or
that-clause.“there is no reason to suppose. that he is not observing the
maxims, or at least the principle of conversational helpfulness”That is, he is
not a prisoner of war, or anything.“He could not be doing this unless he
thought that q;”Or rather, even if more tautologically still, he could not be
doing so REASONABLY, as Austin would forbid, unless…’ For if the utterer is
IRRATIONAL (or always playing the flute) surely he CAN do it!“he knows (and
knows that I know that he knows) that I can see that the supposition that he
thinks that q IS required;”Assumed MUTUAL RATIONALITY, which Grice fails to
have added as assumption or datum. Cf. paraconsistent logics – “he is using
‘and’ and ‘or’ in a ‘deviant’ logical way, to echo Quine,” – He is an intuitionist,
his name is Dummett.“he has done nothing to stop me thinking that q; he intends
me to think, or is at least willing to allow me to think, that q; and so he has
implicated that q.'”The ‘or’ is delightful, for m-intention requires
‘intention,’ but the intention figures in previous positions, so ‘willingess to
allow the addressee to think’ does PERFECTLY FINE! Especially at Oxford where
we are ever so subtle!
conversational
maxim of ambiguity avoidance, the: a phonological or
orthographic form having multiple meanings senses, characters, semantic
representations assigned by the language system. A lexical ambiguity occurs
when a lexical item word is assigned multiple meanings by the language. It
includes a homonymy, i.e., distinct lexical items having the same sound or form
but different senses ‘knight’/’night’,
‘lead’ n./‘lead’ v., ‘bear’ n./‘bear’ v.; and b polysemy, i.e., a single
lexical item having multiple senses
‘lamb’ the animal/‘lamb’ the flesh, ‘window’ glass/‘window’ opening. The
distinction between homonymy and polysemy is problematic. A structural
ambiguity occurs when a phrase or sentence is correlated by the grammar of the
language with distinct constituent structures phrase markers or sequences of
phrase markers. Example: ‘Competent women and men should apply’ ‘[NP[NPCompetent women] and men] . . .’ vs.
‘[NPCompetent[NPwomen and men]] . . .’, where ‘NP’ stands for ‘noun phrase’. A
scope ambiguity is a structural ambiguity deriving from alternative
interpretations of scopes of operators see below. Examples: ‘Walt will diet and
exercise only if his doctor approves’
sentence operator scope: doctor’s approval is a necessary condition for
both diet and exercise wide scope ‘only if’ vs. approval necessary for exercise
but not for dieting wide scope ‘and’; ‘Bertie has a theory about every
occurrence’ quantifier scope: one grand
theory explaining all occurrences ‘a theory’ having wide scope over ‘every
occurrence’ vs. all occurrences explained by several theories together ‘every
occurrence’ having wide scope. The scope of an operator is the shortest full
subformula to which the operator is attached. Thus, in `A & B C’, the scope
of ‘&’ is ‘A & B’. For natural languages, the scope of an operator is
what it C-commands. X C-commands Y in a tree diagram provided the first
branching node that dominates X also dominates Y. An occurrence of an operator
has wide scope relative to that of another operator provided the scope of the
former properly includes scope of the latter. Examples: in ‘~A & B’, ’-’
has wide scope over ‘&’; in ‘Dx Ey Fxy’, the existential quantifier has
wide scope over the universal quantifier. A pragmatic ambiguity is duality of
use resting on pragmatic principles such as those which underlie reference and
conversational implicature; e.g., depending on contextual variables, ‘I don’t
know that he’s right’ can express doubt or merely the denial of genuine
knowledge.
conversational
point:
Grice distinguishes between ‘point’ and ‘conversational point.’ “What’s the
good of being quoted by another philosopher on the point of ‘point.’?” But that
is what Winch does. So, as a revenge, Grice elaborated on the point. P. London-born philosopher. He quotes Grice in a Royal Philosophy talk: “Grice’s
point is that we should distinguish the truth of one’s remark form the point of
one’s remarks – Grice’s example is: “Surely I have neither any doubt nor any
desire to deny that the pillar box in front of me is red, and yet I won’t
hesitate to say that it seems red to me” – Surely pointless, but an incredible
truth meant to refute G. A. Paul
conversational reason. With ‘reason,’ Grice is following Ariskant. There’s the
‘ratio’ and there’s the “Vernunft.” “To converse” can mean to have sex (cf.
know) so one has to be careful. Grice is using ‘conversational’ casually.
First, he was aware of the different qualifications for ‘implication’. There is
Nowell-Smith’s contextual implication and C. K. Grant’s ‘pragmatic
implication.’ So he chose ‘conversational implication’ himself. Later, when
narrowing down the notion, he distinguished between ‘conversational
implication’ and ‘non-conversational implication’: “Thank you. B: You’re
welcome.” If B is following the maxim, ‘be polite,’ the implication that he is
pleased he was able to assist his emissor is IMPLICATED but not
conversationally so. It is not a ‘conversational implication.’ Grice needs to
restrict the notion for philosophical purposes. Both for the framework of his
theory (it is easier to justify transcendentally conversational implication
than it is non-conversational implication). Note that ‘I am pleased I was able
to assist’ is CANCELLABLE or defeatible, so that’s not the issue. In any case,
both ‘conversational impication’ and these type of calculable
‘non-conversational’ implication still yielding from some ‘maxim’ (such as ‘be
polite’) Grice covers under the generic “non-conventional” precisely because
they can be defeated. When it comes to NON-DEFEASIBLE implicata, Grice uses
‘conventional implication’ (as in “She was poor but she was honest.”). Grice
did not find these fun. And it shows. Strawson stuck with them, but his philosophising
about them ain’t precisely ‘fun.’ Used in Retrospective, p. 369. Also:
conversational rationality. Surely, “principle of conversational rationality”
sounds otiose. Expectation of mutual rationality sounds better. Critique of
conversational reason sounds best! Grice is careful here. When he provides a
reductive analysis of ‘reasoning,’ this goes as follows: the reasoner reasons
from premise to conclusion. That’s the analysandum. What’s the analysans? At
least it involves TWO clauses: If the reasoner reasons from premise to
conclusion, it is assumed that he BELIEVES that the premise obtains; and he
believes that the conclusion obtains. This has to be generalised to cover the
desiderative, using ‘accept.’ He accepts that the premise obtains, and he accepts
that the conclusion obtains. But there is obviously a SECOND condition: that
the conclusion follows from the premise! He uses ‘demonstrably’ for that, or
the demonstratum.’ He is open as to what kind of yielding is involved because
he wants to allow for inductive reasoning and abductive reasoning, not just
deductive reasoning. AND THERE IS A TYPICALLY GRICEIAN third condition,
involving CAUSATION. He had used ‘cause’ in reductive analyses before – if not
so much in ‘meaning,’ due to Urmson’s counterexample involving ‘bribery,’ where
‘cause’ does not seem to do – but in his analysis of ‘intending’ for the
British Academy. So at Oxford he promotes this THIRD causal condition as
involving that, naturally enough, it is the rasoner’s BELIEF that demonstrably
q follows from p, which CAUSES the reasoner TO BELIEVE (or more generally,
accept) that the conclusion obtains. Grice is happy with that belief in the
validity of the demonstration ‘populates’ the world of alethic beliefs, and
does not concern with generalising that into a generic ‘acceptance.’ The word
‘rationalist’ is anathema at Oxford, because tutor after tutor has brainwashed
their tutees that the distinction is ‘empiricst-rationalist’ and that at Oxford
we are ‘empiricists.’ So Grice is really being ‘heretic’ here in the words of
G. P. Baker. demonstratum: The Eng. word
“reason” and the Fr. word “raison” are
both formed on the basis of Roman “reor,” to count or calculate, whence think,
believe. The Roman verb translates the Grecian “λέγειν,” two of whose principal
meanings it retains, but only two: count and think. The third principal meaning
of the Grecian term, speak, discourse, which designates a third type of putting
into relation and proportion, is rendered by other Roman series: “dicere”
(originally cognate with ‘deixis,’ and so not necessarily ‘verbal’), “loquor,”
“orationem habere” (the most ‘vocal’ one, as it relates to the ‘mouth,’ cf.
‘orality’) or “sermonem habere,” so that ultimately the Grecian λόγος is
approached by Roman philosophers by means of a syntagm, “ratio et oratio,”
reason and discourse. Each vernacular fragments the meaning of logos into a
greater or lesser. Cf. ‘principium reddendae rationis.’ Rationality functions
as a principle of the intelligibility of the world and history, particularly in
Hegel. Then there’s The Partitions of Reason and Semantic diffractions.
Although there is no language that retains under a single word all the meanings
of logos except by bringing logos into the language in question, the
distribution of these meanings is more or less close to Roman. For the
classical Fr. word “raison,” which
maintains almost all the Roman meanings including the mathematical sense of
proportion, as in “raison d’une série,” or “raison inverse,” a contemporary Fr.
-G. dictionary proposes the following
terms: Vernunft, Verstand rational faculty. This example shows that the whole
of the vocabulary is thus mobilized. Reason and faculties We can distinguish
between two interfering systems. The first designates reason, identified with
thought in general, in its relationship to a bodily and/or mental instance. The
second situates reason in a hierarchy of faculties whose organization it
determines. Regarding the first system, as it is expressed in various
languages, where one will find studies of the main distortions, especially
around the expressions of the Roman ‘anima.’ Philosophers especially emphasize
the ways of designating reason and mind that appear to be the most irreducible
from one language to another. Regarding the second system, and the partitions
that do not coincide. For Grice, ‘to understand’ presupposes ‘rationality – not
for Kant, who sticks with Verstand/Vernunft distinction. Ratio speculatum,
praticatum. From Aristotle to Kant, two great domains of rationality have been
distinguished: theory, or speculative reason, and practice. The lurality of
meanings, each represented by one or more specific words. The first question,
from the point of view of the difference of languages, is thus that of the
breadth of the meaning of “reason” or its equivalents, and of the systems
diffracting the meanings of logos and then of ratio. But another complex of
problems immediately arises. The Roman “ratio” absorbs the meanings of other
Grecian terms, such as νοῦς and διάνοια, which are also translated in other,
more technical ways, such as intellectus; so that reason, in the sense of
rationality, is a comprehensive term, whereas ‘reason’ in the sense of
intellect or understanding is a singular and differentiated faculty. However,
none of the comprehensive terms or systems of opposition coincides with those
of another language, which are moreover changing. Then there’s Reason and
Rationality: man, animal, god. Since Aristotle’s definition of man as an animal
endowed with logos, which Roman writers rendered by “animal rationale” —
omitting the discursive dimension—reason, or the logos, is a specific
difference that defines man by his difference from other living beings and/or
his participation in a divine or cosmic nature. Reason is opposed to madness
understood as de-mentia. More broadly, reason is conceived in terms of
difference from what does not belong to its domain and falls outside its
immediate law, but which man may, in certain ways, share with other animals,
such as sensation, passion, imagination, and possibly memory. Rationality and
the principle of intelligibility. Rationality, defined by the logos, is
connected with logic as the art of speaking and thinking, and with its founding
principles. Les quodlibet cinq, six et sept. Ed. by M. de Wulf and J. Hoffmans. Louvain,
Belg.: Institut supérieur de Philosophie de l’Université, 191 Hegel, Georg
Wilhelm Friedrich. Elements of the Phil.
of Right. Tr. H. Nisbet and
ed. by Allen Wood. Cambridge: Cambridge
, . . Science of LogiTr. V. Miller.
London: Allen and Unwin, . . Werke. Ed.
by Eva Moldenhauer and Karl Markus Michel. 20 vols. FrankfuSuhrkamp, .
Heidegger, Martin. The Basic Problems of Phenomenology. Tr. Albert Hofstadter Bloomington: Indiana , . .
Phenomenological Interpretation of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. Tr. Parvis Emad and Kenneth Maly. Bloomington:
Indiana , . Hume, D. . A Treatise of Human Nature. Ed. by D.
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Critique of Practical Reason. Translated and ed. by Mary Gregor. Cambridge: Cambridge , . .
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de France, 190 Reprint. Hildesheim, Ger.: Olms, . . Philosophical Essays.
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Conversational
trustworthiness -- Principle of Conversational trustworthiness --
Conversational desideratum of maximal evidence, information bearing on the
truth or falsity of a proposition. In philosophical discussions, a person’s
evidence is generally taken to be all the information a person has, positive or
negative, relevant to a proposition. The notion of evidence used in philosophy
thus differs from the ordinary notion according to which physical objects, such
as a strand of hair or a drop of blood, counts as evidence. One’s information
about such objects could be evidence in the philosophical sense. The concept of
evidence plays a central role in our understanding of knowledge and
rationality. According to a traditional and widely held view, one has knowledge
only when one has a true belief based on very strong evidence. Rational belief
is belief based on adequate evidence, even if that evidence falls short of what
is needed for knowledge. Many traditional philosophical debates, such as those
about our knowledge of the external world, the rationality of religious belief,
and the rational basis for moral judgments, are largely about whether the
evidence we have in these areas is sufficient to yield knowledge or rational
belief. The senses are a primary source of evidence. Thus, for most, if not
all, of our beliefs, ultimately our evidence traces back to sensory experience.
Other sources of evidence include memory and the testimony of others. Of
course, both of these sources rely on the senses in one way or another.
According to rationalist views, we can also get evidence for some propositions
through mere reason or reflection, and so reason is an additional source of
evidence. The evidence one has for a belief may be conclusive or inconclusive.
Conclusive evidence is so strong as to rule out all possibility of error. The
discussions of skepticism show clearly that we lack conclusive evidence for our
beliefs about the external world, about the past, about other minds, and about
nearly any other topic. Thus, an individual’s perceptual experiences provide
only inconclusive evidence for beliefs about the external world since such
experiences can be deceptive or hallucinatory. Inconclusive, or prima facie,
evidence can always be defeated or overridden by subsequently acquired
evidence, as, e.g., when testimonial evidence in favor of a proposition is
overridden by the evidence provided by subsequent experiences. evidentialism, in the philosophy of religion,
the view that religious beliefs can be rationally accepted only if they are
supported by one’s “total evidence,” understood to mean all the other
propositions one knows or justifiably believes to be true. Evidentialists
typically add that, in order to be rational, one’s degree of belief should be
proportioned to the strength of the evidential support. Evidentialism was
formulated by Locke as a weapon against the sectarians of his day and has since
been used by Clifford among many others to attack religious belief in general.
A milder form of evidentialism is found in Aquinas, who, unlike Clifford,
thinks religion can meet the evidentialist challenge. A contrasting view is
fideism, best understood as the claim that one’s fundamental religious
convictions are not subject to independent rational assessment. A reason often
given for this is that devotion to God should be one’s “ultimate concern,” and
to subject faith to the judgment of reason is to place reason above God and
make of it an idol. Proponents of fideism include Tertullian, Kierkegaard, Karl
Barth, and some Vittersians. A third view, which as yet lacks a generally
accepted label, may be termed experientialism; it asserts that some religious
beliefs are directly justified by religious experience. Experientialism differs
from evidentialism in holding that religious beliefs can be rational without
being supported by inferences from other beliefs one holds; thus theistic
arguments are superfluous, whether or not there are any sound ones available.
But experientialism is not fideism; it holds that religious beliefs may be
directly grounded in religious experience wtihout the mediation of other
beliefs, and may be rationally warranted on that account, just as perceptual
beliefs are directly grounded in perceptual experience. Recent examples of
experientialism are found in Plantinga’s “Reformed Epistemology,” which asserts
that religious beliefs grounded in experience can be “properly basic,” and in
the contention of Alston that in religious experience the subject may be
“perceiving God.”
converse. 1 Narrowly, the
result of the immediate logical operation called conversion on any categorical
proposition, accomplished by interchanging the subject term and the predicate
term of that proposition. Thus, the converse of the categorical proposition
‘All cats are felines’ is ‘All felines are cats’. 2 More broadly, the
proposition obtained from a given ‘if . . . then . . .’ conditional proposition
by interchanging the antecedent and the consequent clauses, i.e., the
propositions following the ‘if’ and the ‘then’, respectively; also, the
argument obtained from an argument of the form ‘P; therefore Q’ by
interchanging the premise and the conclusion.
converse, outer and inner, respectively, the result of “converting” the
two “terms” or the relation verb of a relational sentence. The outer converse
of ‘Abe helps Ben’ is ‘Ben helps Abe’ and the inner converse is ‘Abe is helped
by Ben’. In simple, or atomic, sentences the outer and inner converses express
logically equivalent propositions, and thus in these cases no informational
ambiguity arises from the adjunction of ‘and conversely’ or ‘but not
conversely’, despite the fact that such adjunction does not indicate which, if
either, of the two converses intended is meant. However, in complex, or
quantified, relational sentences such as ‘Every integer precedes some integer’
genuine informational ambiguity is produced. Under normal interpretations of the
respective sentences, the outer converse expresses the false proposition that
some integer precedes every integer, the inner converse expresses the true
proposition that every integer is preceded by some integer. More complicated
considerations apply in cases of quantified doubly relational sentences such as
‘Every integer precedes every integer exceeding it’. The concept of scope
explains such structural ambiguity: in the sentence ‘Every integer precedes
some integer and conversely’, ‘conversely’ taken in the outer sense has wide
scope, whereas taken in the inner sense it has narrow scope.
Convey—used in index to WoW. Etymology is
funny. From con-via – cum-via, go on the road with.
Conway, Anne, English
philosopher whose Principia philosophiae antiquissimae et recentissimae 1690;
English translation, The Principles of the Most Ancient and Modern Philosophy,
1692 proposes a monistic ontology in which all created things are modes of one
spiritual substance emanating from God. This substance is made up of an
infinite number of hierarchically arranged spirits, which she calls monads.
Matter is congealed spirit. Motion is conceived not dynamically but vitally.
Lady Conway’s scheme entails a moral explanation of pain and the possibility of
universal salvation. She repudiates the dualism of both Descartes and her
teacher, Henry More, as well as the materialism of Hobbes and Spinoza. The work
shows the influence of cabalism and affinities with the thought of the mentor
of her last years, Francis Mercurius van Helmont, through whom her philosophy
became known to Leibniz.
co-operatum: Grice is very right in noting that ‘helpfulness’ does not
‘equate’ cooperation. Correspondingly he changed the principle of
conversational helpfulness into the principle of conversational co-operation.
He also points that one has to distinguish between the general theisis that
conversation is rational from the thesis that the particular form of
rationality that conversation takes is cooperative rationality, which most
libertarians take as ‘irrationality’ personified, almost! Grice is obsessed
with this idea that ‘co-operation’ need not just be ‘conversational.’ Indeed,
his way to justify a ‘rationalist’ approach is through analogy. If he can find
‘co-operative’ traits in behaviour other than ‘conversational,’ the greater the
chance to generalise, and thus justify. The co-operation would be
self-justifying. co-operation. The hyphen in Strawson and Wiggins (p. 520). Grice
found ‘co-operative’ too Marxist, and would prefer ‘help,’ as in ‘mutual help.’
This element of ‘mutuality’ is necessary. And it is marked grammatical, with
the FIRST person and the SECOND person. The third need NOT be a person – can be
a dog (as in “Fido is shaggy”). The mututality is necessary in that the emissor’s
intention involves the belief that his recipient is rational. You cannot
co-operate with a rock. You cannot co-operate with a vegetal. You cannot
cooperate with a non-rational animal. You can ONLY cooperate with a co-rational
agent. Animal co-operation poses a nice side to the Griceian idea. Surely the
stereotype is a member of species S cooperating with another specimen of the
same species. But then there are great examples of ‘sym-biosis’: the crane that
gets rid off the hippopotamus’s ticks. Is this cooperation? Is this
intentional? If Grice thinks that there is a ‘mechanistically derivable’
explanation,, it isn’t. He did not necessarily buy ‘bio-sociological’
approaches. Which was a problem, because we don’t have much philosophical
seriouis discourse on ‘cooperation’ at the general level Grice is aiming at.
Except in ethics, which is biased. So it is no wonder that Grice had to rely on
‘meta-ethics’ to even conceptualise the field of cooperation: the maximin
becomes a balance between a principle of conversational egoism and a principle
of conversational altruism. He later found the egoism-tag as ‘understood.’ And
his ‘altruism’ became ‘helpfulness,’ became ‘benevolence,’ and became
‘co-operation.’
copulatum: It was an Oxonian exercise to trace the ‘copula.’ “I’ve
been working like a dog, should be sleeping like a log.” Where is the copula:
Lennon is a dog-like worker – Lennon is a potential log-like sleeper.” Grice
uses ‘copula’ in PPQ. The term is
sometimes used ambiguously, for ‘conjunctum.’ A conjunctive is called a
copulative. But Grice obviously narrows down the use of copulatum to izz and
hazz. He is having in mind Strawson.The formula does not allow for differences
in tense and grammatical number; nor for the enormous class of * all
'-sentences which do not contain, as their main verb, the verb * to be '. We
might try to recast the sentences so that they at least fitted into one of the
two patterns * All x is y ' or ' All x are y ' ; but the results would be, as
English, often clumsy andt sometimes absurd. for Aristotle, 'Socrates is a man'
is true "in virtue of his being that thing which constitutes existing for
him (being which constitutes his mode of existence)," Hermann Weidemann,
"In Defense of Aristotle's Theory of Predication," p. 84— only so
long as that "being" be taken as an assertion of being per se. But
Weidemann wants to take it merely copulatively. In "Prädikation," p.
1196, he says that when 'is' is used as tertium adiacens it has no meaning by
itself, but merely signifies the connection of subject and predicate. Cf. his
"Aristoteles über das isolierte Aussagenwort," p. 154. H. P. Grice,
"Aristotle on the Multiplicity of Being," also rejects an existential
reading of tertium adiacens and pushes for a copulative one. Cf. Alan Code,
"Aristotle: Essence and Accident," pp. 414-7. Aristotle has connected the semantic multiplicity in the copula not
with variation between predicates of one subject, but with variation between
essential (per se)predications upon different (indeed categorially different) subjects (such ...eads
me to wonder whether Aristotle may be maintaining not only that the copula exhibits
semantic ...An extended treatment of my views about izzing and hazzing can
be found in Alan. A crucial ... on occasion admit catégorial variation in
the sense of the copulative 'is', evidently is ... Aristotle has
connected the semantic multiplicity in the copula not with variation ...with
the copulative 'is';
so he rather strangely interprets the last remark. (1017a27-30) as alluding to
semantic multiplicity in
the copula as being.
(supposedly) a consequence of semantic multiplicity in the existential
'is'. This interpretation seems difficult to defend. When Aristotle says that
predicates sometimes say what a thing is, sometimes what is it like (its
quality), sometimes how much it is (its quantity) and so on, he seems to be
saying that if we consider the range of predicates which can be applied to
some item, for example to a substance like Socrates or a cow,
these predicates are categorically various, and so the uses of the copula in the ascription
of these predicates will undergo corresponding variation"H. P.
Grice brings the question he had considered with J. L. Austin and P. F.
Strawson at Oxford about Aristotle’s categories.In “Categoriae,” Aristotle
distinguishes two sorts of case of the application of word or phrase to a range
of situations. In one sort of case, both the word and a single definition
(account, “logos”) apply throughout that range. In the other sort of case, the
word but no single definition applies through the range.These two sorts of case
have a different nature. In the first case, the word is applied synonymously
(of better as “sunonuma” – literally “sun-onuma”, cognomen). In the second case
the word is applied homonymously (or better “homonuma”, or aequi-vocally,
literally “homo-numa.”)Grice notes that a homonymous application has some sort
of sub-division which Aristotle calls "paronymy" (“paronuma”),
literally ‘para onuma.’To put it roughly, homonyms have multiple meanings –
what Grice has as “semantic multiplicity.”Synonyms have one meaning or ONE
SENSE, but apply to different kinds of thing.A paronym, such as ‘be,’ derives
from other things of a different kind. Paronyms display a ‘UNIFIED semantic
multiplicity,’ if that’s not too oxymoronic: how can the multiplicity be
unified while remaining a multiplicity? Aristotle states, confusingly, that
"being is said in many ways". As Grice notes, ‘good’ (agathon) also
is a paronym that displays unified semantic multiplicity.In Nichomachean
Ethics, even more confusingly, Aristotle says that "good is said in as
many ways as being". He doesn’t number the ways.So the main goal for Grice
is to answer the question: If, as Aristotle suggests, at least some expressions
connected with the notion of "being" exhibit semantic multiplicity,
of which expressions is the suggestion true? Grice faces the question of
existential being and Semantic Multiplicity. Grice stresses that Semantic
Multiplicity of "be" is not
only the case of it interpretation. Other words he wants to know in what way of
interpretation of this word the philosophers can detect the SM. Generally
speaking there are four possible interpretations of "being": First,
"be" is taken to mean "exist.”Second, "be" is taken as
a copula in a predication statement.Third, "be" is taken for
expressing the identity.Fourth, "Being" is considered to be a noun
(equivalent to ‘object' or ‘entity') – subjectification, category shift:
“Smith’s being tall suggests he is an athlete.” (cfr. A. G. N. Flew on the
‘rubbish’ that adding ‘the’ to ‘self’ results in – contra J. R. Jones).
Philosophers have some problems for this kind of theory with separating
interpretations from each other. It is natural for thinkers to unite the first
and the fourth. The object or entity should be the things which already exist.
So the SM would attach to such a noun as "entity" if, and only if, it
also attaches to the word "exist". Furthermore, it seems to be a good
idea to unite the first and the third. In some ways theorist can paraphrase the
word "exist" in the terms of self-identity. Grice gives an example:
“Julius Caesar exists if and only if Julius Caesar is identical for Julius
Caesar.” Cf. Grice on ‘relative identity.’So the philosophers should
investigate SM in two possible interpretations – when "be" is
understood as "exist" and when "be" is understood as
copula. From Aristotle's point of view ‘being’ is predicated of everything.
From this statement, Grice draws the conclusion that "exist" can
apply to every thing, even a square circle.This word should signify a plurality
of universals and exhibits semantic multiplicity. But Grice continue his
analyses and tries to show, that "exist" has not merely SM, but
UNIFIED semantic multiplicity. God forbid that he breaks M. O. R., Modifed
Occam’s Razor – Semantic multiplicies are not to be multiplied unificatory
necessity.”In “Metaphysics,” Aristotle says that whatever things are signified
by the "forms of predication". Philosophers understood the forms of
predication (praedicabilium, praedicamentum) as a category. So in this way
"being" has as many significations as there are forms of predication.
"Be" in this case indicates what a thing is, what is like or how much
it is and ctr. And no reasons to make a difference between two utterances like
"man walks (flourishes)" and "the man is walking
(flourishing)" – cfr. Strawson on no need to have ‘be’ explicitly in the
surface form, which render some utterances absurd. Grice says that it is not a
problem with interpretation of verb-forms like ‘walks' and ‘flourishes' while
we can replace them by expression in a canonical form like ‘is walking' and ‘is
flourishing'. Aristotle names them as canonical in form within the multiplicity
of use of "be" because ‘is’ is not existential, but copulative.Cf.
Descartes, I think therefore I am – I am a res cogitans, ergo I am a res.
"When Aristotle says that predicates sometimes say what a thing is,
sometimes what is it like (its quality), sometimes how much it is (its
quantity) and so on, he seems to be saying that, if we consider the range of
predicates which can be applied to some item, for example to a substance like
Socrates or a cow, these predicates are categorically various, and so the uses
of the copula in the ascription of these predicates will undergo corresponding
variation" It means that, from Aristotle's point of view, "Socrates
is F" is not an essential predication, where "F" shows the item
in the category C. So the logical form of the proposition “Socrates is F” is
understood as "Socrates has something which is (C) F" where is (C)
represent essential connection to category C. In conclusion it can be said that
the copula is a matter of the logical nature of constant connection expressed
by "has" and a categorical variant relation expressed by essential
"is". So we have both types of interpretation: as existence and as a
copula. (Our gratitude to P. A.
Sobolevsky). ases of ''Unified Semantic
Multiplicity'' (USM). Prominent among examples of USM is the
application of the word 'be'; according to. Aristotle, “being is said
in ... Aristotle and the alleged multiplicity of being (or
something). Grice is all for focal unity. Or, to echo Jones, if there is semantic
multiplicity (homonymy), it is in the
end UNIFIED semantic multiplicity (paronymy). Or something. Copula – H. P.
Grice on Aristotle on the copula (“Aristotle on the multiplicity of being”) --
copula, in logic, a form of the verb ‘to be’ that joins subject and predicate
in singular and categorical propositions. In ‘George is wealthy’ and ‘Swans are
beautiful’, e.g., ‘is’ and ‘are’, respectively, are copulas. Not all
occurrences of forms of ‘be’ count as copulas. In sentences such as ‘There are
51 states’, ‘are’ is not a copula, since it does not join a subject and a
predicate, but occurs simply as a part of the quantifier term ‘there are’.
corpus: Grice would not
have gone to Oxford had his talent not been in the classics, Greek and Latin.
As a Midlander, he was sent to Corpus. At the time, most of Oxford was oriented
towards the classics, or Lit. Hum. (Philosophia). At some point, each college
attained some stereotypical fame, which Grice detested (“Corpus is for
classicists”). By this time, Grice, after a short stay at Merton, accepted the
fellowship at St. John’s, which was “a different animal.” In them days, there
were only two tutorial fellows in philosophy, Scots Mabbott, and English Grice.
But Grice also was “University Lecturer in Philosophy,” which meant he
delivered seminars for tutees all over Oxford. St. John’s keeps a record of all
the tutees by Grice. They include, alphabetically, a few good names. Why is
Corpus so special? Find out! History of “Corpus Christi.” Cf. St. John’s. Cf.
Merton. Each should have an entry. Corpus is Grice’s alma mater – so crucial. Hardieian: you only have one tutor
in your life, and Grice’s was Hardie. So an exploration on Hardie may be in
order. Grice hastens to add that he only learned ‘form,’ not matter, from
Hardie, but the ethical and Aristotelian approach he also admitted.
Corpus -- Grice, “Personal identity” – soul and body -- disembodiment, the
immaterial state of existence of a person who previously had a body.
Disembodiment is thus to be distinguished from nonembodiment or immateriality.
God and angels, if they exist, are non-embodied, or immaterial. By contrast, if
human beings continue to exist after their bodies die, then they are
disembodied. As this example suggests, disembodiment is typically discussed in
the context of immortality or survival of death. It presupposes a view according
to which persons are souls or some sort of immaterial entity that is capable of
existing apart from a body. Whether it is possible for a person to become
disembodied is a matter of controversy. Most philosophers who believe that this
is possible assume that a disembodied person is conscious, but it is not
obvious that this should be the case. Corpus
-- Grice’s body -- embodiment, the bodily aspects of human subjectivity.
Embodiment is the central theme in European phenomenology, with its most
extensive treatment in the works of Maurice MerleauPonty. Merleau-Ponty’s
account of embodiment distinguishes between “the objective body,” which is the
body regarded as a physiological entity, and “the phenomenal body,” which is
not just some body, some particular physiological entity, but my or your body
as I or you experience it. Of course, it is possible to experience one’s own
body as a physiological entity. But this is not typically the case. Typically,
I experience my body tacitly as a unified potential or capacity for doing this
and that typing this sentence,
scratching that itch, etc. Moreover, this sense that I have of my own motor
capacities expressed, say, as a kind of bodily confidence does not depend on an
understanding of the physiological processes involved in performing the action
in question. The distinction between the objective and phenomenal body is
central to understanding the phenomenological treatment of embodiment.
Embodiment is not a concept that pertains to the body grasped as a physiological
entity. Rather it pertains to the phenomenal body and to the role it plays in
our object-directed experiences.
cosmologicum. Grice systematized metaphysics
quite carefully. He distinguished between eschatology (or the theory of
categories) and ontology proper. Within ontology, there is ‘ontologia
generalis’ and ‘ontologia specialis.’ There are at least two branches of
‘ontologia specialis’: ‘cosmologia’ and ‘anthropologia.’ Grice would often
refer to the ‘world’ in toto. For example, in “Meaning revisited,” when he
speaks of the ‘triangle’: world-denotatum; signum-emissor, and soul. Grice was
never a solipsist, and most of his theories are ‘causal’ in nature, including
that of meaning and perception. As such, he was constantly fighting against
acosmism. While not one of his twelve labours, he took a liking for the
coinage. ‘Acosmism’ is formed in analogy to ‘atheism,’ meaning
the denial of the ultimate reality of the world. Ernst Platner used it in 1776
to describe Spinoza’s philosophy, arguing that Spinoza did not intend to deny
“the existence of the Godhead, but the existence of the world.” Maimon, Fichte,
Hegel, and others make the same claim. By the time of Feuerbach it was also
used to characterize a basic feature of Christianity: the denial of the world
or worldliness. Cosmologicum --
emanationism, a doctrine about the origin and ontological structure of the
world, most frequently associated with Plotinus and other Neoplatonists,
according to which everything else that exists is an emanation from a
primordial unity, called by Plotinus “the One.” The first product of emanation
from the One is Intelligence noûs, a realm resembling Plato’s world of Forms.
From Intelligence emanates Soul psuche, conceived as an active principle that
imposes, insofar as that is possible, the rational structure of Intelligence on
the matter that emanates from Soul. The process of emanation is typically
conceived to be necessary and timeless: although Soul, for instance, proceeds
from Intelligence, the notion of procession is one of logical dependence rather
than temporal sequence. The One remains unaffected and undiminished by
emanation: Plotinus likens the One to the sun, which necessarily emits light
from its naturally infinite abundance without suffering change or loss of its
own substance. Although emanationism influenced some Jewish, Christian, and
Islamic thinkers, it was incompatible with those theistic doctrines of divine
activity that maintained that God’s creative choice and the world thus created
were contingent, and that God can, if he chooses, interact directly with
individual creatures.
cotton onto the implicatum: this is not
cognate with the plant. It’s Welsh, rather.Strawson’s and Wiggins’s example of
the ‘suggestio falsi’ – or alternative to Grice’s tutee example. Since Strawson
and Wiggins are presenting the thing to the ultra-prestigious British Academy,
they thought a ‘tutee’ example would not be prestigious enough. So they have
two philosophers, Strawson and Grice, talking about a third party, another
philosopher, well known by his mood outbursts. They are assessing the third
party’s philosophical abilities at their London club. Strawson volunteers: “And
Smith?”. Grice responds: “If he had a more angelic temperament…” Strawson,
“like a fool, I rushed in – Strawson Wiggins p. 520. The angelic temperament.
To like someone or something; to view someone or something favorably. ... After
we explained our plan again, the rest of the group seemed to cotton onto it. 2. To begin to
understand something. Has nothing to do with cotton 1560s, "to prosper,
succeed;" of things, "to agree, suit, fit," a word of uncertain
origin. Perhaps from Welsh cytuno "consent, agree;" but perhaps
rather a metaphor from cloth-finishing and thus from cotton (n.).
Hensleigh Wedgwood compares cot "a fleece of wool matted together."
Meaning "become closely or intimately associated (with)," is from
1805 via the sense of "to get along together" (of persons), attested
from c. 1600. Related: Cottoned; cottoning.
Cournot: H. P. Grice
draws from Cournot for his idea of a scientific law. -- Antoine-Augustin, a
critical realist in scientific and philosophical matters, he was a conservative
in religion and politics. His Researches into the Mathematical Principles of
the Theory of Wealth 1838, though a fiasco at the time, pioneered mathematical
economics. Cournot upheld a position midway between science and metaphysics.
His philosophy rests on three basic counteridenticals Cournot,
Antoine-Augustin concepts: order,
chance, and probability. The Exposition of the Theory of Chances and
Probabilities 1843 focuses on the calculus of probability, unfolds a theory of
chance occurrences, and distinguishes among objective, subjective, and
philosophical probability. The Essay on the Foundations of Knowledge 1861
defines science as logically organized knowledge. Cournot developed a
probabilist epistemology, showed the relevance of probabilism to the scientific
study of human acts, and further assumed the existence of a providential and
complex order undergirding the universe. Materialism, Vitalism, Rationalism
1875 acknowledges transrationalism and makes room for finality, purpose, and
God.
Craig’s interpolation
theorem, a theorem for firstorder logic: if a sentence y of first-order logic
entails a sentence q there is an “interpolant,” a sentence F in the vocabulary
common to q and y that entails q and is entailed by y. Originally, William
Craig proved his theorem in 7 as a lemma, to give a simpler proof of Beth’s
definability theorem, but the result now stands on its own. In abstract model
theory, logics for which an interpolation theorem holds are said to have the
Craig interpolation property. Craig’s interpolation theorem shows that
first-order logic is closed under implicit definability, so that the concepts
embodied in first-order logic are all given explicitly. In the philosophy of
science literature ‘Craig’s theorem’ usually refers to another result of
Craig’s: that any recursively enumerable set of sentences of first-order logic
can be axiomatized. This has been used to argue that theoretical terms are in
principle eliminable from empirical theories. Assuming that an empirical theory
can be axiomatized in first-order logic, i.e., that there is a recursive set of
first-order sentences from which all theorems of the theory can be proven, it
follows that the set of consequences of the axioms in an “observational”
sublanguage is a recursively enumerable set. Thus, by Craig’s theorem, there is
a set of axioms for this subtheory, the Craig-reduct, that contains only
observation terms. Interestingly, the Craig-reduct theory may be semantically
weaker, in the sense that it may have models that cannot be extended to a model
of the full theory. The existence of such a model would prove that the
theoretical terms cannot all be defined on the basis of the observational
vocabulary only, a result related to Beth’s definability theorem.
Crazy-bayesy – cited by
H. P. Grice, “Aspects of reason.” Bayesian rationality, minimally, a property a
system of beliefs or the believer has in virtue of the system’s “conforming to
the probability calculus.” “Bayesians” differ on what “rationality” requires,
but most agree that i beliefs come in degrees of firmness; ii these “degrees of
belief” are theoretically or ideally quantifiable; iii such quantification can
be understood in terms of person-relative, time-indexed “credence functions”
from appropriate sets of objects of belief propositions or sentences each set closed under at least finite
truth-functional combinations into the
set of real numbers; iv at any given time t, a person’s credence function at t
ought to be usually: “on pain of a Dutch book argument” a probability function;
that is, a mapping from the given set into the real numbers in such a way that
the “probability” the value assigned to any given object A in the set is
greater than or equal to zero, and is equal to unity % 1 if A is a necessary
truth, and, for any given objects A and B in the set, if A and B are
incompatible the negation of their conjunction is a necessary truth then the
probability assigned to their disjunction is equal to the sum of the
probabilities assigned to each; so that the usual propositional probability
axioms impose a sort of logic on degrees of belief. If a credence function is a
probability function, then it or the believer at the given time is “coherent.”
On these matters, on conditional degrees of belief, and on the further
constraint on rationality many Bayesians impose that change of belief ought to
accord with “conditionalization”, the reader should consult John Earman, Bayes
or Bust? A Critical Examination of Bayesian Confirmation Theory 2; Colin Howson
and Peter Urbach, Scientific Reasoning: The Bayesian Approach 9; and Richard
Jeffrey, The Logic of Decision 5.
Crazy-bayesy -- Bayes’s
theorem, any of several relationships between prior and posterior probabilities
or odds, especially 13 below. All of these depend upon the basic relationship 0
between contemporaneous conditional and unconditional probabilities.
Non-Bayesians think these useful only in narrow ranges of cases, generally
because of skepticism about accessibility or significance of priors. According
to 1, posterior probability is prior probability times the “relevance quotient”
Carnap’s term. According to 2, posterior odds are Bayesian Bayes’s theorem
74 74 prior odds times the “likelihood
ratio” R. A. Fisher’s term. Relationship 3 comes from 1 by expanding P data via
the law of total probability. Bayes’s rule 4 for updating probabilities has you
set your new unconditional probabilities equal to your old conditional ones
when fresh certainty about data leaves probabilities conditionally upon the
data unchanged. The corresponding rule 5 has you do the same for odds. In
decision theory the term is used differently, for the rule “Choose so as to
maximize expectation of utility.”
credibility: While Grice uses ‘probability’ as the correlatum of
desirability, he suggests ‘credibility’ is a better choice. It relates to the
‘creditum.’ Now, what is the generic for ‘trust’ when it comes to the creditum
and the desideratum? An indicative utterance expresses a belief. The utterer is
candid if he holds that belief. “Candid” applies to imperative utterances which
express genuine desires and notably the emissor’s intention that his recipient
will form a ‘desideratum.’ Following
Jeffrey and Davidson, respectively, Grice uses ‘desirability’ and
‘probability,’ but sometimes ‘credibibility,’ realizing that ‘credibility’ is
more symmetrical with ‘desirability’ than ‘probability’ is. Urmson had explored
this in “Parenthetical verbs.” Urmson co-relates, ‘certaintly’ with ‘know’ and
‘probably’ with ‘believe.’ But Urmson adds four further adverbs: “knowingly,”
“unknowingly,” “believably,” and “unbelievably.” Urmson also includes three
more: “uncredibly,” in variation with “incredibly,” and ‘credibly.” The keyword
should be ‘credibility.’
creditum: The Romans were good at this. Notably in negative
contexts. They distinguished between an emissor being fallax and being mendax.
It all has to do with ‘creditum.’ “Creditum’ is vero, more or less along
correspondence-theoretical lines. Used by Grice for the doxastic equivalent of
the buletic or desideratum. A creditum is an implicatum, as Grice defines the
implicatum of the content that an addresse has to assume the utterer BELIEVES
to deem him rational. The ‘creditum’-condition is essential for Grice in his
‘exhibitive’ account to the communication. By uttering “Smoke!”, U means that
there is some if the utterer intends that his addressee BELIEVE that he, the
utterer, is in a state of soul which has the propositional complex there is
smoke. It is worth noting that BELIEF is not needed for the immediate state of
the utterer’s soul: this can always be either a desire or a belief. But a
belief is REQUIRED as the immediate (if not ultimate) response intended by the
utterer that his addressee adapt. It is curious that given the primacy that
Grice held of the desirability over the credibility that many of his
conversational maxims are formulated as imperatives aimed at matters of belief,
conditions and value of credibility, probability and adequate evidence. In the
cases where Grice emphasizes ‘information,’ which one would associate with
‘belief,’ this association may be dropped provided the exhibitive account: you
can always influence or be influenced by others in the institution of a common
decision provided you give and receive the optimal information, or rather,
provided the conversationalists assume that they are engaged in a MAXIMAL
exchange of information. That ‘information’ does not necessarily apply to
‘belief’ is obvious in how complicated an order can get, “Get me a bottle”. “Is
that all?” “No, get me a bottle and make sure that it is of French wine, and
add something to drink the wine with, and drive careful, and give my love to
Rosie.” No belief is explicitly transmitted, yet the order seems informative
enough. Grice sometimes does use ‘informative’ in a strict context involving
credibility. He divides the mode of credibility into informational (when
addressed to others) and indicative (when addressed to self), for in a
self-addressed utterance such as, “I am being silly,” one cannot intend to
inform oneself of something one already knows! The English have ‘credibility’
and belief,
which is cognate with ‘love.’ H. P. Grice, “Disposition and belief,” H. P.
Grice, “Knowledge and belief.” a dispositional psychological state in virtue of
which a person will assent to a proposition under certain conditions.
Propositional knowledge, traditionally understood, entails belief. A behavioral
view implies that beliefs are just dispositions to behave in certain ways. Your
believing that the stove is hot is just your being disposed to act in a manner
appropriate to its being hot. The problem is that our beliefs, including their
propositional content indicated by a “that”-clause, typically explain why we do
what we do. You avoid touching the stove because you believe that it’s
dangerously hot. Explaining action via beliefs refers indispensably to
propositional content, but the behavioral view does not accommodate this. A
state-object view implies that belief consists of a special relation between a
psychological state and an object of belief, what is believed. The objects of
belief, traditionally understood, are abstract propositions existing
independently of anyone’s thinking of them. The state of believing is a
propositional attitude involving some degree of confidence toward a
propositional object of belief. Such a view allows that two persons, even
separated by a long period of time, can believe the same thing. A state-object
view allows that beliefs be dispositional rather than episodic, since they can
exist while no action is occurring. Such a view grants, however, that one can
have a disposition to act owing to believing something. Regarding mental
action, a belief typically generates a disposition to assent, at least under
appropriate circumstances, to the proposition believed. Given the central role
of propositional content, however, a state-object view denies that beliefs are
just dispositions to act. In addition, such a view should distinguish between
dispositional believing and a mere disposition to believe. One can be merely
disposed to believe many things that one does not actually believe, owing to
one’s lacking the appropriate psychological attitude to relevant propositional
content. Beliefs are either occurrent or non-occurrent. Occurrent belief,
unlike non-occurrent belief, requires current assent to the proposition
believed. If the assent is self-conscious, the belief is an explicit occurrent
belief; if the assent is not self-conscious, the belief is an implicit
occurrent behaviorism, supervenient belief 78
78 belief. Non-occurrent beliefs permit that we do not cease to believe
that 2 ! 2 % 4, for instance, merely because we now happen to be thinking of
something else or nothing at all. . --
belief revision, the process by which cognitive states change in light of new
information. This topic looms large in discussions of Bayes’s Theorem and other
approaches in decision theory. The reasons prompting belief revision are
characteristically epistemic; they concern such notions as quality of evidence
and the tendency to yield truths. Many different rules have been proposed for
updating one’s belief set. In general, belief revision typically balances risk
of error against information increase. Belief revision is widely thought to
proceed either by expansion or by conceptual revision. Expansion occurs in
virtue of new observations; a belief is changed, or a new belief established,
when a hypothesis or provisional belief is supported by evidence whose
probability is high enough to meet a favored criterion of epistemic warrant.
The hypothesis then becomes part of the existing belief corpus, or is
sufficient to prompt revision. Conceptual revision occurs when appropriate
changes are made in theoretical assumptions
in accordance with such principles as simplicity and explanatory or
predictive power by which the corpus is
organized. In actual cases, we tend to revise beliefs with an eye toward
advancing the best comprehensive explanation in the relevant cognitive
domain.
Crescas, Hasdai
d.1412, Jewish philosopher, theologian,
and statesman. He was a well-known representative of the Jewish community in
both Barcelona and Saragossa. Following the death of his son in the anti-Jewish
riots of 1391, he wrote a chronicle of the massacres published as an appendix
to Ibn Verga, Shevet Yehudah, ed. M. Wiener, 1855. Crescas’s devotion to
protecting Jewry in a time when conversion
was encouraged is documented in one extant work, the Refutation of Christian
Dogmas 139798, found in the 1451 Hebrew translation of Joseph ibn Shem Tov
Bittul ’Iqqarey ha-Nofrim. His major philosophical work, Or Adonai The Light of
the Lord, was intended as the first of a two-part project that was to include
his own more extensive systematization of halakha Jewish law as well as a
critique of Maimonides’ work. But this second part, “Lamp of the Divine
Commandment,” was never written. Or Adonai is a philosophico-dogmatic response
to and attack on the Aristotelian doctrines that Crescas saw as a threat to the
Jewish faith, doctrines concerning the nature of God, space, time, place, free
will, and infinity. For theological reasons he attempts to refute basic tenets
in Aristotelian physics. He offers, e.g., a critique of Aristotle’s arguments
against the existence of a vacuum. The Aristotelian view of time is rejected as
well. Time, like space, is thought by Crescas to be infinite. Furthermore, it
is not an accident of motion, but rather exists only in the soul. In defending
the fundamental doctrines of the Torah, Crescas must address the question
discussed by his predecessors Maimonides and Gersonides, namely that of
reconciling divine foreknowledge with human freedom. Unlike these two thinkers,
Crescas adopts a form of determinism, arguing that God knows both the possible
and what will necessarily take place. An act is contingent with respect to
itself, and necessary with respect to its causes and God’s knowledge. To be
willed freely, then, is not for an act to be absolutely contingent, but rather
for it to be “willed internally” as opposed to “willed externally.” Reactions
to Crescas’s doctrines were mixed. Isaac Abrabanel, despite his respect for
Crescas’s piety, rejected his views as either “unintelligible” or
“simple-minded.” On the other hand, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola appeals to
Crescas’s critique of Aristotelian physics; Judah Abrabanel’s Dialogues of Love
may be seen as accommodating Crescas’s metaphysical views; and Spinoza’s
notions of necessity, freedom, and extension may well be influenced by the
doctrines of Or Adonai.
Grice’s criterion for the
implicatum, -- cf. G. P. Baker, “Grice and criterial semantics” -- broadly, a
sufficient condition for the presence of a certain property or for the truth of
a certain proposition. Generally, a criterion need be sufficient merely in
normal circumstances rather than absolutely sufficient. Typically, a criterion
is salient in some way, often by virtue of being a necessary condition as well
as a sufficient one. The plural form, ‘criteria’, is commonly used for a set of
singly necessary and jointly sufficient conditions. A set of truth conditions
is said to be criterial for the truth of propositions of a certain form. A
conceptual analysis of a philosophically important concept may take the form of
a proposed set of truth conditions for paradigmatic propositions containing the
concept in question. Philosophers have proposed criteria for such notions as meaningfulness,
intentionality, creationism, theological criterion knowledge, justification, justice,
rightness, and identity including personal identity and event identity, among
many others. There is a special use of the term in connection with Vitters’s
well-known remark that “an ‘inner process’ stands in need of outward criteria,”
e.g., moans and groans for aches and pains. The suggestion is that a
criteriological connection is needed to forge a conceptual link between items
of a sort that are intelligible and knowable to items of a sort that, but for
the connection, would not be intelligible or knowable. A mere symptom cannot
provide such a connection, for establishing a correlation between a symptom and
that for which it is a symptom presupposes that the latter is intelligible and
knowable. One objection to a criteriological view, whether about aches or
quarks, is that it clashes with realism about entities of the sort in question
and lapses into, as the case may be, behaviorism or instrumentalism. For it
seems that to posit a criteriological connection is to suppose that the nature
and existence of entities of a given sort can depend on the conditions for
their intelligibility or knowability, and that is to put the epistemological
cart before the ontological horse.
critical legal studies:
explored by Grice in his analysis of legal vs. moral right -- a loose assemblage of legal writings and
thinkers in the United States and Great Britain since the mid-0s that aspire to
a jurisprudence and a political ideology. Like the legal realists of the 0s and 0s, the
jurisprudential program is largely negative, consisting in the discovery of
supposed contradictions within both the law as a whole and areas of law such as
contracts and criminal law. The jurisprudential implication derived from such
supposed contradictions within the law is that any decision in any case can be
defended as following logically from some authoritative propositions of law,
making the law completely without guidance in particular cases. Also like
the legal realists, the political
ideology of critical legal studies is vaguely leftist, embracing the
communitarian critique of liberalism. Communitarians fault liberalism for its
alleged overemphasis on individual rights and individual welfare at the expense
of the intrinsic value of certain collective goods. Given the cognitive
relativism of many of its practitioners, critical legal studies tends not to
aspire to have anything that could be called a theory of either law or of
politics.
Grice’s critique of
conversational reason -- Critical Realism, a philosophy that at the highest
level of generality purports to integrate the positive insights of both New
Realism and idealism. New Realism was the first wave of realistic reaction to
the dominant idealism of the nineteenth century. It was a version of immediate
and direct realism. In its attempt to avoid any representationalism that would
lead to idealism, this tradition identified the immediate data of consciousness
with objects in the physical world. There is no intermediary between the knower
and the known. This heroic tour de force foundered on the phenomena of error,
illusion, and perceptual variation, and gave rise to a successor realism Critical Realism that acknowledged the mediation of “the
mental” in our cognitive grasp of the physical world. ’Critical Realism’ was
the title of a work in epistemology by Roy Wood Sellars 6, but its more general
use to designate the broader movement derives from the 0 cooperative volume,
Essays in Critical Realism: A Cooperative Study of the Problem of Knowledge,
containing position papers by Durant Drake, A. O. Lovejoy, J. B. Pratt, A. K.
Rogers, C. A. Strong, George Santayana, and Roy Wood Sellars. With New Realism,
Critical Realism maintains that the primary object of knowledge is the
independent physical world, and that what is immediately present to
consciousness is not the physical object as such, but some corresponding mental
state broadly construed. Whereas both New Realism and idealism grew out of the
conviction that any such mediated account of knowledge is untenable, the
Critical Realists felt that only if knowledge of the external world is
explained in terms of a process of mental mediation, can error, illusion, and
perceptual variation be accommodated. One could fashion an account of mental
mediation that did not involve the pitfalls of Lockean representationalism by
carefully distinguishing between the object known and the mental state through
which it is known. The Critical Realists differed among themselves both
epistemologically and metaphysically. The mediating elements in cognition were
variously construed as essences, ideas, or sensedata, and the precise role of
these items in cognicriterion, problem of the Critical Realism tion was again variously construed.
Metaphysically, some were dualists who saw knowledge as unexplainable in terms
of physical processes, whereas others principally Santayana and Sellars were
materialists who saw cognition as simply a function of conscious biological systems.
The position of most lasting influence was probably that of Sellars because
that torch was taken up by his son, Wilfrid, whose very sophisticated
development of it was quite influential.
-- critical theory, any social theory that is at the same time
explanatory, normative, practical, and self-reflexive. The term was first
developed by Horkheimer as a self-description of the Frankfurt School and its
revision of Marxism. It now has a wider significance to include any critical,
theoretical approach, including feminism and liberation philosophy. When they
make claims to be scientific, such approaches attempt to give rigorous
explanations of the causes of oppression, such as ideological beliefs or
economic dependence; these explanations must in turn be verified by empirical
evidence and employ the best available social and economic theories. Such
explanations are also normative and critical, since they imply negative
evaluations of current social practices. The explanations are also practical,
in that they provide a better self-understanding for agents who may want to
improve the social conditions that the theory negatively evaluates. Such change
generally aims at “emancipation,” and theoretical insight empowers agents to
remove limits to human freedom and the causes of human suffering. Finally,
these theories must also be self-reflexive: they must account for their own
conditions of possibility and for their potentially transformative effects.
These requirements contradict the standard account of scientific theories and
explanations, particularly positivism and its separation of fact and value. For
this reason, the methodological writings of critical theorists often attack
positivism and empiricism and attempt to construct alternative epistemologies.
Critical theorists also reject relativism, since the cultural relativity of
norms would undermine the basis of critical evaluation of social practices and
emancipatory change. The difference between critical and non-critical theories
can be illustrated by contrasting the Marxian and Mannheimian theories of
ideology. Whereas Mannheim’s theory merely describes relations between ideas of
social conditions, Marx’s theory tries to show how certain social practices
require false beliefs about them by their participants. Marx’s theory not only
explains why this is so, it also negatively evaluates those practices; it is
practical in that by disillusioning participants, it makes them capable of
transformative action. It is also self-reflexive, since it shows why some practices
require illusions and others do not, and also why social crises and conflicts
will lead agents to change their circumstances. It is scientific, in that it
appeals to historical evidence and can be revised in light of better theories
of social action, language, and rationality. Marx also claimed that his theory
was superior for its special “dialectical method,” but this is now disputed by
most critical theorists, who incorporate many different theories and methods.
This broader definition of critical theory, however, leaves a gap between
theory and practice and places an extra burden on critics to justify their
critical theories without appeal to such notions as inevitable historical
progress. This problem has made critical theories more philosophical and
concerned with questions of justification.
Grice’s critters – one is
never sure if Grice uses ‘creature’ seriously! creation ex nihilo, the act of
bringing something into existence from nothing. According to traditional
Christian theology, God created the world ex nihilo. To say that the world was
created from nothing does not mean that there was a prior non-existent
substance out of which it was fashioned, but rather that there was not anything
out of which God brought it into being. However, some of the patristics
influenced by Plotinus, such as Gregory of Nyssa, apparently understood
creation ex nihilo to be an emanation from God according to which what is
created comes, not from nothing, but from God himself. Not everything that God
makes need be created ex nihilo; or if, as in Genesis 2: 7, 19, God made a
human being and animals from the ground, a previously existing material, God
did not create them from nothing. Regardless of how bodies are made, orthodox
theology holds that human souls are created ex nihilo; the opposing view,
traducianism, holds that souls are propagated along with bodies. creationism, acceptance of the early chapters
of Genesis taken literally. Genesis claims that the universe and all of its
living creatures including humans were created by God in the space of six days.
The need to find some way of reconciling this story with the claims of science
intensified in the nineteenth century, with the publication of Darwin’s Origin
of Species 1859. In the Southern states of the United States, the indigenous
form of evangelical Protestant Christianity declared total opposition to
evolutionism, refusing any attempt at reconciliation, and affirming total
commitment to a literal “creationist” reading of the Bible. Because of this,
certain states passed laws banning the teaching of evolutionism. More recently,
literalists have argued that the Bible can be given full scientific backing,
and they have therefore argued that “Creation science” may properly be taught
in state-supported schools in the United States without violation of the
constitutional separation of church and state. This claim was challenged in the
state of Arkansas in 1, and ultimately rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court. The
creationism dispute has raised some issues of philosophical interest and
importance. Most obviously, there is the question of what constitutes a genuine
science. Is there an adequate criterion of demarcation between science and
nonscience, and will it put evolutionism on the one side and creationism on the
other? Some philosophers, arguing in the spirit of Karl Popper, think that such
a criterion can be found. Others are not so sure; and yet others think that
some such criterion can be found, but shows creationism to be genuine science,
albeit already proven false. Philosophers of education have also taken an
interest in creationism and what it represents. If one grants that even the
most orthodox science may contain a value component, reflecting and influencing
its practitioners’ culture, then teaching a subject like biology almost
certainly is not a normatively neutral enterprise. In that case, without
necessarily conceding to the creationist anything about the true nature of
science or values, perhaps one must agree that science with its teaching is not
something that can and should be set apart from the rest of society, as an
entirely distinct phenomenon.
Grice as Croceian –
expression and intention -- Croce, B., philosopher. He was born at
Pescasseroli, in the Abruzzi, and after 6 lived in Naples. He briefly attended
the of Rome and was led to study
Herbart’s philosophy. In 4 he founded the influential journal La critica. In 0
he was made life member of the senate.
Early in his career he befriended Giovanni Gentile, but this friendship was
breached by Gentile’s Fascism. During the Fascist period and World War II Croce
lived in isolation as the chief anti-fascist thinker in Italy. He later became
a leader of the Liberal party and at the age of eighty founded the Institute
for Historical Studies. Croce was a literary and historical scholar who joined
his great interest in these fields to philosophy. His best-known work in the
Englishspeaking world is Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General
Linguistic 2. This was the first part of his “Philosophy of Spirit”; the second
was his Logic 5, the third his theory of the Practical 9, and the fourth his
Historiography 7. Croce was influenced by Hegel and the Hegelian aesthetician
Francesco De Sanctis 181783 and by Vico’s conceptions of knowledge, history, and
society. He wrote The Philosophy of Giambattista Vico 1 and a famous commentary
on Hegel, What Is Living and What Is critical theory Croce, Benedetto Dead in the Philosophy of Hegel 7, in
which he advanced his conception of the “dialectic of distincts” as more
fundamental than the Hegelian dialectic of opposites. Croce held that
philosophy always springs from the occasion, a view perhaps rooted in his
concrete studies of history. He accepted the general Hegelian identification of
philosophy with the history of philosophy. His philosophy originates from his
conception of aesthetics. Central to his aesthetics is his view of intuition,
which evolved through various stages during his career. He regards aesthetic
experience as a primitive type of cognition. Intuition involves an awareness of
a particular image, which constitutes a non-conceptual form of knowledge. Art
is the expression of emotion but not simply for its own sake. The expression of
emotion can produce cognitive awareness in the sense that the particular
intuited as an image can have a cosmic aspect, so that in it the universal
human spirit is perceived. Such perception is present especially in the
masterpieces of world literature. Croce’s conception of aesthetic has
connections with Kant’s “intuition” Anschauung and to an extent with Vico’s
conception of a primordial form of thought based in imagination fantasia.
Croce’s philosophical idealism includes fully developed conceptions of logic,
science, law, history, politics, and ethics. His influence to date has been
largely in the field of aesthetics and in historicist conceptions of knowledge
and culture. His revival of Vico has inspired a whole school of Vico
scholarship. Croce’s conception of a “Philosophy of Spirit” showed it was
possible to develop a post-Hegelian philosophy that, with Hegel, takes “the
true to be the whole” but which does not simply imitate Hegel. Croce -- expression theory of art, a theory
that defines art as the expression of feelings or emotion sometimes called
expressionism in art. Such theories first acquired major importance in the
nineteenth century in connection with the rise of Romanticism. Expression
theories are as various as the different views about what counts as expressing
emotion. There are four main variants. 1 Expression as communication. This
requires that the artist actually have the feelings that are expressed, when
they are initially expressed. They are “embodied” in some external form, and
thereby transmitted to the perceiver. Leo Tolstoy 18280 held a view of this
sort. 2 Expression as intuition. An intuition is the apprehension of the unity
and individuality of something. An intuition is “in the mind,” and hence the
artwork is also. Croce held this view, and in his later work argued that the
unity of an intuition is established by feeling. 3 Expression as clarification.
An artist starts out with vague, undefined feelings, and expression is a
process of coming to clarify, articulate, and understand them. This view
retains Croce’s idea that expression is in the artist’s mind, as well as
explanation, covering law expression theory of art 299 299 his view that we are all artists to the
degree that we articulate, clarify, and come to understand our own feelings.
Collingwood held this view. 4 Expression as a property of the object. For an
artwork to be an expression of emotion is for it to have a given structure or
form. Suzanne K. Langer 55 argued that music and the other arts “presented” or
exhibited structures or forms of feeling in general.
Grice’s crucial experiment,
a means of deciding between rival theories that, providing parallel
explanations of large classes of phenomena, come to be placed at issue by a
single fact. For example, the Newtonian emission theory predicts that light
travels faster in water than in air; according to the wave theory, light
travels slower in water than in air. Dominique François Arago proposed a
crucial experiment comparing the respective velocities. Léon Foucault then
devised an apparatus to measure the speed of light in various media and found a
lower velocity in water than in air. Arago and Foucault concluded for the wave
theory, believing that the experiment refuted the emission theory. Other
examples include Galileo’s discovery of the phases of Venus Ptolemaic versus
Copernican astronomy, Pascal’s Puy-de-Dôme experiment with the barometer
vacuists versus plenists, Fresnel’s prediction of a spot of light in circular
shadows particle versus wave optics, and Eddington’s measurement of the
gravitational bending of light rays during a solar eclipse Newtonian versus
Einsteinian gravitation. At issue in crucial experiments is usually a novel
prediction. The notion seems to derive from Francis Bacon, whose New Organon
1620 discusses the “Instance of the Fingerpost Instantia later experimentum crucis,” a term borrowed from the post set up
at crossroads to indicate several directions. Crucial experiments were
emphasized in early nineteenth-century scientific methodology e.g., in John F. Herschel’s A Preliminary
Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy 1830. Duhem argued that crucial
experiments resemble false dilemmas: hypotheses in physics do not come in
pairs, so that crucial experiments cannot transform one of the two into a
demonstrated truth. Discussing Foucault’s experiment, Duhem asks whether we
dare assert that no other hypothesis is imaginable and suggests that instead of
light being either a simple particle or wave, light might be something else,
perhaps a disturbance propagated within a dielectric medium, as theorized by Maxwell.
In the twentieth century, crucial experiments and novel predictions figured
prominently in the work of Imre Lakatos 274. Agreeing that crucial experiments
are unable to overthrow theories, Lakatos accepted them as retroactive
indications of the fertility or progress of research programs.
Crusius: As C. of E.,
Grice was pretty protestant -- Christian August, philosopher, theologian, and a
devout Lutheran pastor who believed that religion was endangered by the
rationalist views especially of Wolff. He devoted his considerable
philosophical powers to working out acute and often deep criticisms of Wolff
and developing a comprehensive alternative to the Wolffian system. His main
philosophical works were published in the 1740s. In his understanding of epistemology
and logic Crusius broke with many of the assumptions that allowed Wolff to
argue from how we think of things to how things are. For instance, Crusius
tried to show that the necessity in causal connection is not the same as
logical necessity. He rejected the Leibnizian view that this world is probably
the best possible world, and he criticrucial experiment Crusius, Christian
August cized the Wolffian view of
freedom of the will as merely a concealed spiritual mechanism. His ethics
stressed our dependence on God and his commands, as did the natural law theory
of Pufendorf, but he developed the view in some strikingly original ways.
Rejecting voluntarism, Crusius held that God’s commands take the form of innate
principles of the will not the understanding. Everyone alike can know what they
are, so contra Wolff there is no need for moral experts. And they carry their
own motivational force with them, so there is no need for external sanctions.
We have obligations of prudence to do what will forward our own ends; but true
obligation, the obligation of virtue, arises only when we act simply to comply
with God’s law, regardless of any ends of our own. In this distinction between
two kinds of obligation, as in many of his other views, Crusius plainly anticipated
much that Kant came to think. Kant when young read and admired his work, and it
is mainly for this reason that Crusius is now remembered.
Cudworth, Damaris, Lady
Masham, English philosopher and author of two treatises on religion, A
Discourse Concerning the Love of God 1690 and Occasional Thoughts in Reference
to a Virtuous Christian Life 1705. The first argues against the views of the
English Malebranchian, John Norris; the second, ostensibly about the importance
of education for women, argues for the need to establish natural religion on
rational principles and explores the place of revealed religion within a
rational framework. Cudworth’s reputation is founded on her long friendship
with John Locke. Her correspondence with him is almost entirely personal; she
also entered into a brief but philosophically interesting exchange of letters
with Leibniz.
Cumberland -- Law – Grice
was obsessed with laws that would introduce psychological concepts --
Cumberland, R. English philosopher and bishop. He wrote a Latin Treatise of the
Laws of Nature 1672, tr. twice into English and once into . Admiring Grotius,
Cumberland hoped to refute Hobbes in the interests of defending Christian
morality and religion. He refused to appeal to innate ideas and a priori
arguments because he thought Hobbes must be attacked on his own ground. Hence
he offered a reductive and naturalistic account of natural law. The one basic
moral law of nature is that the pursuit of the good of all rational beings is
the best path to the agent’s own good. This is true because God made nature so
that actions aiding others are followed by beneficial consequences to the
agent, while those harmful to others harm the agent. Since the natural
consequences of actions provide sanctions that, once we know them, will make us
act for the good of others, we can conclude that there is a divine law by which
we are obligated to act for the common good. And all the other laws of nature
follow from the basic law. Cumberland refused to discuss free will, thereby
suggesting a view of human action as fully determined by natural causes. If on
his theory it is a blessing that God made nature including humans to work as it
does, the religious reader must wonder if there is any role left for God
concerning morality. Cumberland is generally viewed as a major forerunner of
utilitarianism.
Induction – Grice knew a
lot about induction theory via Kneale and Keynes -- curve-fitting problem, the
problem of making predictions from past observations by fitting curves to the
data. Curve fitting has two steps: first, select a family of curves; then, find
the bestfitting curve by some statistical criterion such as the method of least
squares e.g., choose the curve that has the least sum of squared deviations
between the curve and data. The method was first proposed by Adrian Marie
Legendre 17521833 and Carl Friedrich Gauss 1777 1855 in the early nineteenth
century as a way of inferring planetary trajectories from noisy data. More
generally, curve fitting may be used to construct low-level empirical
generalizations. For example, suppose that the ideal gas law, P % nkT, is
chosen as the form of the law governing the dependence of the pressure P on the
equilibrium temperature T of a fixed volume of gas, where n is the molecular number
per unit volume and k is Boltzmann’s constant a universal constant equal to
1.3804 $ 10†16 erg°C†1. When the parameter nk is adjustable, the law specifies
a family of curves one for each
numerCudworth, Damaris curve-fitting problem
ical value of the parameter. Curve fitting may be used to determine the
best-fitting member of the family, thereby effecting a measurement of the
theoretical parameter, nk. The philosophically vexing problem is how to justify
the initial choice of the form of the law. On the one hand, one might choose a
very large, complex family of curves, which would ensure excellent fit with any
data set. The problem with this option is that the best-fitting curve may
overfit the data. If too much attention is paid to the random elements of the
data, then the predictively useful trends and regularities will be missed. If
it looks too good to be true, it probably is. On the other hand, simpler
families run a greater risk of making grossly false assumptions about the true
form of the law. Intuitively, the solution is to choose a simplefamily of
curves that maintains a reasonable degree of fit. The simplicity of a family of
curves is measured by the paucity of parameters. The problem is to say how and
why such a trade-off between simplicity and goodness of fit should be made.
When a theory can accommodate recalcitrant data only by the ad hoc i.e., improperly motivated addition of new terms and parameters, students
of science have long felt that the subsequent increase in the degree of fit should
not count in the theory’s favor, and such additions are sometimes called ad hoc
hypotheses. The best-known example of this sort of ad hoc hypothesizing is the
addition of epicycles upon epicycles in the planetary astronomies of Ptolemy
and Copernicus. This is an example in which a gain in fit need not compensate
for the loss of simplicity. Contemporary philosophers sometimes formulate the
curve-fitting problem differently. They often assume that there is no noise in
the data, and speak of the problem of choosing among different curves that fit
the data exactly. Then the problem is to choose the simplest curve from among
all those curves that pass through every data point. The problem is that there
is no universally accepted way of defining the simplicity of single curves. No
matter how the problem is formulated, it is widely agreed that simplicity
should play some role in theory choice. Rationalists have championed the
curve-fitting problem as exemplifying the underdetermination of theory from
data and the need to make a priori assumptions about the simplicity of nature.
Those philosophers who think that we have no such a priori knowledge still need
to account for the relevance of simplicity to science. Whewell described curve
fitting as the colligation of facts in the quantitative sciences, and the
agreement in the measured parameters coefficients obtained by different
colligations of facts as the consilience of inductions. Different colligations
of facts say on the same gas at different volume or for other gases may yield
good agreement among independently measured values of parameters like the
molecular density of the gas and Boltzmann’s constant. By identifying different
parameters found to agree, we constrain the form of the law without appealing to
a priori knowledge good news for empiricism. But the accompanying increase in
unification also worsens the overall degree of fit. Thus, there is also the
problem of how and why we should trade off unification with total degree of
fit. Statisticians often refer to a family of hypotheses as a model. A rapidly
growing literature in statistics on model selection has not yet produced any
universally accepted formula for trading off simplicity with degree of fit.
However, there is wide agreement among statisticians that the paucity of
parameters is the appropriate way of measuring simplicity.
Grice’s defense of
modernist logic -- cut-elimination theorem, a theorem stating that a certain
type of inference rule including a rule that corresponds to modus ponens is not
needed in classical logic. The idea was anticipated by J. Herbrand; the theorem
was proved by G. Gentzen and generalized by S. Kleene. Gentzen formulated a
sequent calculus i.e., a deductive
system with rules for statements about derivability. It includes a rule that we
here express as ‘From C Y D,M and M,C Y D, infer C Y D’ or ‘Given that C yields
D or M, and that C plus M yields D, we may infer that C yields D’. Cusa
cut-elimination theorem This is
called the cut rule because it cuts out the middle formula M. Gentzen showed
that his sequent calculus is an adequate formalization of the predicate logic,
and that the cut rule can be eliminated; anything provable with it can be
proved without it. One important consequence of this is that, if a formula F is
provable, then there is a proof of F that consists solely of subformulas of F.
This fact simplifies the study of provability. Gentzen’s methodology applies
directly to classical logic but can be adapted to many nonclassical logics,
including some intuitionistic logics. It has led to some important theorems
about consistency, and has illuminated the role of auxiliary assumptions in the
derivation of consequences from a theory.
Cybernic implicature –
Grice “Method in philosophical psychology” -- cybernetics coined by N. Wiener
in 7 from Grecian kubernetes, ‘helmsman’, the study of the communication and
manipulation of information in service of the control and guidance of
biological, physical, or chemical energy systems. Historically, cybernetics has
been intertwined with mathematical theories of information communication and
computation. To describe the cybernetic properties of systems or processes
requires ways to describe and measure information reduce uncertainty about
events within the system and its environment. Feedback and feedforward, the
basic ingredients of cybernetic processes, involve information as what is fed forward or backward and are basic to processes such as
homeostasis in biological systems, automation in industry, and guidance systems.
Of course, their most comprehensive application is to the purposive behavior
thought of cognitively goal-directed systems such as ourselves. Feedback occurs
in closed-loop, as opposed to open-loop, systems. Actually, ‘open-loop’ is a
misnomer involving no loop, but it has become entrenched. The standard example
of an openloop system is that of placing a heater with constant output in a
closed room and leaving it switched on. Room temperature may accidentally
reach, but may also dramatically exceed, the temperature desired by the
occupants. Such a heating system has no means of controlling itself to adapt to
required conditions. In contrast, the standard closed-loop system incorporates
a feedback component. At the heart of cybernetics is the concept of control. A
controlled process is one in which an end state that is reached depends
essentially on the behavior of the controlling system and not merely on its
external environment. That is, control involves partial independence for the
system. A control system may be pictured as having both an inner and outer
environment. The inner environment consists of the internal events that make up
the system; the outer environment consists of events that causally impinge on
the system, threatening disruption and loss of system integrity and stability.
For a system to maintain its independence and identity in the face of
fluctuations in its external environment, it must be able to detect information
about those changes in the external environment. Information must pass through
the interface between inner and outer environments, and the system must be able
to compensate for fluctuations of the outer environment by adjusting its own
inner environmental variables. Otherwise, disturbances in the outer environment
will overcome the system bringing its
inner states into equilibrium with the outer states, thereby losing its
identity as a distinct, independent system. This is nowhere more certain than
with the homeostatic systems of the body for temperature or blood sugar levels.
Control in the attainment of goals is accomplished by minimizing error.
Negative feedback, or information about error, is the difference between
activity a system actually performs output and that activity which is its goal
to perform input. The standard example of control incorporating negative
feedback is the thermostatically controlled heating system. The actual room
temperature system output carries information to the thermostat that can be
compared via goal-state comparator to the desired temperature for the room
input as embodied in the set-point on the thermostat; a correction can then be
made to minimize the difference error
the furnace turns on or off. Positive feedback tends to amplify the
value of the output of a system or of a system disturbance by adding the value
of the output to the system input quantity. Thus, the system accentuates
disturbances and, if unchecked, will eventually pass the brink of instability.
Suppose that as room temperature rises it causes the thermostatic set-point to rise
in direct proportion to the rise in temperature. This would cause the furnace
to continue to output heat possibly with disastrous consequences. Many
biological maladies have just this characteristic. For example, severe loss of
blood causes inability of the heart to pump effectively, which causes loss of
arterial pressure, which, in turn, causes reduced flow of blood to the heart,
reducing pumping efficiency. cybernetics cybernetics Cognitively goal-directed systems are also
cybernetic systems. Purposive attainment of a goal by a goal-directed system
must have at least: 1 an internal representation of the goal state of the
system a detector for whether the desired state is actual; 2 a feedback loop by
which information about the present state of the system can be compared with
the goal state as internally represented and by means of which an error
correction can be made to minimize any difference; and 3 a causal dependency of
system output upon the error-correction process of condition 2 to distinguish
goal success from fortuitous goal satisfaction.
Cynical implicature,
Cynic -- a classical Grecian philosophical school characterized by asceticism
and emphasis on the sufficiency of virtue for happiness eudaimonia, boldness in
speech, and shamelessness in action. The Cynics were strongly influenced by
Socrates and were themselves an important influence on Stoic ethics. An ancient
tradition links the Cynics to Antisthenes c.445c.360 B.C., an Athenian. He
fought bravely in the battle of Tanagra and claimed that he would not have been
so courageous if he had been born of two Athenians instead of an Athenian and a
Thracian slave. He studied with Gorgias, but later became a close companion of
Socrates and was present at Socrates’ death. Antisthenes was proudest of his
wealth, although he had no money, because he was satisfied with what he had and
he could live in whatever circumstances he found himself. Here he follows
Socrates in three respects. First, Socrates himself lived with a disregard for
pleasure and pain e.g., walking barefoot
in snow. Second, Socrates thinks that in every circumstance a virtuous person
is better off than a nonvirtuous one; Antisthenes anticipates the Stoic
development of this to the view that virtue is sufficient for happiness, because
the virtuous person uses properly whatever is present. Third, both Socrates and
Antisthenes stress that the soul is more important than the body, and neglect
the body for the soul. Unlike the later Cynics, however, both Socrates and
Antisthenes do accept pleasure when it is available. Antisthenes also does not
focus exclusively on ethics; he wrote on other topics, including logic. He
supposedly told Plato that he could see a horse but not horseness, to which
Plato replied that he had not acquired the means to see horseness. Diogenes of
Sinope c.400c.325 B.C. continued the emphasis on self-sufficiency and on the
soul, but took the disregard for pleasure to asceticism. According to one
story, Plato called Diogenes “Socrates gone mad.” He came to Athens after being
exiled from Sinope, perhaps because the coinage was defaced, either by himself
or by others, under his father’s direction. He took ‘deface the coinage!’ as a
motto, meaning that the current standards were corrupt and should be marked as
corrupt by being defaced; his refusal to live by them was his defacing them.
For example, he lived in a wine cask, ate whatever scraps he came across, and
wrote approvingly of cannibalism and incest. One story reports that he carried
a lighted lamp in broad daylight looking for an honest human, probably
intending to suggest that the people he did see were so corrupted that they
were no longer really people. He apparently wanted to replace the debased
standards of custom with the genuine standards of nature but nature in the sense of what was minimally
required for human life, which an individual human could achieve, without
society. Because of this, he was called a Cynic, from the Grecian word kuon
dog, because he was as shameless as a dog. Diogenes’ most famous successor was
Crates fl. c.328325 B.C.. He was a Boeotian, from Thebes, and renounced his
wealth to become a Cynic. He seems to have been more pleasant than Diogenes;
according to some reports, every Athenian house was open to him, and he was
even regarded by them as a household god. Perhaps the most famous incident
involving Crates is his marriage to Hipparchia, who took up the Cynic way of
life despite her family’s opposition and insisted that educating herself was
preferable to working a loom. Like Diogenes, Crates emphasized that happiness
is self-sufficiency, and claimed that asceticism is required for
self-sufficiency; e.g., he advises us not to prefer oysters to lentils. He
argues that no one is happy if happiness is measured by the balance of pleasure
and pain, since in each period of our lives there is more pain than pleasure.
Cynicism continued to be active through the third century B.C., and returned to
prominence in the second century A.D. after an apparent decline.
Cyrenaic
implicature -- Cyrenaics, a classical Grecian philosophical school that began
shortly after Socrates and lasted for several centuries, noted especially for
hedonism. Ancient writers trace the Cyrenaics back to ArisCynics Cyrenaics
200 200 tippus of Cyrene fifth-fourth
century B.C., an associate of Socrates. Aristippus came to Athens because of
Socrates’ fame and later greatly enjoyed the luxury of court life in Sicily.
Some people ascribe the founding of the school to his grandchild Aristippus,
because of an ancient report that the elder Aristippus said nothing clear about
the human end. The Cyrenaics include Aristippus’s child Arete, her child
Aristippus taught by Arete, Hegesius, Anniceris, and Theodorus. The school
seems to have been superseded by the Epicureans. No Cyrenaic writings survive,
and the reports we do have are sketchy. The Cyrenaics avoid mathematics and
natural philosophy, preferring ethics because of its utility. According to
them, not only will studying nature not make us virtuous, it also won’t make us
stronger or richer. Some reports claim that they also avoid logic and
epistemology. But this is not true of all the Cyrenaics: according to other
reports, they think logic and epistemology are useful, consider arguments and
also causes as topics to be covered in ethics, and have an epistemology. Their
epistemology is skeptical. We can know only how we are affected; we can know,
e.g., that we are whitening, but not that whatever is causing this sensation is
itself white. This differs from Protagoras’s theory; unlike Protagoras the
Cyrenaics draw no inferences about the things that affect us, claiming only
that external things have a nature that we cannot know. But, like Protagoras,
the Cyrenaics base their theory on the problem of conflicting appearances.
Given their epistemology, if humans ought to aim at something that is not a way
of being affected i.e., something that is immediately perceived according to
them, we can never know anything about it. Unsurprisingly, then, they claim
that the end is a way of being affected; in particular, they are hedonists. The
end of good actions is particular pleasures smooth changes, and the end of bad
actions is particular pains rough changes. There is also an intermediate class,
which aims at neither pleasure nor pain. Mere absence of pain is in this
intermediate class, since the absence of pain may be merely a static state.
Pleasure for Aristippus seems to be the sensation of pleasure, not including
related psychic states. We should aim at pleasure although not everyone does,
as is clear from our naturally seeking it as children, before we consciously
choose to. Happiness, which is the sum of the particular pleasures someone
experiences, is choiceworthy only for the particular pleasures that constitute
it, while particular pleasures are choiceworthy for themselves. Cyrenaics,
then, are not concerned with maximizing total pleasure over a lifetime, but
only with particular pleasures, and so they should not choose to give up
particular pleasures on the chance of increasing the total. Later Cyrenaics
diverge in important respects from the original Cyrenaic hedonism, perhaps in
response to the development of Epicurus’s views. Hegesias claims that happiness
is impossible because of the pains associated with the body, and so thinks of
happiness as total pleasure minus total pain. He emphasizes that wise people
act for themselves, and denies that people actually act for someone else.
Anniceris, on the other hand, claims that wise people are happy even if they
have few pleasures, and so seems to think of happiness as the sum of pleasures,
and not as the excess of pleasures over pains. Anniceris also begins
considering psychic pleasures: he insists that friends should be valued not
only for their utility, but also for our feelings toward them. We should even
accept losing pleasure because of a friend, even though pleasure is the end.
Theodorus goes a step beyond Anniceris. He claims that the end of good actions
is joy and that of bad actions is grief. Surprisingly, he denies that
friendship is reasonable, since fools have friends only for utility and wise
people need no friends. He even regards pleasure as intermediate between
practical wisdom and its opposite. This seems to involve regarding happiness as
the end, not particular pleasures, and may involve losing particular pleasures
for long-term happiness.
Empiricism -- Czolbe, H.,
philosopher. He was born in Danzig and trained in theology and medicine. His
main works are Neue Darstellung des Sensualismus “New Exposition of
Sensualism,” 1855, Entstehung des Selbstbewusstseins “Origin of
Self-Consciousness,” 1856, Die Grenzen und der Ursprung der menschlichen
Erkenntnis “The Limits and Origin of Human Knowledge,” 1865, and a posthumously
published study, Grundzüge der extensionalen Erkenntnistheorie 1875. Czolbe
proposed a sensualistic theory of knowledge: knowledge is a copy of the actual,
and spatial extension is ascribed even to ideas. Space is the support of all
attributes. His later work defended a non-reductive materialism. Czolbe made
the rejection of the supersensuous a central principle and defended a radical
“senCzolbe, Heinrich Czolbe, Heinrich 201
201 sationalism.” Despite this, he did not present a dogmatic
materialism, but cast his philosophy in hypothetical form. In his study of the
origin of self-consciousness Czolbe held that dissatisfaction with the actual
world generates supersensuous ideas and branded this attitude as “immoral.” He
excluded supernatural phenomena on the basis not of physiological or scientific
studies but of a “moral feeling of duty towards the natural world-order and
contentment with it.” The same valuation led him to postulate the eternality of
terrestrial life. Nietzsche was familiar with Czolbe’s works and incorporated
some of his themes into his philosophy.
ENGLISHRY -- Grice was
first an Englishman, and then an Oxonian – and then a philosopher – and then a
genius! Englishness – Englishry, -- St. George for England. A critique of
racism, hostility, contempt, condescension, or prejudice, on the basis of social
practices of racial classification, and the wider phenomena of social,
economic, and political mistreatment that often accompany such classification.
The most salient instances of racism include the Nazi ideology of the “Aryan
master race,” chattel slavery, South
African apartheid in the late twentieth century, and the “Jim Crow” laws and
traditions of segregation that subjugated African descendants in the Southern
United States during the century after the
Civil War. Social theorists dispute whether, in its essence, racism is a
belief or an ideology of racial inferiority, a system of social oppression on
the basis of race, a form of discourse, discriminatory conduct, or an attitude
of contempt or heartlessness and its expression in individual or collective
behavior. The case for any of these as the essence of racism has its drawbacks,
and a proponent must show how the others can also come to be racist in virtue
of that essence. Some deny that racism has any nature or essence, insisting it
is nothing more than changing historical realities. However, these thinkers
must explain what makes each reality an instance of racism. Theorists differ
over who and what can be racist and under what circumstances, some restricting
racism to the powerful, others finding it also in some reactions by the
oppressed. Here, the former owe an explanation of why power is necessary for
racism, what sort economic or political? general or contextual?, and in whom or
what racist individuals? their racial groups?. Although virtually everyone
thinks racism objectionable, people disagree over whether its central defect is
cognitive irrationality, prejudice, economic/prudential inefficiency, or moral
unnecessary suffering, unequal treatment. Finally, racism’s connection with the
ambiguous and controversial concept of race itself is complex. Plainly, racism
presupposes the legitimacy of racial classifications, and perhaps the
metaphysical reality of races. Nevertheless, some hold that racism is also
prior to race, with racial classifications invented chiefly to explain and help
justify the oppression of some peoples by others. The term originated to
designate the pseudoscientific theories of racial essence and inferiority that
arose in Europe in the nineteenth century and were endorsed by G.y’s Third
Reich. Since the civil rights movement in the United States after World War II,
the term has come to cover a much broader range of beliefs, attitudes,
institutions, and practices. Today one hears charges of unconscious, covert,
institutional, paternalistic, benign, anti-racist, liberal, and even reverse
racism. Racism is widely regarded as involving ignorance, irrationality,
unreasonableness, injustice, and other intellectual and moral vices, to such an
extent that today virtually no one is willing to accept the classification of
oneself, one’s beliefs, and so on, as racist, except in contexts of
self-reproach. As a result, classifying anything as racist, beyond the most
egregious cases, is a serious charge and is often hotly disputed.
Rational Griceian
deconstruction of communication -- a demonstration of the incompleteness or
incoherence of a philosophical position using concepts and principles of
argument whose meaning and use is legitimated only by that philosophical
position. A deconstruction is thus a kind of internal conceptual critique in
which the critic implicitly and provisionally adheres to the position
criticized. The early work of Derrida is the source of the term and provides
paradigm cases of its referent. That deconstruction remains within the position
being discussed follows from a fundamental deconstructive argument about the
nature of language and thought. Derrida’s earliest deconstructions argue
against the possibility of an interior “language” of thought and intention such
that the senses and referents of terms are determined by their very nature.
Such terms are “meanings” or logoi. Derrida calls accounts that presuppose such
magical thought-terms “logocentric.” He claims, following Heidegger, that the
conception of such logoi is basic to the concepts of Western metaphysics, and
that Western metaphysics is fundamental to our cultural practices and
languages. Thus there is no “ordinary language” uncontaminated by philosophy.
Logoi ground all our accounts of intention, meaning, truth, and logical
connection. Versions of logoi in the history of philosophy range from Plato’s
Forms through the self-interpreting ideas of the empiricists to Husserl’s
intentional entities. Thus Derrida’s fullest deconstructions are of texts that
give explicit accounts of logoi, especially his discussion of Husserl in Speech
and Phenomena. There, Derrida argues that meanings that are fully present to
consciousness are in decision tree deconstruction 209 209 principle impossible. The idea of a
meaning is the idea of a repeatable ideality. But “repeatability” is not a
feature that can be present. So meanings, as such, cannot be fully before the
mind. Selfinterpreting logoi are an incoherent supposition. Without logoi,
thought and intention are merely wordlike and have no intrinsic connection to a
sense or a referent. Thus “meaning” rests on connections of all kinds among
pieces of language and among our linguistic interactions with the world.
Without logoi, no special class of connections is specifically “logical.”
Roughly speaking, Derrida agrees with Quine both on the nature of meaning and
on the related view that “our theory” cannot be abandoned all at once. Thus a
philosopher must by and large think about a logocentric philosophical theory
that has shaped our language in the very logocentric terms that that theory has
shaped. Thus deconstruction is not an excision of criticized doctrines, but a
much more complicated, self-referential relationship. Deconstructive arguments
work out the consequences of there being nothing helpfully better than words,
i.e., of thoroughgoing nominalism. According to Derrida, without logoi
fundamental philosophical contrasts lose their principled foundations, since
such contrasts implicitly posit one term as a logos relative to which the other
side is defective. Without logos, many contrasts cannot be made to function as
principles of the sort of theory philosophy has sought. Thus the contrasts
between metaphorical and literal, rhetoric and logic, and other central notions
of philosophy are shown not to have the foundation that their use
presupposes.
DEDUCTUM -- deduction, a
finite sequence of sentences whose last sentence is a conclusion of the
sequence the one said to be deduced and which is such that each sentence in the
sequence is an axiom or a premise or follows from preceding sentences in the
sequence by a rule of inference. A synonym is ‘derivation’. Deduction is a
system-relative concept. It makes sense to say something is a deduction only
relative to a particular system of axioms and rules of inference. The very same
sequence of sentences might be a deduction relative to one such system but not
relative to another. The concept of deduction is a generalization of the
concept of proof. A proof is a finite sequence of sentences each of which is an
axiom or follows from preceding sentences in the sequence by a rule of
inference. The last sentence in the sequence is a theorem. Given that the
system of axioms and rules of inference are effectively specifiable, there is
an effective procedure for determining, whenever a finite sequence of sentences
is given, whether it is a proof relative to that system. The notion of theorem
is not in general effective decidable. For there may be no method by which we
can always find a proof of a given sentence or determine that none exists. The
concepts of deduction and consequence are distinct. The first is a syntactical;
the second is semantical. It was a discovery that, relative to the axioms and
rules of inference of classical logic, a sentence S is deducible from a set of
sentences K provided that S is a consequence of K. Compactness is an important
consequence of this discovery. It is trivial that sentence S is deducible from
K just in case S is deducible from Dedekind cut deductíon 211 211 some finite subset of K. It is not
trivial that S is a consequence of K just in case S is a consequence of some
finite subset of K. This compactness property had to be shown. A system of
natural deduction is axiomless. Proofs of theorems within a system are
generally easier with natural deduction. Proofs of theorems about a system,
such as the results mentioned in the previous paragraph, are generally easier
if the system has axioms. In a secondary sense, ‘deduction’ refers to an
inference in which a speaker claims the conclusion follows necessarily from the
premises. -- deduction theorem, a result about certain systems of formal logic
relating derivability and the conditional. It states that if a formula B is
derivable from A and possibly other assumptions, then the formula APB is
derivable without the assumption of A: in symbols, if G 4 {A} Y B then GYAPB.
The thought is that, for example, if Socrates is mortal is derivable from the
assumptions All men are mortal and Socrates is a man, then If Socrates is a man
he is mortal is derivable from All men are mortal. Likewise, If all men are
mortal then Socrates is mortal is derivable from Socrates is a man. In general,
the deduction theorem is a significant result only for axiomatic or
Hilbert-style formulations of logic. In most natural deduction formulations a
rule of conditional proof explicitly licenses derivations of APB from G4{A},
and so there is nothing to prove.
defeasibility. Strawson Wiggins ‘somehwere in the
kitchen,’ ‘in one of the dining-room cupboards’ unless some feature of the
context defeats the implication, there is an implicatum to the effect that the
emissor cannot make a ‘stronger’ move by Grice’s principle of conversational
fortitude (“Be ‘a fortiori’”). Cf. G. P.
Baker on H. L. A. Hart. All very Oxonian. Cf. R. Hall, Oxonian, on ‘Excluders.’
For Strawson and Wiggins that a principle holds ‘generally, ceteris paribus, is
a condition for the existence of conversation, or of a good conversation. Defeasibility
is a sign of the freedom of the will. The communicators can always opt out. Not
a salivating dog. Note that defeasibility does not apply just to the
implicatum. Since probabilistic demonstrate are uncertain, there is an element
of defeasibility in the EXplicatum of a probabilistic utterance. Levinson’s
quote, “Probability, Defeasibility, and Mode Operators.” Defeasibility -- Grice: “So far as generalizations of these
kinds are concerned, it seems to me that one needs to be able to mark five
features: (1) conditionality; (2) generality; (3) type of generality (absolute,
ceteris paribus, etc., thereby, ipso facto, discriminating with respect to
defeasibility or indefeasibility).” -- Baker, “Meaning and
defeasibility” – defeater – in Aspects of reason -- defeasibility, a property
that rules, principles, arguments, or bits of reasoning have when they might be
defeated by some competitor. For example, the epistemic principle ‘Objects
normally have the properties they appear to have’ or the normative principle
‘One should not lie’ are defeated, respectively, when perception occurs under
unusual circumstances e.g., under colored lights or when there is some
overriding moral consideration e.g., to prevent murder. Apparently declarative
sentences such as ‘Birds typically fly’ can be taken in part as expressing
defeasible rules: take something’s being a bird as evidence that it flies.
Defeasible arguments and reasoning inherit their defeasibility from the use of
defeasible rules or principles. Recent analyses of defeasibility include
circumscription and default logic, which belong to the broader category of
non-monotonic logic. The rules in several of these formal systems contain
special antecedent conditions and are not truly defeasible since they apply
whenever their conditions are satisfied. Rules and arguments in other
non-monotonic systems justify their conclusions only when they are not defeated
by some other fact, rule, or argument. John Pollock distinguishes between
rebutting and undercutting defeaters. ‘Snow is not normally red’ rebuts in appropriate
circumstances the principle ‘Things that look red normally are red’, while ‘If
the available light is red, do not use the principle that things that look red
normally are red’ only undercuts the embedded rule. Pollock has influenced most
other work on formal systems for defeasible reasoning.
defensible
– H. P. Grice, “Conceptual analysis and the defensible province of philosophy.”
Grice uses the ‘territorial’ province, and the further implicature is that
conceptual analysis as the province of philosophy is a defensible one. Grice
thinks it is.
definitum: Grice lists ‘the’ in his list of communicative devices. He
was interested in the iota operator. After Sluga, he knew there were problems
here. He proposed a quantificational approach alla Whitehead and Russell,
indeed a Whitehead and Russellian expansion in three clauses, with identity,
involved. Why wasn’t Russell not involved with the ‘indefinite’. One would
think because that’s rendered already by (Ex), ‘some (at least one)’. Russell’s interest in definitum is not
philosophical. His background was mathematics, rather --. Grice was obsessed
with ‘aspects’ in verbs. There’s the ‘imperfect’ and the ‘perfect.’ These
translate Aristotle’s ‘teleos’ and ‘ateleos.’ But why the change from “factum”
to “fectum”? So it’s better to turn to ‘definitum,’ and ‘indefinitum, as better
paraphrases of Aristotle’s jargon – keeping in mind we are talking of his
‘teleos’ and ‘ateleos. Aristotle
and telos. In the Met. Y.1048b1835, Aristotle discusses the definition of an
action πϱᾶξις. He distinguishes two kinds of activities: kinêseis ϰινήσεις and
energeiai ἐνέϱγειαι: Only that movement in which the end is present is an
action. E.g., at the same time we are v.ing and have v.n ὁϱᾷ ἅμα, are
understanding and have understood φϱονεῖ, are thinking and have thought noei
kai nenoêken νοεῖ ϰαὶ νενόηϰεν when it is not true that at the same time we are
learning and have learnt ou manthanei kai memathêken οὐ μανθάνει ϰαὶ μεμάθηϰεν,
or are being cured and have been cured oud’ hugiazetai kai hugiastai οὐδ᾿ ὑγιάζεται
ϰαὶ ὑγίασται. At the same time we are living well and have lived well εὖ ζῇ ϰαὶ
εὖ ἔζηϰεν ἅμα, and are happy and have been happy εὐδαιμονεῖ ϰαὶ εὐδαιμόνηϰεν.
Of these processes, then, we must call the one set movements ϰινήσεις, and the
other actualities energeiai ἐνέϱγειαι. We v. that the distinctive properties of
these two categories of verbs are provided by relations of inference and
semantic compatibility between the form of the present and the form of the
perfect. In the case of energeiai, there is a relation of inference between the
present and the perfect, in the sense that when someone says I v. we can infer
I have v.n. There is also a relation of semantic compatibility since one can
very well say I have v.n and continue to v.. Thus the two forms—the present and
the perfect— are verifiable at the same time ἅμα, simultaneously. On the other
hand, in the case of kinêseis, the present and the perfect are not verifiable
at the same time. In fact, when someone says I am building a house, we cannot
infer I have built a house, at least in the sense in which the house is
finished. In addition, once the house is finished, one is no longer
constructing it, which means that there is a semantic incompatibility between
the present and the perfect. τέλος, which means both complete action, that is,
end, and limit in competition with πέϱας, plays a crucial role in this
opposition. In the category of energeiai, we have actions proper, that is,
activities that are complete τέλεια because they have an immanent finality ἐνυπάϱχει
τὸ τέλος. In the category of kinêseis, we have imperfect activities ἀτελείς
that do not carry their own end within themselves but are transitive and aim at
realizing something. Thus activities having an external goal that is at the
same time a limit peras do not carry their own goal telos within themselves;
they are directed toward a goal but this goal is not attained during the
activity, but is realized at the end of the activity. And history repeated itself, in the same
terms, regarding Slavic languages, with on the one hand the words perfective
and imperfective, modeled on the Roman opposition and imported to describe an
opposition in which lexicon and grammar are truly interwoven since it is a
question of categories of verbs, which determine the whole organization of
conjugation, and on the other hand the Russian words that are used to
characterize the same categories of verbs, and that signify the accomplished
and the unaccomplished. In the terminological imbroglio, we can once again v.
the effects of a confusion connected with the inability to acknowledge the
autonomy of lexical aspect, or, in the particular case of Slavic languages, the
difficulty of isoRomang the aspectual dimension in the general system of the
language. Nevertheless, the same questions, that of the telos and that of
accomplishment, are at the foundation of the two aspectual dimensions. They are
even so prominent that, alongside the heterogeneous inventory from which we
began, we also find, and almost simultaneously in the aspectual tradition, a
leveling of all differences in favor of two categories that are supposed to be
the categories par excellence of grammatical aspect: the perfective on the one
hand, and the imperfective on the other. However, there is also the continuing
competition of the perfect, another tr. of the same word, perfectum,
designating a category that is not exactly the same as that of the perfective,
and which is, for its part, always a grammatical category, never a lexical
category: one speaks of perfect to designate compound tenses in G. ic
languages, e. g. , of the type I have received
as opposed to I received, which corresponds to the idea that the telos
is not only achieved, but transcended in the constitution of a fixed state,
given as the result of the completion of the process. Two, or three,
grammatical categories that are the same and not the same as the two, three, or
four lexical categories. It is in the name of these categories, and literally
behind their name, that the aspectual descriptions succeeded in being
applicable to all languages, confRomang all the imperfects of all languages and
also the Eng. progressive and the Russian imperfective, all the aorists in all
languages, and aligning perfects, perfectives, the Eng. perfect, the G. Perfekt, the Roman perfectum and the Grecian
perfect. The facts are different, but the words, and the recurrence of a
problematics that v.ms invariable, are too strong. Although it is a matter of
conjugations, the lexicon and the relation to ontological questions are too
influential. The word imperfectum was invented, we
v. a hesitation that is precisely the one that causes a problem here, between
imperfectum and infectum a nonachieved finality, an absence of finality. The
important point is that the whole history of aspectual terminology is
constituted by such exchanges. The invention of the words perfectum and
imperfectum itself proceeds from an enterprise of tr., in which it is a
question of taking as a model, or rephrasing, the Grecian grammarians’
opposition between suntelikos συντελιϰός and non-suntelikos. However, the
difference between the two terminologies is noticeable. A supine past
participle, -fectum, has replaced telikos, and hence telos, thereby
reintroducing, if not tense was tense really involved in that past participle?,
at least the achievement of an act, and consequently merges with the question
of the accomplished. In this operation, the Stoics’ opposition between
suntelikos which would thus designate the choice of perfects or imperfects and
παϱατατιϰός the extensive, in which the question of the telos is not involved
was made symmetrical, introducing into aspectual terminology a binariness from
which we have never recovered. And this symmetricalization, which sought to
describe the organization of a conjugation, was then modeled on the distinction
introduced by Aristotle between tτέλειος and aἀτελής, which was not grammatical
but lexical. This resulted in a new confusion that is not without foundation
because it was already implicit in the montage constructed by the Grecian
philosophers, with on the one hand the telos used by Aristotle to differentiate
types of process, and on the other the same telos used by the Stoics to
structure conjugation. exist in G. , is said to be primarily a matter of
discursive construction with the imparfait forming the background of a
narration, and the past tenses forming the foreground of what develops and
occurs. More recently, this area has been dominated by theories that situate
aspect in a theory of discursive representations cf. Kamp’s discourse
representation theory, and try to reduce it to a matter of discursive
organization: thus the models currently most discussed make the imparfait an
anaphoric mark that repeats an element of the context instead of constructing
an independent referent. Once again the relations are inextricably confused:
the types of discourse clearly have particular aspectual properties we have
already v.n this in connection with aoristic utterances that structure both
aspect and tense differently, and yet all or almost all aspectual forms can
appear anywhere, in all or almost all types of discursive contexts. Thus we
have foregrounded imparfaits, which have been recorded and are sometimes called
narrative imparfaits— e. g. , in an utterance like Trois jours après, il
mourait Three days later, he was dying, where it is a question of narrating a
prominent event, and where the distinction between imparfait and passé simple
becomes more difficult to evaluate. We also find passé composés in narratives,
where they compete with the passé simple: that is why many analysts of the
language consider the passé simple an archaic form that is being abandoned in
favor of the passé composé. The difficulty is clear: it is hard to attach a
given formal procedure to a given enunciative structuration, not only because
enunciative structures are supposed to be compatible with several aspectual
values, but first of all because the formal procedures themselves are all, more
or less broadly, polysemous, their value depending precisely on the context and
thus on the enunciative structure in which they are situated. Here again, this
is commonplace: polysemy is everywhere in languages. But in this case it
affects aspect: it consists precisely in running through aspectual oppositions,
the very ones that are also supposed to be associated with some aspectual
marker. The case of narrative uses of the imparfait v.ms to indicate that the
imparfait can have different aspectual values, of which some are more or less
apparently perfective. The narrative passé composés for instance, Il s’est levé
et il est sorti He got up and went out describe the process in its advent and
thus do not have the same aspectual properties as those that appear in utterances
describing the state resulting from the process e.g., Désolé, en ce moment il
est sorti Sorry, he left just now. Not to mention the presents, which are
highly polysemous in many languages and which, depending on the language,
therefore occupy a more or less extensive aspectual terrain. We are obliged to
note that aspect is at least partially independent of formal procedures, that
it also plays a role elsewhere, in particular, in the enunciative
configuration. teleology: the objectivum. Grice
speaks of the objective as a maxim. This is very Latinate. So if the maxim is
an objective, the goal is the objective, or objectivum. Meaning
"goal, aim" (1881) is from military term objective point (1852),
reflecting a sense evolution in French. This
is an expansion on the desideratum. Cf. ‘desirable,’ and ‘desirability,’ and
‘end.’ Grice feels like introducing goal-oriented conceptual machinery. In a
later stage of his career he ensured that this machinery be seen as NOT
mechanistically derivable. Which is odd seeing that in the ‘progression’ of the
‘soul,’ he allows for talk of adaptiveness and survival which suggest a
mechanist explanation. If an agent has a desideratum that means that, to echo
Bennett, A displays a goal-oriented behaviour, where the goal is the ‘telos.’
Smoke cannot ‘mean’ fire, because smoke doesn’t really behave in a
goal-oriented matter. Grice does play with the idea of finality in nature,
because that would allow him to justify the objectivity of his system. how does
soul originate from matter? Does the vegetal soul have a telos.
Purposive-behaviour is obvious in plants (phototropism). If it is present in
the vegetal soul, it is present in the animal soul. If it is present in the
animal soul, it is present in the rational soul. With each stage, alla
Hartmann, there are distinctions in the specification of the telos. Grice could
be more continental than Scheler! Grices métier. Unity of science was a very
New-World expression that Grice did not quite buy. Grice was brought up in a
world, the Old World, indeed, as he calls it in his Proem to the Locke
lectures, of Snows two cultures. At the time of Grices philosophising,
philosophers such as Winch (who indeed quotes fro Grice) were contesting the
idea that science is unitary, when it comes to the explanation of rational
behaviour. Since a philosophical approach to the explanation of rational
behaviour, including conversational behaviour (to account for the
conversational implicata) is his priority, Grice needs to distinguish himself
from those who propose a unified science, which Grice regards as eliminationist
and reductionist. Grice is ambivalent about science and also playful
(philosophia regina scientiarum). Grice seems to presuppose, or implicate,
that, since there is the devil of scientism, science cannot get at teleology.
The devil is in the physiological details, which are irrelevant. The language
Grice uses to describe his Ps as goal-oriented, aimed at survival and
reproduction, seems teleological and somewhat scientific, though. But he means
that ironically! As the scholastics use it, teleology is a science, the science
of telos, or finality (cf. Aristotle on telos aitia, causa finalis. The unity
of science is threatened by teleology, and vice versa. Unified science seeks
for a mechanistically derivable teleology. But Grices sympathies lie for
detached finality. Grice is obsessed with the Greek idea of a telos, as
slightly overused by Aristotle. Grice thinks that some actions are for their
own sake. What is the telos of Oscar Wilde? Can we speak of Oscar Wilde’s
métier? If a tiger is to tigerise, a human is to humanise, and a person is to
personise. Grice thought that teleology is a key philosophical way to contest
mechanism, so popular in The New World. Strictly, and Grice knew this, teleology
is constituted as a discipline. One term that Cicero was unable to translate!
For the philosopher, teleology is that part of philosophy that studies the
realm of the telos. Informally, teleological is opposed to mechanistic. Grice
is interested in the mechanism/teleology debate, indeed jumps into it, with a
goal in mind! Grice finds some New-World philosophers too mechanistic-oriented,
in contrast with the more two-culture atmosphere he was familiar with at
Oxford! Code is the Aristotelian, and he and Grice are especially concerned in
the idea of causa finalis. For Grice only detached finality poses a threat to
Mechanism, as it should! Axiological objectivity is possible only given
finality or purpose in Nature, the admissibility of a final cause. Grice’s “Definition”
of Meaning – and Communicatum – Oddly, in “Utterer’s meaning and intentions,”
Grice keeps calling his analyses ‘definition,’ and ‘re-definition.’ He is well
aware of the trick introduced by Robinson on this. definiendum plural:
definienda, the expression that is defined in a definition. The expression that
gives the definition is the definiens plural: definientia. In the definition
father, male parent, ‘father’ is the definiendum and ‘male parent’ is the
definiens. In the definition ‘A human being is a rational animal’, ‘human
being’ is the definiendum and ‘rational animal’ is the definiens. Similar terms
are used in the case of conceptual analyses, whether they are meant to provide
synonyms or not; ‘definiendum’ for ‘analysandum’ and ‘definiens’ for
‘analysans’. In ‘x knows that p if and only if it is true that p, x believes
that p, and x’s belief that p is properly justified’, ‘x knows that p’ is the
analysandum and ‘it is true that p, x believes that p, and x’s belief that p is
properly justified’ is the analysans.
definist, someone who holds that moral terms, such as ‘right’, and
evaluative terms, such as ‘good’ in
short, normative terms are definable in
non-moral, non-evaluative i.e., non-normative terms. William Frankena offers a
broader account of a definist as one who holds that ethical terms are definable
in non-ethical terms. This would allow that they are definable in nonethical
but evaluative terms say, ‘right’ in
terms of what is non-morally intrinsically good. Definists who are also
naturalists hold that moral terms can be defined by terms that denote natural
properties, i.e., properties whose presence or absence can be determined by
observational means. They might define ‘good’ as ‘what conduces to pleasure’.
Definists who are not naturalists will hold that the terms that do the defining
do not denote natural properties, e.g., that ‘right’ means ‘what is commanded
by God’. definition, specification of
the meaning or, alternatively, conceptual content, of an expression. For
example, ‘period of fourteen days’ is a definition of ‘fortnight’. Definitions
have traditionally been judged by rules like the following: 1 A definition
should not be too narrow. ‘Unmarried adult male psychiatrist’ is too narrow a
definition for ‘bachelor’, for some bachelors are not psychiatrists. ‘Having
vertebrae and a liver’ is too narrow for ‘vertebrate’, for, even though all
actual vertebrate things have vertebrae and a liver, it is possible for a
vertebrate thing to lack a liver. 2 A definition should not be too broad.
‘Unmarried adult’ is too broad a definition for ‘bachelor’, for not all
unmarried adults are bachelors. ‘Featherless biped’ is too broad for ‘human
being’, for even though all actual featherless bipeds are human beings, it is
possible for a featherless biped to be non-human. 3 The defining expression in
a definition should ideally exactly match the degree of vagueness of the
expression being defined except in a precising definition. ‘Adult female’ for
‘woman’ does not violate this rule, but ‘female at least eighteen years old’
for ‘woman’ does. 4 A definition should not be circular. If ‘desirable’ defines
‘good’ and ‘good’ defines ‘desirable’, these definitions are circular.
Definitions fall into at least the following kinds: analytical definition:
definition whose corresponding biconditional is analytic or gives an analysis
of the definiendum: e.g., ‘female fox’ for ‘vixen’, where the corresponding
biconditional ‘For any x, x is a vixen if and only if x is a female fox’ is
analytic; ‘true in all possible worlds’ for ‘necessarily true’, where the
corresponding biconditional ‘For any P, P is necessarily true if and only if P
is true in all possible worlds’ gives an analysis of the definiendum.
contextual definition: definition of an expression as it occurs in a larger
expression: e.g., ‘If it is not the case that Q, then P’ contextually defines
‘unless’ as it occurs in ‘P unless Q’; ‘There is at least one entity that is F
and is identical with any entity that is F’ contextually defines ‘exactly one’
as it occurs in ‘There is exactly one F’. Recursive definitions see below are
an important variety of contextual definition. Another important application of
contextual definition is Russell’s theory of descriptions, which defines ‘the’
as it occurs in contexts of the form ‘The so-and-so is such-and-such’.
coordinative definition: definition of a theoretical term by non-theoretical
terms: e.g., ‘the forty-millionth part of the circumference of the earth’ for
‘meter’. definition by genus and species: When an expression is said to be
applicable to some but not all entities of a certain type and inapplicable to
all entities not of that type, the type in question is the genus, and the
subtype of all and only those entities to which the expression is applicable is
the species: e.g., in the definition ‘rational animal’ for ‘human’, the type
animal is the genus and the subtype human is the species. Each species is
distinguished from any other of the same genus by a property called the
differentia. definition in use: specification of how an expression is used or
what it is used to express: e.g., ‘uttered to express astonishment’ for ‘my
goodness’. Vitters emphasized the importance of definition in use in his use
theory of meaning. definition per genus et differentiam: definition by genus
and difference; same as definition by genus and species. explicit definition:
definition that makes it clear that it is a definition and identifies the
expression being defined as such: e.g., ‘Father’ means ‘male parent’; ‘For any x,
x is a father by definition if and only if x is a male parent’. implicit
definition: definition that is not an explicit definition. lexical definition:
definition of the kind commonly thought appropriate for dictionary definitions
of natural language terms, namely, a specification of their conventional
meaning. nominal definition: definition of a noun usually a common noun, giving
its linguistic meaning. Typically it is in terms of macrosensible
characteristics: e.g., ‘yellow malleable metal’ for ‘gold’. Locke spoke of
nominal essence and contrasted it with real essence. ostensive definition:
definition by an example in which the referent is specified by pointing or
showing in some way: e.g., “ ‘Red’ is that color,” where the word ‘that’ is
accompanied with a gesture pointing to a patch of colored cloth; “ ‘Pain’ means
this,” where ‘this’ is accompanied with an insertion of a pin through the
hearer’s skin; “ ‘Kangaroo’ applies to all and only animals like that,” where
‘that’ is accompanied by pointing to a particular kangaroo. persuasive
definition: definition designed to affect or appeal to the psychological states
of the party to whom the definition is given, so that a claim will appear more
plausible to the party than it is: e.g., ‘self-serving manipulator’ for
‘politician’, where the claim in question is that all politicians are immoral.
precising definition: definition of a vague expression intended to reduce its
vagueness: e.g., ‘snake longer than half a meter and shorter than two meters’
for ‘snake of average length’; ‘having assets ten thousand times the median
figure’ for ‘wealthy’. prescriptive definition: stipulative definition that, in
a recommendatory way, gives a new meaning to an expression with a previously
established meaning: e.g., ‘male whose primary sexual preference is for other
males’ for ‘gay’. real definition: specification of the metaphysically
necessary and sufficient condition for being the kind of thing a noun usually a
common noun designates: e.g., ‘element with atomic number 79’ for ‘gold’. Locke
spoke of real essence and contrasted it with nominal essence. recursive
definition also called inductive definition and definition by recursion:
definition in three clauses in which 1 the expression defined is applied to
certain particular items the base clause; 2 a rule is given for reaching
further items to which the expression applies the recursive, or inductive,
clause; and 3 it is stated that the expression applies to nothing else the
closure clause. E.g., ‘John’s parents are John’s ancestors; any parent of
John’s ancestor is John’s ancestor; nothing else is John’s ancestor’. By the
base clause, John’s mother and father are John’s ancestors. Then by the
recursive clause, John’s mother’s parents and John’s father’s parents are
John’s ancestors; so are their parents, and so on. Finally, by the last closure
clause, these people exhaust John’s ancestors. The following defines
multiplication in terms of definition definition 214 214 addition: ‘0 $ n % 0. m ! 1 $ n % m $ n
! n. Nothing else is the result of multiplying integers’. The base clause tells
us, e.g., that 0 $ 4 % 0. The recursive clause tells us, e.g., that 0 ! 1 $ 4 %
0 $ 4 ! 4. We then know that 1 $ 4 % 0 ! 4 % 4. Likewise, e.g., 2 $ 4 % 1 ! 1 $
4 % 1 $ 4 ! 4 % 4 ! 4 % 8. stipulative definition: definition regardless of the
ordinary or usual conceptual content of the expression defined. It postulates a
content, rather than aiming to capture the content already associated with the
expression. Any explicit definition that introduces a new expression into the
language is a stipulative definition: e.g., “For the purpose of our discussion
‘existent’ means ‘perceivable’ “; “By ‘zoobeedoobah’ we shall mean ‘vain
millionaire who is addicted to alcohol’.” synonymous definition: definition of a
word or other linguistic expression by another word synonymous with it: e.g.,
‘buy’ for ‘purchase’; ‘madness’ for ‘insanity’.
Refs.: There are specific essays on
‘teleology,’ ‘final cause,’ and ‘finality,’ the The Grice Papers. Some of the
material published in “Reply to Richards” (repr. in “Conception”) and “Actions
and events,” The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC.
Degree -- Grice loved a
degree – he uses “d” in aspects of reason -- degree, also called arity,
adicity, in formal languages, a property of predicate and function expressions
that determines the number of terms with which the expression is correctly
combined to yield a well-formed expression. If an expression combines with a
single term to form a wellformed expression, it is of degree one monadic, singulary.
Expressions that combine with two terms are of degree two dyadic, binary, and
so on. Expressions of degree greater than or equal to two are polyadic. The
formation rules of a formalized language must effectively specify the degrees
of its primitive expressions as part of the effective determination of the
class of wellformed formulas. Degree is commonly indicated by an attached
superscript consisting of an Arabic numeral. Formalized languages have been
studied that contain expressions having variable degree or variable adicity and
that can thus combine with any finite number of terms. An abstract relation
that would be appropriate as extension of a predicate expression is subject to
the same terminology, and likewise for function expressions and their
associated functions. -- degree of
unsolvability, a maximal set of equally complex sets of natural numbers, with
comparative complexity of sets of natural numbers construed as
recursion-theoretic reducibility ordering. Recursion theorists investigate various
notions of reducibility between sets of natural numbers, i.e., various ways of
filling in the following schematic definition. For sets A and B of natural
numbers: A is reducible to B iff if and only if there is an algorithm whereby
each membership question about A e.g., ‘17 1 A?’ could be answered allowing
consultation of an definition, contextual degree of unsolvability 215 215 “oracle” that would correctly answer
each membership question about B. This does not presuppose that there is a
“real” oracle for B; the motivating idea is counterfactual: A is reducible to B
iff: if membership questions about B were decidable then membership questions
about A would also be decidable. On the other hand, the mathematical
definitions of notions of reducibility involve no subjunctive conditionals or
other intensional constructions. The notion of reducibility is determined by
constraints on how the algorithm could use the oracle. Imposing no constraints
yields T-reducibility ‘T’ for Turing, the most important and most studied
notion of reducibility. Fixing a notion r of reducibility: A is r-equivalent to
B iff A is r-reducible to B and B is rreducible to A. If r-reducibility is
transitive, r-equivalence is an equivalence relation on the class of sets of
natural numbers, one reflecting a notion of equal complexity for sets of
natural numbers. A degree of unsolvability relative to r an r-degree is an
equivalence class under that equivalence relation, i.e., a maximal class of
sets of natural numbers any two members of which are r-equivalent, i.e., a
maximal class of equally complex in the sense of r-reducibility sets of natural
numbers. The r-reducibility-ordering of sets of natural numbers transfers to
the rdegrees: for d and dH r-degrees, let d m, dH iff for some A 1 d and B 1 dH
A is r-reducible to B. The study of r-degrees is the study of them under this
ordering. The degrees generated by T-reducibility are the Turing degrees.
Without qualification, ‘degree of unsolvability’ means ‘Turing degree’. The
least Tdegree is the set of all recursive i.e., using Church’s thesis, solvable
sets of natural numbers. So the phrase ‘degree of unsolvability’ is slightly
misleading: the least such degree is “solvability.” By effectively coding
functions from natural numbers to natural numbers as sets of natural numbers,
we may think of such a function as belonging to a degree: that of its coding
set. Recursion theorists have extended the notions of reducibility and degree
of unsolvability to other domains, e.g. transfinite ordinals and higher types
taken over the natural numbers.
demonstratum: Cf. illatum – In act of communication, Grice’s focus is on
the reasoning on the emissor’s part. This is end-means. The conversational
moves is the most effectively designed move. The potential uptake by the
emissee is also taken into the consideration by the emissor. And actual uptake
is not of philosophical importance. hen Grice tried to conceptualise what
‘communicating’ and ‘smoke means fire’ have in common he came with the idea of
‘consequentia,’ as a dyadic relation that, eventually, will become triadic,
with the missor and the missee brought into the bargain. “Look that smoke,
there must be fire somewhere’ – “By that handwave, he meant that he was about
to leave me.” In any case, Grice’s arriving at ‘consequentia’ is exactly
Hobbes’s idea in “Computatio.’ And ‘con-sequentia’ involves a bit of
‘demonstratio.’ One thing follows the other. One thing YIELDS the other. The
link may be causal (smoke means fire) or ‘communicative’). ‘Rationality’ is one
of those words Austin forbids to use. Grice would venture with ‘reason,’ and
better, ‘reasons’ to make it countable, and good for botanising. Only in the
New World, and when he started to get input from non-philosophers, did Grice
explore ‘rationality’ itself. Oxonians philosophers take it for granted, and do
not have to philosophise about it. Especially those who belong to Grice’s play
group of ‘ordinary-language’ philosophers! Oxonian philosophers will quote from
the Locke version! Obviously, while each of the four lectures credits their own
entry below, it may do to reflect on Grices overall aim. Grice structures the
lectures in the form of a philosophical dialogue with his audience. The
first lecture is intended to provide a bit of linguistic botanising for
reasonable, and rational. In later lectures, Grice tackles reason qua
noun. The remaining lectures are meant to explore what he calls the
Aequi-vocality thesis: must has only one Fregeian that crosses what he calls
the buletic-doxastic divide. He is especially concerned ‒ this being
the Kant lectures ‒ with Kants attempt to reduce the
categorical imperative to a counsel of prudence (Ratschlag der Klugheit), where
Kants prudence is Klugheit, versus skill, as in rule of skill, and even if Kant
defines Klugheit as a skill to attain what is good for oneself ‒
itself divided into privatKlugheit and Weltklugheit. Kant re-introduces the
Aristotelian idea of eudaimonia. While a further lecture on happiness as
the pursuit of a system of ends is NOT strictly part of the either the
Kant or the Locke lectures, it relates, since eudaemonia may be
regarded as the goal involved in the relevant
imperative. “Aspects”, Clarendon, Stanford, The Kant memorial
Lectures, “Aspects,” Clarendon, Some aspects of reason, Stanford; reason,
reasoning, reasons. The lectures were also delivered as the Locke
lectures. Grice is concerned with the reduction of the categorical
imperative to the hypothetical or suppositional imperative. His main
thesis he calls the æqui-vocality thesis: must has one unique or singular
sense, that crosses the buletic-boulomaic/doxastic divide. “Aspects,”
Clarendon, Grice, “Aspects, Clarendon, Locke lecture notes: reason. On
“Aspects”. Including extensive language botany on rational, reasonable, and indeed
reason (justificatory, explanatory, and mixed). At this point, Grice notes
that linguistic botany is indispensable towards the construction of a more
systematic explanatory theory. It is an exploration of a range of uses of
reason that leads him to his Aequi-vocality thesis that must has only one
sense; also ‘Aspects of reason and reasoning,’ in Grice, “Aspects,”
Clarendon, the Locke lectures, the Kant lectures, Stanford, reason,
happiness. While Locke hardly mentions reason, his friend Burthogge does,
and profusely! It was slightly ironic that Grice had delivered these
lectures as the Rationalist Kant lectures at Stanford. He was honoured to
be invited to Oxford. Officially, to be a Locke lecture you have to be
*visiting* Oxford. While Grice was a fellow of St. Johns, he was still
most welcome to give his set of lectures on reasoning at the Sub-Faculty of
Philosophy. He quotes very many authors, including Locke! In his proemium,
Grice notes that while he was rejected the Locke scholarship back in the day,
he was extremely happy to be under Lockes ægis now! When preparing for his
second lecture, he had occasion to revise some earlier drafts dated pretty
early, on reasons, Grice, “Aspects,” Clarendon, reason,
reasons. Linguistic analysis on justificatory, explanatory and mixed uses
of reason. While Grice knows that the basic use of reason is qua verb
(reasoner reasons from premise p to conclusion c), he spends some time in
exploring reason as noun. Grice found it a bit of a roundabout way to approach
rationality. However, his distinction between justificatory and
explanatory reason is built upon his linguistic botany on the use of reason qua
noun. Explanatory reason seems more basic for Grice than justificatory
reason. Explanatory reason explains the behaviour of a rational
agent. Grice is aware of Freud and his rationalizations. An agent may
invoke some reason for his acting which is not legitimate. An agent may
convince himself that he wants to move to Bournemouth because of the weather; when
in fact, his reason to move to Bournemouth is to be closer to Cowes and join
the yacht club there. Grice loved an enthymeme. Grices enthymeme. Grice, the
implicit reasoner! As the title of the lecture implies, Grice takes the verb,
to reason, as conceptually prior. A reasoner reasons, briefly, from a premise
to a conclusion. There are types of reason: flat reason and gradual reason. He
famously reports Shropshire, another tutee with Hardie, and his proof on the
immortality of the human soul. Grice makes some remarks on akrasia as key, too.
The first lecture is then dedicated to an elucidation, and indeed attempt at a
conceptual analysis in terms of intentions and doxastic conditions reasoner R
intends that premise P yields conclusion C and believes his intention will cause
his entertaining of the conclusion from his entertaining the premise. One
example of particular interest for a study of the use of conversational reason
in Grice is that of the connection between implicatum and reasoning. Grice
entitles the sub-section of the lecture as Too good to be reasoning, which is
of course a joke. Cf. too much love will kill you, and Theres no such thing as
too much of a good thing (Shakespeare, As you like it). Grice notes: I have so
far been considering difficulties which may arise from the attempt to find, for
all cases of actual reasoning, reconstructions of sequences of utterances or
explicit thoughts which the reasoner might plausibly be supposed to think of as
conforming to some set of canonical patterns of inference. Grice then turns to
a different class of examples, with regard to which the problem is not that it
is difficult to know how to connect them with canonical patterns, but rather
that it is only too easy (or shall I say trivial) to make the connection. Like
some children (not many), some cases of reasoning are too well behaved for
their own good. Suppose someone says to Grice, and It is very interesting that
Grice gives conversational examples. Jack has arrived, Grice replies, I
conclude from that that Jack has arrived. Or he says Jack has arrived AND Jill
has *also* arrived, And Grice replies, I conclude that Jill has arrived.(via
Gentzens conjunction-elimination). Or he says, My wife is at home. And Grice
replies, I reason from that that someone (viz. your wife) is at home. Is there
not something very strange about the presence in my three replies of the verb
conclude (in example I and II) and the verb reason (in the third example)?
misleading, but doxastically fine, professor! It is true, of course, that if
instead of my first reply I had said (vii) vii. So Jack has arrived, has he?
the strangeness would have been removed. But here so serves not to indicate
that an inference is being made, but rather as part of a not that otiose way of
expressing surprise. One might just as well have said (viii). viii. Well, fancy
that! Now, having spent a sizeable part of his life exploiting it, Grice is not
unaware of the truly fine distinction between a statements being false (or
axiologically satisfactory), and its being true (or axiologically satisfactory)
but otherwise conversationally or pragmatically misleading or inappropriate or
pointless, and, on that account and by such a fine distinction, a statement, or
an utterance, or conversational move which it would be improper (in terms of
the reasonable/rational principle of conversational helfpulness) in one way or
another, to make. It is worth considering Grices reaction to his own
distinction. Entailment is in sight! But Grice does not find himself lured by
the idea of using that distinction here! Because Moores entailment, rather than
Grices implicatum is entailed. Or because explicatu, rather than implicatum is
involved. Suppose, again, that I were to break off the chapter at this point,
and switch suddenly to this argument. ix. I have two hands (here is one hand
and here is another). If had three more hands, I would have five. If I were to
have double that number I would have ten, and if four of them were removed six
would remain. So I would have four more hands than I have now. Is one happy to
describe this performance as reasoning? Depends whos one and whats happy!?
There is, however, little doubt that I have produced a canonically acceptable
chain of statements. So surely that is reasoning, if only conversationally
misleadingly called so. Or suppose that, instead of writing in my customary
free and easy style, I had framed my remarks (or at least the argumentative
portions of my remarks) as a verbal realization, so to speak, of sequences of
steps in strict conformity with the rules of a natural-deduction system of
first-order predicate logic. I give, that is to say, an updated analogue of a
medieval disputation. Implicature. Gentzen is Ockham. Would those brave souls
who continued to read be likely to think of my performance as the production of
reasoning, or would they rather think of it as a crazy formalisation of
reasoning conducted at some previous time? Depends on crazy or formalisation.
One is reminded of Grice telling Strawson, If you cannot formalise, dont say
it; Strawson: Oh, no! If I can formalise it, I shant say it! The points
suggested by this stream of rhetorical questions may be summarized as follows.
Whether the samples presented FAIL to achieve the title of reasoning, and thus
be deemed reasoning, or whether the samples achieve the title, as we may
figuratively put it, by the skin of their teeth, perhaps does not very greatly
matter. For whichever way it is, the samples seem to offend against something
(different things in different cases, Im sure) very central to our conception
of reasoning. So central that Moore would call it entailment! A mechanical
application of a ground rule of inference, or a concatenation thereof, is
reluctantly (if at all) called reasoning. Such a mechanical application may
perhaps legitimately enter into (i.e. form individual steps in) authentic
reasonings, but they are not themselves reasonings, nor is a string of them.
There is a demand that a reasoner should be, to a greater or lesser degree, the
author of his reasonings. Parroted sequences are not reasonings when parroted,
though the very same sequences might be reasoning if not parroted. Ped
sequences are another matter. Some of the examples Grice gives are deficient
because they are aimless or pointless. Reasoning is characteristically
addressed to this or that problem: a small problem, a large problem, a problem
within a problem, a clear problem, a hazy problem, a practical problem, an
intellectual problem; but a problem! A mere flow of ideas minimally qualifies
(or can be deemed) as reasoning, even if it happens to be logically
respectable. But if it is directed, or even monitored (with intervention should
it go astray, not only into fallacy or mistake, but also into such things as
conversational irrelevance or otiosity!), that is another matter! Finicky
over-elaboration of intervening steps is frowned upon, and in extreme cases
runs the risk of forfeiting the title of reasoning. In conversation, such
over-elaboration will offend against this or that conversational maxim, against
(presumably) some suitably formulated maxim conjoining informativeness. As
Grice noted with regard to ‘That pillar box seems red to me.’ That would be
baffling if the addressee fails to detect the communication-point. An utterance
is supposed to inform, and what is the above meant to inform its addressee? In
thought, it will be branded as pedantry or neurotic caution. If a distinction
between brooding and conversing is to be made! At first sight, perhaps, one
would have been inclined to say that greater rather than lesser
explicitnessness is a merit. Not that inexplicitness, or implicatum-status, as
it were ‒ is bad, but that, other things being equal, the more explicitness the
better. But now it looks as if proper explicitness (or explicatum-status) is an
Aristotelian mean, or mesotes, and it would be good some time to enquire what
determines where that mean lies. The burden of the foregoing observations seems
to me to be that the provisional account of reasoning, which has been before
us, leaves out something which is crucially important. What it leaves out is
the conception of reasoning, as I like to see conversation, as a purposive
activity, as something with goals and purposes. The account or picture leaves
out, in short, the connection of reasoning with the will! Moreover, once we
avail ourselves of the great family of additional ideas which the importation
of this conception would give us, we shall be able to deal with the quandary
which I laid before you a few minutes ago. For we could say e.g. that R reasons
(informally) from p to c just in case R thinks that p and intends that, in
thinking c, he should be thinking something which would be the conclusion of a
formally valid argument the premisses of which are a supplementation of p. This
will differ from merely thinking that there exists some formally valid
supplementation of a transition from p to c, which I felt inclined NOT to count
as (or deem) reasoning. I have some hopes that this appeal to the purposiveness
or goal-oriented character of authentic reasoning or good reasoning might be
sufficient to dispose of the quandary on which I have directed it. But I am by
no means entirely confident that this is the case, and so I offer a second
possible method of handling the quandary, one to which I shall return later
when I shall attempt to place it in a larger context. We have available to us
(let us suppose) what I might call a hard way of making inferential moves. We
in fact employ this laborious, step-by-step procedure at least when we are in
difficulties, when the course is not clear, when we have an awkward (or
philosophical) audience, and so forth. An inferential judgement, however, is a
normally desirable undertaking for us only because of its actual or hoped for
destinations, and is therefore not desirable for its own sake (a respect in
which, possibly, it may differ from an inferential capacity). Following the
hard way consumes time and energy. These are in limited supply and it would,
therefore, be desirable if occasions for employing the hard way were minimized.
A substitute for the hard way, the quick way, which is made possible by
habituation and intention, is available to us, and the capacity for it (which
is sometimes called intelligence, and is known to be variable in degree) is a
desirable quality. The possibility of making a good inferential step (there
being one to be made), together with such items as a particular inferers
reputation for inferential ability, may determine whether on a particular
occasion we suppose a particular transition to be inferential (and so to be a
case of reasoning) or not. On this account, it is not essential that there
should be a single supplementation of an informal reasoning which is supposed
to be what is overtly in the inferers mind, though quite often there may be
special reasons for supposing this to be the case. So Botvinnik is properly credited
with a case of reasoning, while Shropshire is not. Drawing from his
recollections of an earlier linguistic botany on reason. Grice distinguishes
between justificatory reason and explanatory reason. There is a special case of
mixed reason, explanatory-cum-justificatory. The lecture can be seen as the way
an exercise that Austin took as taxonomic can lead to explanatory adequacy,
too! Bennett is an excellent correspondent. He holds a very interesting
philosophical correspondence with Hare. This is just one f. with Grices
correspondence with Bennett. Oxford don, Christchurh, NZ-born Bennett, of
Magdalen, B. Phil. Oxon. Bennett has an essay on the interpretation of a formal
system under Austin. It is interesting that Bennett was led to consider the interpretation
of a formal system under Austins Play Group. Bennett attends Grices seminars.
He is my favourite philosopher. Bennett quotes Grice in his Linguistic
behaviour. In return, Grice quotes Bennett in the Preface
toWOW. Bennett has an earlier essay on rationality, which evidences that
the topic is key at Grices Oxford. Bennett has studied better than anyone the
way Locke is Griceian. A word or expression does not just stand for idea, but
for the intention of the utterer to stand for it! Grice also enjoyed construal
by Bennett of Grice as a nominalist. Bennett makes a narrow use of the epithet.
Since Grice does distinguish between an utterance-token (x) and an
utterance-type, and considers that the attribution of meaning from token to
type is metabolic, this makes Grice a nominalist. Bennett is one of the few to
follow Kantotle and make him popular on the pages of the Times Literary
Supplement, of all places. Refs.: The locus classicus is “Aspects,” Clarendon.
But there are allusions on ‘reason’ and ‘rationality, in The H. P. Grice
Papers, BANC.
Griceian Dennett –
Dennett knew Grice from the Oxford days – and quotes him extensively – He is
what Grice called “a New-World Griceian.” D. C., philosopher, author of books on topics in the
philosophy of mind, free will, and evolutionary biology, and tireless advocate
of the importance of philosophy for empirical work on evolution and on the
nature of the mind. Dennett is perhaps best known for arguing that a creature
or, more generally, a system, S, possesses states of mind if and only if the
ascription of such states to S facilitates explanation and prediction of S’s
behavior The Intentional Stance, 7. S might be a human being, a chimpanzee, a
desktop computer, or a thermostat. In ascribing beliefs and desires to S we
take up an attitude toward S, the intentional stance. We could just as well
although for different purposes take up other stances: the design stance we
understand S as a kind of engineered system or the physical stance we regard S
as a purely physical system. It might seem that, although we often enough
ascribe beliefs and desires to desktop computers and thermostats, we do not
mean to do so literally as with people.
Dennett’s contention, however, is that there is nothing more nor less to having
beliefs, desires, and other states of mind than being explicable by reference
to such things. This, he holds, is not to demean beliefs, but only to affirm
that to have a belief is to be describable in this particular way. If you are
so describable, then it is true, literally true, that you have beliefs. Dennett
extends this approach to consciousness, which he views not as an inwardly
observable performance taking place in a “Cartesian Theater,” but as a story we
tell about ourselves, the compilation of “multiple drafts” concocted by neural
subsystems see Conciousness Explained, 1. Elsewhere Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, 5
Dennett has argued that principles of Darwinian selection apply to diverse
domains including cosmology and human culture, and offered a compatibilist
account of free will with an emphasis on agents’ control over their actions
Elbow Room, 4.
Denotatum -- denotation,
the thing or things that an expression applies to; extension. The term is used
in contrast with ‘meaning’ and ‘connotation’. A pair of expressions may apply
to the same things, i.e., have the same denotation, yet differ in meaning:
‘triangle’, ‘trilateral’; ‘creature with a heart’, ‘creature with a kidney’;
‘bird’, ‘feathered earthling’; ‘present capital of France’, ‘City of Light’. If
a term does not apply to anything, some will call it denotationless, while
others would say that it denotes the empty set. Such terms may differ in
meaning: ‘unicorn’, ‘centaur’, ‘square root of pi’. Expressions may apply to
the same things, yet bring to mind different associations, i.e., have different
connotations: ‘persistent’, ‘stubborn’, ‘pigheaded’; ‘white-collar employee’,
‘office worker’, ‘professional paper-pusher’; ‘Lewis Carroll’, ‘Reverend
Dodgson’. There can be confusion about the denotation-connotation terminology,
because this pair is used to make other contrasts. Sometimes the term
‘connotation’ is used more broadly, so that any difference of either meaning or
association is considered a difference of connotation. Then ‘creature with a
heart’ and ‘creature with a liver’ might be said to denote the same individuals
or sets but to connote different properties. In a second use, denotation is the
semantic value of an expression. Sometimes the denotation of a general term is
said to be a property, rather than the things having the property. This occurs
when the denotation-connotation terminology is used to contrast the property
expressed with the connotation. Thus ‘persistent’ and ‘pig-headed’ might be
said to denote the same property but differ in connotation.
Grice’s deontic operator
– as a Kantian, Griceian is a deontologist. However, he refers to the ‘sorry
story of deontic logic,’ because of von Wright (from whom he borrowed but to
whom he never returned ‘alethic’) deontic logic, the logic of obligation and
permission. There are three principal types of formal deontic systems. 1
Standard deontic logic, or SDL, results from adding a pair of monadic deontic
operators O and P, read as “it ought to be that” and “it is permissible that,”
respectively, to the classical propositional calculus. SDL contains the
following axioms: tautologies of propositional logic, OA S - P - A, OA / - O -
A, OA / B / OA / OB, and OT, where T stands for any tautology. Rules of
inference are modus ponens and substitution. See the survey of SDL by Dagfinn
Follesdal and Risto Hilpinin in R. Hilpinin, ed., Deontic Logic, 1. 2 Dyadic
deontic logic is obtained by adding a pair of dyadic deontic operators O / and P / , to be read as “it ought to be that
. . . , given that . . .” and “it is permissible that . . . , given that . . .
,” respectively. The SDL monadic operator O is defined as OA S OA/T; i.e., a
statement of absolute obligation OA becomes an obligation conditional on
tautologous conditions. A statement of conditional obligation OA/B is true
provided that some value realized at some B-world where A holds is better than
any value realized at any B-world where A does not hold. This axiological
construal of obligation is typically accompanied by these axioms and rules of inference:
tautologies of propositional logic, modus ponens, and substitution, PA/C S -
O-A/C, OA & B/C S [OA/C & OB/C], OA/C / PA/C, OT/C / OC/C, OT/C / OT/B
7 C, [OA/B & OA/C] / OA/B 7 C, [PB/B 7 C & OA/B 7 C] / OA/B, and [P<
is the negation of any tautology. See the comparison of alternative dyadic
systems in Lennart Aqvist, Introduction to Deontic Logic and the Theory of
Normative Systems, 7. 3 Two-sorted deontic logic, due to Castañeda Thinking and
Doing, 5, pivotally distinguishes between propositions, the bearers of
truth-values, and practitions, the contents of commands, imperatives, requests,
and such. Deontic operators apply to practitions, yielding propositions. The
deontic operators Oi, Pi, Wi, and li are read as “it is obligatory i that,” “it
is permissible i that,” “it is wrong i that,” and “it is optional i denotation
deontic logic 219 219 that,”
respectively, where i stands for any of the various types of obligation,
permission, and so on. Let p stand for indicatives, where these express propositions;
let A and B stand for practitives, understood to express practitions; and allow
p* to stand for both indicatives and practitives. For deontic definition there
are PiA S - Oi - A, WiA S Oi - A, and LiA S - OiA & - Oi - A. Axioms and
rules of inference include p*, if p* has the form of a truth-table tautology,
OiA / - Oi - A, O1A / A, where O1 represents overriding obligation, modus
ponens for both indicatives and practitives, and the rule that if p & A1
& . . . & An / B is a theorem, so too is p & OiA1 & . . . &
OiAn / OiB. -- deontic paradoxes, the
paradoxes of deontic logic, which typically arise as follows: a certain set of
English sentences about obligation or permission appears logically consistent,
but when these same sentences are represented in a proposed system of deontic
logic the result is a formally inconsistent set. To illustrate, a formulation
is provided below of how two of these paradoxes beset standard deontic logic.
The contrary-to-duty imperative paradox, made famous by Chisholm Analysis, 3,
arises from juxtaposing two apparent truths: first, some of us sometimes do
what we should not do; and second, when such wrongful doings occur it is
obligatory that the best or a better be made of an unfortunate situation.
Consider this scenario. Art and Bill share an apartment. For no good reason Art
develops a strong animosity toward Bill. One evening Art’s animosity takes
over, and he steals Bill’s valuable lithographs. Art is later found out,
apprehended, and brought before Sue, the duly elected local
punishment-and-awards official. An inquiry reveals that Art is a habitual thief
with a history of unremitting parole violation. In this situation, it seems
that 14 are all true and hence mutually consistent: 1 Art steals from Bill. 2
If Art steals from Bill, Sue ought to punish Art for stealing from Bill. 3 It
is obligatory that if Art does not steal from Bill, Sue does not punish him for
stealing from Bill. 4 Art ought not to steal from Bill. Turning to standard
deontic logic, or SDL, let sstand for ‘Art steals from Bill’ and let p stand
for ‘Sue punishes Art for stealing from Bill’. Then 14 are most naturally
represented in SDL as follows: 1a s. 2a s / Op. 3a O- s / - p. 4a O - s. Of
these, 1a and 2a entail Op by propositional logic; next, given the SDL axiom OA
/ B / OA / OB, 3a implies O - s / O - p; but the latter, taken in conjunction
with 4a, entails O - p by propositional logic. In the combination of Op, O - p,
and the axiom OA / - O - A, of course, we have a formally inconsistent set. The
paradox of the knower, first presented by Lennart Bqvist Noûs, 7, is generated
by these apparent truths: first, some of us sometimes do what we should not do;
and second, there are those who are obligated to know that such wrongful doings
occur. Consider the following scenario. Jones works as a security guard at a
local store. One evening, while Jones is on duty, Smith, a disgruntled former
employee out for revenge, sets the store on fire just a few yards away from
Jones’s work station. Here it seems that 13 are all true and thus jointly
consistent: 1 Smith set the store on fire while Jones was on duty. 2 If Smith
set the store on fire while Jones was on duty, it is obligatory that Jones
knows that Smith set the store on fire. 3 Smith ought not set the store on
fire. Independently, as a consequence of the concept of knowledge, there is the
epistemic theorem that 4 The statement that Jones knows that Smith set the
store on fire entails the statement that Smith set the store on fire. Next,
within SDL 1 and 2 surely appear to imply: 5 It is obligatory that Jones knows
that Smith set the store on fire. But 4 and 5 together yield 6 Smith ought to
set the store on fire, given the SDL theorem that if A / B is a theorem, so is
OA / OB. And therein resides the paradox: not only does 6 appear false, the
conjunction of 6 and 3 is formally inconsistent with the SDL axiom OA / - O -
A. The overwhelming verdict among deontic logicians is that SDL genuinely
succumbs to the deontic operator deontic paradoxes 220 220 deontic paradoxes. But it is
controversial what other approach is best followed to resolve these puzzles.
Two of the most attractive proposals are Castañeda’s two-sorted system Thinking
and Doing, 5, and the agent-and-time relativized approach of Fred Feldman Philosophical
Perspectives, 0.
Grice on types of
priority -- Grice often uses ‘depend’ – but not clearly in what sense – there’s
ontological dependence, the basic one. dependence, in philosophy, a relation of
one of three main types: epistemic dependence, or dependence in the order of
knowing; conceptual dependence, or dependence in the order of understanding;
and ontological dependence, or dependence in the order of being. When a
relation of dependence runs in one direction only, we have a relation of priority.
For example, if wholes are ontologically dependent on their parts, but the
latter in turn are not ontologically dependent on the former, one may say that
parts are ontologically prior to wholes. The phrase ‘logical priority’ usually
refers to priority of one of the three varieties to be discussed here.
Epistemic dependence. To say that the facts in some class B are epistemically
dependent on the facts in some other class A is to say this: one cannot know
any fact in B unless one knows some fact in A that serves as one’s evidence for
the fact in B. For example, it might be held that to know any fact about one’s
physical environment e.g., that there is a fire in the stove, one must know as
evidence some facts about the character of one’s own sensory experience e.g.,
that one is feeling warm and seeing flames. This would be to maintain that
facts about the physical world are epistemically dependent on facts about
sensory experience. If one held in addition that the dependence is not
reciprocal that one can know facts about
one’s sensory experience without knowing as evidence any facts about the
physical world one would be maintaining
that the former facts are epistemically prior to the latter facts. Other
plausible though sometimes disputed examples of epistemic priority are the
following: facts about the behavior of others are epistemically prior to facts
about their mental states; facts about observable objects are epistemically
prior to facts about the invisible particles postulated by physics; and singular
facts e.g., this crow is black are epistemically prior to general facts e.g.,
all crows are black. Is there a class of facts on which all others
epistemically depend and that depend on no further facts in turn a bottom story in the edifice of knowledge?
Some foundationalists say yes, positing a level of basic or foundational facts
that are epistemically prior to all others. Empiricists are usually
foundationalists who maintain that the basic level consists of facts about
immediate sensory experience. Coherentists deny the need for a privileged
stratum of facts to ground the knowledge of all others; in effect, they deny
that any facts are epistemically prior to any others. Instead, all facts are on
a par, and each is known in virtue of the way in which it fits in with all the
rest. Sometimes it appears that two propositions or classes of them each
epistemically depend on the other in a vicious way to know A, you must first know B, and to know
B, you must first know A. Whenever this is genuinely the case, we are in a
skeptical predicament and cannot know either proposition. For example,
Descartes believed that he could not be assured of the reliability of his own
cognitions until he knew that God exists and is not a deceiver; yet how could
he ever come to know anything about God except by relying on his own
cognitions? This is the famous problem of the Cartesian circle. Another example
is the problem of induction as set forth by Hume: to know that induction is a
legitimate mode of inference, one would first have to know that the future will
resemble the past; but since the latter fact is establishable only by
induction, one could know it only if one already knew that induction is
legitimate. Solutions to these problems must show that contrary to first appearances,
there is a way of knowing one of the problematic propositions independently of
the other. Conceptual dependence. To say that B’s are conceptually dependent on
A’s means that to understand what a B is, you must understand what an A is, or
that the concept of a B can be explained or understood only through the concept
of an A. For example, it could plausibly be claimed that the concept uncle can
be understood only in terms of the concept male. Empiricists typically maintain
that we understand what an external thing like a tree or a table is only by
knowing what experiences it would induce in us, so that the concepts we apply
to physical things depend on the concepts we apply to our experideontological
ethics dependence 221 221 ences. They
typically also maintain that this dependence is not reciprocal, so that
experiential concepts are conceptually prior to physical concepts. Some
empiricists argue from the thesis of conceptual priority just cited to the
corresponding thesis of epistemic priority
that facts about experiences are epistemically prior to facts about
external objects. Turning the tables, some foes of empiricism maintain that the
conceptual priority is the other way about: that we can describe and understand
what kind of experience we are undergoing only by specifying what kind of
object typically causes it “it’s a smell like that of pine mulch”. Sometimes
they offer this as a reason for denying that facts about experiences are
epistemically prior to facts about physical objects. Both sides in this dispute
assume that a relation of conceptual priority in one direction excludes a
relation of epistemic priority in the opposite direction. But why couldn’t it
be the case both that facts about experiences are epistemically prior to facts
about physical objects and that concepts of physical objects are conceptually
prior to concepts of experiences? How the various kinds of priority and
dependence are connected e.g., whether conceptual priority implies epistemic
priority is a matter in need of further study. Ontological dependence. To say
that entities of one sort the B’s are ontologically dependent on entities of
another sort the A’s means this: no B can exist unless some A exists; i.e., it
is logically or metaphysically necessary that if any B exists, some A also
exists. Ontological dependence may be either specific the existence of any B
depending on the existence of a particular A or generic the existence of any B
depending merely on the existence of some A or other. If B’s are ontologically
dependent on A’s, but not conversely, we may say that A’s are ontologically
prior to B’s. The traditional notion of substance is often defined in terms of
ontological priority substances can
exist without other things, as Aristotle said, but the others cannot exist
without them. Leibniz believed that composite entities are ontologically
dependent on simple i.e., partless entities
that any composite object exists only because it has certain simple
elements that are arranged in a certain way. Berkeley, J. S. Mill, and other
phenomenalists have believed that physical objects are ontologically dependent
on sensory experiences that the
existence of a table or a tree consists in the occurrence of sensory
experiences in certain orderly patterns. Spinoza believed that all finite
beings are ontologically dependent on God and that God is ontologically
dependent on nothing further; thus God, being ontologically prior to everything
else, is in Spinoza’s view the only substance. Sometimes there are disputes
about the direction in which a relationship of ontological priority runs. Some
philosophers hold that extensionless points are prior to extended solids,
others that solids are prior to points; some say that things are prior to
events, others that events are prior to things. In the face of such
disagreement, still other philosophers such as Goodman have suggested that
nothing is inherently or absolutely prior to anything else: A’s may be prior to
B’s in one conceptual scheme, B’s to A’s in another, and there may be no saying
which scheme is correct. Whether relationships of priority hold absolutely or
only relative to conceptual schemes is one issue dividing realists and
anti-realists.
De re -- De re -- de dicto, of what is said or
of the proposition, as opposed to de re, of the thing. Many philosophers
believe the following ambiguous, depending on whether they are interpreted de
dicto or de re: 1 It is possible that the number of U.S. states is even. 2
Galileo believes that the earth moves. Assume for illustrative purposes that
there are propositions and properties. If 1 is interpreted as de dicto, it
asserts that the proposition that the number of U.S. states is even is a
possible truth something true, since
there are in fact fifty states. If 1 is interpreted as de re, it asserts that
the actual number of states fifty has the property of being possibly even something essentialism takes to be true.
Similarly for 2; it may mean that Galileo’s belief has a certain content that the earth moves or that Galileo believes, of the earth, that
it moves. More recently, largely due to Castañeda and John Perry, many
philosophers have come to believe in de se “of oneself” ascriptions, distinct
from de dicto and de re. Suppose, while drinking with others, I notice that
someone is spilling beer. Later I come to realize that it is I. I believed at
the outset that someone was spilling beer, but didn’t believe that I was. Once
I did, I straightened my glass. The distinction between de se and de dicto
attributions is supposed to be supported by the fact that while de dicto
propositions must be either true or false, there is no true proposition
embeddable within ‘I believe that . . .’ that correctly ascribes to me the
belief that I myself am spilling beer. The sentence ‘I am spilling beer’ will not
do, because it employs an “essential” indexical, ‘I’. Were I, e.g., to
designate myself other than by using ‘I’ in attributing the relevant belief to
myself, there would be no explanation of my straightening my glass. Even if I
believed de re that LePore is spilling beer, this still does not account for
why I lift my glass. For I might not know I am LePore. On the basis of such
data, some philosophers infer that de se attributions are irreducible to de re
or de dicto attributions. Internal-external
distinction – de re -- externalism, the view that there are objective reasons
for action that are not dependent on the agent’s desires, and in that sense
external to the agent. Internalism about reasons is the view that reasons for
action must be internal in the sense that they are grounded in motivational
facts about the agent, e.g. her desires and goals. Classic internalists such as
Hume deny that there are objective reasons for action. For instance, whether
the fact that an action would promote health is a reason to do it depends on
whether one has a desire to be healthy. It may be a reason for some and not for
others. The doctrine is hence a version of relativism; a fact is a reason only
insofar as it is so connected to an agent’s psychological states that it can
motivate the agent. By contrast, externalists hold that not all reasons depend
on the internal states of particular agents. Thus an externalist could hold
that promoting health is objectively good and that the fact that an action
would promote one’s health is a reason to perform it regardless of whether one
desires health. This dispute is closely tied to the debate over motivational
internalism, which may be conceived as the view that moral beliefs for instance
are, by virtue of entailing motivation, internal reasons for action. Those who
reject motivational internalism must either deny that expressive completeness
externalism 300 300 sound moral beliefs
always provide reasons for action or hold that they provide external reasons.
Derridaian implicature --
J., philosopher, author of deconstructionism, and leading figure in the
postmodern movement. Postmodern thought seeks to move beyond modernism by
revealing inconsistencies or aporias within the Western European tradition from
Descartes to the present. These aporias are largely associated with
onto-theology, a term coined by Heidegger to characterize a manner of thinking
about being and truth that ultimately grounds itself in a conception of
divinity. Deconstruction is the methodology of revelation: it typically
involves seeking out binary oppositions defined interdependently by mutual
exclusion, such as good and evil or true and false, which function as founding
terms for modern thought. The ontotheological metaphysics underlying modernism
is a metaphysics of presence: to be is to be present, finally to be absolutely
present to the absolute, that is, to the divinity whose own being is conceived
as presence to itself, as the coincidence of being and knowing in the Being
that knows all things and knows itself as the reason for the being of all that
is. Divinity thus functions as the measure of truth. The aporia here, revealed
by deconstruction, is that this modernist measure of truth cannot meet its own
measure: the coincidence of what is and what is known is an impossibility for
finite intellects. Major influences on Derrida include Hegel, Freud, Heidegger,
Sartre, Saussure, and structuralist thinkers such as Lévi-Strauss, but it was
his early critique of Husserl, in Introduction à “L’Origine de la géometrie” de
Husserl 2, that gained him recognition as a critic of the phenomenological
tradition and set the conceptual framework for his later work. Derrida sought
to demonstrate that the origin of geometry, conceived by Husserl as the guiding
paradigm for Western thought, was a supratemporal ideal of perfect knowing that
serves as the goal of human knowledge. Thus the origin of geometry is
inseparable from its end or telos, a thought that Derrida later generalizes in
his deconstruction of the notion of origin as such. He argues that this ideal
cannot be realized in time, hence cannot be grounded in lived experience, hence
cannot meet the “principle of principles” Husserl designated as the prime
criterion for phenomenology, the principle that all knowing must ground itself
in consciousness of an object that is coincidentally conscious of itself. This
revelation of the aporia at the core of phenomenology in particular and Western
thought in general was not yet labeled as a deconstruction, but it established the
formal structure that guided Derrida’s later deconstructive revelations of the
metaphysics of presence underlying the modernism in which Western thought
culminates.
DESCRIPTUM --
descriptivism, the thesis that the meaning of any evaluative statement is
purely descriptive or factual, i.e., determined, apart from its syntactical
features, entirely by its truth conditions. Nondescriptivism of which emotivism
and prescriptivism are the main varieties is the view that the meaning of
full-blooded evaluative statements is such that they necessarily express the
speaker’s sentiments or commitments. Nonnaturalism, naturalism, and
supernaturalism are descriptivist views about the nature of the properties to
which the meaning rules refer. Descriptivism is related to cognitivism and
moral realism.
de
sensu implicatum: vide casus obliquus. The casus rectus/casus obliquus
distinction. Peter Abelard, Kneale, Grice, Aristotle. Aquinas. de sensu
implicatum. Ariskantian quessertions on de sensu implicate. “My sometimes mischievous friend Richard Grandy once
said, in connection with some other occasion on which I was talking, that to
represent my remarks, it would be necessary to introduce a new form of
speech act, or a new operator, which was to be called the operator of
quessertion. It is to be read as “It is perhaps possible that someone might
assert that . . .” and is to be symbolized “?├”; possibly it
might even be iterable […]. Everything I shall
suggest here is highly quessertable.” Grice 1989:297. If Grice had one thing, he had linguistic creativity.
Witness his ‘implicature,’ and his ‘implicatum,’ not to mention his
‘pirotologia.’Sometime, somewhere, in the history of philosophy, a need was
felt by some Griceian philosopher, surely, for numbering intentions. The verb,
denoting the activity, out of which this ‘intention’ sprang was Latin
‘intendere,’ and somewhere, sometime, the need was felt to keep the Latinate
/t/ sound, and sometimes to make it sibilate, /s/. The source of it all seems to be Aristotle in
Soph.
Elen., 166a24–166a30, which was rendered twice om Grecian to Latin. In the
second Latinisation, ‘de sensu’ comes into view. Abelard proposes to use ‘de
rebus,’ or ‘de re,’ for what the previous translation had as ‘per divisionem.’
To make the distinction, he also proposes to use ‘de sensu’ for what the
previous translation has as ‘per compositionem,’ and ‘per conjunctionem.’ But
what did either mean? It was a subtle question, indeed. And trust Nicolai
Hartmann, in his mediaevalist revival, to add numbers and a further
distinction, now the ‘recte/’oblique’ distinction, and ‘intentio’ being
‘prima,’ ‘seconda,’ ‘tertia,’ and so on, ad infinitum. The proposal is clear.
We need a way to conceptualise first-order propositions. But we also need to
conceptualise ‘that’-clauses. The ‘that’-clause subordination is indeed
open-ended. ‘mean.’ Grice’s motivation in the presentation at the Oxford
Philosophical Society is to offer, as he calls it, a ‘proposal.’ In his words,
notice the emphasis on the Latinate ‘intend,’ – where it occurs, as applied to
an emissor, and as having as content, following that ‘that’-clause, an
‘intensional’ verb like ‘believe,’ which again, involves an ‘intentio tertia,’
now referring to a state back in the emissor expressed by yet another intensional
verb – all long for, ‘you communicate that p if you want your addressee to
realise that you hold this or that propositional attitude with content p.’ "A
meantNN something by x" is (roughly) equivalent to "A intended the
utterance of x to produce some effect in an audience by means of the
recognition of this intention"; and we may add that to ask what A meant is
to ask for a specification of the intended effect (though, of course, it may
not always be possible to get a straight answer involving a "that"
clause, for example, "a belief that . . ."). (Grice 1989: 220). Grice’s motivation
is to ‘reduce’ “mean” to what has come to be known in the Griceian [sic]
literature as a ‘Griceian’ [sic] ‘reflexive’ intention – he prefers M-intention
-- which we will read as involving an intentio seconda, and indeed intentio
tertia, and beyond, which makes its appearance explicitly in the second clause
-- or ‘prong,’ as he’d prefer -- of his ‘reductive’ analysis. Prong 1 then
corresponds to the intention prima or intention recta: Utterer U intends1
that Addressee A believes that Utterer U holds psychological state or attitude
ψ with content “p.” Prong 2 corresponds to the intentio seconda or
intentio obliqua: Utterer
U intends2 that Addressee A believes (i) on the ‘rational,’ and not
just ‘causal,’ basis of (ii), i.e. of the addressee A’s recognition of the
utterer U’s intentio seconda or intentio obliqua i2, that Addressee
A comes to believe that Utterer U holds psychological state or attitude ψ with
content “p.” In Grice’s wording, “i2” acts as a ‘reason,’ and not
merely a ‘cause’ for Addressee A’s coming to believe that U holds psychological
state or attitude ψ with content “p”. Kemmerling has used “↝” to represent this
‘reason’ (i1 ↝ i2,
Kemmerling in Grandy/Warner, 1986, cf. Petrus in Petrus 2010). Prong 3 is a
closure prong, now involving a self-reflective third-order intention, there is
no ‘covert’ higher-order intention involved in (i)-(iii). Meaning-constitutive
intentions in utterer u’s meaning that p should be out there ‘in the open,’ or
‘above board,’ to count as having been ‘communicated.Grice quotes only one
author in ‘Meaning’: C. L. Stevenson, who started his career with a degree in
English from Yale. Willing to allow a ‘metabolical’ use of ‘mean’ he
recognises, he scare quotes it: “There is a
sense, to be sure, in which a groan “means“ something, just a reduced
temperature may at times ”mean” convalescence.” Stevenson 1944:38). This
remark will have Grice later attempting an ‘evolutionary’ model of how an ‘x’
causing ‘y’ may proceed from ‘natural’ to less natural ones. Consider ‘is in
pain.’ A creature is physically hurt, and the expression of pain comes up
naturally as an effect. But if the creature attains rational control over his
expressive behaviour, and the creature is in pain (or expects his addressee A
to think that he is in pain), U can now imitate or replicate, in a something
like a Peirceian iconic mode, the natural behaviour manifested by a spontaneous
response to a hurtful stimulus. The ‘simulated’ pain will be an ‘icon’ of the
natural pain. Grice is getting Peirceian by the day, and he is not telling us!
There are, Grice says, as if to simplify Peirce the most he can, two modes of
representation. The primary one is now the explicitly Peirceian iconic one. The
‘risus naturaliter significat interiorem laetitiam’ of Occam. And then, there’s
the derivative *non*-iconic representation, in that order. The first is, shall
we say, ‘natural,’ and beyond the utterer U’s voluntary control (cf. Darwin on
the expression of emotions in man and animals); the second is not. Grice is
allowing for smoke representing fire, or if one must, alla Stevenson,
‘representing’ it. In Grice’s motivation to along the right lines, his
psychologist austere views of his 1948 ‘Meaning,’ when he rather artificially
disjoins a ‘natural’ “mean” and an ‘artificial’ “mean,” when merely different
‘uses’ stand for what he then thought were senses, he wants now to re-introduce
into philosophical discourse the iconic natural representation or meaning that
he had left aside.If this is part of what he calls a ‘myth,’ even if an
evolutionary one, to account for the emergence of ‘systems of communication,’
it does starts with an utterer U expressing (very much alla Croce or Marty) a
psychological state or attitude ψ by displaying some behavioural pattern in an
unintentional way. Grice is being Wittgensteinian here, and quotes almost
verbatim from Anscombe’s rendition, “No psychological concept except when
backed in behaviour that manifests it.”
If Ockham notes that “Risus naturaliter significat interiorem
laetitiam,” Grice shows this will allow to avoid, also alla Ockham, a polysemy
to ‘mean.’In Grice’s three clauses in his 1948 conceptual analysis of ‘meaning’
– the first clause of exhibitiveness, the second clause of intentio seconda or
reflexivity, and the third clause of communicative overtness, voluntary control
on the part of the utterer U is already in order. Since the utterer’s addressee
A is intended to recognise this, no longer is it required any prior ‘iconic’
association between a simulated behaviour and the behaviour naturally displayed
as a response to a stimulus. This amounts, for Grice to deeming the system of
expression as having become a full system now of intention-based
‘communication.’‘know’’ Intentio seconda or intentio obliqua comes up nicely
when Grice delivers the third William James Lecture, later reprinted as
“Further notes on logic and conversation.” There, Grice targets one type of
anti-Gettier scenario for the use of a factive psychological state or attitude
expressed by a verb like “know,” again followed by a “that”-clause. Grice is
criticisign Austin’s hasty attempt to analyse ‘know’ in terms of the
‘performatory’ ‘guarantee.’ As Grice puts it in “Prolegomena,” “to say ‘I know’
is to give a guarantee.” (Grice 1989:9) which can be traced back to Austin,
although since, as Grice witnessed it, Austin ‘all too frequently ignored’ the
real of emissor’s communicatum, one is never sure. In any case, Grice wants to overcome this
‘performatory’ fallacy, and he expands on the ‘suspect’ example of the
Prolegomena in the Third lecture. Grice’s troubles with ‘know’ were long-dated.
In Causal Theory he lists as the third philosophical mistake, “What is known by
me to be the case is not also believed by me to be the case.” (1989: 237).
Uncredited, but he may be having in mind Ryle’s odd characterisations with
terms such as ‘occurrence,’ ‘episode,’ and so on. In the section on ‘stress,’ Grice asks us to
assume that Grice knows that p. The question is whether this claim commits the
philosopher to the further clause, ‘Grice knows that Grice knows that p, and so
on, … to use the scholastic term we started this with, ad infinitum. It is not
that Grice is adverse to a regressive analysis per se. This is, in effect, with
what the third clause or prong in his analysis of ‘meaning’ does – ‘let all
meaning-constitutive intentions be overt, including this one. Indeed, when it comes to meaning or knowing,
we are talking optimal, we are talking ‘virtue.’ Both ‘meaning,’
‘communicating, ‘and ‘knowing,’ represent an ‘ideal,’ value-paradeigmatic
concept – where value, a favourite with Hartmann, appears under the guise of a
noumenon in the topos ouranos that only realises imperfectly in the sub-lunary
world. In the third William James lecture Grice cursorily dismisses these
demanding or restrictive anti-Gettier scenarios as too stipulatory for the
colloquial, ordinary, use – and thus ‘sense’ -- of ‘know.’ The approach Gettier
is cricising ends up being too convoluted, seeing that conversationalists tend
to make a rather loose use of the verb. Grice’s example illustrates linguistic
botanising. So we have Grice bringing the examinee who does know that the
battle of Waterloo was fought in 1815, with hardly conclusive evidence, or any
‘de sensu’ knowledge that the evidence (which he does not have) is conclusive.
Grice grants that, in a specially emphatic utterance of ‘know,’ there might be
a cancellable implicatum to the effect that the knower does have conclusive
evidence for what he alleges to know. Grice’s explicit reference to this
‘regressive nature’ (p. 59) touches on the topic of intention de sensu. Grice
is contesting the strong view, as represented, according to Gettier, by
philosophers ranging from Plato’s Thaetetus to Ayer’s Problem of Empirical
Knowledge (indeed the only two loci Gettier cares to cite in his short essay)
that a claim, “Grice knows that p” entails a claim to the effect that there is
conclusive evidence for p, and which gives Grice a feeling of subjective
certainty, and that Grice knows that there is such conclusive evidence, and so
on, ad infinitum. Grice casts doubts on the intentio de sensu as applied to the
colloquial or ‘ordinary’ uses of ‘know’. If I know that p, must I know that I
know that p? Having just introduced his
“Modified Occam’s Razor” – ‘Senses are not to be multiplied beyond necessity’
--, Grice doesn’t think so. At this point, however, he adds a characteristic
bracket: “(cf. causal theory).” With that bracket, Grice is allowing that the
denotatum of “p,” qua content of U’s psychological state or attitude of
‘knowing,’ the state-of-affairs itself, as we may put it, should play something
like a causal role in U’s knowing that p. Grice is open-minded as to what type
of link or connection that is. It need not be strictly causal. He is merely
suggesting the open-endness of ‘know in terms of these “further conditions” as
to how Grice ‘comes’ to know that p, and refers to the ‘causal theory,’ as
later developed by philosophers like E. F. Dretske and others. As a linguistic
botanist, Grice is well aware that ‘know,’ like ‘see,’ is what the Kiparskys
(whom Grice refers to) call a ‘factive.’An ascription of “Grice knows that p,”
or, indeed, “Grice sees that p,” (unless Grice hallucinates) entails “p.” The
defeating ‘hallucination’ scenario is key. It involves what Grice calls a
dis-implicatum. The utterer is using ‘know’ or‘see’ in a loose way (and meaning
less, rather than more than he explicitly conveys. Note incidentally, as Grice
later noted in later seminars, how his analysis proves the philosopher’s adage
wrong. Surely what is known by me to be the case is believed by me to be the
case. Any divergence to the contrary is a matter of ‘implicatural’ stress – by
which he means supra-segmentation.‘want’Soon after his delivering the William
James lectures, Grice got involved in a project concerning an evaluation of
Quine’s programme, where again he touches on issues of intentio seconda or
intentio obliqua, and brings us back to Russell and ‘the author of Waverley.’
Grice’s presentation comes out in Words and Objections, edited by Davidson and
Hintikka, a pun on Quine’s Word and Object. Grice’s contribution, ‘Vacuous
Names,’ (later reprinted in part in Ostertag’s volume on Definite descriptions)
concludes with an exploration of “the” phrases, and further on, with some
intriguing remarks on the subtle issues surrounding the scope of an ascription
of a predicate standing for a psychological state or attitude. Grice’s choice
of an ascription now notably involves an ‘opaque’ (rather than ‘factive,’ like
‘know’) psychological state or attitude: ‘wanting,’ which he symbolizes as “W.”
Grice considers a quartet of utterances: Jack wants someone to marry him; Jack
wants someone or other to marry him; Jack wants a particular person to marry
him, and There is someone whom Jack wants to marry him. Grice notes that “there
are clearly at least *two* possible readings” of an utterance like our (i): a
first reading “in which,” as Grice puts it, (i) might be paraphrased by (ii).”
A second reading is one “in which it might be paraphrased by (iii) or by (iv).”
Grice goes on to symbolize the phenomenon in his own version of a first-order
predicate calculus. ‘Ja wants that p’ becomes ‘Wjap,’ where ‘ja’
stands for the individual constant “Jack” as a super-script attached to the
predicate standing for Jack’s psychological state or attitude. Grice writes:
“Using the apparatus of classical predicate logic, we might hope to represent,”
respectively, the external reading and the internal reading (involving an
intentio secunda or intentio obliqua) as ‘(Ǝx)WjaFxja’
and ‘Wja(Ǝx)Fxja.’ Grice then
goes on to discuss a slightly more complex, or oblique, scenario involving this
second internal reading, which is the one that interests us, as it involves an
‘intentio seconda.’ Grice notes: “But suppose that Jack wants a specific
individual, Jill, to marry him, and this because Jack has been “*deceived* into
thinking that his friend Joe has a highly delectable sister called Jill, though
in fact Joe is an only child.” (The Jill Jack eventually goes up the hill with
is, coincidentally, another Jill, possibly existent). Let us recall that
Grice’s main focus of the whole essay is, as the title goes, ‘emptiness’! In
these circumstances, one is inclined to say that (i) is true only on reading
(vii),” where the existential quantifier occurs within the scope of the
psychological-state or -attitude verb, “but we cannot now represent (ii) or
(iii), with ‘Jill’ being vacuous, by (vi), where the existential quantifier (Ǝx) occurs outside the scope of the
psychological-attitude verb, want, “since [well,] Jill does not really exist,”
except as a figment of Jack’s imagination. In a manoeuver that I interpret as
‘purely intentionalist,’ and thus favouring by far Suppes’s over Chomsky’s
characterisation of Grice as a mere ‘behaviourist,’ Grice hopes that “we should
be provided with distinct representations for two familiar readings” of, now:
Jack wants Jill to marry him; Jack wants ‘Jill’ to marry him. It is at this
point that Grice applies a syntactic scope notation involving sub-scripted
numerals, (ix) and (x), where the numeric values merely indicate the order of
introduction of the symbol to which it is attached in a deductive schema for
the predicate calculus in question. Only the first notation yields the internal
de sensu reading (where ‘ji’ stands for ‘Jill’): ‘W2ja4F1ji3ja4’
and ‘W3ja4F2ji1ja4.’
Note that in the alternative external notation, the individual constant for
“Jill,” ‘ji,’ is introduced prior to ‘want,’ – ‘ji’’s sub-script is 1, while
‘W’’s sub-script is the higher numerical value 3. If Russell could have avowed
of this he would have had that the Prince Regents, by issuing the invitation,
wants to confirm that ‘the author of Waverley’ isN Scott, already having
confirmed that the author of Waverley =M the author of Waverley. Grice warns
Quine. Given that Jill does not exist, only the internal reading “can be true,”
or alethically satisfactory. Similarly, we might imagine an alternative
scenario where the butler informs the Prince: ‘We are sorry to inform Your
Majesty that your invitation was returned: apparently the author of Waverley
does not SEEM to exist.’ Grice sums up his reflections on the representation of
the opaqueness of a verb standing for a psychological state or attitude like
that expressed by ‘wanting’ with one observation that further marks him as an
intentionalist, almost of a Meinongian type. If he justified a loose use of
‘know,’ he is now is ready to allow for ‘existential’ phrases in cases of ‘vacuous’
designata, which however baffling, should not lead a philosopher to the wrong
characterisation of the linguistic phenomena (as it led Austin with ‘know’).
Provided such a descriptors occur within an opaque, intensional, de sensu,
psychological-state or attitude verbs, Grice captures the nuances of ‘ordinary’
discourse, while keeping Quine happy. As Grice puts it, we should also have
available to us also three neutral, yet distinct, (Ǝx)-quantificational forms (together with their isomorphs),” as a
philosopher who thinks that Wittgenstein denies a distinction, craves for a
generality! “Jill” now becomes “x”: ‘W4ja5Ǝx3F1x2ja5,’
‘Ǝx5W2ja5F1x4ja3’,
and ‘Ǝx5W3ja4F1x2ja4
.’ Since in (xii) the individual variable ‘x’ (ranging over ‘Jill’) “does not
dominate the segment following the ‘(Ǝx)’
quantifier, the formulation does not display any ‘existential’ or de re,
‘force,’ and is suitable therefore for representing the internal readings (ii)
or (iii), “if we have to allow, as we do have, if we want to faithfully
represent ‘ordinary’ discourse, for the possibility of expressing the fact that
a particular person, Jill, does not actually exist.” At least Grice does not
write, “really,” for he knew that Austin detested a ‘trouser word.’ Grice
concludes that (xi) and (xiii) are derivable from each of (ix) and (x), while
(xii) will be “derivable only” from (ix).‘intend’By this time, Grice had been
made a Fellow of the British Academy and it was about time for the delivery of
the philosophical lecture that goes with it. It only took him six five years.
Grice choses “Intention and uncertainty” as its topic. He was provoked by two
members of his ‘playgroup’ at Oxford, Hart and Hampshire, who in an essay
published in Mind, what Grice finds, again, as he did with the anti-Gettier
cases of ‘know,’ as rather a too strong analysis of ‘intending.’ In his
British-Academy lecture, Grice plays now with the psychological state or
attitude, realised by the verbal form, ‘intend,’ when specifically followed by
a ‘that’-clause, “intends that…,” as an echo of his dealing with “meaning to”
as merely ‘natural.’ He calls himself a neo-Prichardian, reviving this ‘willing
that’ which Urmson had popularised at Oxford, bringing to publication
Prichard’s exploration of William James and his “I will that the distant chair
slides over the floor towards me. It does not.”Grice’s ‘intending that…’ is
notably a practical, boulemaic, or buletic, or desiderative, rather than
alethic or doxastic, psychological state or attitude. It involves not just an itentum,
but an intentum that involves both a desideratum AND a factum – for the ‘future
indicative’ is conceptually involved. Grice claims that, if the conceptual
analysis of “intending that…” is to represent ‘ordinary’ discourse, shows that
it contains, as one of its prongs, in the final ‘neo-Prichardian’ version that
Grice gives, also a ‘doxastic’ (rather than ‘factive’ and ‘epistemic’)
psychological state or attitude, notably a belief on the part of the ‘intender’
that his willing that p has a probability greater than 0.5 to the effect that p
be realised. Contra Hart and Hampshire, Grice acknowledges the investigations
by the playgroup member Pears on this topic. Interestingly, a polemic arose
elsewhere with Davidson, who trying to be more Griceian thatn Grice, sees this
doxastic constraint as a mere cancellable implicatum. Grice grants it may be a
dis-implicatum at most, as in loose cases of ‘know,’ or ‘see.’ Grice is adamant
in regarding the doxastic component as a conceptual ‘entailment’ in the
‘ordinary’ use of ‘intend,’ unless the verb is used in a merely
‘disimplicatural,’ loose fashion. Grice’s example, ‘Jill intends to climb
Everest next week,’ when the prohibitive conditions are all to evident to
anyone concerned with such an utterance of (xv), perhaps Jill included, and
‘intends’ has to be read only ‘internally’ and hyperbolically. At this point,
if in “Vacuous Names, he fights with Meinong while enjoying engaging in
emptiness, it should be stressed that Grice gives as an illustration of a
‘disimplicature,’ along with a use of ‘see’ in a Shakespeareian context. ‘See,’ like ‘know,’ or ‘mean,’ exhibit what
Grice calls diaphaneity. So it’s only natural Grice turns his attention to
‘see.’ Grice’s examples are ‘Macbeth saw Banquo’ and ‘Hamlet saw his father on
the ramparts of Elsinore,’ and both involve hallucination! It is worth
comparing the fortune of ‘disimplicature’ with that of ‘implicature.’ Grice
coins ‘to dis-implicate’ as an active verb, for a case where the utterer does
NOT, as in the case of implicature, mean MORE than he says, but LESS. Grice’s
point is a subtle one. It involves his concession on something like an
explicatum, but alsoo on something like Moore’s entailment. If the ‘doxastic
condition’ is entailed by “intending that…,’ an utterer U may STILL use, in an
‘ordinary’ fashion, a strong ‘intending that…’ in a scenario where it is common
ground between the utterer U and his addressee A that the probability of ‘p’
being realised is lower than 0.5. The expression of the psychological state or
attitude is loose, since the utterer is, as it were, dropping an ‘entailment’
that applies in a use of ‘intending that’ where that ‘common-ground’ assumption
is absent. One reason may be echoic. Jill may think that she can succeed in
climbing Mt. Everest; she herself has used ‘intend.’ When that information is
transmitted, the strong psychological verb is kept when the doxastic constraint
is no longer shared by the utterer U and his addressee A (Like an implicatum, a
disimplicatum has to be recognised as such to count as one. No such thing as an ‘unwanted’
disimplicatum.‘motivate’Sometimes, it would seem that, for Grice, the English
philosopher of English ‘ordinary-language’ philosophy, English is not enough!
Grice would amuse at Berkeley seminars, with things like, ‘A pirot potches o as
fang, or potches o and o’ as F-id,’ just to attract his addressee’s attention.
The full passage, in what Grice calls, after Carnap, pirotese, reads: “A pirot
can be said to potch of some obble x as fang or feng; also to cotch of x, or
some obble o, as fang or feng; or to cotch of one obble o and another obble o’
as being fid to one another.” Grice’s deciphering, with ‘pirot,” a tribute to
Carnap – and Locke -- as any agent, and an ‘obble’ as an object. Grice borrows,
but does not return, the ‘pirot’ from Carnap (for whom pirots karulise
elatically – Carnap’s example of a syntactically well-formed formula in
Introduction to Semantics). Grice uses ‘pirotese’ ‘to potch’ as a correlate for
‘perceive,’ such as the factive ‘see’ and ‘to cotch’ as a correlate for the
similarly factive ‘know.’While ‘perceive’ strictly allows for a ‘that’-clause
(as in Grice analysis of “I perceive that the pillar box is red” in “The causal
theory of perception”), for simplificatory purposes, Grice is using ‘to potch’
as applying directly to an object, which Grice rephrases as an ‘obble.’ Since
some perceptual feature or other is required in a predication of ‘perceiving’
and ‘potching,’ ‘feng’ is introduced as a perceptual predicate. And since pirots
should also be allowed to perceive an ‘obble’ o in some relation with another
‘obble’ o2, Grice introduces the dyadic ‘relational’ feature ‘fid.’ Grice’s exegesis reads: “‘To potch’ is
something like ‘to perceive,’ whereas ‘to cotch’ is something like ‘to think.’
‘Feng’ and ‘fang’ are possible descriptions, much like our adjectives; ‘fid’ is
a possible relation between ‘obbles.’”).
At this point, Grice has been made, trans-territorially, the President
of the American Philosophical Association, and is ready to give his
Presidential Address (now reprinted in his Conception of Value, for Clarendon.
He chooses ‘philosophical psychology’ It’s when Grice goes on to play now with
the neo-Wittgensteinian issues of incorrigibility and privileged access, that
issues of intentio seconda become prominent.
For any psychological attitude ψ1, if U holds it, U holds, as
a matter of what Grice calls ‘genitorial construction,’ a meta-psychological
attitude, ψ2, a seconda intentio if ever there was one, -- Grice
even uses the numeral ‘2’ -- that has, as its content followed the second
‘that’-clause, the very first psychological attitude ψ1. The general
schema being given below, with an instance of specification: ‘ψup ⊃ ψuψup,’
and ‘if U wills that p, U wills that U wills that p.’ The interesting bit, from
the perspective of our exploration of ‘intentio seconda,’ is that, if, alla
Peano, we apply this to itself, as in the anti-Gettier cases Grice discussed
earlier, we end with an ad-infinitum clause. It was Judith Baker, who earned
her doctorate under Grice at Berkeley who sees this clearlier than everyone
(She was a regular contributor to the Kant Society in Germany). Baker’s
publications are, like those of her tutor, scarce. But in a delightful
contribution to the Grice festschrift, “Do one’s motives have to be pure?” (in
Grandy/Warner 1986), Baker explores the crucial importance of that ad-infinitum
chain of intentiones secondæ as it applies to questions of not alethic but
practical value or satisfactoriness. Consider ‘ought’. Grice would say that
‘must’ is aequi-vocal, i.e. it is not that ‘must’ has an alethic ‘sense’ and a
practical ‘sense.’ Only “one” must, if one must! (As Grice jokes, “Who needs
ichthyological necessity?”). Baker notes
that the ad-infinitum chain may explain how ‘duty’ ‘cashes out’ in ‘interest.’
Both Grice and Baker are avowed Kantotelians. By allowing ‘duty’ to cash out in
interest they are merging Aristotle’s utilitarian teleology with Kant’s
deontology, and succeeding! It is possible to symbolize Grice’s and Baker’s
proposal. If there is a “p” SUCH AS, at some point in the iteration of willing
and intentiones secondæ, the agent is not willing to accept it, this blocks the
potential Kantian universalizability of the content of a teleological attitude “p,”
stripping “p” of any absolute value status that it may otherwise attain.In
Grice’s reductive analysis of ‘mean,’ ‘know,’ ‘want,’ ‘intend,’ and ‘motivate,’
we witness the subtlety of his approach that is only made possible from the
recognition of Aristotle’s insight back in “De Sophisticis Elenchis” to Kant’s
explorations on the purity of motives. It should not surprise us. It’s Grice’s
nod, no doubt, to an unjustly neglected philosopher, who should be neglected no
more.ReferencesBlackburn, S. W. 1984. Spreading the words: groundings in the
philosophy of language. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Darwin, Charles. 1872.
The expression of emotions in man and animals. London: Murray. Grandy, R. E.
and R. O. Warner 1986. Philosophical grounds of rationality: intentions,
categories, ends. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Grice, H. P. 1948. Meaning, The
Oxford Philosophical Society. Repr. in Grice 1989. Grice, H. P. 1961. The
causal theory of perception, The Aristotelian Society. Repr. in Grice 1989.
Grice, H. P. 1967. Logic and Conversation, The William James lectures. Repr. in
a revised 1987 form in Grice 1989. Grice, H. P. 1969. Vacuous Names, in
Davidson and Hintikka, Words and objections. Dordrecht: Reidel, pp. Grice, H.
P. 1971. Intention and uncertainty, The British Academy. Oxford: Oxford
University Press. Grice, H. P. 1975. How pirots karulise elatically: some
simpler ways, The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC MSS 90/135c, The Bancroft Library,
University of California, Berkeley. Grice, H. P. 1982. Meaning Revisited, in N.
V. Smith, Mutual knowledge. London: Croom Helm, repr. in Grice 1989. Grice,
H.P. 1987. Retrospective epilogue, in Studies in the Way of Words. Grice, H. P.
1989. Studies in the way of words. London and Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press. Hart, H. L. A. and S. N. Hampshire 1958. Intention, decision,
and certainty, Mind, 67:1-12.Kemmerling, A. M. 1986. Utterer’s meaning
revisited, in Grandy/Warner 1986. Kneale, W. C. and M. Kneale. 1966. The
development of logic. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Pecocke, C. A. B. 1989. Transcendental Arguments in the Theory of Content: An Inaugural Lecture Delivered
Before the University of Oxford on 16 May 1989. Oxford University Press.
Prichard, H. A. 1968. Moral Obligation and Duty and Interest. Essays and
Lectures, edited by
W. D. Ross and J. O. Urmson. Oxford: Oxford University. Stevenson,
C. L. 1944. Ethics and language. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.
Strawson, P. F. 1964 Intention and convention in speech acts, The Philosophical
Review, repr. in Logico-Linguistic Papers, London, Methuen, 1971, pp. 149-169 as Blackburn puts
it in his discussion of Grice in the intention-based chapter of his “Spreading
the word: groundings in the philosophy of language.” Intentio seconda or
obliqua bears heavily on Grice’s presentation for the Oxford Philosophical
Society. The motivation behind Grice’s analysis pertains to philosophical
methodology. Grice is legitimizing an ascription of ‘mean’ to a rational agent,
such as … a philosopher. This very ascription Grice finds to be ‘seemingly
denied by Wittgenstein’ (Grice 1986). As an exponent of what he would later and
in jest dub “The Post-War Oxonian School of ‘Ordinary-Language’ Philosophy,”
Grice engages in a bit of language botany, and dealing with the intricacies of ‘communicative’
uses of “mean.” Interestingly, and publicly – although a provision is in order
here – Grice acknowledges emotivist Stevenson, who apparently taught Grice
about ‘metabolic’ uses of “mean.” Stevenson, who read English as a minor at
Yale, would not venture to apply ‘mean’ to moans! Realising it as a colloquial
extension, he is allowed to use ‘mean,’ but in scare quotes only! (“Smith’s
reduced temperature ‘means’ that he is is convalescent.” “There is a sense, to be sure, in which a groan
“means“ something, just a reduced temperature may at times ”mean”
convalescence.” Stevenson 1944:38). Close enough but no cigar. Stevenson
has ‘groan,’ which at least rhymes with ‘moan.’ (As for the proviso, Grice
never ‘meant’ to ‘publish’ his talk on ‘Meaning,’ but one of his tutees
submitted for publication, and on acceptance, Grice allowed the publication).
In “Meaning” Grice does not provide a conceptual analysis for, ‘by moaning, U
means [simpliciter] that p.’ He will in his “Meaning Revisited” – the metabolical
scare quotes are justified on two counts: ‘By moaning U means that p’ is
legitimized on the basis of the generic ‘x ‘means’ y iff x is a consequence of
y.’ But it is also justified on the basis that there is a continuum between U’s
involuntarily moaning thereby meaning that he is in pain, and U’s voluntarily
moaning, thereby ‘communicating’ that he is in pain. However, and more
importantly for our exploration of the ‘intentum,’ Grice hastens to add that he
does not agree with Stevenson’s purely ‘causal’ account. The main reason is not
‘anti-naturalistic.’ It is just that Grice sees Stevenson’s proposal as as
involving a vicious circle. Typically, Grice extrapolates the relevant quote
from Stevenson, slightly out of context. Grice refers to Stevenson’s appeal to
"an elaborate process of conditioning attending …
communication."Grice: “If we have to take seriously the second part of the
qualifying phrase ("attending … communication"), Stevenson’s account
of meaning is obviously circular. We might just as well say, "U means” if
“U communicates,” which, though true, is not helpful. It MIGHT be helpful for
Cicero translating from Grecian to Roman: ‘com-municatio’ indeed translates a
Grecian turn of phrase involving ‘what is common.’ f. “con-” and root “mu-,” to
bind; cf.: immunis, munus, moenia.’And the suggestion would be helpful if we
say that to ‘communicate,’ or ‘mean,’ is just to bring some intentum to be
allotted ‘common ground,’ because of the psi-transmission it is shared between
the emissor and his intended addressee. This one hopes is both true AND
‘helpful.’ In any case, Grice’s tutee Strawson later
found Grice’s elucidation of utterer’s meaning to be ‘objection-proof’
(Starwson and Wiggins, 2001) in terms of a set of necessary and sufficient
conditions, of an utterer or emissor E meaning that p, by uttering ‘x,’ and
appealing to primary and secondary intentionality. But is Grice’s
intentionalism a sort of behaviourism? Grice denies that in “Method” calling
‘behaviourism’ ‘silly. Grice further explores intentio obliqua as it pertains
to his remarks towards a general theory of “re-presentation.” The place where
this excursus takes place is crucial. It is his Valediction to his compilation
of essays, Studies in the Way of Words, posthumously published. At this stage,
he must have felt that, what he once regarded krypto-technic in Peirce, is no
more! Grice has already identified in that ‘Valediction’ many strands of his
philosophical thought, and concludes his re-assessment of his ‘philosophy of
language’ and semiotics with an attempt to provide some general remarks about
‘to represent’ in general, perhaps to counter the allegations of vicious
circularity which his approach had received, seeing that “p” features, as a
‘gap-sign,’ as the content of both an ‘expression’ and a ‘psychological’
attitude. In trying to reconcile his austere views on “Meaning,” back in that
evening at the Oxford Philosophical Society, where he distinguished two senses
of ‘mean’ (“Smoke ‘means’ fire,” and ““Smoke” means ‘smoke’”). By focusing on
the most general of verbs for a psychological state or attitude, ‘to
represent,’ that even allows for a non-psychological reading, Grice wants to be
seen as answering the challenge of an alleged vicious circle with which his
intention-based approach is usually associated. The secondary-intentional
non-iconic mode of representation rests on a prior iconic mode and can be
understood as ‘pre-conventional,’ without any explicit recourse to the features
we associate with a developed system of communication. Grice needs no ‘language
of thought’ or sermo mentalis alla Ockham there. Grice allows that one can
communicate fully without the need to use what more conventional philosophers
call ‘a language.’ Artists do it all the time!
The passage from intentio prima to full intentio seconda is, for Grice,
gradual and complex. Grice means to adhere with ‘ordinary’ discourse, in its
implicata and dis-implicaata. The passage also adhering to a functionalist
approach qua ‘method in philosophical psychology,’ as he’d prefer, that needs
not to postulate a full-blown ‘linguistic entity’ as the object of intentional
thought. In this respect, it is worth mentioning the work of C. A. B. Peacocke,
who knew Grice from his Oxford days and later joined his seminars at Berkeley,
and who has developed this line of thought in a better fashion than less
careful philosophers. Grice’s programme has occasionally, and justly, been
compared with phenomenological approaches to expression and communication, such
as Marty’s. It is hoped that the previous notes have shed some light on those
aspects where this interface can further be elaborated. Even as we leave an
intentio seconda to resume the discussion for a longer day. In his explorations
on the embedding of intensional concepts, Grice should be inspirational to
philosophers in more than one way, but especially in the one that he favoured
most: the problematicity of it all. As he put it in another context, when
defending absolute value. “Such a defence of absolute value is
of course, bristling with unsolved or incompletely solved problems. I do not
find this thought daunting. If philosophy generated no new problems it would be
dead, because it would be finished; and if it recurrently regenerated the same
old problems it would not be alive because it could never begin. So those who
still look to philosophy for their bread-and-butter should pray that the supply
of new problems never dries up.” (Grice 1991). In the Graeco-Roman tradition,
philosophers started to use ‘intentio prima,’ ‘intentio secunda,’ ‘intentio
tertia,’ and “… ad infinitum,” as they would put it. In post-war Oxford,
English philosopher H. P. Grice felt the need. The formalist he was, he found
subscribing numbers to embedded intentions has a strong appeal for him. Grice’s
main motivation is in the philosophy of language, but as ancillary towards
solving this or that problem concerning the ‘linguistic’ methodology of his
day. To appreciate Grice’s contribution one need to abstract a little from his
own historical circumstances, or rather, place them in the proper context, and
connect it with the general history of philosophy. As a matter of
history, ‘intentio prima,’ or ‘recta,’ as opposed to ‘obliqua,’ is part of
Nicolai Hartmann’s ‘mediaeval revival,’ as a reaction to mediaevalism having
made scorn by the likes of Rabelais that amused D. P. Henry. For the mediaeval
philosopher, to use Grice’s symbolism, was concerned with whether a chimaera
could eat ‘I2,’ a second intention. The mediaeval philosopher’s
implicature seems to be that a chimaera can easily eat ‘I1.’ Such a
‘quaestio subtilissima,’ Rabelais jokes. If ‘I1,’ or, better, for
simplificatory purposes, ‘IR’ is a specific state, stance, or
attitude of the ‘soul,’ ‘ψ1’ or ‘ψR’ directed towards
its ‘de re’ ‘intentum,’ or ‘prae-sentatum,’ of the noumenon, ‘IO,’
‘intentio obliqua,’ is a state, stance, or attitude of the ‘soul,’ of the same
genus, ‘ψ2,’ or ‘ψS’ directed towards ‘ψR,’
its ‘de sensu’ ‘intentum’ now ‘re-prae-sentatum’ of the phainomenon or
ob-jectum (Abelard translates Aristotle’s ‘per divisionem’ as ‘de re’ and ‘per
compositionem’ and ‘per conjunctionem’ by ‘de sensu,’ and ‘per Soph. Elen.,
Kneale and Kneale, 1966). Grice’s intentionalism has been widely discussed, but
the defense he himself makes of intensionalism (versus extensionalism) has
proved inspiring, as when he assumes as an attending commentary to his
reductive analysis of the state of affairs by which the emissor communicates
that p, that he is putting forward “the legitimacy of [the] application of
[existential generalization] to a statement the expression of which contains
such [an] "intensional" verb[…] as "intend" (Grice 1989:
116 ). The expression ‘de sensu’ is due to Abelard, but Russell likes it. While
serving as Prince Regent of England in 1815, George IV casually remarks his
wish to meet ‘the author of Waverley’ in the flesh. The Prince was being funny,
you see. The prince would not know this, but when his press becomes embroiled
in pecuniary difficulties, Scotts set out to write a cash-cow. The result is
Waverley, a novel which did not name its author. It is a tale of the last
Jacobite rebellion in England, the “Forty-Five.” The novel meets with
considerable success. The next year, Scott. There follows a sequel, the same
general vein. Mindful of his reputation,
Scotts maintains the anonymous habit he displays with Waverley, and publishes the
sequel under “the Author of Waverley.” The identity “Author of Waverley” =
“Scott” is widely rumoured, and Scott is
given the honour of dining with George, Prince Regent, who had wished to
meet “Author of Waverley” in the flesh for a ‘snug little dinner’ at Carleton,
on hearing ‘the author of Waverley’ was in town. The use of a descriptor may
lead to the implicatum that His Majesty is p’rhaps not sure that ‘the author of
Waverley’ has a name, and isR Scott. Lack of certainty is one thing,
yet, to quote from Russell, “an interest in the law of identity can hardly be
attributed to the first gentleman of Europe.” Grice admired Russell profusely
and one of his essays is wittily entitled, “Definite descriptions in Russell
and in the Vernacular,” so his explorations of ‘intentio’ ‘de sensu’ have an
intrinsic interest. Keywords: H. Paul
Grice, intentio seconda, implicature, intentionalism, intentum, intentum de sensu, ‘that’-clause, the
recte-oblique distinction. Grice explored issues of intentum de sensu in
various areas. First, ‘meaning.’ Second, ‘knowing.’ Third, ‘wanting.’ Fourth,
‘intending,’ Fifth, pirots, with incorrigibility and privileged access. Sixth,
morality and the regressus. Seventh, the continuum and the unity. With Grice, it all
starts, roughly, when Grice comes up with a topic for a talk at The Oxford
Philosophical Society.The Society is holding one of those meetings, and Grice
thinks of presenting a few conclusions he had reached at his seminars on C. S.
Peirce.What’s the good of an Oxford don of keeping tidy lecture notes if you will
not be able to lecture to a philosophical addressee? Peirce is the philosopher
on whom Grice choses to lecture. In part, for “not being particularly popular
on these shores,” and in part because Grice noted the ‘heretic’ in Peirce with
which he could identify.Granted, at this stage, Grice disliked the
un-Englishness of some of Peirce’s over-Latinate jargon, what Grice finds the
‘krypto-technic.’ ‘Sign,’ ‘symbol,’ ‘icon,’ and the rest of them!Instead, Grice
thinks, initially for the sake of his tutees and students – he was university
lecturer -- sticking with the simpler, ‘ordinary’, short English lexeme
‘mean.’A. M. Kemmerling, of all people, who wrote the obituary for Grice for
Synthese, has precisely cast doubts on the ‘universal’ validity of Grice’s proposed
conceptual reductive analysis, notably in his Ph.D dissertation on
‘Meinen.’ Note the irony in Kemmerling’s
title: Was Grice mit "Meinen"
meint - Eine Rekonstruktion der Griceschen Analyse rationaler Kommunikation.” Nothing jocular in the
subtitle, for this indeed is a reconstruction of ‘rational’ communication. The
funny bit is in “Was mit “Meinen” Grice meint”! In that very phrase, which is
rhetorical, and allows for an answer, because ‘meinen’ is both mentioned and
used, Kemmerling allows that he is ‘buying’ Grice’s idea that his reductive
analysis of ‘mean’ applies to German ‘meinen.’ Kemmerling is also pointing to
the ‘primacy’ (to use Suppes’s phrase) of ‘utterer’s’ or ‘emissor’s
“communicatum” or ‘Meinung.” Kemmerling advertises his interest in exploring on
what _Grice_ means – by uttering ‘meinen,’ almost! As Kemmerling notes,
German ‘meinen,’ cognate via common Germanic with English ‘mean,’ (cf. Frisian
‘mein,’ – and Hazzlitt, “Bread, butter, and green cheese, very good English,
very good cheese”) is none other than ‘mean’ that Grice means. And ‘Grice
means’ is the only literal, i. e. non-metabolic use of the verb Grice allows –
as applied to a rational agent, which features in the subtitle to Kemmerling’s
dissertation. Thus one reads in Kluge, “Etymologische Wörterbuch
der deutschen Sprache, 1881, of “meinen,”
rendered by J. F. Davis as ‘to think, opine, mean,’ from a MHG used to indicate, in Davis’s rendition,
‘to direct one's thoughts to, have in view, aim at, be affected towards a
person, love,’ OHG meinen, meinan, ‘to mean, think, say,
declare.’ = OS mênian,
Du. meenen, OE mœ̂nan, E mean (to this Anglo-Saxon mœ̂nan, cf. prob. moan – I know your meaning from your moaning),
all from WGmc. meinen, mainjan, ‘mênjan,’ and cognate with ‘man,’ ‘to think’ (cf. ‘mahnen,’ ‘Mann,’ and ‘Minne’). Kemmerling is
very apropos, because Grice engaged in philosophical discussion with him, as
testified by his perceptive contribution to P. G. R. I. C. E. (Kemmerling,
1986). On top, in his presentation for the Oxford Philosophical Society, Grice
wants to restrict the philosophical interest to ‘de sensu,’ the ‘that’-clause
(cf. the recte-oblique distinction), viz. not just ‘what Grice means,’ if this
is going to be expaned as ‘something wonderful.’ Not enough for Grice. It has
to be expanded, for the thing to have philosophical interest into a
‘propositional clause,’, an ‘intensional’ context, i. e., ‘Grice means that…’
Grice cavalierly dismisses other use of ‘mean,’ – notably the ubiquitous, ‘mean
to…’ – He will later explain his reason for this. It was after William James
provoked Prichard. For William James uttered: “I will that the distant table
slides on the floor toward me. It doesn’t’. Prichard turns this into the conceptual
priority of ‘will that…’ for which Grice gives him the credit he deserved at a
later lecture now on his being appointed a Fellow of The British Academy
(Grice, 1971). Strictly, what Grice does
in the Oxford Philosophical Socieety presentation is to distinguish between
various ‘mean’ and end up focusing on ‘mean’ as followed by a ‘that’-clause. In
the typical Oxonian fashion, that Grice borrows (but never returns) from J. C.
Wilson, Grice has the IO as ‘meaning that so-and-so’ (Grice, 1989:
217). Grice explicitly displays the primacy of a reductive analysis of the
conceptual circumstances involving an emissor (Anglo-Saxon ‘utterer’) who
‘means’ that p. It will be a longer ‘shaggy-dog’ story Grice tells when he
crosses the divide from ‘propositional’ (p) to ‘predicative’ ascriptions (“By
uttering ‘Fido is shaggy,’ Grice means that the dog is hairy-coated (Grice
1989). Grice notes that ‘metabolically,’ “mean,” at least in English, can be
applied to various other things, sometimes even involving a ‘that’-clause. “By
delivering his budget, the major means that we will have a hard year.’ Grice
finds that ‘but we won’t’ turns him into a self-contradicter. In Grice’s usage,
‘x ‘means’ y’ iff ‘y is a consequence [consequentia] of x’ --. Quite a
departure from Old Frisian. If Hume’s objection to the use of the verb ‘cause,’
is that it covers animistic beliefs (“Charles I’s decapitation willed his
death”), English allows for disimplicated or loose ‘metabolic’ uses of ‘will’
(“It ‘will’ rain”) and ‘mean’ (Grice’s moaning means that he is in pain).
desideratum:
Qua volition,
a mental event involved with the initiation of action. ‘To will’ is sometimes
taken to be the corresponding verb form of ‘volition’. The concept of volition
is rooted in modern philosophy; contemporary philosophers have transformed it
by identifying volitions with ordinary mental events, such as intentions, or
beliefs plus desires. Volitions, especially in contemporary guises, are often
taken to be complex mental events consisting of cognitive, affective, and
conative elements. The conative element is the impetus – the underlying
motivation – for the action. A velleity is a conative element insufficient by
itself to initiate action. The will is a faculty, or set of abilities, that
yields the mental events involved in initiating action. There are three primary
theories about the role of volitions in action. The first is a reductive
account in which action is identified with the entire causal sequence of the
mental event (the volition) causing the bodily behavior. J. S. Mill, for
example, says: “Now what is action? Not one thing, but a series of two things:
the state of mind called a volition, followed by an effect. . . . [T]he two
together constitute the action” (Logic). Mary’s raising her arm is Mary’s
mental state causing her arm to rise. Neither Mary’s volitional state nor her
arm’s rising are themselves actions; rather, the entire causal sequence (the
“causing”) is the action. The primary difficulty for this account is
maintaining its reductive status. There is no way to delineate volition and the
resultant bodily behavior without referring to action. There are two
non-reductive accounts, one that identifies the action with the initiating
volition and another that identifies the action with the effect of the
volition. In the former, a volition is the action, and bodily movements are
mere causal consequences. Berkeley advocates this view: “The Mind . . . is to
be accounted active in . . . so far forth as volition is included. . . . In
plucking this flower I am active, because I do it by the motion of my hand,
which was consequent upon my volition” (Three Dialogues). In this century,
Prichard is associated with this theory: “to act is really to will something”
(Moral Obligation, 1949), where willing is sui generis (though at other places
Prichard equates willing with the action of mentally setting oneself to do
something). In this sense, a volition is an act of will. This account has come
under attack by Ryle (Concept of Mind, 1949). Ryle argues that it leads to a
vicious regress, in that to will to do something, one must will to will to do
it, and so on. It has been countered that the regress collapses; there is
nothing beyond willing that one must do in order to will. Another criticism of
Ryle’s, which is more telling, is that ‘volition’ is an obscurantic term of
art; “[volition] is an artificial concept. We have to study certain specialist
theories in order to find out how it is to be manipulated. . . . [It is like]
‘phlogiston’ and ‘animal spirits’ . . . [which] have now no utility” (Concept
of Mind). Another approach, the causal theory of action, identifies an action
with the causal consequences of volition. Locke, e.g., says: “Volition or
willing is an act of the mind directing its thought to the production of any
action, and thereby exerting its power to produce it. . . . [V]olition is
nothing but that particular determination of the mind, whereby . . . the mind
endeavors to give rise, continuation, or stop, to any action which it takes to
be in its power” (Essay concerning Human Understanding). This is a functional
account, since an event is an action in virtue of its causal role. Mary’s arm
rising is Mary’s action of raising her arm in virtue of being caused by her
willing to raise it. If her arm’s rising had been caused by a nervous twitch,
it would not be action, even if the bodily movements were photographically the
same. In response to Ryle’s charge of obscurantism, contemporary causal
theorists tend to identify volitions with ordinary mental events. For example,
Davidson takes the cause of actions to be beliefs plus desires and Wilfrid
Sellars takes volitions to be intentions to do something here and now. Despite
its plausibility, however, the causal theory faces two difficult problems: the
first is purported counterexamples based on wayward causal chains connecting
the antecedent mental event and the bodily movements; the second is provision
of an enlightening account of these mental events, e.g. intending, that does
justice to the conative element. See also ACTION THEORY, FREE WILL PROBLEM,
PRACTICAL REASONING, WAYWARD CAUSAL CHAIN. M.B. volition volition. Grice makes a double use of this. It should be thus two
entries. There’s the conversational desideratum, where a desideratum is like a
maxim or an imperative – and then there are two specific desiderata: the
desideratum of conversational clarity, and the desideratum of conversational
candour. Grice was never sure what adjective to use for the ‘desiderative.’ He
liked buletic. He liked desideratum because it has the co-relate
‘consideratum,’ for belief. He uses
‘deriderative’ and a few more! Of course what he means is a sub-psychological
modality, or rather a ‘soul.’ So he would apply it ‘primarily’ to the soul, as
Plato and Aristotle does. The ‘psyche’, or ‘anima’ is what is ‘desiderativa.’
The Grecians are pretty confused about this (but ‘boulemaic’ and ‘buletic’ are
used), and the Romans didn’t help. Grice is concerned with a
rational-desiderative, that takes a “that”-clause (or oratio obliqua), and qua
constructivist, he is also concerned with a pre-rational desiderative (he has
an essay on “Needs and Wants,” and his detailed example in “Method” is a
squarrel (sic) who needs a nut. On top, while Grice suggest s that it goes both
ways: the doxastic can be given a reductive analaysis in terms of the buletic,
and the buletic in terms of the doxastic, he only cares to provide the former.
Basically, an agent judges that p, if his willing that p correlates to a state
of affairs that satisfies his desires. Since he does not provide a reductive
analysis for Prichard’s willing-that, one is left wondering. Grice’s position
is that ‘willing that…’ attains its ‘sense’ via the specification, as a
theoretical concept, in some law in the folk-science that agents use to explain
their behaviour. Grice gets subtler when he deals with mode-markers for the
desiderative: for these are either utterer-oriented, or addressee-oriented, and
they may involve a buletic attitude itself, or a doxastic attitude. When
utterer-addressed, utterer wills that utterer wills that p. There is no closure
here, and indeed, a regressus ad infinitum is what Grice wants, since this
regressus allows him to get univeersabilisability, in terms of conceptual,
formal, and applicational kinds of generality. In this he is being Kantian, and
Hareian. While Grice praises Kantotle, Aristotle here would stay unashamedly
‘teleological,’ and giving priority to a will that may not be universalisable,
since it’s the communitarian ‘good’ that matters. what does Grice have to say
about our conversational practice? L and S have “πρᾶξις,” from “πράσσω,” and
which they render as ‘moral action,’ oποίησις, τέχνη;” “oποιότης,” “ἤθη καὶ
πάθη καὶ π.,” “oοἱ πολιτικοὶ λόγοι;” “ἔργῳ καὶ πράξεσιν, οὐχὶ λόγοις” Id.6.3; ἐν
ταῖς πράξεσι ὄντα τε καὶ πραττόμενα, “exhibited in actual life,” action in
drama, “oλόγος; “μία π. ὅλη καὶ τελεία.” With practical Grice means buletic.
Praxis involves acting, and surely Grice presupposes acting. By uttering, i. e.
by the act of uttering, expression x, U m-intends that p. Grice occasionally
refers to action and behaviour as the thing which an ascription of a
psychological state explains. Grice prefers the idiom of soul. Theres the
ratiocinative soul. Within the ratiocinative, theres the executive soul and the
merely administrative soul. Cicero had to translate Aristotle into prudentia,
every time Aristotle talked of phronesis. Grice was aware that the
terminology by Kant can be confusing. Kant used ‘pure’ reason for reason in the
doxastic realm. The critique by Kant of practical reason is hardly
symmetrical to his critique of doxastic reason. Grice, with his
æqui-vocality thesis of must (must crosses the buletic-boulomaic/doxastic
divide), Grice is being more of a symmetricalist. The buletic, boulomaic, or
volitive, is a part of the soul, as is the doxatic or judicative. And
judicative is a trick because there is such a thing as a value judgement, or an
evaluative judgement, which is hardly doxastic. Grice plays with two
co-relative operators: desirability versus probability. Grice invokes the
exhibitive/protreptic distinction he had introduced in the fifth James lecture,
now applied to psychological attitudes themselves. This Grice’s attempt is to
tackle the Kantian problem in the Grundlegung: how to derive the categorical
imperative from a counsel of prudence. Under the assumption that the protasis
is Let the agent be happy, Grice does not find it obtuse at all to construct a
universalisable imperative out of a mere motive-based counsel of prudence.
Grice has an earlier paper on pleasure which relates. The derivation involves
seven steps. Grice proposes seven steps in the derivation. 1. It is a
fundamental law of psychology that, ceteris paribus, for any creature R, for
any P and Q, if R wills P Λ judges if P, P as a result of Q, R wills
Q. 2. Place this law within the scope of a "willing" operator: R
wills for any P Λ Q, if R wills P Λ judges that if P, P as
a result of Q, R wills Q. 3. wills turns to should. If rational, R will have to
block unsatisfactory (literally) attitudes. R should (qua rational) judge for
any P Λ Q, if it is satisfactory to will that P Λ it is
satisfactory to judge that if P, P as a result of Q, it is sastisfactory to
will that Q. 4. Marking the mode: R should (qua rational) judge for any
P Λ Q, if it is satisfactory that !P Λ that if it .P, .P
only as a result of Q, it is satisfactory that !Q. 5. via (p & q
-> r) -> (p -> (q -> r)): R should (qua rational)
judge for any P Λ Q, if it is satisfactory that if .P, .P only
because Q, i is satisfactory that, if let it be that P, let it be that Q. 6. R
should (qua rational) judge for any P Λ Q, if P, P only because p
yields if let it be that P, let it be that Q. 7. For any P Λ Q if P,
P only because Q yields if let it be that P, let it be that Q. Grice was
well aware that a philosopher, at Oxford, needs to be a philosophical
psychologist. So, wanting and needing have to be related to willing. A plant
needs water. A floor needs sweeping. So need is too broad. So is want, a
non-Anglo-Saxon root for God knows what. With willing things get closer to the
rational soul. There is willing in the animal soul. But when it comes to
rational willing, there must be, to echo Pritchard, a conjecture, some doxastic
element. You cannot will to fly, or will that the distant chair slides over the
floor toward you. So not all wants and needs are rational willings, but then
nobody said they would. Grice is interested in emotion in his power structure
of the soul. A need and a want may count as an emotion. Grice was never too
interested in needing and wanting because they do not take a that-clause. He
congratulates Urmson for having introduced him to the brilliant willing that …
by Prichard. Why is it, Grice wonders, that many ascriptions of buletic states
take to-clause, rather than a that-clause? Even mean, as ‘intend.’ In this
Grice is quite different from Austin, who avoids the that-clause. The
explanation by Austin is very obscure, like those of all grammars on the
that’-clause, the ‘that’ of ‘oratio obliqua’ is not in every way similar to the
‘that’-clause in an explicit performative formula. Here the utterer is not
reporting his own ‘oratio’ in the first person singular present indicative
active. Incidentally, of course, it is not in the least necessary that an
explicit performative verb should be followed by a ‘that’-clause. In important
classes of cases it is followed by ‘to . . .,’ or by or nothing, e. g. ‘I
apologize for…,’ ‘I salute you.’ Now many of these verbs appear to be quite
satisfactory pure performatives. Irritating though it is to have them as such,
linked with clauses that look like statements, true or false, e. g., when I say
‘I prophesy that …,’ ‘I concede that …’,
‘I postulate that …,’ the clause following normally looks just like a
statement, but the verb itself seems to be pure performatives. One
may distinguish the performative opening part, ‘I state that …,’ which makes
clear how the utterance is to be taken, that it is a statement, as distinct
from a prediction, etc.), from the bit in the that-clause which is required to
be true or false. However, there are many cases which, as language stands at
present, we are not able to split into two parts in this way, even though the
utterance seems to have a sort of explicit performative in it. Thus, ‘I liken x
to y,’ or ‘I analyse x as y.’ Here we both do the likening and assert that
there is a likeness by means of one compendious phrase of at least a
quasi-performative character. Just to spur us on our way, we may also mention
‘I know that …’, ‘I believe that …’, etc. How complicated are these examples?
We cannot assume that they are purely descriptive, which has Grice talking of
the pseudo-descriptive. Want etymologically means absence; need should be
preferred. The squarrel (squirrel) Toby needs intake of nuts, and youll soon
see gobbling them! There is not much philosophical bibliography on these two
psychological states Grice is analysing. Their logic is interesting. Smith
wants to play cricket. Smith needs to play cricket. Grice is
concerned with the propositional content attached to the want and need
predicate. Wants that sounds harsh; so does need that. Still, there
are propositional attached to the pair above. Smith plays cricket. Grice
took a very cavalier attitude to what linguists spend their lives
analysing. He thought it was surely not the job of the philosopher,
especially from a prestigious university such as Oxford, to deal with the
arbitrariness of grammatical knots attached to this or that English verb. He rarely
used English, but stuck with ordinary language. Surely, he saw himself in
the tradition of Kantotle, and so, aiming at grand philosophical truths: not
conventions of usage, even his own! 1. Squarrel Toby has a nut, N, in
front of him. 2. Toby is short on squarrel food (observed or assumed), so, 3.
Toby wills squarrel food (by postulate of Folk Pyschological
Theory θ connecting willing with intake of N). 4. Toby prehends a nut
as in front (from (1) by Postulate of Folk Psychological Theory θ, if it
is assumed that nut and in front are familiar to Toby). 5. Toby joins squarrel
food with gobbling, nut, and in front (i.e. Toby judges gobbling, on nut in
front, for squarrel food (by Postulate of Folk Psychological
Theory θ with the aid of prior observation. So, from 3, 4 and 5, 6.
Tobby gobbles; and since a nut is in front of him, gobbles the nut in front of
him. The system of values of the society to which the agent belongs forms the
external standard for judging the relative importance of the commitments by the
agent. There are three dimensions of value: universally human, cultural that
vary with societies and times; and personal that vary with individuals. Each
dimension has a standard for judging the adequacy of the relevant values. Human
values are adequate if they satisfy basic needs; cultural values are adequate
if they provide a system of values that sustains the allegiance of the
inhabitants of a society; and personal values are adequate if the conceptions
of well‐being formed out of them enable individuals to live
satisfying lives. These values conflict and our well‐being requires some way of settling their conflicts, but
there is no universal principle for settling the conflicts; it can only be done
by attending to the concrete features of particular conflicts. These features
vary with circumstances and values. Grice reads Porter.The idea of the value
chain is based on the process view of organizations, the idea of seeing a
manufacturing (or service) organization as a system, made up of subsystems each
with inputs, transformation processes and outputs. Inputs, transformation
processes, and outputs involve the acquisition and consumption of resources –
money, labour, materials, equipment, buildings, land, administration and
management. How value chain activities are carried out determines costs and
affects profits.In his choice of value system and value sub-system, Grice is
defending objectivity, since it is usually the axiological relativist who uses
such a pretentious phrasing! More than a value may co-ordinate in a system. One
such is eudæmonia (cf. system of ends). The problem for Kant is the reduction
of the categorical imperative to the hypothetical or
suppositional imperative. For Kant, a value tends towards the
Subjectsive. Grice, rather, wants to offer a metaphysical defence of objective
value. Grice called the manual of conversational maxims the Conversational
Immanuel. The keyword to search the H. P. Grice is ‘will,’ and ‘volitional,’
even ‘ill-will,’ (“Metaphysics and ill-will,” s. V, c. 7-f. 28) and
‘benevolence’ (vide below under ‘conversational benevolence”). Also
‘desirability’: “Modality, desirability, and probability,” s. V, c. 8-ff.
14-15, and the conference lecture in a different series, “Probability,
desirability, and mood operators,” s. II, c. 2-f.11). Grice makes systematic use of ‘practical’ to
contrast with the ‘alethic,’ too (“Practical reason,” s. V, c. 9-f.1), The H.
P. Grice Papers, BANC.
desideratum of conversational
candour: The term ‘desideratum’ has to be
taken seriously. It involves freedom. This includes the maximin. It should be
noted that candour is DESIRABLE. There is a desirability for candour. Candour
is not a given. Ditto for clarity. See conversational desideratum, simpliciter.
A rational desideratum is a desideratum by a rational agent and which he
expects from another rational agent. One should make the strongest move, and on
the other hand try not to mislead.Grice's Oxford "Conversation"
Lectures, 1966Grice: Between Self-Love and Benevolence As I was saying (somewhere),
Grice uses "self-love", charmingly qualified with capitals, as "Conversational
Self-Love", and, less charmingly,
"Conversational Benevolence", in lectures advertised at
Oxford, as "Logic and
Conversation" that he gave at Oxford in 1964 as "University Lecturer in Philosophy". He also gave
seminars on "Conversational helpfulness." A number of the lectures by
Grice include discussion of thetypes of behaviour people in general exhibit,
and thereforethe types of expectations[cfr. owings]they might bring to a
venture such as a conversation.Grice suggests that people in general both
exhibitand EXPECT a certain degree of helpfulness [-- alla Rosenschein,
epistemic/boulemaic:If A cognizes that B wills p, then A wills p.] "from OTHERS" [-- reciprocal vs. reflexive,
etc.] usually on the understanding that such helpfulness does NOT get in the
way of particular goals and does not involve undue effort cf. least effort? -
cfr. Hobbes on self-love. It two people, even complete strangers,are going
through a gate, the expectation isthat the FIRST ONE through will hold thegate
open, or at least leave it open, for thesecond. The expectation is such that
todo OTHERWISE without particular reasonwould be interpreted as RUDE. The type
of helpfulness exhibited andexpected in conversation is more specificbecause of
a particular, although not a unique feature of conversation.It is a
COLLABORATIVE venture betweenthe participants.There is a SHARED aimGrice
wonders. His words, Does "helpfulness
in something WE ARE DOING TOGETHER” equate to 'cooperation'?He
seems to have decided that it does. By the later lectures in the series, 'the
principle of conversational helpfulness'has been rebranded the expectation of
'cooperation.' During the Oxford lectures, Grice develops his account of the
precise nature of this cooperation. It can be seen as governed by certain
regularities, or principles, detailing expected behaviour. The
expression'maxim' to describe these regularities appears relatively late in the
lectures.Grice's INITIAL choices of terms are 'objectives' and 'desiderata'.He
was particularly fond of the latter. He was interested in detailing the
desirable forms of behaviour for the purpose of achieving a joint goal of the
conversation. Initially, Grice posits TWO such desiderata. Those relating to
candour on the one hand and clarity on the other. The desideratum of candour
contains his general PRINCIPLE of making the strongest (MAX) possible statement
and, as a LIMITING (MAX) factor on this, the suggestion that speakers should try
not to mislead. (Do not mislead). cfr. our"We are brothers"-- but not
mutual."We are married to each other". "You _are_ a
boor".----The desideratum of conversational clarity concerns the manner of
expression. [His later reference to Modus or Mode as used by Kant as one of the
four categories] for any conversational
contribution. It includes the IMPORTANT expectations of relevance to
understanding and also insists that the main import of an utterance be clear
and explicit. (“Explicate!”) These two factors are constantly to be WEIGHED against two FUNDAMENTAL and SOMETIMES
COMPETING DEMANDS. Contributions to a conversation are aimed towards the agreed
current purposes by the PRINCIPLE of Conversational Benevolence. The principle
of CONVERSATIONAL SELF-LOVE ensures the assumption on the part of both participants
that neither will go to unnecessary trouble [LEAST EFFORT] in framing their
contribution. This has been a topic of interest to Noh end. In
"Conversational Immanuel" Grice tries different ways of making sense
-- it is very easy to do so -- of Grice's distinctions that go over the head of
some linguists I know! Reasonable versus rational for example. A Rawlsian
distinction of sorts. Rational is too weak. We need 'reasonable'. So, what sort
of reasonableness is that which results from this harmonious, we hope, clash of
self-love and benevolence? Grice tried, wittily, to extend the purposes of conversation
to involve MUTUALLY INFLUENCING EACH OTHER -- a reciprocal. (WoW, ii). And
there's a mythical reconstruction of this in his "Meaning Revisited"
which he contributed to this symposium organised by N. Smith on Mutua knowledge.
But issues remains, we hope. The concept of ‘candour’is especially basic for
Grice since it is constitutive of what it means to identify the ‘significatum.’
As he notes, ‘false’ information is no information. This is serious, because it
has to do with the acceptum. A contribution which is not trustworthy is not
deemed a contribution. It is conceptually impossible to intend to PROVIDE information
if you are aware that you are not being trustworthy and not conveying it. As
for the degree of explicitness, as Grice puts it. Since in communication in a
certain fashion all must be public, if an idea or thesis is heavily obscured,
it can no longer be regarded as having been propounded. This gives acceptum
justification to the correlative desideratum of conversational clarity. On top,
if there is a level of obscurity, the thing is not deemed to have been a
communicatum or significatum. It is all about confidence, you know. U expects A
will find him confident. Thus we find in Short and Lewis, “confīdo,” wich
they render as “to trust confidently in something,” and also, “confide in, rely
firmly upon, to believe, be assured of,” as an enhancing of “sperare,” in
Cicero’s Att. 6, 9, 1. Trust and rationality are pre-requisites of
conversation. Urmson develops this. They phrase in Urmson is "implied
claim." Whenever U makes a conversational contribution in a standard
context, there is an implied claim to U being trustworthy and reasonable.
What do Grice and Urmson mean by an "implied claim"? It is obvious
enough, but they both love to expand. Whenever U utters an expression which can
be used to convey truth or falsehood there is an implied claim to
trustworthiness by U, unless the situation shows that this is not so. U may be
acting or reciting or incredulously echoing the remark of another, or flouting
the expectation. This, Grice and Urmson think, may need an explanation.
Suppose that U utters, in an ordinary circumstance, ‘It will rain tomorrow,’ or
‘It rained yesterday,’ or ‘It is raining.’ This act carries with it the claim
that U should be trusted and licenses A to believe that it will rain
tomorrow. By this is meant that just as it is understood that no U will
give an order unless he is entitled to give orders, so it is understood that no
U will utter a sentence of a kind which can be used to make a statement unless
U is willing to claim that that statement is true, and hence one would be
acting in a misleading manner if one uttered the sentence if he was not willing
to make that claim. Here, the predicate “implies that …,” Grice, Grant,
Moore, Nowell-Smith, and Urmson hasten to add, is being used in such a way
that, if there is a an expectation that a thing is done in Circumstance C, U
implies that C holds if he does the thing. The point is often made if not
always in the terms Grice uses, and it is, Urmson and Grice believe, in
substance uncontroversial. Grice and Urmson wish to make the point that, when
an utterer U deploys a hedge with an indicative sentence, there is not merely
an implied claim that the whole statement is true but also that is
true. The implied or expressed claim by the utterer to trustworthiness
need not be very strong. The whole point of a hedge is to modify or weaken
(if not, as Grice would have it, flout) the claim by U to full trustworthiness
which would be implied by the unhedged assertion. But even if U utters
“He is, I suppose, at home;” or “I guess that the penny will come down
heads," U expresses, or for Urmson plainly implies, with however
little reason, that this is what U accepts as worth the trust by A. Now Grice
and Urmson meet an objection which is made by some philosophers to this
comparison. Grice and Urmson intend to meet the objection by a fairly detailed
examination of the example which they themselves would most likely
choose. In doing this Grice and Urmson further explain the use of a
parenthetical verb. The adverb is "probably" and the verb is “I
believe.” To say, that something is probable, the imaginary objector will say,
is to imply that it is reasonable to believe, that the evidence justifies a
guarded claim for the trust or trustworthiness of U and the truth of the
statement. But to say that someone else, a third person, believes something
does not imply that it is reasonable for U or A to believe it, nor that the
evidence justifies the guarded or implied claim to factivity or truth which U
makes. Therefore, the objector continues, the difference between the use
of “I believe” and “probably” is not, as Grice and Urmson suggest, merely one
of nuance and degree of impersonality. In one case, “probably,” reasonableness
is implied; in the other, “believe,” it is not. This objection is met by Grice
and Urmson. They do so by making a general point. To use the rational-reasonable
distinction in “Conversational implicature” and “Aspects,” there is an implied
claim by U to reasonableness. Further to an implied claim to trust
whenever a sentence is uttered in a standard context, now Grice and Urmson add,
to meet the sceptical objection about the contrast between “probably” and “I
believe” that, whenever U makes a statement in a standard context there is an
implied claim to reasonableness. This contention must be explained alla
Kant. Cf. Strawson on the presumption of conversational relevance, and
Austin, Moore, Nowell-Smith, Grant, and Warnock. To use Hart’s
defeasibility, and Hall’s excluder, unless U is acting or story-telling, or
preface his remarks with some such phrase as “I know Im being silly, but
…” or, “I admit it is unreasonable, but …” it is, Grice and
Urmson think, a presupposition or expectation of communication or conversation
that a communicator will not make a statement, thereby implying this trust,
unless he has some ground, however tenuous, for the statement. To
utter “The King is visiting Oxford tomorrow,” or “The President of the BA has a
corkscrew in his pocket,” and then, when asked why the utterer is uttering
that, to answer “Oh, for no reason at all,” would be to sin,
theologically, against the basic conventions governing the use of discourse.
Grice goes on to provide a Kantian justification for that, hence his amusing
talk of maxims and stuff. Therefore, Urmson and Grice think there is an
implied or expressed claim to reasonableness which goes with all
our statements, i.e. there is a mutual expectation that a communicator will not
make a statement unless he is prepared to claim and defend its reasonablenesss.
Cf. Grice’s desideratum of conversational candour, subsumed under the
over-arching principle of conversational helpfulness (formerly conversational
benevolence-cum-self-love). Grice thinks that the principle of
conversational benevolence has to be weighed against the principle of
conversational self-love. The result is the overarching principle of
conversational helpfulness. Clarity gets in the picture. The desideratum of
conversational clarity is a reasonable requirement for conversants to abide
by. Grice follows some observations by Warnock. The logical grammar
of “trust,” “candour,” “charity,” “sincerity,” “decency,” “honesty,” is subtle,
especially when we are considering the two sub-goals of conversation: giving
and receiving information/influencing and being influenced by others. In both
sub-goals, trust is paramount. The explorations of trust has become an Oxonian
hobby, with authors not such like Warnock, but Williams, and
others. Grice’s essay is entitled, “Trust, metaphysics, value.” Trust as a
corollary of the principle of conversational helpfulness. In a given
conversational setting, assuming the principle of conversational helpfulness is
operating, U is assumed by A to be trustworthy and candid. There are two
modes of trust, which relate to the buletic sub-goal and the doxastic sub-goal
which Grice assumes the principle of conversational helpfulness captures:
giving and receiving information, and influencing and being influenced by
others. In both sub-goals, trust is key. In the doxastic realm, trust
has to do, not so much or only, with truth (with which the expression is
cognate), or satisfactoriness-value, but evidence and probability. In the
buletic realm, there are the dimensions of satisfactoriness-value (‘good’
versus ‘true’), and ‘ground’ versus evidence, which becomes less crucial. But
note that one is trustworthy regarding BOTH the buletic attitude and the
doxastic attitude. Grice mentions this or that buletic attitudes which is not
usually judged in terms of evidential support (“I vow to thee my country.”)
However, in the buletic realm, U is be assumed as trustworthy if U has the
buletic attitude he is expressing. The cheater, the insincere, the dishonest,
the untrustworthy, for Grice is not irrational, just repugnant. How immoral is
the idea that honesty is the best policy? Is Kant right in thinking there is no
right to refrain from trust? Surely it is indecent. For Kant, there is no
motivation or ‘motive,’ pure or impure, behind telling the truth – it’s just a
right, and an obligation – an imperative. Being trustworthy for Kant is
associated with a pure motive. Grice agrees. Decency comes into the picture. An
indecent agent may still be rational, but in such a case, conversation may
still be seen as rational (if not reasonable) and surely not be seen as
rational helpfulness or co-operation, but rational adversarial competition,
rather, a zero-sum game. Grice found the etymology of ‘decent’ too obscure.
Short and Lewis have “dĕcet,” which they deem cognate with Sanscrit “dacas,”
‘fame,’ and Grecian “δοκέω,‘to seem,’ ‘to think,’ and with Latin ‘decus,’
‘dingus.’ As an impersonal verb, Short and Lewis render it as ‘it is seemly,
comely, becoming,; it beseems, behooves, is fitting, suitable, proper (for syn.
v. debeo init.): decere quasi aptum esse consentaneumque tempori et personae,
Cic. Or. 22, 74; cf. also nunc quid aptum sit, hoc est, quid maxime deceat in
oratione videamus, id. de Or. 3, 55, 210 (very freq. and class.; not in
Caesar). Grice’s idea of decency is connected to his explorations on rational
and reasonable. To cheat may be neither unreasonable nor rational. It is just
repulsive. Indecent, in other words. In all this, Grice is concerned with
ordinary language, and treasures Austin questioning Warnock, when Warnock was
pursuing a fellowship at Magdalen. “What would you say the difference is
between ‘Smith plays cricket rather properly’ and ‘Smith plays cricket rather
incorrectly’?” They spent the whole dinner over the subtlety. By desserts,
Warnock was in love with Austin. Cf. Grice on his prim and proper Aunt
Matilda. The exploration by Grice on trust is Warnockian in character, or vice
versa. In “Object of morality,” Warnock has trust as key, as indeed, the very
object of morality. Grice starts to focus on trust in an Oxford seminars on the
implicatum. If there is a desideratum of conversational candour, and the goal of
the principle of conversational helpfulness is that of giving and receiving
information, and influencing and being influenced by others, ‘false’
‘information’ is just no information – Since exhibiteness trumps protrepsis,
this applies to the buletic, too. Grice loved that Latin dictum, “tuus candor.”
He makes an early defence of this in his fatal objection to Malcolm. A
philosopher cannot intentionally instill a falsehood in his tutee, such as
“Decapitation willed the death of Charles I” (the alleged paraphrase of the
paradoxical philosopher saying that ‘causing’ is ‘willing’ and rephrasing
“Decapitation was the cause of the death of Charles I.” There is, for both
Grice and Apel, a transcendental (if weak) justification, not just utilitarian
(honesty as the best policy), as Stalnaker notes in his contribution to the
Grice symposium for APA. Unlike Apel, the transcendental argument is a weak one
in that Grice aims to show that conversation that did not abide by trust would
be unreasonable, but surely still ‘possible.’ It is not a transcendental
justification for the ‘existence’ of conversation simpliciter, but for the
existence of ‘reasonable,’ decent conversation. If we approach charity in the
first person, we trust ourselves that some of our beliefs have to be true, and
that some of our desires have to be satisfactory valid, and we are equally
trusted by our conversational partners. This is Grice’s conversational golden
rule. What would otherwise be the point of holding that conversation is
rational co-operation? What would be the point of conversation simpliciter?
Urmson follows Austin, so Austin’s considerations on this, notably in “Other
minds,” deserve careful examination. Urmson was of course a member of Grice’s
play group, and these are the philosophers that we consider top priority.
Another one was P. H. Nowell-Smith. At least two of his three rules deserve
careful examination. Nowell-Smith notes that this or that ‘rule’ of contextual
implication is not meant to be taken as a ‘rigid rule’. Unlike this or that
rule of entailment, a conversational rule can be broken without the utterer
being involved in self-contradiction or absurdity. When U uses an expression to
make a statement, it is contextually implied that he believes it to be true.
Similarly, when he uses it to perform any of the other jobs for which sentences
are used, it is contextually implied that he is using it for one of the jobs
that it normally does. This rule is often in fact broken. Anti-Kantian lying,
Bernhard-type play-acting, Andersen-type story-telling, and Wildeian irony is
each a case in which U breaks the rule, or flouts the expectation, either
overtly or covertly. But each of these four cases is a secondary use, i.e. a
use to which an expression cannot logically or conceptually be put unless, as
Hart would have it, it has a primary use. There is no limit to the possible
uses to which an expression may be put. In many cases a man makes his point by
deliberately using an expression in a queer way or even using it in the ‘sense’
opposite to its unique normal one, as in irony (“He is a fine friend,” implying
that he is a scoundrel). The distinction between a primary and a secondary use
is important because many an argument used by a philosopher consists in
pointing out some typical example of the way in which some expression E is
used. Such an argument is always illegitimate if the example employed is an
example of a secondary use, however common such a use may be. U contextually
implies that he has what he himself believes to be good reasons for his
statement. Once again, we often break this rule and we have special devices for
indicating when we are breaking it. Phrases such as ‘speaking offhand …,’ 'I do
not really know but …,’ and ‘I should be inclined to say that …,’ are used by
scrupulous persons to warn his addressee that U has not got what seem to him
good reasons for his statement. But unless one of these guarding phrases is
used we are entitled to believe that U believes himself to have good reasons
for his statement and we soon learn to *mistrust* people who habitually
infringe this rule. It is, of course, a mistake to infer from what someone says
categorically that he has in fact good reasons for what he says. If I tell you,
or ‘inform’ to you, that the duck-billed platypus is a bird (because I '
remember ' reading this in a book) I am unreliable; but I am not using language
improperly. But if I tell you this without using one of the guarding phrases
and without having what I think good reasons, I am. What U says may be assumed to
be relevant to the interests of his addressee. This is the most important of
the three rules; unfortunately it is also the most frequently broken. Bores are
more common than liars or careless talkers. This rule is particularly obvious
in the case of answers to questions, since it is assumed that the answer is an
answer. Not all statements are answers to questions; information may be
volunteered. Nevertheless the publication of a text-book on trigonometry
implies that the author believes that there are people who want to learn about
trigonometry, and to give advice implies a belief that the advice is relevant
to one’s addressee's problem. This rule is of the greatest importance for
ethics. For the major problem of ethics is that of bridging the gap between a
decisions, an ought-sentence, an injunction, and a sentence used to give advice
on the one hand and the statements of *fact*, sometime regarding the U’s soul,
that constitute the reasons for these on the other. It is in order to bridge
these gaps that insight into necessary synthetic connexions is invoked. This
rule of contextual implication may help us to show that there is no gap to be
bridged because the reason-giving sentence must turn out to be also *practical*
from the start and not a statement of *fact*, even concerning the state of the
U’s soul, from which a practical sentence can somehow be deduced. This rule is,
therefore, more than a rule of good manners; or rather it shows how, in matters
of ordinary language, rules of good manners shade into logical rules. Unless we
assume that it is being observed we cannot understand the connexions between
decisions, advice, and appraisals and the reasons given in support of them. Refs.: The main reference is in the first set of ‘Logic and
conversation.’ Many keywords are useful, not just ‘candour,’ but notably
‘trust.’ (“Rationality and trust,” c. 9-f. 5, “Trust, metaphysics, and value,”
c. 9-f. 20, and “Aristotle and friendship, rationality, trust, and decency,” c.
6-f. 18), BANC.
desideratum of conversational
clarity. The word desideratum has to be
taken seriously. It involves freedom. In what way is “The pillar box seems red
to me” less perspicuous than “The pillar box is red”? In all! If mutual
expectation not to mislead and produce the stronger contribution are
characteristics of candour, expectation of mutual relevance to interests, and
being explicit and clear in your point are two characteristics of this
desideratum. “Candour” and “clarity’ are somewhat co-relative for Grice. He is
interested in identifying this or that desideratum. By having two of them, he
can play. So, how UNCLEAR can a conversationalist be provided he WANTS to be
candid? Candour trumps clarity. But too much ‘unperspicuity’ may lead to
something not being deemed an ‘implicatum’ at all. Grice is especially
concerned with philosopher’s paradoxes. Why would Strawson say that the usage
of ‘not,’ ‘and,’ ‘or,’ ‘if,’ ‘if and only if,’ ‘all,’ ‘some (at least one),
‘the,’ do not correspond to the logician’s use? Questions of candour and clarity
interact. Grice’s first application, which he grants is not original, relates
to “The pillar box seems red” versus “The pillar box is red.” “I would not like
to give the false impression that the pillar box is not red” seems less clear
than “The pillar box is red” – Yet the unperspicuous contributin is still
‘candid,’ in the sense that it expresses a truth. So one has to be careful. On
top, philosophers like Lewis were using ‘clarity is not enough’ as a battle
cry! Grice’s favourite formulations of the imperatives here are
‘self-contradictory,’ and for which he uses ‘[sic]’, notably: “Be perspicuous
[sic]’ and “Be brief. Avoid unnecessary prolixity [sic].’
desirability:
Correlative: credibility. For Grice, credibility reduces to desirability (He
suggests that the reverse may also be possible but does not give a proposal). This
Grice calls the Jeffrey operator. If Urmson likes ‘probably,’ Grice likes
‘desirably.’ This theorem is a corollary of the desirability axiom by Jeffrey,
which is: "If prob XY = 0, for a prima facie PF(A V B) A (x E w)] = PFA A (x E w)] + PfB A
(x El+ w)]. This is the account by Grice of the adaptability of a pirot to its
changeable environs. Grice borrows the notion of probability (henceforth,
“pr”) from Davidson, whose early claim to fame was to provide the logic of the
notion. Grice abbreviates probability by Pr. and compares it to a buletic operator
‘pf,’ ‘for prima facie,’ attached to ‘De’ for desirability. A rational agent
must calculate both the probability and the desirability of his
action. For both probability and desirability, the degree is crucial.
Grice symbolises this by d: probability in degree d; probability in degree
d. The topic of life Grice relates to that of adaptation and surival, and
connects with his genitorial programme of creature construction (Pology.): life
as continued operancy. Grice was fascinated with life (Aristotle, bios) because
bios is what provides for Aristotle the definition (not by genus) of
psyche. The steps are as follows. Pf(p ⊃!q)/Pr(p
⊃ q); pf((p1 ^ p2) ⊃!q)/pr(p1 ^ p2 ⊃q); pf((p1 ^ p2 ^ p3) ⊃!q)/pr(p1 ^ p2 ^ p3 ^ p4 ⊃q);
pf (all things before me ⊃!q)/pr (all things before me ⊃
q); pf (all things considered ⊃ !q)/pr(all things considered ⊃ q); !q/|- q; G wills !q/G judges q. Strictly, Grice avoids
using the noun probability (other than for the title of this or that lecture).
One has to use the sentence-modifier ‘probably,’ and ‘desirably.’ So the
specific correlative to the buletic prima facie ‘desirably’ is the doxastic ‘probably.’
Grice liked the Roman sound to ‘prima facie,’ ‘at first sight’: “exceptio, quae prima facie justa videatur.” Refs.:
The two main sources are “Probability, desirability, and mood operators,” c.
2-f. 11, and “Modality, desirability and probability,” c. 8-ff. 14-15. But most
of the material is collected in “Aspects,” especially in the third and fourth
lectures. The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC.
Detachability.
How to interpret this in an one-off predicament. Cf. non-detachability. And the
other features or tests or catalysts that Grice uses. In Causal Theory of
Perception, the ideas are FOUR, which he nicely summarises in WoW on the
occasion of eliminating the excursus. And then he expands on Essay II, as an
update. His tutees at Oxford are aware of the changes. Few care, though. Even
his colleagues don’t, they are into their own things. So let’s compare the two
versions of the catalysts in Causal and Essay II. Version of the four catalysts
up to the first two examples in “Causal”: The first cxample is a stock case of what
is sometimes called " prcsupposition " and it is often held that here
1he truth of what is irnplicd is a necessary condition of the original
statement's beirrg cither true or false. This might be disputed, but it is at
lcast arguable that it is so, and its being arguable might be enough to
distinguish-this type of case from others. I shall however for convenience
assume that the common view mentioned is correct. This consideration clearly
distinguishes (1) from (2); even if the implied proposition were false, i.e. if
there were no reason in the world to contrast poverty with honesty either in
general or in her case, the original statement could still be false; it would
be false if for example she were rich and dishonest. One might perhaps be less
comfortable about assenting to its truth if the implied contrast did not in
fact obtain; but the possibility of falsity is enough for the immediate
purpose. My next experiment on these examples is to ask what it is in each case
which could properly be said to be the vehicle of implication (to do the
implying). There are at least four candidates, not necessarily mutually
exclusive. Supposing someone to have uttered one or other of my sample
sentences, we may ask whether the vehicle of implication would be (a) what the
speaker said (or asserted), or (b) the speaker (" did he imply that . . .
.':) or (c) the words the speaker used, or (d) his saying that (or again his
saying that in that way); or possibly some plurality of these items. As regards
(a) I think (1) and (2) differ; I think it would be correct to say in the case
of (l) that what he speaker said (or asserted) implied that Smith had been
beating this wife, and incorrect to say in the case of (2) that what te said
(or asserted) implied that there was a contrast between e.g., honesty and
poverty. A test on which I would rely is the following : if accepting that the
implication holds involves one in r27 128 H. P. GRICE accepting an
hypothetical' if p then q ' where 'p ' represents the original statement and '
q' represents what is implied, then what the speaker said (or asserted) is a
vehicle of implication, otherwise not. To apply this rule to the given
examples, if I accepted the implication alleged to hold in the case of (1), I
should feel compelled to accept the hypothetical " If Smith has left off
beating his wife, then he has been beating her "; whereas if I accepted
the alleged implication in the case of (2), I should not feel compelled to
accept the hypothetical " If she was poor but honest, then there is some
contrast between poverty and honesty, or between her poverty and her
honesty." The other candidates can be dealt with more cursorily; I should
be inclined to say with regard to both (l) and (2) that the speaker could be
said to have implied whatever it is that is irnplied; that in the case of (2)
it seems fairly clear that the speaker's words could be said to imply a
contrast, whereas it is much less clear whether in the case of (1) the
speaker's words could be said to imply that Smith had been beating his wife;
and that in neither case would it be evidently appropriate to speak of his
saying that, or of his saying that in that way, as implying what is implied.
The third idea with which I wish to assail my two examples is really a twin
idea, that of the detachability or cancellability of the implication. (These
terms will be explained.) Consider example (1): one cannot fi.nd a form of
words which could be used to state or assert just what the sentence "
Smith has left off beating his wife " might be used to assert such that
when it is used the implication that Smith has been beating his wife is just
absent. Any way of asserting what is asserted in (1) involves the irnplication
in question. I shall express this fact by saying that in the case of (l) the implication
is not detqchable from what is asserted (or simpliciter, is not detachable).
Furthermore, one cannot take a form of words for which both what is asserted
and what is implied is the same as for (l), and then add a further clause
withholding commitment from what would otherwise be implied, with the idea of
annulling the implication without annulling the assertion. One cannot
intelligibly say " Smith has left off beating his wife but I do not mean
to imply that he has been beating her." I shall express this fact by
saying that in the case of (1) the implication is not cancellable (without THE
CAUSAL THEORY OF PERCEPTION r29 cancelling the assertion). If we turn to (2) we
find, I think, that there is quite a strong case for saying that here the
implication ls detachable. Thcrc sccms quitc a good case for maintaining that
if, instead of sayirrg " She is poor but shc is honcst " I were to
say " She is poor and slre is honcst", I would assert just what I
would havc asscrtcct ii I had used thc original senterrce; but there would now
be no irnplication of a contrast between e.g', povery and honesty. But the
question whether, in tl-re case of (2), thc inrplication is cancellable, is
slightly more cornplex. Thcrc is a sonse in which we may say that it is non-cancellable;
if sorncone were to say " She is poor but she is honest, though of course
I do not mean to imply that there is any contrast between poverty and honesty
", this would seem a puzzling and eccentric thing to have said; but though
we should wish to quarrel with the speaker, I do not think we should go so far
as to say that his utterance was unintelligible; we should suppose that he had
adopted a most peculiar way of conveying the the news that she was poor and
honesl. The fourth and last test that I wish to impose on my exarnples is to
ask whether we would be inclined to regard the fact that the appropriate
implication is present as being a matter of the meaning of some particular word
or phrase occurring in the sentences in question. I am aware that this may not
be always a very clear or easy question to answer; nevertheless Iwill risk the
assertion that we would be fairly happy to say that, as regards (2), the
factthat the implication obtains is a matter of the meaning of the word ' but
'; whereas so far as (l) is concerned we should have at least some inclination
to say that the presence of the implication was a matter of the meaning of some
of the words in the sentence, but we should be in some difficulty when it came
to specifying precisely which this word, or words are, of which this is true.
After third example introduced:It is plain that there is no case at all for
regarding the truth of what is implied here as a pre-condition of the truth or
falsity cf 130 H. P. GRICB what I have asserted; a denial of the truth of what
is implied would have no bearing at all on whether what I have asserted is true
or false. So (3) is much closer to (2) than (1) in this respect. Next, I (the
speaker) could certainly be said to have implied that Jones is hopeless (provided
that this is what I intended to get across) and my saying that (at any rate my
saying /s/ that and no more) is also certainly a vehicle of implication. On the
other hand my words and what I say (assert) are, I think, not here vehicles of
implication. (3) thus differs from both (1) and (2). The implication is
cancellable but not detachable; if I add o'I do not of course mean to imply
that he is no good at philosophy " my whole utterance is intelligible and
linguistically impeccable, even though it may be extraordinary tutorial
behaviour; and I can no longer be said to have implied that he was no good,
even though perhaps that is what my colleagues might conclude to be the case if
I had nothing else to say. The implication is not however, detachable; any
other way of making, in the same context of utterance, just the assertion I
have made would involve the same implication. Finally, the fact that the
implication holds is not a matter of any particular word or phrase within the
sentence which I have uttered; so in this respect (3) is certainly different
from (2) and, possibly different from (1). One obvious fact should be mentioned
before I pass to the last example. This case of implication is unlike the
others in that the utterance of the sentence " Jones has beautiful
handwriting etc." does not standardly involve the implication here
attributed to it; it requires a special context (that it should be uttered at
Collections) to attach the implication to its uttgrance. After fourth and last
example is introduced: in the case of (a) I can produce a strong argument in
favour of holding that the fulfllment of the THE CAUSAL THEORY OF PERCEPTION
implication of the speaker's ignorance is not a precaution of the truth or
falsity of the disjunctive statement. Suppose (c) that the speaker knows that
his wife is in the kitchen, (b) that the house has only two rooms (and no
passages etc.) Even though (a) is the casc, thc spcaker can certainly say truly
" My wife is in the housc "; he is merely not being as informative as
he could bc if nccd arose. But the true proposition that his wife is in thc
housc together with the true proposition that the house consists entirely of a
kitchen and a bedroom, entail the proposition that his wife is either in the
kitchen or in the bedroom. But il to cxpress the proposition p in certain
circumstances would bc to spcak truly, and p, togelher with another true
proposition, crrtails q, then surely to express 4 in the same circvmstances
must be to speak truly. So I shall take it that the disjunctive statement in
(4) does not fail to be true or false if the implied ignorance is in fact not
realized. Secondly, I think it is fairly clear that in this case, as in the
case of (3), we could say that the speaker had irnplied that he did not know, and
also that his saying that (or his saying that rather than something else, v2.,
in which room she was) implied that he did not know. Thirdly, the irnplication
is in a sense non-detachable, in that if in a given context the utterance of
the disjunctive sentence would involve the implication that the speaker did not
know in which room his his wife was, this implication would also be involved in
the utterance of any other form of words which would make the same
assertion(e.g., "The alternatives are (1) .(2) " or " One of the
following things is the case: (a) (r) "). ln another possible sense,
however, the implication could perhaps bc said to be detachable: for there will
be some contexls of ruttcrance in Which the normal implication will not hold;
e.g., thc spokesman who announces, " The next conference will be cither in
Geneva or in New York " perhaps does not imply that lrc does not know
which; for he may well be just not saying which. This points to the fact that
the implication is cancellablg; :r nrarl could say, " My wife is either in
the kitchen or in the bctlroorn " in circumstances in which the
implication would rrornrally be present, and then go on, " Mind you, I'm
not saying tlrrrt I don't know which"; this might be unfriendly (and
grcr'lrrps ungrammatical) but would be perfectly intelligible, I2 131 132 H. P.
GRICB Finally, the fact that the utterance of the disjunctive sentence normally
involves the implication of the speaker's ignorance of the truth-values of the
disjuncts is, I should like to say, to be explained by reference to a general
principle governing the use of language. Exactly what this principle is I am
uncertain, but L first sftol would be the following: "One should not make
a weaker statement rather than a stronger one unless there is a good reason for
so doing." This is certainly not an adequate formulation but will perhaps
be good enough for my present purpose. On the assumption that such a principle
as this is of general application, one can draw the conclusion that the
utterance of a disjunctive sentence would imply the speaker's ignorance of the
truth-values of the disjuncts, given that (a) the obvious reason for not making
a statemcnt which there is some call on one to make is that one is not in a
position to make it, and given (6) the logical fact that each disjunct entails
the disjunctive, but not vice versa; which being so, the disjuncts are stronger
than the disjunctive. lf the outline just given js on the right lines, then I
would wish to say, we have a reason for refusing in the case of (4) to regard
the implication of the speaker's ignorance as being part of the meaning of the
word'or'; someone who knows about the logical relation between a disjunction
and its disjuncts, and who also knew about the alleged general principle governing
discourse, could work out for hirnself that disjunctive utterances would
involve the implication which they do in fact involve. I must insist, however,
that my aim in discussing this last point has been merelyto indicate the
position I would wish to take up, and not to argue scriously in favour of it.
My main purpose in this sub-section has been to introduce four ideas of which l
intend to make some use; and to provide some conception of tlre ways in which
they apply or fail to apply to various types of implication. By the numbering
of it, it seems he has added an extra. It’s FIVE catalysts now. He’ll go back
to them in Essay IV, and in Presupposition and Conversational Impicature. He
needs those catalysts. Why? It seems like he is always thinking that someone
will challenge him! This is Grice: “We can now show that, it having been
stipulated as being what it is, a conversational implicatum must possess
certain features. Or rather here are some catalyst ideas which will help us to
determine or individuate. Four tests for implicatum as it were. First,
CANCELLABILITY – as noted in “Causal Theory” – for two of the examples
(‘beautiful handwriting’ and ‘kitchen or bedroom’ and NEGATIVE version of “You
don’t cease to eat iron”) and the one of the pillar box -- Since, to assume the
presence of a conversational implicum, we have to assume that the principle of
conversational co-operation is being observed, and since it is possible to opt
out of the observation of this principle, it follows that an implicatum can be
canceled in a particular case. It may be explicitly canceled, if need there be,
by the addition of a clause by which the utterer states or implies that he has opted out (e. g. “The pillar box seems
red but it is.”). Then again it may be contextually (or implicitly) canceled
(e. g. to a very honest person, who knows I disbelieve the examiner exists,
“The loyalty examiner won’t be summoning you at any rate”). The utterance that
usually would carry an implicatum is used on an occasion that makes it clear or
obvious that the utterer IS opting out without having to bore his addressee by
making this obviousness explicit. There is a second litmus test or catalyst
idea. nsofar as the calculation that a implicatum is present requires, besides
contextual and background information only a knowledge or understanding or
processing of what has been said or explicitly conveyed (‘are you playing
squash? B shows bandaged leg) (or the ‘conventional’ ‘commitment’ of the
utterance), and insofar as the manner or style, of FORM, rather than MATTER, of
expression plays no role in the calculation, it will NOT be possible to find
another way of explicitly conveying or putting forward the same thing, the same
so-and-so (say that q follows from p) which simply ‘lacks’ the unnecessary
implicatum in question -- except [will his excluders never end?] where some
special feature of the substituted version [this other way which he says is not
conceivable] is itself relevant to the determination of the implicatum (in
virtue of this or that conversational maxims pertaining to the category of
conversational mode. If we call this feature, as Grice does in “Causal Theory,”
‘non-detachability’ – in that the implicatum cannot be detached from any
alternative expression that makes the same point -- one may expect the
implicatum carried by this or that locution to have a high degree of non-detachability.
ALTERNATIVES FOR “NOT” Not, it is not the case, it is false that. There’s
nothing unique about ‘not’.ALTERNATIVES FOR “AND” and, nothing, furthermore,
but. There isnothing unique about ‘and’ALTERNATIVES FOR “OR”: One of the
following is true. There is nothing unique about ‘or’ALTERNATIVES FOR “IF”
Provided. ‘There is nothing unique about ‘if’ALTERNATIVES FOR “THE” – There is
at least one and at most one. And it exists. (existence and uniqueness). There
is nothing unique about ‘the’.THIS COVERS STRAWSON’S first problem.What about the
other English philosophers?AUSTIN – on ‘voluntarily’ ALTERNATIVES to
‘voluntarily,’ with the will, willingly, intentionally. Nothing unique about
‘voluntarily.’STRAWSON on ‘true’ – it is the case, redundance theory, nothing.
Nothing unique about ‘true’HART ON good. To say that ‘x is commendable’ is to
recommend x. Nothing unique about ‘good.’HART on ‘carefully.’ Da Vinci painted
Mona Lisa carefully, with caution, with precaution. Nothing unique about
‘carefully.’THIRD LITMUS TEST or idea. To speak approximately, since the
calculation of the presence of an implicatum presupposes an initial knowledge,
or grasping, or understanding, or taking into account of the ‘conventional’
force (not in Austin’s sense, but translating Latin ‘vis’) of the expression
the utterance of which carries the implicatum, a conversational implicatum will
be a condition that is NOT, be definition, on risk of circularity of otiosity,
included in the original specification of the expression's conventional force.
If I’m saying that ‘seems’ INVOLVES, as per conventional force, ‘doubt or
denial,’what’s my point? If Strawson is right that ‘if’ has the conventional
force of conventionally committing the utterer with the belief that q follows
from p, why bother? And if that were so, how come the implicatum is still
cancellable?Though it may not be impossible for what starts life, so to speak,
as a conversational implicature to become conventionalized, to suppose that
this is so in a given case would require special justification. (Asking Lewis).
So, initially at least, a conversational implicatum is, by definition and
stipulation, not part of the sense, truth-condition, conventional force, or
part of what is explicitly conveyed or put forward, or ‘meaning’ of the
expression to the employment of which the impicatum attaches. FOURTH LITMUS
TEST or catalyst idea.Mentioned in “Causal theory” The alethic value – conjoined
with the test about the VEHICLE --. He has these as two different tests in
“Causal”. Since the truth of a conversational implicatum is not required by (is
not a condition for) the truth of what is said or explicitly conveyed (what is
said or explicated – the explicatum or explcitum, or what is explicitly
conveyed or communicated) may be true -- what is implicated may be false – that
he has beautiful handwriting, that q follows from p, that the utterer is
ENDORSING what someone else said, that the utterer is recommending x, that the
person who is said to act carefully has taken precaution), the implicatum is
NOT carried by what is said or the EXPLICATUM or EXPLICITUM, or is explicitly
conveyed, but only by the ‘saying’ or EXPLICATING or EXPLICITING of what is
said or of the explicatum or explicitum, or by 'putting it that way.’.The fifth
and last litmus test or catalyst idea. Since, to calculate a conversational
implicatum is to calculate what has to be supposed in order to preserve the
supposition that the utterer is a rational, benevolent, altruist agent, and
that the principle of conversational cooperation is being observed, and since
there may be various possible specific explanations or alternatives that fill
the gap here – as to what is the content of the psychological attitude to be
ascribed to the utterer, a list of which may be open, or open-ended, the
conversational implicatum in such cases will technically be an open-ended
disjunction of all such specific explanations, which may well be infinitely non-numerable.
Since the list of these IS open, the implicatum will have just the kind of
INDETERMINACY or lack of determinacy that an implicatum appears in most cases
to possess.
DETERMINATUM --
determinable, a general characteristic or property analogous to a genus except
that while a property independent of a genus differentiates a species that
falls under the genus, no such independent property differentiates a
determinate that falls under the determinable. The color blue, e.g., is a
determinate with respect of the determinable color: there is no property F
independent of color such that a color is blue if and only if it is F. In
contrast, there is a property, having equal sides, such that a rectangle is a
square if and only if it has this property. Square is a properly differentiated
species of the genus rectangle. W. E. Johnson introduces the terms
‘determinate’ and ‘determinable’ in his Logic, Part I, Chapter 11. His account
of this distinction does not closely resemble the current understanding sketched
above. Johnson wants to explain the differences between the superficially
similar ‘Red is a color’ and ‘Plato is a man’. He concludes that the latter
really predicates something, humanity, of Plato; while the former does not
really predicate anything of red. Color is not really a property or adjective,
as Johnson puts it. The determinates red, blue, and yellow are grouped together
not because of a property they have in common but because of the ways they
differ from each other. Determinates under the same determinable are related to
each other and are thus comparable in ways in which they are not related to
determinates under other determinables. Determinates belonging to different
determinables, such as color and shape, are incomparable. ’More determinate’ is
often used interchangeably with ‘more specific’. Many philosophers, including
Johnson, hold that the characters of things are absolutely determinate or
specific. Spelling out what this claim means leads to another problem in
analyzing the relation between determinate and determinable. By what principle
can we exclude red and round as a determinate of red and red as a determinate
of red or round? determinism, the view
that every event or state of affairs is brought about by antecedent events or
states of affairs in accordance with universal causal laws that govern the
world. Thus, the state of the world at any instant determines a unique future,
and that knowledge of all the positions of things and the prevailing natural
forces would permit an intelligence to predict the future state of the world
with absolute precision. This view was advanced by Laplace in the early
nineteenth century; he was inspired by Newton’s success at integrating our
physical knowledge of the world. Contemporary determinists do not believe that
Newtonian physics is the supreme theory. Some do not even believe that all
theories will someday be integrated into a unified theory. They do believe
that, for each event, no matter how precisely described, there is some theory
or system of laws such that the occurrence of that event under that description
is derivable from those laws together with information about the prior state of
the system. Some determinists formulate the doctrine somewhat differently: a
every event has a sufficient cause; b at any given time, given the past, only
one future is possible; c given knowledge of all antecedent conditions and all
laws of nature, an agent could predict at any given time the precise subsequent
history of the universe. Thus, determinists deny the existence of chance,
although they concede that our ignorance of the laws or all relevant antecedent
conditions makes certain events unexpected and, therefore, apparently happen
“by chance.” The term ‘determinism’ is also used in a more general way as the
name for any metaphysical doctrine implying that there is only one possible
history of the world. The doctrine described above is really scientific or
causal determinism, for it grounds this implication on a general fact about the
natural order, namely, its governance by universal causal law. But there is
also theological determinism, which holds that God determines everything that
happens or that, since God has perfect knowledge about the universe, only the
course of events that he knows will happen can happen. And there is logical
determinism, which grounds the necessity of the historical order on the logical
truth that all propositions, including ones about the future, are either true
or false. Fatalism, the view that there are forces e.g., the stars or the fates
that determine all outcomes independently of human efforts or wishes, is
claimed by some to be a version of determinism. But others deny this on the
ground that determinists do not reject the efficacy of human effort or desire;
they simply believe that efforts and desires, which are sometimes effective,
are themselves determined by antecedent factors as in a causal chain of events.
Since determinism is a universal doctrine, it embraces human actions and
choices. But if actions and choices are determined, then some conclude that
free will is an illusion. For the action or choice is an inevitable product of
antecedent factors that rendered alternatives impossible, even if the agent had
deliberated about options. An omniscient agent could have predicted the action
or choice beforehand. This conflict generates the problem of free will and
determinism.
deutero-esperanto: Arbitrariness need not be a two-party
thing. E communicates to himself that there is danger by drawing a skull. Grice
genially opposed to the idea of a convention. He hated a convention. A language
is not conventional. Meaning is not conventional. Communication is not
conventional. He was even unhappy with the account of convention by Lewis in
terms of an arbitrary co-ordination. While the co-ordination bit passes
rational muster, the arbitrary element is deemed a necessary condition, and
Grice hated that. For Grice there is natural, and iconic. When a representation
ceases to be iconic and becomes, for lack of a better expression, non-iconic,
things get, we may assume conventional. One form of correlation in his last
definition of meaing allows for a conventional correlation. “Pain!,” the P
cries. There is nothing in /pein/ that minimally resembles the pain the P is
suffering. So from his involuntary “Ouch” to his simulated “Ouch,” he thinks he
can say “Pain.” Bennett explored the stages after that. The dog is shaggy is
Grices example. All sorts of resultant procedures are needed for reference and
predication, which may be deemed conventional. One may refer nonconventionally,
by ostension. It seems more difficult to predicate non-conventionally. But
there may be iconic predication. Urquhart promises 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. The language will translate any idiom in any other
language, without any alteration of the literal sense, but fully representing
the intention. Later, one day, while lying in his bath, Grice designed
deutero-esperanto. The obble is fang may be current only for Griceian
members of the class of utterers. It is only this or that philosophers practice
to utter The obble is fang in such-and-such circumstances. In this case,
the utterer U does have a readiness to utter The obble is feng in such-and-such
circumstances. There is also the scenario in which The obble is fang is may be
conceived by the philosopher not to be deemed current at all, but the utterance
of The obble is feng in such-and-such circumstances is part of some system of
communication which the utterer U (Lockwith,, Urquart, Wilkins, Edmonds,
Grice) has devised but which has never been put into operation, like the
highway code which Grice invent another day again while lying in his bath. In
that case, U does this or that basic or resultant procedure for the obble
is feng in an attenuated but philosophically legitimate fashion. U has
envisaged a possible system of practices which involve a readiness to
utter Example by Grice that does NOT involve a convention in this usage. Surely
Grice can as he indeed did, invent a language, call it Deutero-Esperanto,
Griceish, or Pirotese, which nobody at Oxford ever uses to communicat. That
makes Grice the authority - cf. arkhe, authority, government (in plural),
"authorities" - and Grice can lay down, while lying in the tub, no
doubt - what is proper. A P can be said to potch of some obble o as fang
or as feng. Also to cotch of some obble o, as fang or feng; or to cotch of one
obble o and another obble o as being fid to one another.” In symbols:
(Ex)(Ey).Px ^ Oy ^ potch(x, y, fang) (Ex)(Ey).Px ^ Oy ^ potch(x, y, feng)
(Ex)(Ey).Px ^ Oy ^ cotch(x, y, fang) (Ex)(Ey).Px ^ Ox ^ cotch(x, y, feng)
(Ex)(Ey).Px ^ Oz ^ Oy ^ cotch(x, fid(y,z)). Let’s say that Ps (as Russell and
Carnap conceived them) inhabit a world of obbles, material objects, or
things. To potch is something like to perceive; to cotch something like to
think. Feng and fang are possible descriptions, much like our adjectives. Fid
is a possible relation between obbles. Grice provides a symbolisation for
content internalisation. The perceiver or cognitive Subjects perceives or
cognises two objects, x, y, as holding a relation of some type. There is
a higher level that Ps can reach when the object of their potchings and
cotchings is not so much objects but states of affairs. Its then that the
truth-functional operators will be brought to existence “^”: cotch(p ^ q)
“V”: cotch(p v q) “)”: )-cotch(p ) q) A P will be able to reject a
content, refuse-thinking: ~. Cotch(~p). When P1 perceives P2, the reciprocals
get more complicated. P2 cotches that P1!-judges that p. Grice
uses ψ1
for potching and ψ2
for cotching. If P2 is co-operative, and abides by "The Ps Immanuel,"
P2 will honour, in a Kantian benevolent way, his partners goal by adopting
temporarily his partners goal potch(x (portch(y, !p)) ⊃ potch(x, !p). But by
then, its hardly simpler ways. Especially when the Ps outdo their progenitor
Carnap as metaphysicians. The details are under “eschatology,” but the
expressions are here “α izzes α.” This would be the principle of
non-contradiction or identity. P1 applies it war, and utters War is war which
yields a most peculiar implicature. “if α izzes β ∧ β izzes γ, α izz γ.” This is
transitivity, which is crucial for Ps to overcome Berkeley’s counterexample to
Locke, and define their identity over time. “if α hazzes β, α izzes β.” Or,
what is accidental is not essential. A P may allow that what is essential
is accidental while misleading, is boringly true. “α hazzes β iff α hazzes
x ∧ x izzes β.” “If β is a
katholou or universalium, β is an eidos or forma.” For surely Ps need not be
stupid to fail to see squarrelhood. “if α hazzes β ∧ α izzes a particular, γ≠α ∧ α izz β.” “α izzes predicable
of β iff ((β izzes α) ∨ (∃x)(β hazzes x ∧ x izzes α). “α izzes essentially predicable of β ⊃⊂ β izzes α α izzes non-essentially/accidentally predicable
of β ⊃⊂ (∃x)(β hazzes x ∧ x izzes α). α = β iff α
izzes β ∧ β
izzes α. “α izzes an atomon, or individuum ⊃⊂ □(∀β)(β izzes α ⊃ α izzes β). “α izzes a
particular ⊃⊂ □(∀β)(α izzes predicable of β ⊃ (α izzes β ∧ β izzes α)). α izzes a
universalium ⊃⊂ ◊(∃β)(α izzes predicable of α ∧ ~(α izzes β ∧ β izzes α). α izzes
some-thing ⊃ α izzes an individuum. α izzes an eidos or forma ⊃ (α izzes some-thing ∧ α izzes a universalium); α
izzes predicable of β ⊃⊂ (β izzes α) ∨ (∃x)(β hazzes x ∧ x izzes α). “ α izzes essentially predicable of α
α izzes accidentally predicable of β ⊃ α ≠ β. ~(α izzes
accidentally predicable of β) ⊃ α ≠ β. α izzes an kathekaston or particular ⊃ α izzes an individuum; α izz a
particular ⊃ ~(∃x)(x ≠ α ∧ x izz α). ~(∃x).(x izzes a particular ∧ x izzes a forma) ⊢ α izzes a forma ⊃ ~(∃x)(x ≠ α ∧ x izzes α). x izzes a
particular ⊃ ~(∃β)(α izzes β); α izzes a forma ⊃ ((α izzes predicable of
β ∧ α ≠ β) ⊃ β hazzes α); α izzes a
forma ∧ β
izzes a particular ⊃ (α izzes predicable of β ⊃⊂ β hazzes A); (α izzes a
particular ∧ β izzes a universalium ∧ β izzes predicable of α) ⊃ (∃γ)(α ≠ γ ∧ γ izzes essentially predicable
of α). (∃x) (∃y)(x izzes a particular ∧ y izzes a universalium ∧ y izzes predicable of x ⊃ ~(∀x)(x izzes a universalium ∧ x izzes some-thing). (∀β)(β izzes a universalium ⊃ β izzes some-thing). α izzes a
particular) ⊃ ~∃β.(α ≠ β ∧ β izzes essentially predicable of α). (α izzes
predicable of β ∧ α ≠ β) ⊃ α izzes non-essentially or accidentally predicable of
β. Grice is following a Leibnizian tradition. A philosophical
language is any constructed language that is constructed from first principles
or certain ideologies. It is considered a type of engineered
language. Philosophical languages were popular in Early Modern times,
partly motivated by the goal of recovering the lost Adamic or Divine
language. The term “ideal language” is sometimes used near-synonymously,
though more modern philosophical languages such as “Toki Pona” are less likely
to involve such an exalted claim of perfection. It may be known as a
language of pure ideology. The axioms and grammars of the languages
together differ from commonly spoken languages today. In most older
philosophical languages, and some newer ones, words are constructed from a
limited set of morphemes that are treated as "elemental" or
fundamental. "Philosophical language" is sometimes used synonymously
with "taxonomic language", though more recently there have been
several conlangs constructed on philosophical principles which are not taxonomic.
Vocabularies of oligo-synthetic communication-systems are made of compound
expressions, which are coined from a small (theoretically minimal) set of morphemes;
oligo-isolating communication-systems, such as Toki Pona, similarly use a
limited set of root words but produce phrases which remain s. of distinct
words. Toki Pona is based on minimalistic simplicity, incorporating
elements of Taoism. Láadan is designed to lexicalize and grammaticalise the
concepts and distinctions important to women, based on muted group
theory. A priori languages are constructed languages where the vocabulary
is invented directly, rather than being derived from other existing languages
(as with Esperanto, or Grices Deutero-Esperanto, or Pirotese or Ido). It all
starts when Carnap claims to know that pritos karulise elatically. Grice as
engineer. Pirotese is the philosophers engaging in Pology. Actually, Pirotese
is the lingo the Ps parrot. Ps karulise elatically. But not all of
them. Grice finds that the Pological talk allows to start from
zero. He is constructing a language, (basic) Pirotese, and the
philosophical psychology and world that that language is supposed to represent
or denote. An obble is a Ps object. Grice introduces potching and
cotching. To potch, in Pirotese, is what a P does with an obble: he perceives
it. To cotch is Pirotese for what a P can further do with an obble: know or
cognise it. Cotching, unlike potching, is factive. Pirotese would
not be the first language invented by a philosopher. Deutero-Esperanto
-- Couturat, L., philosopher and logician who wrote on the history of
philosophy, logic, philosophy of mathematics, and the possibility of a
universal language. Couturat refuted Renouvier’s finitism and advocated an
actual infinite in The Mathematical Infinite 6. He argued that the assumption
of infinite numbers was indispensable to maintain the continuity of magnitudes.
He saw a precursor of modern logistic in Leibniz, basing his interpretation of
Leibniz on the Discourse on Metaphysics and Leibniz’s correspondence with
Arnauld. His epoch-making Leibniz’s Logic 1 describes Leibniz’s metaphysics as
panlogism. Couturat published a study on Kant’s mathematical philosophy Revue
de Métaphysique, 4, and defended Peano’s logic, Whitehead’s algebra, and Russell’s
logistic in The Algebra of Logic 5. He also contributed to André Lalande’s
Vocabulaire technique et critique de la philosophie 6. Refs.: While the reference to
“Deutero-Esperanto’ comes from “Meaning revisited,” other keywords are useful,
notably “Pirotese” and “Symbolo.” Also keywords like “obble,” and “pirot.” The
H. P. Grice Papers, BANC.
Grice was John Dewey
Lecturer -- Dewey, J., philosopher, social critic, and theorist of education.
During an era when philosophy was becoming thoroughly professionalized, Dewey
remained a public philosopher having a profound international influence on
politics and education. His career began inauspiciously in his student days at
the of Vermont and then as a high school
teacher before he went on to study philosophy at the newly formed Johns Hopkins
. There he studied with Peirce, G. S. Hall, and G. S. Morris, and was
profoundly influenced by the version of Hegelian idealism propounded by Morris.
After receiving his doctorate in 4, Dewey moved to the of Michigan where he rejoined Morris, who had
relocated there. At Michigan he had as a colleague the young social
psychologist G. H. Mead, and during this period Dewey himself concentrated his
writing in the general area of psychology. In 4 he accepted an appointment as
chair of the Department of Philosophy, Psychology, and Education at the of Chicago, bringing Mead with him. At
Chicago Dewey was instrumental in founding the famous laboratory school, and
some of his most important writings on education grew out of his work in that
experimental school. In 4 he left Chicago for Columbia , where he joined F. J.
E. Woodbridge, founder of The Journal of Philosophy. He retired from Columbia
in 0 but remained active in both philosophy and public affairs until his death
in 2. Over his long career he was a prolific speaker and writer, as evidenced
by a literary output of forty books and over seven hundred articles.
Philosophy. At the highest level of generality Dewey’s philosophical
orientation can be characterized as a kind of naturalistic empiricism, and the
two most fundamental notions in his philosophy can be gleaned from the title of
his most substantial book, Experience and Nature 5. His concept of experience
had its origin in his Hegelian background, but Dewey divested it of most of its
speculative excesses. He clearly conceived of himself as an empiricist but was
careful to distinguish his notion of experience both from that of the idealist
tradition and from the empiricism of the classical British variety. The
idealists had so stressed the cognitive dimension of experience that they
overlooked the non-cognitive, whereas he saw the British variety as
inappropriately atomistic and subjectivist. In contrast to these Dewey
fashioned a notion of experience wherein action, enjoyment, and what he called
“undergoing” were integrated and equally fundamental. The felt immediacy of
experience what he generally characterized as its aesthetic quality was basic
and irreducible. He then situated cognitive experience against this broader background
as arising from and conditioned by this more basic experience. Cognitive
experience was the result of inquiry, which was viewed as a process arising
from a felt difficulty within our experience, proceeding through the stage of
conceptual elaboration of possible resolutions, to a final reconstruction of
the experience wherein the initial fragmented situation is transformed into a
unified whole. Cognitive inquiry is this mediating process from experience to
experience, and knowledge is what makes possible the final more integrated
experience, which Dewey termed a “consummation.” On this view knowing is a kind
of doing, and the criterion of knowledge is “warranted assertability.” On the
first point, Dewey felt that one of the cardinal errors of philosophy from
Plato to the modern period was what he called “the spectator theory of
knowledge.” Knowledge had been viewed as a kind of passive recording of facts
in the world and success was seen as a matter of the correspondence of our
beliefs to these antecedent facts. To the contrary, Dewey viewed knowing as a
constructive conceptual activity that anticipated and guided our adjustment to
future experiential interactions with our environment. It was with this
constructive and purposive view of thinking in mind that Dewey dubbed his
general philosophical orientation instrumentalism. Concepts are instruments for
dealing with our experienced world. The fundamental categories of knowledge are
to be functionally understood, and the classical dualisms of philosophy mindbody,
meansend, fact value are ultimately to be overcome. The purpose of knowing is
to effect some alteration in the experiential situation, and for this purpose
some cognitive proposals are more effective than others. This is the context in
which “truth” is normally invoked, and in its stead Dewey proposed “warranted
assertability.” He eschewed the notion of truth even in its less dangerous
adjectival and adverbial forms, ‘true’ and ‘truly’ because he saw it as too
suggestive of a static and finalized correspondence between two separate
orders. Successful cognition was really a more dynamic matter of a present
resolution of a problematic situation resulting in a reconstructed experience
or consummation. “Warranted assertability” was the success characterization,
having the appropriately normative connotation without the excess metaphysical
baggage. Dewey’s notion of experience is intimately tied to his notion of
nature. He did not conceive of nature as
“the-world-as-it-would-be-independent-of-human-experience” but rather as a
developing system of natural transactions admitting of a tripartite distinction
between the physicochemical level, the psychophysical level, and the level of
human experience with the understanding that this categorization was not to be
construed as implying any sharp discontinuities. Experience itself, then, is
one of the levels of transaction in nature and is not reducible to the other
forms. The more austere, “scientific” representations of nature as, e.g., a
purely mechanical system, Dewey construed as merely useful conceptualizations
for specific cognitive purposes. This enabled him to distinguish his
“naturalism,” which he saw as a kind of nonreductive empiricism, from
“materialism,” which he saw as a kind of reductive rationalism. Dewey and
Santayana had an ongoing dialogue on precisely this point. Dewey’s view was
also naturalistic to the degree that it advocated the universal scope of
scientific method. Influenced in this regard by Peirce, he saw scientific
method not as restricted to a specific sphere but simply as the way we ought to
think. The structure of all reflective thought is future-oriented and involves
a movement from the recognition and articulation of a felt difficulty, through
the elaboration of hypotheses as possible resolutions of the difficulty, to the
stage of verification or falsification. The specific sciences physics, biology,
psychology investigate the different levels of transactions in nature, but the
scientific manner of investigation is simply a generalized sophistication of
the structure of common sense and has no intrinsic restriction. Dewey construed
nature as an organic unity not marked by any radical discontinuities that would
require the introduction of non-natural categories or new methodological strategies.
The sharp dualisms of mind and body, the individual and the social, the secular
and the religious, and most importantly, fact and value, he viewed as
conceptual constructs that have far outlived their usefulness. The inherited
dualisms had to be overcome, particularly the one between fact and value
inasmuch as it functioned to block the use of reason as the guide for human
action. On his view people naturally have values as well as beliefs. Given
human nature, there are certain activities and states of affairs that we
naturally prize, enjoy, and value. The human problem is that these are not
always easy to come by nor are they always compatible. We are forced to deal
with the problem of what we really want and what we ought to pursue. Dewey advocated
the extension of scientific method to these domains. The deliberative process
culminating in a practical judgment is not unlike the deliberative process
culminating in factual belief. Both kinds of judgment can be responsible or
irresponsible, right or wrong. This deliberative sense of evaluation as a
process presupposes the more basic sense of evaluation concerning those
dimensions of human experience we prize and find fulfilling. Here too there is
a dimension of appropriateness, one grounded in the kind of beings we are,
where the ‘we’ includes our social history and development. On this issue Dewey
had a very Grecian view, albeit one transposed into a modern evolutionary
perspective. Fundamental questions of value and human fulfillment ultimately bear
on our conception of the human commuDewey, John Dewey, John 230 230 nity, and this in turn leads him to the
issues of democracy and education. Society and education. The ideal social
order for Dewey is a structure that allows maximum selfdevelopment of all
individuals. It fosters the free exchange of ideas and decides on policies in a
manner that acknowledges each person’s capacity effectively to participate in
and contribute to the direction of social life. The respect accorded to the
dignity of each contributes to the common welfare of all. Dewey found the
closest approximation to this ideal in democracy, but he did not identify
contemporary democracies with this ideal. He was not content to employ old
forms of democracy to deal with new problems. Consistent with instrumentalism,
he maintained that we should be constantly rethinking and reworking our
democratic institutions in order to make them ever more responsive to changing
times. This constant rethinking placed a considerable premium on intelligence,
and this underscored the importance of education for democracy. Dewey is
probably best known for his views on education, but the centrality of his
theory of education to his overall philosophy is not always appreciated. The
fundamental aim of education for him is not to convey information but to
develop critical methods of thought. Education is future-oriented and the
future is uncertain; hence, it is paramount to develop those habits of mind
that enable us adequately to assess new situations and to formulate strategies
for dealing with the problematic dimensions of them. This is not to suggest
that we should turn our backs on the past, because what we as a people have
already learned provides our only guide for future activity. But the past is
not to be valued for its own sake but for its role in developing and guiding
those critical capacities that will enable us to deal with our ever-changing
world effectively and responsibly. With the advent of the analytic tradition as
the dominant style of philosophizing in America, Dewey’s thought fell out of
favor. About the only arenas in which it continued to flourish were schools of
education. However, with the recent revival of a general pragmatic orientation
in the persons of Quine, Putnam, and Rorty, among others, the spirit of Dewey’s
philosophy is frequently invoked. Holism, anti-foundationalism, contextualism,
functionalism, the blurring of the lines between science and philosophy and
between the theoretical and the practical
all central themes in Dewey’s philosophy
have become fashionable. Neo-pragmatism is a contemporary catchphrase.
Dewey is, however, more frequently invoked than read, and even the Dewey that
is invoked is a truncated version of the historical figure who constructed a
comprehensive philosophical vision.
diagoge:
Cf. Grice’s emphasis on the ‘argument’ involved in the conversational
implciatum, though. To work out an impilcatum is to reach it ‘by argument.’ No
argument, no conversational implicatum. But cf. argument in Emissor draws skull
and communicates that there is danger. ARGUMENT involved in that Emissor
intends his addressee WILL REASON. Can the lady communicate to the pigeons that
she is selling ‘twopence a bag’ for their pleasure? Grice contrasted epagoge
with diagoge. Cooperation with competition. Cooperative game with competitive
game. But epagoge is induction, so here we’ll consider his views on probability
and how it contrastds with diagoge. The diagoge is easy to identity: Grice is a
social animal, with the BA, Philosophy, conferences, discussion, The American
Philosophical Association, transcripts by Randall Parker, from the audio-tapes
contained in c. 10 within the same s. IV miscellaneous, Beanfest, transcripts
and audio-cassettes, s. IV, c. 6-f. 8, and f. 10, and s. V, c. 8-f. 4-8 Unfortunately, Parker typed carulise
for karulise, or not. Re: probability, Grice loves to reminisce an anecdote
concerning his tutor Hardie at Corpus when Hardie invoked Mills principles
to prove that Hardie was not responsible for a traffic jam. In drafts on word
play, Grice would speak of not bringing more Grice to your Mill. Mills
System of Logic was part of the reading material for his degree in Lit.
Hum.at Oxford, so he was very familiar with it. Mill represents the best
of the English empiricist tradition. Grice kept an interest on inductive
methodology. In his Life and opinions he mentions some obscure essays by
Kneale and Keynes on the topic. Grice was interested in Kneales secondary
induction, since Grice saw this as an application of a construction routine.
He was also interested in Keyness notion of a generator property, which he
found metaphysically intriguing. Induction. Induction ‒ Mill’s
Induction, induction, deduction, abduction, Mill. More Grice to the Mill.
Grice loved Hardies playing with Mill’s method of difference with an Oxford
copper. He also quotes Kneale and Keynes on induction. Note that his seven-step
derivation of akrasia relies on an inductive step! Grice was fortunate to
associate with Davidson, whose initial work is on porbability. Grice borrows
from Davidson the idea that inductive probability, or probable, attaches to the
doxastic, while prima facie attaches to desirably, or
desirability. Jeffreys notion of desirability is partition-invariant
in that if a proposition, A, can be expressed as the disjoint disjunction of
both {B1, B2, B3} and {C1, C2, C3}, ∑ Bi ∈ AProb
(Bi ∣∣ A). Des (Bi) = ∑Ci ∈ A
Prob (Ci ∣∣ A). Des (Ci). It follows that applying the rule
of desirability maximization will always lead to the same recommendation,
irrespective of how the decision problem is framed, while an alternative theory
may recommend different courses of action, depending on how the decision
problem is formulated. Here, then, is the analogue of Jeffreys
desirability axiom (D), applied to sentences rather than propositions: (D)
(prob(s and t) = 0 and prob(s or t) "# 0, ⊃ d ( ) prob(s)des(s)+ prob(t)des(t) es s or t
=-"---- prob( s) + prob(t ) (Grice writes prob(s) for the Subjectsive
probability of sand des(s) for the desirability or utility of s.) B. Jeffrey
admits that "desirability" (his terms for evidential value) does not
directly correspond to any single pre-theoretical notion of desire. Instead, it
provides the best systematic explication of the decision theoretic idea, which
is itself our best effort to make precise the intuitive idea of weighing
options. As Jeffrey remarks, it is entirely possibly to desire someone’s love
when you already have it. Therefore, as Grice would follow, Jeffrey has the
desirability operator fall under the scope of the probability operator. The
agents desire that p provided he judges that p does not obtain.
Diagoge/epagoge, Grices audio-files, the audio-files, audio-files of various
lectures and conferences, some seminars with Warner and J. Baker, audio files
of various lectures and conferences. Subjects: epagoge, diagoge. A
previous folder in the collection contains the transcripts. These are the
audio-tapes themselves, obviously not in folder. The kind of metaphysical
argument which I have in mind might be said, perhaps, to exemplify a dia-gogic
or trans-ductive as opposed to epa-gogic or in-ductive approach to
philosophical argumentation. Hence Short and Lewis have, for ‘diagoge,’ the
cognates of ‘trādūco,’ f. transduco. Now, the more emphasis is placed on
justification by elimination of the rival, the greater is the impetus given to
refutation, whether of theses or of people. And perhaps a greater emphasis on a
diagogic procedure, if it could be shown to be justifiable, would have an
eirenic effect. Cf. Aristotle on diagoge, schole, otium. Liddell and Scott
have “διαγωγή,” which they render as “literally carrying across,” -- “τριήρων”
Polyaen.5.2.6, also as “carrying through,” and “hence fig.” “ἡ διὰ πάντων αὐτῶν
δ., “taking a person through a subject by instruction, Pl. Ep.343; so, course
of instruction, lectures, ἐν τῇ ἐνεστώσῃ δ. prob. in Phld. Piet.25; also
passing of life, way or course of life, “δ. βίου” Pl. R.344e: abs., Id.
Tht.177a, etc., way of passing time, amusement, “δ. μετὰ παιδιᾶς” Arist. EN
1127b34, cf. 1177a27; “δ. ἐλευθέριος” Id. Pol.1339b5; διαγωγαὶ τοῦ συζῆν public
pastimes, ib.1280b37, cf. Plu.126b (pl.). also delay, D.C. 57.3. management,
τῶν πραγμάτων δ. dispatch of business, Id.48.5. IV. station for ships, f. l. in
Hdn.4.2.8. And there are other entries to consider: διαγωγάν: διαίρεσιν,
διανομήν, διέλευσιν. Grice knew what he was talking about! Refs.: The main
sources listed under ‘desirability,’ above. There is a specific essay on
‘probability and life.’ Good keywords, too, are epagoge and induction The H. P.
Grice Papers, BANC.
Dialogical implicature --
Dialogism -- Bakhtin: m. m., philosopher of dialogism -- and cultural theorist
whose influence is pervasive in a wide range of academic disciplines from literary hermeneutics to the
epistemology of the human sciences, and cultural theory. He may legitimately be
called a philosophical anthropologist in the venerable Continental tradition.
Because of his seminal work on Rabelais and Dostoevsky’s poetics, Baden School
Bakhtin, Mikhail Mikhailovich 70 70 his
influence has been greatest in literary hermeneutics. Without question
dialogism, or the construal of dialogue, is the hallmark of Bakhtin’s thought.
Dialogue marks the existential condition of humanity in which the self and the
other are asymmetrical but double-binding. In his words, to exist means to
communicate dialogically, and when the dialogue ends, everything else ends.
Unlike Hegelian and Marxian dialectics but like the Chin. correlative logic of
yin and yang, Bakhtin’s dialogism is infinitely polyphonic, open-ended, and
indeterminate, i.e., “unfinalizable” to
use his term. Dialogue means that there are neither first nor last words. The
past and the future are interlocked and revolve around the axis of the present.
Bakhtin’s dialogism is paradigmatic in a threefold sense. First, dialogue is
never abstract but embodied. The lived body is the material condition of social
existence as ongoing dialogue. Not only does the word become enfleshed, but
dialogue is also the incorporation of the self and the other. Appropriately,
therefore, Bakhtin’s body politics may be called a Slavic version of Tantrism.
Second, the Rabelaisian carnivalesque that Bakhtin’s dialogism incorporates
points to the “jesterly” politics of resistance and protest against the
“priestly” establishment of officialdom. Third, the most distinguishing
characteristic of Bakhtin’s dialogism is the primacy of the other over the
self, with a twofold consequence: one concerns ethics and the other
epistemology. In modern philosophy, the discovery of “Thou” or the primacy of
the other over the self in asymmetrical reciprocity is credited to Feuerbach.
It is hailed as the “Copernican revolution” of mind, ethics, and social
thought. Ethically, Bakhtin’s dialogism, based on heteronomy, signals the birth
of a new philosophy of responsibility that challenges and transgresses the
Anglo- tradition of “rights talk.” Epistemologically, it lends our welcoming
ears to the credence that the other may be right the attitude that Gadamer calls the soul of
dialogical hermeneutics.
diaphaneity: Grice
unique in his subtlety. Strawson and Wiggins. 'the quality of being freely
pervious to light; transparency', OED. This is a crucial concept for Grice. He applies it
‘see,’ which which, after joint endeavours with G. J. Warnock, he was obsessed!
Grice considers the ascription, “Warnock sees that it is raining.” And then he
adds, “And it is true, I see that it is raining, too.” What’s the diference.
Then comes Strawson. “Strawson, you see that it is raining, right?” So we have
an ascription in the first, second, and third persons. When it comes to the
identification of a sense (like vision) via experience or qualia, we are at a
problem, because ‘see,’ allowing for what Ryle calls a ‘conversational avowal,’
that nobody has an authority to distrust, is what Grice calls a ‘diaphanous’
predicate. More formally. That means that “Grice sees that it is raining,” in
terms of experience, cannot really be expanded except by expanding into WHAT IS
that Grice sees, viz. that it is raining. The same with “communicating that p,”
and “meaning that p.”
dictum: Cf. dictor, and dictivenss. Not necessarily involved with
‘say,’ but with ‘deixis,’ So a dictum is involved in Emissor E drawing a skull,
communicating that there is danger. It is Hare who introduced ‘dictum’ in the
Oxonian philosophical literature in his T. H. Green Essay. Hare distinguishes
between the ‘dictum,’ that the cat is on the mat, from the ‘dictor,’ ‘I state
that the cat is on the mat, yes.’ ‘Cat, on the mat, please.’ Grice often refers
to Hare’s play with words, which he obviously enjoys. In “Epilogue,” Grice
elaborates on the ‘dictum,’ and turns it into ‘dictivitas.’ How does he coin
that word? He starts with Cicero, who has ‘dictivm,’ and creates an abstract
noun to match. Grice needs a concept of a ‘dictum’ ambiguous as it is. Grice
distinguishes between what an Utterer explicitly conveys, e. g. that Strawson
took off his boots and went to bed. Then there’s what Grice implicitly conveys,
to wit: that Strawson took off his boots and went to bed – in that order. Surely
Grice has STATED that Strawson took off his boots and went to bed. Grice has
ASSERTED that Strawson took off his boots and went to bed. But if Grice were to
order Strawson: “Put on your parachute and jump!” the implicata may differ. By
uttering that utterance, Grice has not asserted or stated anything. So Grice
needs a dummy that will do for indicatives and imperatives. ‘Convey’ usually
does – especially in the modality ‘explicitly’ convey. Because by uttering that
utterance Grice has explicitly conveyed that Strawson is to put on his
parachute and jump. Grice has implicitly conveyd that Strawson is to put on his
parachute and THEN jump, surely.
Griceian dignity, a moral
worth or status usually attributed to human persons. Persons are said to have
dignity as well as to express it. Persons are typically thought to have 1
“human dignity” an dichotomy paradox dignity 234 234 intrinsic moral worth, a basic moral
status, or both, which is had equally by all persons; and 2 a “sense of
dignity” an awareness of one’s dignity inclining toward the expression of one’s
dignity and the avoidance of humiliation. Persons can lack a sense of dignity
without consequent loss of their human dignity. In Kant’s influential account
of the equal dignity of all persons, human dignity is grounded in the capacity
for practical rationality, especially the capacity for autonomous
self-legislation under the categorical imperative. Kant holds that dignity
contrasts with price and that there is nothing
not pleasure nor communal welfare nor other good consequences for which it is morally acceptable to
sacrifice human dignity. Kant’s categorical rejection of the use of persons as
mere means suggests a now-common link between the possession of human dignity
and human rights see, e.g., the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human
Rights. One now widespread discussion of dignity concerns “dying with dignity”
and the right to conditions conducive thereto.
Griceian dilemma – Grice
thought that Ryle’s dilemmas were overrated --
an argument or argument form in which one of the premises is a
disjunction. Constructive dilemmas take the form ‘If A and B, if C then D, A or
C; therefore B or D’ and are instances of modus ponens in the special case
where A is C and B is D; destructive dilemmas are of the form ‘If A then B, if
C then D, not-B or not-D; therefore not-A or not-C’ and are likewise instances
of modus tollens in that special case. A dilemma in which the disjunctive
premise is false is commonly known as a false dilemma.
diminished capacity: explored
by Grice in his analysis of legal versus moral right -- a legal defense to
criminal liability that exists in two distinct forms: 1 the mens rea variant,
in which a defendant uses evidence of mental abnormality to cast doubt on the
prosecution’s assertion that, at the time of the crime, the defendant possessed
the mental state criteria, the mens rea, required by the legal definition of
the offense charged; and 2 the partial responsibility variant, in which a
defendant uses evidence of mental abnormality to support a claim that, even if
the defendant’s mental state satisfied the mens rea criteria for the offense,
the defendant’s responsibility for the crime is diminished and thus the
defendant should be convicted of a lesser crime and/or a lesser sentence should
be imposed. The mental abnormality may be produced by mental disorder,
intoxication, trauma, or other causes. The mens rea variant is not a distinct
excuse: a defendant is simply arguing that the prosecution cannot prove the
definitional, mental state criteria for the crime. Partial responsibility is an
excuse, but unlike the similar, complete excuse of legal insanity, partial
responsibility does not produce total acquittal; rather, a defendant’s claim is
for reduced punishment. A defendant may raise either or both variants of
diminished capacity and the insanity defense in the same case. For example, a
common definition of firstdegree murder requires the prosecution to prove that
a defendant intended to kill and did so after premeditation. A defendant
charged with this crime might raise both variants as follows. To deny the
allegation of premeditation, a defendant might claim that the killing occurred
instantaneously in response to a “command hallucination.” If believed, a
defendant cannot be convicted of premeditated homicide, but can be convicted of
the lesser crime of second-degree murder, which typically requires only intent.
And even a defendant who killed intentionally and premeditatedly might claim
partial responsibility because the psychotic mental state rendered the agent’s
reasons for action nonculpably irrational. In this case, either the degree of
crime might be reduced by operation of the partial excuse, rather than by
negation of definitional mens rea, or a defendant might be convicted of
first-degree murder but given a lesser penalty. In the United States the mens
rea variant exists in about half the jurisdictions, although its scope is
usually limited in various ways, primarily to avoid a defendant’s being
acquitted and freed if mental abnormality negated all the definitional mental
state criteria of the crime charged. In English law, the mens rea variant
exists but is limited by the type of evidence usable to support it. No jurisdiction has adopted a distinct,
straightforward partial responsibility variant, but various analogous doctrines
and procedures are widely accepted. For example, partial responsibility grounds
both the doctrine that intentional killing should be reduced from murder to
voluntary manslaughter if a defendant acted “in the heat of passion” upon
legally adequate provocation, and the sentencing judge’s discretion to award a
decreased sentence based on a defendant’s mental abnormality. In addition to
such partial responsibility analogues, England, Wales, and Scotland have
directly adopted the partial responsibility variant, termed “diminished
responsibility,” but it applies only to prosecutions for murder. “Diminished
responsibility” reduces a conviction to a lesser crime, such as manslaughter or
culpable homicide, for behavior that would otherwise constitute murder.
direction of fit –
referred to by Grice in “Intention and uncertainty: according to his thesis of
aequivocality – the direction of fit is overrated -- a metaphor that derives
from a story in Anscombe’s Intention 7 about a detective who follows a shopper
around town making a list of the things that the shopper buys. As Anscombe
notes, whereas the detective’s list has to match the way the world is each of
the things the shopper buys must be on the detective’s list, the shopper’s list
is such that the world has to fit with it each of the things on the list are
things that he must buy. The metaphor is now standardly used to describe the
difference between kinds of speech act assertions versus commands and mental states
beliefs versus desires. For example, beliefs are said to have the world-to-mind
direction of fit because it is in the nature of beliefs that their contents are
supposed to match the world: false beliefs are to be abandoned. Desires are
said to have the opposite mind-to-world direction of fit because it is in the
nature of desires that the world is supposed to match their contents. This is
so at least to the extent that the role of an unsatisfied desire that the world
be a certain way is to prompt behavior aimed at making the world that way.
disgrice: In PGRICE, Kemmerling speaks of disgricing as the
opposite of gricing. The first way to disgrice Kemmerling calls
‘strawsonising.’For Strawson, even the resemblance (for Grice, equivalence in
terms of 'iff' -- cf. his account of what an syntactically structured
non-complete expression) between (G) There is not a single volume in
my uncle’s library which is not by an English author,’and the negatively
existential form (LFG) ~ (Ex)(Ax . ~ Bx)’ is deceptive, ‘It is not
the case that there exists an x such
that x is a book in Grice’s uncle’s library and x is written by an Englishman. FIRST, 'There is not a single volume in uncle’s
library which is not by an English author' --
as normally used, carries the presupposition -- or entails, for Grice -- (G2) Some (at least one) book is in
Grice’s uncle’s library. SECOND, 'There is not a single volume in
Grice’s uncle’s library which is not by an English author,’ is far from being
'entailed' by (G3e) It is not the case that there is some (at least one)
book in my room. If we give ‘There not a
single book in my room which is not by an English author’ the modernist
logical form ‘~ (Ex)(Ax .~ Bx),’ we see
that this is ENTAILED by the
briefer, and indeed logicall stronger (in terms of entailments) ~ (Ex)Ax. So when Grice, with a solemn face, utters, ‘There
is not a single foreign volume in my uncle’s library, to reveal later that the library is empty, Grice should expect
his addressee to get some odd feeling. Surely not the feeling of having been
lied to -- or been confronted with an initial false utterance --, because we
have not. Strawson gets the feeling of having been made "the victim of a sort
of communicative outrage." "What you say is outrageous!" This
sounds stronger than it is. An outrage is believed to be an evil deed, offense,
crime; affront, indignity, act not within established or reasonable
limits," of food, drink, dress, speech, etc., from Old French outrage "harm, damage;
insult; criminal behavior; presumption, insolence, overweening" (12c.),
earlier oltrage (11c.),
From Vulgar Latin ‘ultraticum,’
excess," from Latin ultra,
beyond" (from suffixed form of PIE root *al- "beyond"). Etymologically, "the passing
beyond reasonable bounds" in any sense. The meaning narrowed in English
toward violent excesses because of folk etymology from out + rage. Of injuries to feelings,
principles, etc., from outrage, v. outragen,
"to go to excess, act immoderately," from outrage (n.) or from Old
French oultrager. From
1580s with meaning "do violence to, attack, maltreat." Related: Outraged; outraging. But Strawson gets the
feeling of having been made "the victim of a sort of communicative
outrage.” When Grice was only trying to tutor him in The Organon. Of
course it is not the case that Grice is explicitly conveying or expressing that
there there is some (at least one) book in his uncle's room. Grice has not said
anything false. Or rather, it is not the case that Grice utters an
utterance which is not alethically or doxastically satisfactory. Yet what Grice
gives Strawson the defeasible, cancellable, license to to assume that
Grice thinks there is at least one book. Unless he goes on to cancel the
implicature, Grice may be deemed to be misleading Strawson. What Grice
explicitly conveys to be true (or false) it is necessary (though not sufficient)
that there should at least one volume in his uncle’s library -- It is not the
case that my uncle has a library and in that library all the books are
autochthonous to England, i.e. it is not the case that Grice’s uncle has a
library; for starters, it is not the case that Grice has a literate uncle. Of
this SUBTLE, nuantic, or cloudy or foggy, "slight or delicate degree of
difference in expression, feeling, opinion, etc.," from Fr. nuance "slight
difference, shade of colour,” from nuer "to
shade," from nue "cloud," from Gallo-Roman nuba, from
Latin nubes "a
cloud, mist, vapour," sneudh- "fog," source also of
Avestan snaoda "clouds,"
Latin obnubere "to
veil," Welsh nudd "fog," Greek nython, in
Hesychius "dark, dusky") According to Klein, the French usage is a
reference to "the different colours of the clouds,” in reference to color
or tone, "a slight variation in shade; of music, as a French term in
English -- 'sort' is the relation between ‘There is not a volume in my
uncle's library which is not by an English author,’ and ‘My uncle's
library is not empty. RE-ENTER GRICE. Grice suggested that Strawson see such a
fine point such as that, which Grice had the kindness to call an 'implicatum', the
result of an act of an ‘implicatura’ (they were both attending Kneale’s seminar
on the growth and ungrowth of logic) is irrelevant to the issue of
‘entailment’. It is a 'merely pragmatic’ implicatum, Grice would say, bringing
forward a couple of distinctions: logical/pragmatic point; logical/pragmatic
inference; entailment/implicatum; conveying explicitly/conveying implicitly;
stating/implicating; asserting/implying; what an utterer means/what the
expression 'means' -- but cf. Nowell-Smith, who left Oxford after being
overwhelmed by Grice, "this is how the rules of etiquette inform the rules
of logic -- on the 'rule' of relevance in "Ethics," 1955. If to call
such a point, as Grice does, as "irrelevant to logic" is vacuous in
that it may be interpreted as saying that that such a fine foggy point is not
considered in a modernist formal system of first-order predicate calculus with
identity, this Strawson wishes not to dispute, but to emphasise. Call it his
battle cry! But to 'logic' as concerned with this or that relation between this
or that general class of statement occurring in ordinary use, and the attending
general condition under which this or that statement is correctly called 'true'
or 'false,' this fine foggy nice point would hardly be irrelevant. GRICE'S
FORMALIST (MODERNIST) INTERPRETATION. Some 'pragmatic' consideration, or
assumption, or expectation, a desideratum of conversational conduct obviously underlies
and in fact 'explains' the implicatum, without having to change the ‘sense’ of
Aristotle’s syllogistics in terms of the logical forms of A, E, I, and O. If we
abide by an imperative of conversational helpfulness, enjoining the maximally
giving and receiving of information and the influencing and being influenced by
others in the institution of a decisions, the sub-imperative follows to the
effect, ‘Thou shalt NOT make a weak move compared to the stronger one that thou
canst truthfully make, and with equal or greater economy of means.’ Assume the
form ‘There is not a single … which is not . . .,’ or ‘It is not the case
that ... there is some (at least one) x that ... is not ... is introduced
in ‘ordinary’ language with the same SENSE as the expression in the
‘ideal’ language, ~(Ex)(Ax and ~Bx). Then prohibition inhibits the utterance of
the form where the utterer can truly and truthfully simply convey
explicitly ‘There is not a single ..., i. e. ~(Ex)(Fx). It is
defeasible prohibition which tends to confer on the overprolixic form ('it is
not the case that ... there is some (at least one) x that is not ...') just
that kind of an implicatum which Strawson identifies. But having
detected a nuance in a conversational phenomenon is not the same thing as
rushing ahead to try to explain it BEFORE exploring in some detail what kind of
a nuance it is. The mistake is often commited by Austin, too (in "Other Minds,"
and "A Plea for Excuses"), and by Hart (on 'carefully'), and by Hare
(on "good"), and by Strawson on 'true,' (Analysis), ‘the,’ and 'if --
just to restrict to the play group. Grice tries to respond to anti-sense-datum
in "That pillar box seems red to me,” but Strawson was not listening. The overprolixic form in the ‘ordinary’
language, ‘It is not the case that there is some (at least one x) such that ...
x is not ...’ would tend, if it does not remain otiose, to develop or generate
just that baffling effect in one's addressee ('outrage!') that Strawson identifies,
as opposed to the formal-device in the ‘ideal’ language with which the the
‘ordinary’ language counterpart is co-related. What weakens our resistance
to the negatively existential analysis in this case more than in the case of
the corresponding "All '-sentence is the powerful attraction of the
negative opening phrase There is not …'. To avoid misunderstanding
one may add a point about the neo-traditionalist interpretation of the forms of
the traditional Aristotelian system. Strawson is not claiming that it
faithfully represents this or that intention of the principal exponent of the
Square of Opposition. Appuleius, who knows, was perhaps, more interested in
formulating this or that theorem governing this or that logical relation of
this or that more imposing general statement than this or that everyday general
statement that Strawson considers. Appuleius, who knows, might have
been interested, e. g., in the logical powers of this or that
generalisation, or this or that sentence which approximates more closely to the
desired conditions that if its utterance by anyone, at any time, at any place,
results in a true statement, so does its utterance by anyone else, at any other
time, at any other place. How far the account by the neo-traditionalist
of this or that general sentence of 'ordinary' langauge is adequate for every
generalization may well be under debate. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “In defence of
Appuleius,” BANC.
disimplicatum: “We should not conclude from this that an implication of
the existence of thing said to be seen is NOT part of the conventional meaning
of ‘see’ nor even (as some philosophers have done) that there is one sense of ‘see’
which lacks this implication!” (WoW:44). If Oxonians are obsessed with
‘implication,’ do they NEED ‘disimplicature’? Grice doesn’t think so! But
sometimes you have to use it to correct a mistake. Grice does not give names,
but he says he has heard a philosopher claim that there are two SENSES of
‘see,’ one which what one sees exists, and one in which it doesn’t! It would be
good to trace that! It relates, in any case to ‘remembers,’but not quite, and
to ‘know.’ But not quite. The issue of ‘see’ is not that central, since Grice
realizes that it is just a modality of perception, even if crucial. He coined
‘visum’ with Warnock to play with the idea of ‘what is seen’ NOT being
existent. On another occasion, when he
cannot name a ridiculous philosopher, he invents him: “A philosopher will not
be given much credit if he comes with an account of the indefinite ‘one’ as
having three senses: one proximate to the emissor (“I broke a finger”), one
distant (“He’s meeting a woman”) and one where the link is not specified (“A
flower”). he target is of course Davidson having the cheek to quote Grice’s
Henriette Herz Trust lecture for the BA! Lewis and Short have ‘intendere’ under
‘in-tendo,’ which they render as ‘to stretch out or forth, extend, also to turn
ones attention to, exert one’s self for, to purpose, endeavour,” and finaly as
“intend”! “pergin, sceleste, intendere hanc arguere?” Plaut. Mil. 2, 4,
27 Grices tends towards claiming that you cannot extend what you dont
intend. In the James lectures, Grice mentions the use of is to mean seem (The
tie is red in this light), and see to mean hallucinate. Denying
Existence: The Logic, Epistemology and Pragmatics of ...books.google.com ›
books ... then it seems unidiomatic if not ungrammatical to speak of
hallucinations as ... that fighting people and 156 APPEARING UNREALS 4 Two
Senses of "See"? A. Chakrabarti - 1997 - Language Arts &
Disciplines The Claim of Reason: Wittgenstein, Skepticism,
Morality, and ...books.google.com › books sight, say sense-data; others will
then say that there are two senses of 'see'. ... wrong because I am dreaming or
hallucinating them, which of course could ... Stanley Cavell - 1999 -
Philosophy Wittgenstein and Perception - Page 37 - Google Books
Resultbooks.google.com › books For example, Gilbert Harman characterises the
two senses of see as follows: see† = 'the ... which is common to genuine cases
of seeing and to hallucinations. Michael Campbell, Michael O'Sullivan - 2015 -
Philosophy The Alleged Ambiguity of'See'www.jstor.org › stable
including dreams, hallucinations and the perception of physical objects. ...
existence of at least two senses of ' see' were his adherence to the doctrine
that 'see' ... by AR White - 1963 - Cited by 3 - Related articles
Seeing and Naming - jstorwww.jstor.org › stable there are or aren't two
senses of 'see'. If there are, I'm speaking of ... The third kind of case is
illustrated by Macbeth's dagger hallucination, at least if we assume ... by RJ
Hall - 1977 - Cited by 3 - Related articles Philosophy at
LaGuardia Community Collegewww.laguardia.edu › Philosophy › GADFLY-2011 PDF
Lastly, I will critically discuss Ayer's two senses of 'see', ... (e.g.,
hallucinations); it thus seems correct to say that ... Hallucinations are hallucinations.
There are. Talking about seeing: An examination of some aspects of
the ...etd.ohiolink.edu › ... I propose a distinction between delusions and
hallucinations,'and argue ... say that there are two senses of .'see* in
ordinary language or not, he does, as I will ... by KA Emmett - 1974 -
Related articles Wittgenstein and Perceptionciteseerx.ist.psu.edu
› viewdoc › download PDF 2 Two senses of 'see'. 33 ... may see things that are
not there, for example in hallucinations. ... And so, hallucinations are not
genuine perceptual experiences. by Y Arahata - Related articles
Allen Blur - University of Yorkwww-users.york.ac.uk › Publications_files PDF of
subjectively indistinguishable hallucination (e.g. Crane 2006). ... and
material objects of sight, and correlatively for a distinction between two
senses of 'see',. by K Allen - Related articles Austin and
sense-data - UBC Library Open Collectionsopen.library.ubc.ca › ... › UBC Theses
and Dissertations Sep 15, 2011 - (5) Illusions and Hallucinations It is not
enough to reject Austin's way of ... I will not deal with Austin and Ayer on
"two senses of 'see'" because I ... by DD Todd - 1967 - Cited by 1
- Related articles. Godfrey Vesey (1965, p. 73) deposes, "if a person sees
something at all it must look like something to him, even if it only looks like
'somebody doing something.' With Davidson, Grice was more cavalier,
because he could blame it on a different ‘New-World’ dialect or idiolect, about
‘intend.’ When Grice uses ‘disimplicatum’ to apply to ‘cream in coffee’ that is
a bit tangential – and refers more generally to his theory of communication.
What would the rationale of disimplicatum be? In this case, if the emissee
realizes the obvious category mistake (“She’s not the cream in your coffee”) there
may be a need to disimplicate explicitly. To consider. There is an example that
he gives that compares with ‘see’ and it is even more philosophical but he
doesn’t give examples: to use ‘is’ when one means ‘seem’ (the tie example). The reductive analyses of being and seeing
hold. We have here two cases of loose use (or disimplicature). Same now with
his example in “Intention and Uncertainty” (henceforth, “Uncertainty”): Smith
intends to climb Mt. Everest + [common-ground status: this is difficult]. Grices
response to Davidsons pretty unfair use of Grices notion of conversational
implicature in Davidsons analysis of intention caught a lot of interest. Pears
loved Grices reply. Implicatum here is out of the question ‒ disimplicatum may
not. Grice just saw that his theory of conversation is too social to be true
when applied to intending. The doxastic condition is one of the entailments in
an ascription of an intending. It cannot be cancelled as an implicatum can. If
it can be cancelled, it is best seen as a disimplicatum, or a loose use by an
utterer meaning less than what he says or explicitly conveys to more careful
conversants. Grice and Davidson were members of The Grice and Davidson
Mutual Admiration Society. Davidson, not being Oxonian, was perhaps not
acquainted with Grices polemics at Oxford with Hart and Hampshire (where Grice
sided with Pears, rather). Grice and Pears hold a minimalist approach to
intending. On the other hand, Davidson makes what Grice sees as the same
mistake again of building certainty into the concept. Grice finds that to
apply the idea of a conversational implicatum at this point is too social to be
true. Rather, Grice prefers to coin the conversational
disimplicatum: Marmaduke Bloggs intends to climb Mt Everest on hands and
knees. The utterance above, if merely reporting what Bloggs thinks, may
involve a loose use of intends. The certainty on the agents part on the
success of his enterprise is thus cast with doubt. Davidson was claiming
that the agents belief in the probability of the object of the agents intention
was a mere conversational implicatum on the utterers part. Grice responds
that the ascription of such a belief is an entailment of a strict use of
intend, even if, in cases where the utterer aims at a conversational disimplicatum,
it can be dropped. The addressee will still regard the utterer as
abiding by the principle of conversational helpfulness. Pears was especially
interested in the Davidson-Grice polemic on intending, disimplicature,
disimplicature. Strictly, a section of his reply to Davidson. If Grices claim
to fame is implicature, he finds disimplicature an intriguing notion to capture
those occasions when an utterer means LESS than he says. His examples include:
a loose use of intending (without the entailment of the doxastic condition),
the uses of see in Shakespeareian contexts (Macbeth saw Banquo, Hamlet saw his
father on the ramparts of Elsinore) and the use of is to mean seems (That tie
is blue under this light, but green otherwise, when both conversants know that
a change of colour is out of the question. He plays with Youre the cream in my
coffee being an utterance where the disimplicature (i.e. entailment dropping)
is total. Disimplicature does not appeal to a new principle of conversational
rationality. It is perfectly accountable by the principle of conversational
helpfulness, in particular, the desideratum of conversational candour. In everyday explanation we exploit, as Grice notes,
an immense richness in the family of expressions that might be thought of as
the wanting family. This wanting family includes expressions like want, desire,
would like to, is eager to, is anxious to, would mind not…, the idea of appeals to me, is thinking of, etc. As Grice
remarks, The likeness and differences within this wanting family demand careful
attention. In commenting on Davidsons treatment of wanting in
Intending, Grice notes: It seems to Grice that the picture of the soul
suggested by Davidsons treatment of wanting is remarkably tranquil and, one
might almost say, computerized. It is the picture of an ideally decorous board
meeting, at which the various heads of sections advance, from the standpoint of
their particular provinces, the case for or against some proposed course of
action. In the end the chairman passes judgement, effective for action;
normally judiciously, though sometimes he is for one reason or another
over-impressed with the presentation made by some particular member. Grices
soul doesnt seem to him, a lot of the time, to be like that at all. It is more
like a particularly unpleasant department meeting, in which some members shout,
wont listen, and suborn other members to lie on their behalf; while the
chairman, who is often himself under suspicion of cheating, endeavours to
impose some kind of order; frequently to no effect, since sometimes the meeting
breaks up in disorder, sometimes, though it appears to end comfortably, in
reality all sorts of enduring lesions are set up, and sometimes, whatever the
outcome of the meeting, individual members go off and do things unilaterally.
Could it be that Davidson, of the New World, and Grice, of the Old World, have
different idiolects regarding intend? Could well be! It is said that the New
World is prone to hyperbole, so perhaps in Grices more cautious use, intend is
restricted to the conditions HE wants it to restrict it too! Odd that for all
the generosity he displays in Post-war Oxford philosophy (Surely I can help you
analyse you concept of this or that, even if my use of the corresponding
expression does not agree with yours), he goes to attack Davidson, and just for
trying to be nice and apply the conversational implicatum to intend! Genial
Grice! It is natural Davidson, with his naturalistic tendencies, would like to
see intending as merely invoking in a weak fashion the idea of a strong
psychological state as belief. And its natural that Grice hated that! Refs.:
The source is Grice’s comment on Davidson on intending. The H. P. Grice Papers,
BANC.
disjunctum: Strangely
enough Ariskant thought disjunctum, but not conjunctum a categorial related to
the category of ‘community’!Aulus Gellius (The Attic Nights, XVI, 8) tells us
about this disjunction: “There also is ■ another type of a^twpa which the
Greeks call and we call disjunctum, disjunctive sentence. Gellius notes that
‘or’ is by default ‘inclusive’: where one or several propositions may be
simultaneously true, without ex- cluding one another, although they may also
all be false. Gellius expands on the non-default reading of exclusive
disjunction: pleasure is either good or bad or it is neither good nor bad (“Aut
malum est voluplas, aut bonum, aul neque bonum, neque malum est”). All the
elements of the exclusive disjunctive exclude one another, and their
contradictory elements, Gr. avTtxs'-p.sva, are incompatible with one another”.
“Ex omnibus quae disjunguntiir, unum esse verum debet, falsa cetera.”Grice
lists ‘or’ as the second binary functor in his response to Strawson. But both
Grice and Strawson agreed that the Oxonian expert on ‘or’ is Wood. Mitchell is
good, too, though. The relations between “v” and “or” (or “either ... or …”)
are, on the whole, less intimate than those between “.” and “and,” but less
distant than those between “D” and “if.” Let us speak of a statement made by
coupling two clauses by “or” as an alternative statement ; and let us speak of
the first and second alternatesof such a statement, on analogy with our talk of
the antecedent and consequent of a hypothetical statement. At a bus-stop,
someone might say: “Either we catch this bus or we shall have to walk all the
way home.” He might equally well have said “If we don't catch this bus, we
shall have to walk all the way home.” It will be seen that the antecedent of
the hypothetical statement he might have made is the negation of the first
alternate of the alternative statement he did make. Obviously, we should not
regard our catching the bus as a sufficient condition of the 'truth' of either
statement; if it turns out that the bus we caught was not the last one, we
should say that the man who had made the statement had been wrong. The truth of
one of the alternates is no more a sufficient condition of the truth of the
alternative statement than the falsity of the antecedent is a sufficient
condition of the truth of the hypothetical statement. And since 'p"Dpyq'
(and, equally, * q"3p v q ') is a law of the truth-functional system, this
fact sufficiently shows a difference between at least one standard use of “or” and
the meaning given to “v.” Now in all, or almost all, the cases where we are
prepared to say something of the form “p or q,” we are also prepared to say
something of the form 4 if not-p, then q \ And this fact may us to exaggerate
the difference between “v” and “or” to think that, since in some cases, the
fulfilment of one alternate is not a sufficient condition of the truth of the
alternative statement of which It is an alternate, the fulfilment of one
alternate is a sufficient condition of the truth of an alternative statement.
And this is certainly an exaggeration. If someone says ; “Either it was John or
it was Robert but I couldn't tell which,” we are satisfied of the truth of the
alternative statement if either of the alternates turns out to be true; and we
say that the speaker was wrong only if neither turns out to be true. Here we
seem to have a puzzle ; for we seem to be saying that * Either it was John or
it was Robert ' entails 4 If it wasn't John, it was Robert * and, at the same
time, that ‘It was John’ entails the former, but not the latter. What we are
suffering from here is perhaps a crudity in our notion of entailraent, a
difficulty In applying this too undifferentiated concept to the facts of speech
; or, if we prefer it, an ambiguity in the notion of a sufficient condition.
The statement that it was John entails the statement that it was either John or
Robert in the sense thai it confirms it; when It turns out to have been John,
the man who said that either It was John or it was Robert is shown to have been
right. But the first statement does not entail the second in the sense that the
step ‘It was John, so it was either John or Robert’ is a logically proper step,
unless the person saying this means by it simply that the alternative statement
made previously was correct, i.e., 'it was one of the two '. For the
alternative statement carries the implication of the speaker's uncertainty as
to which of the two it was, and this implication is inconsistent with the
assertion that it was John. So in this sense of * sufficient condition ', the
statement that it was John is no more a sufficient condition of (no more
entails) the statement that it was either John or Robert than it is a
sufficient condition of (entails) the statement that if it wasn't John, it was
Robert. The further resemblance, which we have already noticed, between the
alternative statement and the hypothetical statement, is that whatever
knowledge or experience renders it reasonable to assert the alternative
statement, also renders it reasonable to make the statement that (under the
condition that it wasn't John) it was Robert. But we are less happy about
saying that the hypothetical statement is confirmed by the discovery that it
was John, than we are about saying that the alternative statement is confirmed
by this discovery. For we are inclined to say that the question of confirmation
of the hypothetical statement (as opposed to the question of its reasonableness
or acceptability) arises only if the condition (that it wasn't John) turns out
to be fulfilled. This shows an asymmetry, as regards confirmation, though not
as regards acceptability, between 4 if not p, then q ' and * if not qy then p '
which is not mirrored in the forms ‘either p or q’ and ‘either q or p.’ This
asymmetry is ignored in the rule that * if not p, then q ' and ‘if not q, then
p’ are logically equivalent, for this rule regards acceptability rather than
confirmation. And rightly. For we may often discuss the l truth ' of a
subjunctive conditional, where the possibility of confirmation is suggested by
the form of words employed to be not envisaged. It is a not unrelated
difference between * if ' sentences and ‘or’ sentences that whereas, whenever
we use one of the latter, we should also be prepared to use one of the former,
the converse does not hold. The cases in which it does not generally hold are
those of subjunctive conditionals. There is no ‘or’ sentence which would serve
as a paraphrase of ‘If the Germans had invaded England in 1940, they would have
won the war’ as this sentence would most commonly be used. And this is
connected with the fact that c either . . . or . . .' is associated with
situations involving choice or decision. 4 Either of these roads leads to
Oxford ' does not mean the same as ' Either this road leads to Oxford or that
road does’ ; but both confront us with the necessity of making a choice. This
brings us to a feature of * or ' which, unlike those so far discussed, is
commonly mentioned in discussion of its relation to * v ' ; the fact, namely,
that in certain verbal contexts, ‘either … or …’ plainly carries the
implication ‘and not both . . . and . . .', whereas in other contexts, it does
not. These are sometimes spoken of as, respectively, the exclusive and
inclusive senses of ‘or;’ and, plainly, if we are to identify 4 v’ with either,
it must be the latter. The reason why, unlike others, this feature of the
ordinary use of “or” is commonly mentioned, is that the difference can readily
be accommodated (1 Cf. footnote to p. 86.In the symbolism of the
truth-functional system: It is the difference between “(p y q) .~ (p . q)”
(exclusive sense) and “p v q” (inclusive sense). “Or,” like “and,” is commonly
used to join words and phrases as well as clauses. The 4 mutuality difficulties
attending the general expansion of 4 x and y are/ 5 into * x is /and y is/' do
not attend the expansion of 4 x or y isf into c r Is/or y is/ ? (This is not to
say that the expansion can always correctly be made. We may call “v” the
disjunctive sign and, being warned against taking the reading too seriously,
may read it as ‘or.' While he never approached the topic separately, it’s easy
to find remarks about disjunction in his oeuvre. A veritable genealogy of
disjunction can be traced along Griceian lines. DISJUNCTUM -- disjunction
elimination. 1 The argument form ‘A or B, if A then C, if B then C; therefore,
C’ and arguments of this form. 2 The rule of inference that permits one to
infer C from a disjunction together with derivations of C from each of the
disjuncts separately. This is also known as the rule of disjunctive elimination
or V-elimination. disjunction
introduction. 1 The argument form ‘A or B; therefore, A or B’ and arguments of
this form. 2 The rule of inference that permits one to infer a disjunction from
either of its disjuncts. This is also known as the rule of addition or
Vintroduction. . disjunctive proposition,
a proposition whose main propositional operator main connective is the
disjunction operator, i.e., the logical operator that represents ‘and/or’.
Thus, ‘P-and/orQ-and-R’ is not a disjunctive proposition because its main
connective is the conjunction operation, but ‘P-and/or-Q-and-R’ is disjunctive.
Refs.: Grice uses an illustration involving ‘or’ in the ‘implication’ excursus
in “Causal Theory.” But the systematic account comes from WoW, especially essay
4.
Disposition -- H. P.
Grice, “Disposition and intention” -- a tendency of an object or system to act
or react in characteristic ways in certain situations. Fragility, solubility,
and radioactivity are typical physical dispositions; generosity and
irritability are typical dispositions of persons. For behaviorism,
functionalism, and some forms of materialism, mental events, such as the
occurrence of an idea, and states such as beliefs, are also dispositions.
Hypothetical or conditional statements are implied by dispositional claims and
capture their basic meaning: the glass would shatter if suitably struck; left
undisturbed, a radium atom will probably decay in a certain time; etc. These
are usually taken as subjunctive rather than material conditionals to avoid
problems like having to count as soluble anything not immersed in water. The
characteristic mode of action or reaction
shattering, decaying, etc. is
termed the disposition’s manifestation or display. But it need not be
observable. Fragility is a regular or universal disposition; a suitably struck
glass invariably shatters. Radioactivity is variable or probabilistic; radium
may or may not decay in a certain situation. Dispositions may also be
multitrack or multiply manifested,rather than single-track or singly
manifested: like hardness or elasticity, they may have different manifestations
in different situations. In The Concept of Mind 9 Ryle argued that there is
nothing more to dispositional claims than their associated conditionals:
dispositional properties are not occurrent; to possess a dispositional property
is not to undergo any episode or occurrence, or to be in a particular state.
Coupled with a positivist rejection of unobservables, and a conception of
mental episodes and states as dispositions, this supports the view of
behaviorism that such episodes and states are nothing but dispositions to
observable behavior. By contrast, realism holds that dispositional talk is also
about actual or occurrent properties or states, possibly unknown or
unobservable. In particular, it is about the bases of dispositions in intrinsic
properties or states: fragility is based in molecular structure, radioactivity
in nuclear structure. A disposition’s basis is viewed as at least partly the
cause of its manifestation. Some philosophers hold that the bases are
categorical, not dispositional D. M. Armstrong, A Materialist Theory of Mind,
8. Others, notably Popper, hold that all properties are dispositional.
distributum: distributio -- undistributed
middle: a logical fallacy in traditional syllogistic logic, resulting from the
violation of the rule that the middle term (the term that appears twice in
premises) must be distributed at least once in the premises. Any syllogism that
commits this error is invalid. Consider “All philosophers are persons,” and
“Some persons are bad.” No conclusion follows from these two premises because
“persons” in the first premise is the predicate of an affirmative proposition,
and in the second is the subject of a particular proposition. Neither of them
is distributed. “If in a syllogism the middle term is distributed in neither
premise, we are said to have a fallacy of undistributed middle.” Keynes, Formal
Logic. DISTRIBUTUM -- distribution, the property of standing for every
individual designated by a term. The Latin term distributio originated in the
twelfth century; it was applied to terms as part of a theory of reference, and
it may have simply indicated the property of a term prefixed by a universal
quantifier. The term ‘dog’ in ‘Every dog has his day’ is distributed, because
it supposedly refers to every dog. In contrast, the same term in ‘A dog bit the
mailman’ is not distributed because it refers to only one dog. In time, the
idea of distribution came to be used only as a heuristic device for determining
the validity of categorical syllogisms: 1 every term that is distributed in a
premise must be distributed in the conclusion; 2 the middle term must be
distributed at least once. Most explanations of distribution in logic textbooks
are perfunctory; and it is stipulated that the subject terms of universal
propositions and the predicate terms of negative propositions are distributed.
This is intuitive for A-propositions, e.g., ‘All humans are mortal’; the
property of being mortal is distributed over each human. The idea of
distribution is not intuitive for, say, the predicate term of O-propositions.
According to the doctrine, the sentence ‘Some humans are not selfish’ says in
effect that if all the selfish things are compared with some select human one
that is not selfish, the relation of identity does not hold between that human
and any of the selfish things. Notice that the idea of distribution is not
mentioned in this explanation. The idea of distribution is currently
disreputable, mostly because of the criticisms of Geach in Reference and
Generality 8 and its irrelevance to standard semantic theories. The related
term ‘distributively’ means ‘in a manner designating every item in a group
individually’, and is used in contrast with ‘collectively’. The sentence ‘The
rocks weighed 100 pounds’ is ambiguous. If ‘rocks’ is taken distributively,
then the sentence means that each rock weighed 100 pounds. If ‘rocks’ is taken
collectively, then the sentence means that the total weight of the rocks was
100 pounds. distributive laws, the
logical principles A 8 B 7 C S A 8 B 7 A 7 C and A 7 B 8 C S A 7 B 8 A 7 C.
Conjunction is thus said to distribute over disjunction and disjunction over
conjunction.
ditto: Or Strawson’s big mistake. Strawson quite didn’t
understand what “Analysis” was for, and submits this essay on the
perlocutionary effects of ‘true.’ Grice comes to the resuce of veritable
analysis. cf. verum. Grice disliked Strawson’s ditto theory in Analysis of
‘true’ as admittive performatory. 1620s, "in the month of the same
name," Tuscan dialectal ditto "(in) the said (month or year),"
literary Italian detto, past participle of dire "to say," from Latin
dicere "speak, tell, say" (from PIE root *deik- "to show,"
also "pronounce solemnly"). Italian used the word to avoid
repetition of month names in a series of dates, and in this sense it was picked
up in English. Its generalized meaning of "the aforesaid, the same thing,
same as above" is attested in English by 1670s. In early 19c. a suit of
men's clothes of the same color and material through was ditto or dittoes (1755).
Dittohead, self-description of followers of U.S. radio personality Rush
Limbaugh, attested by 1995. dittoship is from 1869.
Dodgson, C. L. --
Carroll, Lewis, pen name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson 183298, English writer and
mathematician. The eldest son of a large clerical family, he was educated at
Rugby and Christ Church, Oxford, where he remained for the rest of his
uneventful life, as mathematical lecturer until 1 and curator of the senior
commonroom. His mathematical writings under his own name are more numerous than
important. He was, however, the only Oxonian of his day to contribute to
symbolic logic, and is remembered for his syllogistic diagrams, for his methods
for constructing and solving elaborate sorites problems, for his early interest
in logical paradoxes, and for the many amusing examples that continue to
reappear in modern textbooks. Fame descended upon him almost by accident, as
the author of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland 1865, Through the Looking Glass
1872, The Hunting of the Snark 1876, and Sylvie and Bruno 9 93; saving the
last, the only children’s books to bring no blush of embarrassment to an adult
reader’s cheek. Dodgson took deacon’s orders in 1861, and though pastorally
inactive, was in many ways an archetype of the prim Victorian clergyman. His
religious opinions were carefully thought out, but not of great philosophic
interest. The Oxford movement passed him by; he worried about sin though
rejecting the doctrine of eternal punishment, abhorred profanity, and fussed
over Sunday observance, but was oddly tolerant of theatergoing, a lifelong
habit of his own. Apart from the sentimental messages later inserted in them,
the Alice books and Snark are blessedly devoid of religious or moral concern.
Full of rudeness, aggression, and quarrelsome, if fallacious, argument, they
have, on the other hand, a natural attraction for philosophers, who pillage
Carneades Carroll, Lewis 119 119 them
freely for illustrations. Humpty-Dumpty, the various Kings and Queens, the Mad
Hatter, the Caterpillar, the White Rabbit, the Cheshire Cat, the Unicorn, the
Tweedle brothers, the Bellman, the Baker, and the Snark make fleeting
appearances in the s of Russell, Moore, Broad, Quine, Nagel, Austin, Ayer,
Ryle, Blanshard, and even Vitters an unlikely admirer of the Mock Turtle. The
first such allusion to the March Hare is in Venn’s Symbolic Logic 1. The usual
reasons for quotation are to make some point about meaning, stipulative
definition, the logic of negation, time reversal, dream consciousness, the
reification of fictions and nonentities, or the absurdities that arise from
taking “ordinary language” too literally. For exponents of word processing, the
effect of running Jabberwocky through a spell-checker is to extinguish all hope
for the future of Artificial Intelligence. Though himself no philosopher,
Carroll’s unique sense of philosophic humor keeps him and his illustrator, Sir
John Tenniel effortlessly alive in the modern age. Alice has been tr. into
seventy-five languages; new editions and critical studies appear every year;
imitations, parodies, cartoons, quotations, and ephemera proliferate beyond
number; and Carroll societies flourish in several countries, notably Britain
and the United States.
Domain – used by Grice in
his treatment of Extensionalism -- of a science, the class of individuals that
constitute its subject matter. Zoology, number theory, and plane geometry have
as their respective domains the class of animals, the class of natural numbers,
and the class of plane figures. In Posterior Analytics 76b10, Aristotle
observes that each science presupposes its domain, its basic concepts, and its
basic principles. In modern formalizations of a science using a standard
firstorder formal language, the domain of the science is often, but not always,
taken as the universe of the intended interpretation or intended model, i.e. as
the range of values of the individual variables.
Donkey – quantification –
considered by Grice -- sentences, sentences exemplified by ‘Every man who owns
a donkey beats it’, ‘If a man owns a donkey, he beats it’, and similar forms
(“Every nice girl loves a sailor”), which have posed logical puzzles since
medieval times but were noted more recently by Geach. At issue is the logical
form of such sentences specifically, the
correct construal of the pronoun ‘it’ and the indefinite noun phrase ‘a
donkey’. Translations into predicate logic by the usual strategy of rendering
the indefinite as existential quantification and the pronoun as a bound
variable cf. ‘John owns a donkey and beats it’ P Dx x is a donkey & John
owns x & John beats x are either ill-formed or have the wrong truth
conditions. With a universal quantifier, the logical form carries the
controversial implication that every donkey-owning man beats every donkey he
owns. Efforts to resolve these issues have spawned much significant research in
logic and linguistic semantics.
dossier: Grice is not clear about the status of this – but some
philosophers have been too mentalistic. How would a genitorial programme
proceed. Is there a dossier in a handwave by which the emissor communicates
that he knows the route or that he is about to leave his emissee. It does not
seem so, because the handwave is unstructured. Unlike “Fido is shaggy.” In the
case of “Fido is shaggy,” there must be some OVERLAP between the emissor’s soul
and the emissee’s soul – in terms of dossier. So perhaps there is overlap in
the handwave. There must be an overlap as to WHICH route he means. By making
the handwave the emissor communicates that HE, the emissor, subject IS (copula)
followed by predicate “knower of the route.” So here we have a definite ‘the
route.’ Which route? To heaven, to hell. Cf. The scots ‘high road,’ ‘low road.’
To Loch Lomond. If there is not this minimal common ground nothing can be
communicated. In the alternative meaning, “I (subject) am (copula) about to
leave you – where again there must be an overlap in the identification of the
denotata of the pronouns. In the case of Blackburn’s skull or the arrow at the
fork of a road, the common ground is instituted in situu in the one-off
predicament, and there still must be some overlap of dossier. In its most
technical usage, Grice wants to demystify Donnellan’s identificatory versus
non-identificatory uses of ‘the,’ as unnecessary implications to Russell’s
otherwise neat account. The topic interested Strawson (“Principle of assumption
of ignorance, knowledge and relevance”) and Urmson’s principle of aptitude. Grice’s
favourite vacuous name is ‘Bellerophon.’ ‘Vacuous names’ is an essay
commissioned by Davison and Hintikka for Words and objections: essays on the
work of W. V. Quine (henceforth, W and O) for Reidel, Dordrecht. “W and O” had
appeared (without Grices contribution) as a special issue of Synthese. Grices
contribution, along with Quines Reply to Grice, appeared only in the reprint of
that special issue for Reidel in Dordrecht. Grice cites from various
philosophers (and logicians ‒ this was the time when logic was starting to
be taught outside philosophy departments, or sub-faculties), such as Mitchell,
Myro, Mates, Donnellan, Strawson, Grice was particularly
proud to be able to quote Mates by mouth or book. Grice takes the
opportunity, in his tribute to Quine, to introduce one of two of his
syntactical devices to allow for conversational implicata to be given maximal
scope. The device in Vacuous Namess is a subscription device to indicate
the ordering of introduction of this or that operation. Grice wants to
give room for utterances of a special existential kind be deemed rational/reasonable,
provided the principle of conversational helfpulness is thought of by the
addressee to be followed by the utterer. Someone isnt attending the party
organised by the Merseyside Geographical Society. That is Marmaduke
Bloggs, who climbed Mt. Everest on hands and knees. But who, as it
happened, turned out to be an invention of the journalists at the Merseyside
Newsletter, “W and O,” vacuous name, identificatory use, non-identificatory
use, subscript device. Davidson and Hintikka were well aware of the New-World impact
of the Old-World ideas displayed by Grice and Strawson in their attack to
Quine. Quine had indeed addressed Grices and Strawsons sophisticated version of
the paradigm-case argument in Word and Object. Davidson and Hintikka
arranged to publish a special issue for a periodical publication, to which
Strawson had already contributed. It was only natural, when Davidson and
Hintikka were informed by Reidel of their interest in turning the special issue
into a separate volume, that they would approach the other infamous member of
the dynamic duo! Commissioned by Davidson and Hintikka for “W and O.” Grice
introduces a subscript device to account for implicata of utterances
like Marmaduke Bloggs won’t be attending the party; he was invented by the
journalists. In the later section, he explores identificatory and non
identificatory uses of the without involving himself in the problems
Donnellan did! Some philosophers, notably Ostertag, have found the latter
section the most intriguing bit, and thus Ostertag cared to reprint the section
on Descriptions for his edited MIT volume on the topic. The essay is structured
very systematically with an initial section on a calculus alla Gentzen,
followed by implicata of vacuous Namess such as Marmaduke Bloggs, to end with definite
descriptions, repr. in Ostertag, and psychological predicates. It is best
to focus on a few things here. First his imaginary dialogues on Marmaduke
Bloggs, brilliant! Second, this as a preamble to his Presupposition and
conversational implicature. There is a quantifier phrase, the, and two uses of
it: one is an identificatory use (the haberdasher is clumsy, or THE haberdasher
is clumsy, as Grice prefers) and then theres a derived, non-identificatory use:
the haberdasher (whoever she was! to use Grices and Mitchells addendum) shows
her clumsiness. The use of the numeric subscripts were complicated enough to
delay the publication of this. The whole thing was a special issue of a
journal. Grices contribution came when Reidel turned that into a volume. Grice
later replaced his numeric subscript device by square brackets. Perhaps the
square brackets are not subtle enough, though. Grices contribution,
Vacuous Namess, later repr. in part “Definite descriptions,” ed. Ostertag,
concludes with an exploration of the phrases, and further on, with some
intriguing remarks on the subtle issues surrounding the scope of an ascription
of a predicate standing for a psychological state or
attitude. Grices choice of an ascription now notably involves an
opaque (rather than factive, like know) psychological state or attitude:
wanting, which he symbolizes as W. At least Grice does not write,
really, for he knew that Austin detested a trouser word! Grice concludes that
(xi) and (xiii) will be derivable from each of (ix) and (x), while (xii) will
be derivable only from (ix).Grice had been Strawsons logic tutor at St. Johns
(Mabbott was teaching the grand stuff!) and it shows! One topic that especially
concerned Grice relates to the introduction and elimination rules, as he later
searches for generic satisfactoriness. Grice
wonders [W]hat should be said of Takeutis conjecture (roughly)
that the nature of the introduction rule determines the character of
the elimination rule? There seems to be
no particular problem about allowing an introduction rule which tells
us that, if it is established in Xs personalized system that φ, then it is
necessary with respect to X that φ is true (establishable). The accompanying
elimination rule is, however, slightly less promising. If we suppose such a
rule to tell us that, if one is committed to the idea that it is necessary with
respect to X that φ, then one is also committed to whatever is expressed by φ,
we shall be in trouble; for such a rule is not acceptable; φ will be a volitive
expression such as let it be that X eats his hat; and my commitment to the idea
that Xs system requires him to eat his hat does not ipso facto involve me in
accepting (buletically) let X eat his hat. But if we take the elimination rule
rather as telling us that, if it is necessary with respect to X that let X eat
his hat, then let X eat his hat possesses satisfactoriness-with-respect-to-X,
the situation is easier; for this version of the rule seems inoffensive, even
for Takeuti, we hope. A very interesting concept Grice introduces in the
definite-descriptor section of Vacuous Namess is that of a conversational
dossier, for which he uses δ for a definite descriptor. The key concept is that
of conversational dossier overlap, common ground, or conversational pool. Let
us say that an utterer U has a dossier for a definite description δ if there is
a set of definite descriptions which include δ, all the members of which the
utterer supposes to be satisfied by one and the same item and the utterer U
intends his addressee A to think (via the recognition that A is so intended)
that the utterer U has a dossier for the definite description δ which the
utterer uses, and that the utterer U has specifically selected (or chosen, or
picked) this specific δ from this dossier at least partly in the hope that his
addressee A has his own dossier for δ which overlaps the utterers dossier for δ,
viz. shares a substantial, or in some way specially favoured, su-bset with the
utterers dossier. Its unfortunate that the idea of a dossier is not better
known amog Oxonian philosophers. Unlike approaches to the phenomenon by other
Oxonian philosophers like Grices tutee Strawson and his three principles
(conversational relevance, presumption of conversational knowledge, and
presumption of conversational ignorance) or Urmson and his, apter than
Strawsons, principle of conversational appositeness (Mrs.Smiths husband just delivered
a letter, You mean the postman!?), only Grice took to task the idea of
formalising this in terms of set-theory and philosophical
psychology ‒ note his charming reference to the utterers hope (never
mind intention) that his choice of d from his dossier will overlap with some d
in the dossier of his his addressee. The point of adding whoever he may be for
the non-identificatory is made by Mitchell, of Worcester, in his Griceian
textbook for Hutchinson. Refs.: The main reference is Grice’s “Vacuous names,”
in “W and O” and its attending notes, BANC.
doxastic from Grecian
doxa, ‘belief’, of or pertaining to belief. A doxastic mental state, for
instance, is or incorporates a belief. Doxastic states of mind are to be
distinguished, on the one hand, from such non-doxastic states as desires,
sensations, and emotions, and, on the other hand, from subdoxastic states. By
extension, a doxastic principle is a principle governing belief. A doxastic
principle might set out conditions under which an agent’s forming or abandoning
a belief is justified epistemically or otherwise.
Griceian doxographers,
compilers of and commentators on the opinions of ancient Grecian philosophers.
‘Doxographers’ is an English translation of the modern Latin term coined by
Hermann Diels for the title of his work Doxographi Graeci 1879. Here Diels
assembled a series of Grecian texts in which the views of Grecian philosophers
from the archaic to the Hellenistic era are set out in a relatively schematic
way. In a lengthy introduction Diels reconstructed the history of the writing
of these opinions, the doxography; this reconstruction is now a standard part
of the historiography of ancient philosophy. The doxography itself is important
both as a source of information for early Grecian philosophy and also because
later writers, ancient, medieval, and modern, often relied on it rather than
primary materials. The crucial text for Diels’s reconstruction was the book
Physical Opinions of the Philosophers Placita Philosophorum, traditionally ascribed
to Plutarch but no longer thought to be by him. The work lists the views of
various philosophers and schools under subject headings such as “What Is
Nature?” and “On the Rainbow.” Out of this work and others Diels reconstructed
a Collection of Opinions that he ascribed to Aetius A.D. c.100, a person
mentioned by Theodoret fifth century as the author of such a work. Diels took
Aetius’s ultimate source to be Theophrastus, who wrote a more discursive
Physical Opinions. Because Aetius mentions the views of Hellenistic
philosophers writing after Theophrastus, Diels postulated an intermediate
source, which he called the Vetusta Placita c.100 B.C.. The most accessible
doxographical material is in the Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers by
Diogenes Laertius A.D. c.200, who is, however, mainly interested in biography.
He arranges philosophers by schools and treats each school chronologically.
Dummett -- Cited by Grice
in Way of Words -- dummett, m. a. e. – cited by H. P. Grice. philosopher of
language, logic, and mathematics, noted for his sympathy for metaphysical
antirealism and for his exposition of the philosophy of Frege. Dummett regards
allegiance to the principle of bivalence as the hallmark of a realist attitude
toward any field of discourse. This is the principle that any meaningful
assertoric sentence must be determinately either true or else false,
independently of anyone’s ability to ascertain its truth-value by recourse to
appropriate empirical evidence or methods of proof. According to Dummett, the
sentences of any learnable language cannot have verification-transcendent truth
conditions and consequently we should query the intelligibility of certain
statements that realists regard as meaningful. On these grounds, he calls into
question realism about the past and realism in the philosophy of mathematics in
several of the papers in two collections of his essays, Truth and Other Enigmas
8 and The Seas of Language 3. In The Logical Basis of Metaphysics 1, Dummett
makes clear his view that the fundamental questions of metaphysics have to be
approached through the philosophy of language, and more specifically through
the theory of meaning. Here his philosophical debts to Frege and Vitters are
manifest. Dummett has been the world’s foremost expositor and champion of
Frege’s philosophy, above all in two highly influential books, Frege:
Philosophy of Language 3 and Frege: Philosophy of Mathematics 1. This is
despite the fact that Frege himself advocated a form of Platonism in semantics
and the philosophy of mathematics that is quite at odds with Dummett’s own
anti-realist inclinations. It would appear, however, from what Dummett says in
Origins of Analytical Philosophy 3, that he regards Frege’s great achievement
as that of having presaged the “linguistic turn” in philosophy that was to see
its most valuable fruit in the later work of Vitters. Vitters’s principle that
grasp of the meaning of a linguistic expression must be exhaustively manifested
by the use of that expression is one that underlies Dummett’s own approach to
meaning and his anti-realist leanings. In logic and the philosophy of
mathematics this is shown in Dummett’s sympathy for the intuitionistic approach
of Brouwer and Heyting, which involves a repudiation of the law of excluded
middle, as set forth in Dummett’s own book on the subject, Elements of
Intuitionism 7.
Dworkin – analysed by
Grice in his exploration of legal versus moral right -- Ronald M. b.1, jurist, political philosopher, and a central
contributor to recent legal and political theory. He has served as professor of
jurisprudence, of Oxford 998, professor
of law, New York 5, and Quain Professor
of Jurisprudence, , London 8. He was the
first significant critic of Hart’s positivist analysis of law as based on a
determinable set of social rules. Dworkin argues that the law contains legal
principles as well as legal rules. Legal principles are standards phrased
generally e.g., ‘No one shall profit from his own wrong’; they do not have a
formal “pedigree,” but are requirements of morality. Nonetheless, courts are
obliged to apply such principles, and thus have no lawmaking discretion.
Judicially enforceable legal rights must derive from antecedent political
rights. Dworkin characterizes rights as political “trumps” hence his title Taking Rights Seriously 2d
ed., 8, which collects the papers that defend the views sketched. Dworkin
postulates an idealized judge, Hercules, who can invariably determine what
rights are legally enforceable. Dworkin denies any metaphysical commitments thereby,
and emphasizes instead the constructive and interpretive nature of both
adjudication and legal theory. These arguments are made in papers collected in
A Matter of Principle 5. Law’s Empire 6 systematizes his view. He presents
there a theory of “law as integrity.” The court’s obligation is to make the
community’s law the best it can be by finding decisions that best fit both
institutional du Vair, Guillaume Dworkin, Ronald M. 249 249 history and moral principle. Hercules
always best determines the best fit. Dworkin has also contributed to
substantive political theory. He defends a form of liberalism that makes
equality as prominent as liberty. His account of equality is found in a number
of independent papers; see, e.g., “Foundations of Liberal Equality,” Tanner
Lectures on Human Values XI 0. Dworkin has applied his liberal theory in two
ways. He has continually acted as a critical watchdog of the U.S. Supreme
Court, assessing decisions for their adherence to the ideals of principle,
respect for equality, and achievement of best fit. Some of these essays are in
the two collections mentioned; the most recent are in Freedom’s Law 6. Life’s
Dominion 3 derives from these ideals an account of abortion and euthanasia.
Dworkin’s philosophizing has a conceptual richness and rhetorical fire that,
when not wholly under control, give his theoretical positions a protean quality
at the level of detail. Nonetheless, the ideas that adjudication should be
principled and enforce rights, and that we all deserve equal dignity and
respect, exercise a powerful fascination.
E: the ‘universalis abdicative.’ Cf.
Grice on the Square of Opposition. Grice, “Circling the square of Opposition.”
Ǝ Ǝx.
The existential quantifier. Cited by Grice as translatable by “some (at least
one)”. Noting the divergence that Strawson identified but fails to identify as
a conversational implicatum. It relates in the case of the square of opposition
to the ‘particularis’ but taking into account or NOT taking into account the
‘unnecessary implication,’ as Russell calls it. “Take ‘every man is mortal.’
Surely we don’t need the unnecessary implication that there is a man!”
Eco: u. – cites H. P.
Grice in “Cognitive constraints of communication.” Umberto b.2, philosopher, intellectual historian, and
novelist. A leading figure in the field of semiotics, the general theory of
signs. Eco has devoted most of his vast production to the notion of
interpretation and its role in communication. In the 0s, building on the idea
that an active process of interpretation is required to take any sign as a
sign, he pioneered reader-oriented criticism The Open Work, 2, 6; The Role of
the Reader, 9 and championed a holistic view of meaning, holding that all of
the interpreter’s beliefs, i.e., his encyclopedia, are potentially relevant to
word meaning. In the 0s, equally influenced by Peirce and the structuralists, he offered a unified theory
of signs A Theory of Semiotics, 6, aiming at grounding the study of
communication in general. He opposed the idea of communication as a natural
process, steering a middle way between realism and idealism, particularly of
the Sapir-Whorf variety. The issue of realism looms large also in his recent work.
In The Limits of Interpretation 0 and Interpretation and Overinterpretation 2,
he attacks deconstructionism. Kant and the Platypus 7 defends a “contractarian”
form of realism, holding that the reader’s interpretation, driven by the
Peircean regulative idea of objectivity and collaborating with the speaker’s
underdetermined intentions, is needed to fix reference. In his historical
essays, ranging from medieval aesthetics The Aesthetics of Thomas Aquinas, 6 to
the attempts at constructing artificial and “perfect” languages The Search for
the Perfect Language, 3 to medieval semiotics, he traces the origins of some
central notions in contemporary philosophy of language e.g., meaning, symbol,
denotation and such recent concerns as the language of mind and translation, to
larger issues in the history of philosophy. All his novels are pervaded by
philosophical queries, such as Is the world an ordered whole? The Name of the
Rose, 0, and How much interpretation can one tolerate without falling prey to
some conspiracy syndrome? Foucault’s Pendulum, 8. Everywhere, he engages the
reader in the game of controlled interpretations.
economy: Cf. Grice on the principle of
oeconomia of rational effort. The Greeks used ‘oeconomia’ to mean thrifty. Cf. effort.
There were three branches of philosophia practica: philosophia moralis,
oeconomia and politica. Grice would
often refer to ‘no undue effort,’ ‘no unnecessary trouble,’ to go into the
effort, ‘not worth the energy,’ and so on. These utilitarian criteria suggest
he is more of a futilitarian than the avowed Kantian he says he is. This Grice
also refers to as ‘maximum,’ ‘maximal,’ optimal. It is part of his principle of
economy of rational effort. Grice leaves it open as how to formulate this.
Notably in “Causal,” he allows that ‘The pillar box seems red” and “The pillar
box is red” are difficult to formalise in terms in which we legitimize the
claim or intuition that ‘The pillar box IS red” is ‘stronger’ than ‘The pillar
box seems red.’ If this were so, it would provide a rational justification for
going into the effort of uttering something STRONGER (and thus less economical,
and more effortful) under the circumstances. As in “My wife is
in the kitchen or in the bedroom, and the house has only two rooms (and no
passages, etc.)” the reason why the conversational implicatum is standardly
carried is to be found in the operation of some such general principle as that
giving preference to the making of a STRONGER rather than a weaker statement in
the absence of a reason for not so doing. The implicatum therefore is not of a
part of the meaning of the expression “seems.” There is however A VERY
IMPORTANT DIFFERENCE between the case of a ‘phenomenalist’ statement
(Bar-Hillel it does not count as a statement) and that of disjunctives, such as
“My wife is in the kitchen or ind the bedroom, and the house has only two rooms
(and no passages, etc.).” A disjunctive is weaker than either of its disjuncts
in a straightforward LOGICAL fashion, viz., a disjunctive is entailed (alla
Moore) by, but does not entail, each of its disjuncts. The statement “The
pillar box is red” is NOT STRONGER than the statement, if a statement it is,
“The pillar box seems red,” in this way. Neither statement entails the other.
Grice thinks that he has, neverthcless a strong inclination to regard the first
of these statements as STRONGER than the second. But Grice leaves it open the
‘determination’ of in what fashion this might obtain. He suggests that there
may be a way to provide a reductive analysis of ‘strength’ THAT YIELDS that
“The pillar box is red” is a stronger conversational contribution than “The
pillar box seems red.” Recourse to ‘informativeness’ may not do, since Grice is
willing to generalise over the acceptum to cover informative and
non-informative cases. While there is an element of ‘exhibition’ in his account
of the communicatum, he might not be happy with the idea that it is the
utterer’s INTENTION to INFORM his addressee that he, the utterer, INTENDS that
his addressee will believe that he, the utterer, believes that it is raining.
“Inform” seems to apply only to the content of the propositional complexum, and
not to the attending ‘animata.’
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