modified Occam’s razor: Grice was obsessed with ‘sense,’ and thought Oxonian
philosohpers were multiplying it otiosely – notably L. J. Cohen (“The diversity
of meaning”). The original razor is what Grice would have as ‘ontological,’ to
which he opposes with in his ‘ontological marxism’. Entities should not be
multiplied beyond the necessity of needing them as honest working entities. He
keeps open house provided they come in help with the work. This restriction
explains what Grice means by ‘necessity’ in the third lecture – a second sense
does not do any work. The implicatum does. Grice loved a razor, and being into analogy
and focal meaning, if he HAD to have semantic multiplicity, for the case of
‘is,’ (being) or ‘good,’ it had to be a UNIFIED semantic multiplicity, as
displayed by paronymy. The essay had circulated since the Harvard days, and it
was also repr. in Pragmatics, ed. Cole for Academic
Press. Personally, I prefer dialectica. ‒ Grice. This is
the third James lecture at Harvard. It is particularly useful for Grices
introduction of his razor, M. O. R., or Modified Occams Razor, jocularly
expressed by Grice as: Senses are not to be multiplied beyond necessity.
An Englishing of the Ockhams Latinate, Entia non sunt multiplicanda præter
necessitatem. But what do we mean sense. Surely Occam was right with his
Entia non sunt multiplicanda præter necessitatem. We need to translate that
alla linguistic turn. Grice jokes: Senses are not be multiplied beyond
necessity. He also considers irony, stress (supra-segmental fourth-articulatory
phonology), and truth, which the Grice Papers have under a special f. in the s.
V . Three topics where the implicatum helps. He is a scoundrel may
well be the implicatum of He is a fine friend. But cf. the pretense theory
of irony. Grice, being a classicist, loved the etymological
connection. With Stress, he was concerned with anti-Gettier uses of
emphatic know: I KNOW. (Implicatum: I do have conclusive evidence). Truth
(or is true) sprang from the attention
by Grice to that infamous Bristol symposium between Austin and
Strawson. Cf. Moores paradox. Grice wants to defend correspondence theory
of Austin against the performative approach of Strawson. If is true implicates someone previously
affirmed this, that does not mean a ditto implicatum is part of the entailment
of a is true utterance, further notes on
logic and conversation, in Cole, repr. in a revised form, Modified Occams
Razor, irony, stress, truth. The preferred citation should be the Harvard. This
is originally the third James lecture, in a revised form.In that lecture,
Grice introduced the M. O. R., or Modified Occams Razor. Senses are
not be multiplied beyond necessity. The point is that
entailment-cum-implicatum does the job that multiplied senses should not
do! The Grice Papers contains in a different f. the concluding section for that
lecture, on irony, stress, and truth. Grice went back to the Modified
Occams razor, but was never able to formalise it! It is, as he concedes, almost
a vacuous methodological thingy! It is interesting that the way he defines the
alethic value of true alrady cites satisfactory. I shall use, to Names such a
property, not true but factually satisfactory. Grices sympathies dont lie
with Strawsons Ramsey-based redundance theory of truth, but rather with Tarskis
theory of correspondence. He goes on to claim his trust in the feasibility of
such a theory. It is, indeed, possible to construct a theory which treats truth
as (primarily) a property, not true but factually satisfactory. One may see
that point above as merely verbal and not involving any serious threat.
Lets also assume that it will be a consequence, or theorem, of such a theory
that there will be a class C of utterances (utterances of affirmative
Subjects-predicate sentences [such as snow is white or the cat is on the mat of
the dog is hairy-coated such that each member of C designates or refers to some
item and indicates or predicates some class (these verbs to be explained within
the theory), and is factually satisfactory if the item belongs to the
class. Let us also assume that there can be a method of introducing a form of
expression, it is true that /it is buletic that
and linking it with the notion of factually or alethic or doxastic
satisfactory, a consequence of which will be that to say it is true that Smith
is happy will be equivalent to saying that any utterance of class C which
designates Smith and indicates the class of happy people is factually
satisfactory (that is, any utterance which assigns Smith to the class of happy
people is factually satisfactory. Mutatis mutandis for Let Smith be happy, and
buletic satisfactoriness. The move is Tarskian. TBy stress, Grice means
suprasegmental phonology, but he was too much of a philosopher to let that
jargon affect him! Refs.: The locus classicus, if that does not sound too
pretentious, is Essay 3 in WoW, but there are references elsewhere, such as in
“Meaning Revisited,” and under ‘semantics.’ The only one who took up Grice’s
challenge at Oxford was L. J. Cohen, “Grice on the particles of natural
language,” which got a great response by Oxonian R. C. S. Walker (citing D.
Bostock, a tutee of Grice), to which Cohen again responded “Can the
conversationalist hypothesis be defended.” Cohen clearly centres his criticism
on the razor. He had an early essay, citing Grice, on the DIVERSITY of meaning.
Cohen opposes Grice’s conversationalist hypothesis to his own ‘semantic
hypothesis’ (“Multiply senses all you want.”). T. D. Bontly explores the topic of
Grice’s MOR. “Ancestors of this essay were presented at meetings of the Society
for Philosophy and Psychology (Edmonton, Alberta), of the the Pacific Division
of the American Philosophical Association (San Francisco, CA) and at the
University of Connecticut. I am indebted to all three groups and particularly
to the commentators D. Sanford (at the Society for Philosophy and Psychology)
and M. Reimer (at the APA). Thanks also to the following for helpful comments
or discussion (inclusive): F. Adams, A. Ariew, P. Bloom, M. Devitt, B. Enc, C.
Gaulker, M. Lynch, R. Millikan, J. Pust, E. Sober, R. C. Stalnaker, D. W.
Stampe, and S. Wheeler.” Bontly writes, more or less (I have
paraphrased him a little, with good intentions, always!) “Some philosophers
have appealed to a principle which H. P. Grice, in his third William James
lecture, dubs Modified Occam’s Razor (henceforth, “M. O. R.”): “Senses – rather
than ‘entities,’ as the inceptor from Ockham more boringly has it -- are not to
be multiplied beyond necessity’.”
What
is ‘necessity’? Bontly: “Superficially, Grice’s “M. O. R.”
seems a routine application of Ockham’s principle of parsimony: ‘entities are
not to be multiplied beyond necessity. Now, parsimony arguments, though common
in science, are notoriously problematic, and their use by Grice faces one
objection or two. Grice’s “M. O. R.” makes considerably more sense in light of
certain assumptions about the psychological processes involved in language
development, learning, and acquisition, and it describes recent *empirical*, if
not philosophical or conceptual, of the type Grice seems mainly interested in
-- findings that bear these assumptions out. [My] resulting account solves
several difficulties that otherwise confront Grice’s “M. O. R.”, and it draws
attention to problematic assumptions involved in using parsimony to argue for
pragmatic accounts of the type of phenomena ‘ordinary-language’ philosophers
were interested in. In more general terms, when an expression E has two or more
uses – U1 and U2, say -- enabling its users to express two or more different
meanings – M1 and M2, say -- one is tempted to assume that E is semantically (i.e.
lexically) ambiguous, or polysemous, i.e., that some convention, constituting
the language L, assign E these two meanings M1 and M2 corresponding to its two
uses U1 and U2. One hears, for instance, that ‘or’ is ambiguous (polysemous)
between a weak (inclusive) (‘p v q’) and a strong (exclusive) sense, ‘p w q.’ Grice
actually feels that speaking of the meaning or sense of ‘or’ sounds harsh
(“Like if I were asked what the meaning of ‘to’ is!”). But in one note from a
seminar from Strawson he writes: “Jones is between Smith and Williams.” “I
wouldn’t say that ‘between’ is ambiguous, even if we interpret the sentence in
a physical sense, or in an ordering of merit, say.” Bontly:
“Used exclusively, an utterance of ‘p or q’ (p v q) entails that ‘p’ and ‘q’ are
NOT both true. Used inclusively, it does not. Still, ambiguity is not the only
possible explanation.” (This reminds me of Atlas, “Philosophy WITHOUT
ambiguity!” – ambitious title!). The phenomenon can also be approached
pragmatically, from within the framework of a general theory conversation alla
Grice. One could, e. g., first, maintain that ‘p or q’ is unambiguously
monosemous inclusive and, second, apply Grice’s idea of an ‘implicatum’ to
explain the exclusive.” I actually traced this, and found that O.
P. Wood in an odd review of a logic textbook (by Faris) in “Mind,” in the
1950s, makes the point about the inclusive-exclusive distinction,
pre-Griceianly! Grice seems more interested, as you later consider, the
implicatum: “Utterer U has non-truth-functional grounds for uttering ‘p or q.
Not really the ‘inclusive-exclusive’ distinction. Jennings deals with this in
“The genealogy of disjunction,” and elsewhere, and indeed notes that ‘or’ may
be a dead metaphor from ‘another.’ Bontly goes on: “On any such account, ‘p
or q’ would have two uses U1 and U2 and two standard interpretations, I1 and
I2, but NEVER two ‘conventional’ meanings,” M1 and M2 Or take ‘and’ (p.q) which
(when used as a sentential connective) ordinarily stands for truth-functional
conjunction (as in 1a, below). Often enough, though, ‘p and q’ seems to imply
temporal priority (1b), while in other cases it suggests causal priority (1c).
(1) a. Bill bought a shirt and Christy [bought] a sweater. b. Adam took off his
shoes and [he] got into bed. c. “Jack fell down and [he] broke his crown, and
Jill came tumbling o:ter.” (to rhyme with ‘water’ in an earlier
line.”Apparently Grice loved this nursery rhyme too, “Jack is an Englishman; he
must, therefore, be brave,” Jill says.” (Grice, “Aspects of reason.”)Bontly:
“Again, one suspects an ambiguity, M1 and M2, but Grice argues that a
‘conversational’ explanation is available and preferable. According to the
‘pragmatist’ or ‘conversationalist’ hypothesis’ (as I shall call it), a
temporal or a causal reading of “and” (p.q) may be part of what the UTTERER
means, but such a reading I2, are not part of what the sentence means, or the
word _and_ means, and thus belong in a general theory of conversation, not the
grammar of a specific language.” Oddly, I once noticed that Chomsky, of all
people, and since you speak of ‘grammar,’ competence, etc. refers to “A.”
Albert? P. Grice in his 1966! Aspects of the theory of syntax. “A. P. Grice
wants to say that the temporal succession is not part of the meaning of ‘and.’”
I suspect one of Grice’s tutees at Oxford was spreading the unauthorized word! Bontly:
“Many an alleged ambiguity seems amenable to Grice’s conversationalist
hypothesis. Besides the sentential connectives or truth-functors, a pragmatic
explanation has been applied fruitfully to quantifiers (Grice lists ‘all’ and
‘some (at least one’), definite descriptions (Grice lists ‘the,’ ‘the
murderer’), the indefinite description (‘a finger’, much discussed by Grice,
“He’s meeting a woman this evening.”), the genitive construction (‘Peter’s
bat’), and the indirect speech act (‘Can you pass the salt?’) — to mention just
a few. The literature on the Griceian treatment of these phenomena is
extensive. Some classic treatments are found in the oeuvre of philosophers like
Grice, Bach, Harnish, and Davis, and linguists like Horn, Gazdar, and Levinson.
But the availability of a pragmatic explanation poses an interesting
methodological problem. Prima facie, the alleged ‘ambiguity’ M1 and M2, can now
be explained either semantically (by positing two or more senses S1 and S2, or
M1 and M2, of expression E) or pragmatically (by positing just one sense (S)
plus one super-imposed implicature, I).Sometimes, of course, one approach or
the other is transparently inadequate. When the ‘use’ of E cannot be derived
from a general conversational principle, the pragmatic explanation seems a
non-starter.” Not for a radically radical pragmatist like Atlas! Ambitious!
Similarly, an ambiguity- or polysemy- based explanation seems out of the question
where the interpretation of E at issue is highly context-dependent.” (My
favourite is Grice on “a,” that you analyse in term of ‘developmental’ or
ontogenetical pragmatics – versus Millikan’s phylogenetical! But, in many
cases, a semantic, or polysemy, and a conversational explanations both appear
plausible, and the usual data — Grice’s intuitions about how the expression can
and cannot be used, should or shouldn’t beused — appear to leave the choice of
one of the two hypotheses under-determined.These were the cases that most
interest Grice, the philosopher, since they impinge on various projects in
philosophical analysis. (Cf. Grice, 1989, pp. 3–21 and passim).” Notably
the ‘ordinary-language’ philosophy ‘project,’ I would think. I love the fact
that in the inventory of philosophers who are loose about this (as in the
reference you mention above, pp. 3-21, he includes himself in “Causal theory of
perception”! “To adjudicate these border-line cases, Grice (1978) proposes a
methodological principle which he dubs “Modified Occam’s Razor,” M. O. R.”
‘Senses are not to be multiplied beyond necessity.’ (1978, pp. 118–119) “(I
follow Grice in using the Latinate ‘Occam’ rather than the Anglo-Saxon ‘Ockham’
which is currently preferred). More fully, the idea is that one should not
posit an alleged special, stronger SENSE S2, for an expression E when a general
conversational principle suffices to explain why E, which bears only Sense 1,
S1, receives a certain interpretation or carries implicatum I. Thus, if the ‘use’
(or an ‘use’) of E can be explained pragmatically, other things being equal,
the use should be explained pragmatically.” Griceians appeal to M. O. R. quite
often,” pragmatically bearded or not! (I love Quine’s idea that Occam’s razor
was created to shave Plato’s beard. Cfr. Schiffer’s anti-shave! It is affirmed,
in spirit if not letter, by philosopher/linguist Atlas and Levinson,
philosopher/linguist Bach, Bach and philosopher Harnish, Horn, Levinson,
Morgan, linguist/philosopher Neale, philosopher Searle, philosopher Stalnaker,
philosopher Walker (of Oxford), and philosopher Ziff” (I LOVE Ziff’s use,
seeing that he could be otherwise so anti-Griceian, vide Martinich, “On Ziff on
Grice on meaning,” and indeed Stampe (that you mention) on Ziff on Grice on
meaning. One particularly forceful statement is found in “of all people”
Kripke, who derides the ambiguity hypothesis as ‘the lazy man’s approach in
philosophy’ and issues a strong warning.”
When I
read that, I was reminded that Stampe, in some unpublished manuscripts, deals
with the loose use of Griceian ideas by Kripke. Stampe discusses at length,
“Let’s get out of here, the cops are coming.” Stampe thinks Kripke is only
superficially a Griceian! Kripke: “‘Do not posit an ambiguity unless
you are really forced to, unless there are really compelling theoretical (or
intuitive) grounds to suppose that an ambiguity really is present’ (1977, p.
20). A similar idea surfaces in Ruhl’s principle of “mono-semic” bias’. One’s
initial effort is directed toward determining a UNITARY meaning S1 for a
lexical item E, trying to attribute apparent variations (S2) in meaning to
other factors. If such an effort fails, one tries to discover a means of
relating the distinct meanings S1 and S2. If this effort fails, there are
several words: E1 and E2 (1989, p. 4).” Grice’s ‘vice’ and Grice’s ‘vyse,’
different words in English, same in Old Roman (“violent.”). Ruhl’s position
differs from Grice’s approach. Whereas Grice takes word-meaning to be its
WEAKEST exhibited meaning, Ruhl argues that word-meaning can be so highly
abstract or schematic as to provide only a CORE of meaning, making EVEN the
weakest familiar reading a pragmatic specialisation.” Loved
that! Ruhl as more Griceian than Grice! Indeed, Grice is freely using the very
abstract notion of a Fregeian ‘sense,’ with the delicacy you would treat a
brick! “The difference between Grice’s and Ruhl’s
positions raises issues beyond the scope of the present essay (though see
Atlas, 1989, for further discussion).” I will! Atlas knows everything you wanted
to know, and more, especially when it comes to linguists! He has a later book
with ‘implicature’ in its subtitle.
“Considering
the central role that “M. O. R.” plays in Grice’s programme, one is thus
surprised to find barely any attention paid to whether it is a good principle —
to whether it is true that a pragmatic explanation, when available, is in
general more likely to be true than its ‘ambiguity’ or polysemy, or bi-semy, or
aequi-vocal rival.” Trying to play with this, I see that Grice
loves ‘aequi-vocal.’ He thinks that ‘must’ is ‘aequi-vocal’ between an alethic
and a practical ‘use.’ It took me some time to process that! He means that
since it’s the ‘same,’ ‘aequi’, ‘voice’, vox’. So ‘aequi-vocal’ IS ‘uni-vocal.’
The Aristotelian in Grice, I guess!
“Grice
himself offers vanishingly little argument.” How extended is a Harvard
philosophical audience’s attention-span? “Examining just two (out of the blue,
unphilosophical) cases where we seem happy to attribute a secondary or derivative
sense S2 to one word or expression E, but not another, Grice notes that, in
both cases, the supposition that the expression E has an additional sense S2 is
not superfluous, or unparsimonious, accounting for certain facets of the use of
E that cannot, apparently, be explained pragmatically.” I wonder if a radically
radical pragmatist would agree! I never met a polysemous expression! Grice
concludes that, therefore, ‘there is as yet no reason NOT to accept M. O. R. ’
(1978, p. 120) — faint praise for a principle so important to his philosophical
programme! Besides this weak argument for “M. O. R.,” Grice (1978) also
mentions a few independent, rather loose, tests for alleged ambiguity.” (“And
how to fail them,” as Zwicky would have it!) But Grice’s rationale for “M. O.
R.,” presumably, is a thought Grice does not bother to articulate, thinking
perhaps that the principle’s name, its kinship with Occam’s famous razor, ‘Do
not multiply entities beyond necessity,’ made its epistemic credentials
sufficiently obvious already.” Plus, Harvard is
very Occamist!“To lay it out, though, the thought is surely that parsimony --
and other such qualities as simplicity, generality, and unification -- are
always prized in scientific (and philosophical?) explanation, the more
parsimonious (etc.) of two otherwise equally adequate theories being ipso facto
more likely to be true. If, as would seem to be the case, a pragmatic
explanation were more parsimonious than its semantic, or ‘conventionalist,’ or
ambiguity, or polysemic, or polysemy or bi-semic rival, the conversational
explanation would be supported by an established, received, general principle
of scientific inference.” I love your exploration of Newton on this
below! Hypotheses non fingo! “Certainly, some
such argument is on Grice’s mind when he names his principle as he does, and
much the same thought surely lies behind Kripke’s references to ‘general
methodological considerations’ and ‘considerations of economy’ Other ‘Griceian’
appeals to these theoretical virtues are even more transparent. Linguist J. L.
Morgan tells us, for instance, that ‘Occam’s Razor dictates that we take a
Gricean account of an indirect speech act as the correct analysis, lacking
strong evidence to the contrary’ Philosopher Stalnaker argues that a major
advantage accrues to a pragmatic treatment of Strawson’s presupposition in that
‘there will then be no need to complicate the semantics or the lexicon’” or
introduce metaphysically dubious truth-value gaps! Linguist S. C. Levinson
suggests that a major selling point for a conversational theory in general is
that such a theory promises to ‘effect a radical simplification of the
semantics’ and ‘approximately halve the size of the lexicon’.” So we don’t need
to learn two words, ‘vyse’ and ‘vice.’ There can be little doubt, therefore,
that a Griceian takes parsimony to argue for the pragmatic approach.” I
use the rather pedantic and awful spelling “Griceian,” so that I can keep the
pronunciation /grais/ and also because Fodor used it! And non-philosophers,
too! “But a parsimony argument is notoriously
problematic, and the argument for “M. O. R.” is no exception. The preference
for a parsimonious theory is surprisingly difficult to justify, as is the
assumption that a pragmatic explanation IS more parsimonious. This does not
mean Grice’s “M. O. R.” is entirely without merit. On the contrary, Grice is
right to hold that senses should not be multiplied, if a conversational
principle will do.” But the justification for M. O. R. need have nothing to do
with the idea that parsimony is, always and everywhere, a virtue in scientific
theories.” Also because we are dealing with
philosophy, not science, here? What makes Grice’s “M. O. R.” reasonable,
rather, is a set of assumptions about the psychological processes involved in
language learning, development, and acquisition, and I will report some
empirical (rather than conceptual, as Grice does) evidence that these
assumptions are, at least, roughly correct. One disclaimer. While I shall
defend Grice’s “M. O. R.,” and therefore the research programme initiated by
Grice, it is not my goal here to vindicate any specific pragmatic account, nor
to argue that any given linguistic phenomenon requires a pragmatic
explanation.” This reminds me of Kilgariff, a Longman
linguist. He has a lovely piece, “I don’t believe in word SENSE!” I think he
found that Longman had, under ‘horse’: 1. Quadruped animal. 2. Painting of a
horse, notably by Stubbs! He did not like that! Why would ‘sense,’ a Fregeian
notion, have a place in something like ‘lexicography,’ that deals with corpuses
and statistics? “The task is, rather, to understand the
logic of a particular type of inference, a type of Griceian inference that can
be and has been employed by a philosopher such as Grice who disagree on many
other points of theory. Since it would be impossible within the confines of
this essay to discuss these disagreements, or to do justice to the many ways in
which Grice’s paradigm or programme has been revised and extended
(palaeo-Griceians, neo-Griceians, post-Griceians), my discussion is confined to
a few hackneyed examples hackneyed by Grice himself, and to Grice’s orthodox
theory, if a departure therefrom will be noted where relevant. The
conversational explanation of an alleged ambiguity or polysemy or bi-semy aims
to show how an utterer U can take an expression E with one conventional meaning
and use it as if it had other meanings as well. Typically, this requires
showing how the utterer U’s intended message can be ‘inferred,’ with the aid of
a general principle of communicative behaviour, from the conventional meaning
or sense of the word E that U utters. In Grice’s pioneering account, for
instance, the idea is that speech is subject to a Principle of Conversational
Co-Operation (In earlier Oxford seminars, where he introduced ‘implicature’ he
speaks of two principles in conflict: the principle of conversational
self-interest, and the principle of conversational benevolence! I much love
THAT than the rather artificial Kant scheme at Harvard). ‘Make your
conversational contribution, or move, such as is required, at the stage at
which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the conversational
exchange in which you are engaged.’(1975, p. 44). “Sub-ordinate to the
Principle of Conversational Co-Operation are four conversational maxims (he was
jocularly ‘echoing’ Kant!) falling under the four Kantian conversational
categories of Quality, Quantity, Relation, and Modus. Roughly: Make your
contribution true. Kant’s quality has to do with affirmation and negation,
rather. Make your contribution informative. Kant’s quantity has to do with
‘all’ and ‘one,’ rather. Make your contribution relevant. Kant’s relation God
knows what it has to do with. Make your contribution perspicuous [sic]. Kant’s
modus has to do with ‘necessary’ and ‘contingent.’ Grice
actually has ‘sic’ in the original “Logic and Conversation.” It’s like the
self-refuting Kantian. Also in ‘be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity’”
‘proguard obfuscation,’ sort of thing? “… further specifying what cooperation
entails (pp. 45–46).” It’s sad Grice did not remember about the
principle of conversational benevolence clashing with the principle of
conversational self-interest, or dismissed the idea, when he wrote that
‘retro-spective’ epilogue about the maxims, etc. Bontly: “Unlike the
constitutive (to use Anscombe and Searle, not regulative) principles of a
grammar, the Principle of Conversational Co-Operation and the conversational,
universalisable, maxims are to be thought of not as an arbitrary convention –
vide Lewis -- but rather as a rational STRATEGY or guideline (if ‘strategy’ is
too strong) for achieving one’s communicative ends.” I
DO think ‘strategy’ is too strong. A strategist is a general: it’s a zero-sum
game, war. I think Grice’s idea is that U is a rational agent dealing with his
addressee A, another rational agent. So, it’s not strategic rationality, but
communicative rationality. But then I’m being an etymologist! Surely chess
players speak of ‘strategies,’ but then they also speak of ‘check mate,” kill
the king! Bontly quotes from Grice: “‘[A]nyone who cares about the goals that
are central to conversation,’ says Grice, ought to find the principle of
conversational cooperation eminently reasonable (p. 49).” If
not rational! I love Grice’s /: rational/reasonable. He explores on this later,
“The price of that pair of shoes is not reasonable, but hardly irrational!” Bontly:
“Like a grammar, however, the principle of conversational co-operation is
(supposedly) tacitly known (or assumed) by conversationalists, who can thus
call on it to interpret each other’s conversational moves.” Exactly.
Parents teach their children well, not to lie, etc. “These interpretive
practices being mutual ‘knowledge,’ or common ground, moreover, an utterer U can
plan on his co-conversationalist B using the principle of conversational
cooperation, to interpret his own utterances, enabling him to convey a good
deal of information (and influencing) implicitly by relying on others to infer
his intended meaning.”INFORMING seems to do, because, although Grice makes a
distinction between ‘informing’ and ‘influencing,’ he takes an ‘exhibitive’
approach. So “Close the door!” means “I WANT YOU To believe that I want you to
close the door.” I.e. I’m informing – influencing VIA informing. “Detailed
discussions of Grice’s principle of conversational cooperation are found in
many of the essays collected in Grice (1989), as well as in the work by
linguists like Levinson (1983) and linguist/philosopher Neale (1992).
Extensions and refinements of Grice’s approach are developed by linguist Horn
(1972), linguist/philosopher Bach and philosopher Harnish (1979), linguist
Gazdar (1979), linguist/philosopher Atlas and philosopher Levinson (1981),
anthropologist Sperber and linguist Wilson (1986), linguist/philosopher Bach
(1994), linguisdt Levinson (2000), and linguist Carston (2002).). The Principle
of conversational cooperation and its conversational maxims allow Grice to draw
a distinction between two dimensions of an utterer’s meaning within the total
significance.” I never liked that Grice uses
“signification,” here when in “Meaning” he had said: “Words, for all that Locke
said, are NOT signs.” “We apply ‘sign’ to traffic signals, not to ‘dog’.” Bontly:
“That which is ‘closely related to the conventional meaning of the word’
uttered is what the utterer has SAID (1975, p. 44),” or the explicatum, or
explicitum. That which must instead be inferred with the aid of the principle
of conversational cooperation is what the utterer U has conversationally
implicated, the IMPLICATUM (pp. 49–50), or implicitum. This dichotomy is in
several ways oversimplified. First, Grice (1975, 1978) also makes room for
‘conventional’ implicatures (“She was poor BUT she was honest”) and
non-conversational non-conventional implicatures (“Thank you,” abiding with the
maxim, ‘be polite’), although these dimensions are both somewhat controversial
(cf. Bach’s attack on conventional implicature) and can be set aside here. Also
controversial is the precise delineation of Grice’s notion of what is said.” He
grants he is using ‘say’ ‘artifiicially,’ which means, “natural TO ME!.” Some
(anthropologist Sperber and linguist Wilson, 1986; linguist Carston, 1988,
2002; philosopher Recanati, 1993) hold that ‘what is said,’ the DICTUM, the
explicatum, or explicitum, is significantly underdetermined by the conventional
meaning of the word uttered, with the result that considerable pragmatic
intrusive processing must occur even to recover what the utterer said.” And
Grice allows that an implicatum can occur within the scope of an
operator.“Linguist/philosopher Bach disagrees, though he does add an
‘intermediate’ dimension (that of conversational ‘impliciture’) which is, in
part, pragmatically determined, enriched, or intruded. For my purpose, the
important distinction is between that element of meaning which is conventional
or ‘encoded’ and that element which is ‘inferred,’ ab-duced, or pragmatically
determined, whether or not it is properly considered part of what is said,” in
Grice’s admittedly artificial use of this overused verb! (“A horse says
neigh!”) A conversational implicatum can itself be either particularized
(henceforth, PCIs) or generalized (GCIs) (56).” Most familiar examples of
implicature are particularised, where the inference to the utterer U’s intended
meaning relies on a specific assumption regarding the context of utterance.” Grice’s
first example, possibly, “Jones has beautiful handwriting” (Grice 1961).“Alter
that context much at all and the implicatum will simply disappear, perhaps to
be replaced by another. With a generalised implicatum, on the other hand, the
inference or abduction to U’s intended interpretation is relatively
context-independent, going through unless special clues to the contrary are
provided to defeat it.”Love the ‘defeat.’ Levinson cites one of Grice’s
unpublications as “Probability, defeasibility, and mood operators,” where Grice
is actually writing, “desirability.”!
“For
instance, an utterance of the sentence” ‘SOME residents survived the earth-quake,’
would quite generally, absent any special clues to the contrary, seem to
implicate that not all survived. All survived, alas, seems to be, to some, no
news. Cruel world. No special ‘stage-setting’ has to be provided to make the
implicatum appreciable. No particular context needs to be assumed in order to
calculate the likely intended meaning. All one needs to know is that an utterer
U who thought that everyone, all residents survived the earthquake (or that
none did?) would probably make this stronger assertion (in keeping with Grice’s
first sub-maxim of Quantity: ‘Make your contribution as informative as
required’).” Perhaps it’s best to deal with buildings.
“Some – some 75%, I would say -- of the buildings did not collapse after the
earth-quake on the tiny island, and fortunately, no fatalities need be
reported. It wasn’t such a big earth-quake as pessimist had predicted.” “A
Gricean should maintain that the ‘ambiguity’ of “some” -> “not all”
canvassed at the outset can all be explained in terms of a generalized
conversational implicatum. For instance, linguist Horn shows, in his PhD on
English, how an exclusive use of ‘or’ can be treated as a consequence of the
maxim of Quantity. Roughly, since ‘p AND q’ is always ‘more informative,’
stronger, than ‘p or q’, an utterer U’s choosing to assert only the disjunction
would ordinarily indicate that he takes one or the other disjunct to be false.
He could assert the conjunction anyway, but then he would be violating Grice’s
first submaxim of Quality: ‘Do not say what you believe to be false’ For
similar reasons, the assertion of a disjunction would ordinarily seem to
implicate that the utterer U does not know which disjunct is true (otherwise he
would assert that disjunct rather than the entire disjunction) and hence, and
this is the way Grice puts it, which is technically, the best way, that the
utterer wants to be ‘interpreted’ as having some ‘non-truth-functional grounds’
for believing the disjunction (philosopher Grice, 1978; linguist Gazdar, 1979).
For recall that this all goes under the
scope of a psychological attitude. In “Method in psychological philosophy: from
the banal to the bizarre,” repr. in “The conception of value,” Grice considers
proper disjunctions: “The eagle is not sure whether to attack the rabbit or the
dove.” I think Loar plays with this too in his book for Cambridge on meaning
and mind and Grice. “Grice (1981) takes a similar line with
regard to asymmetric uses of ‘and’.”
Indeed,
I loved his “Jones got into bed and took off his clothes, but I do not want to
suggest in that order.” “Is that a linguistic offence?” Don’t think so!” “The
fourth submaxim of Manner,” ‘be orderly’ -- I tend to think this is ad-hoc and
that Grice had this maxim JUST to explain away the oddity of “She got a
children and married,” by Strawson in Strawson 1952. “says that utterers should
be ‘orderly,’ and when describing a sequence of events, an orderly presentation
would normally describe the events in the order in which they occurred. So an
utterance of (1b) (‘Jones took off his
trousers – he had taken off his shoes already -- and got into bed.’ “would
ordinarily (unless the utterer U ‘indicates’ otherwise) implicate that Jones
did so in that order, hence the temporal reading of ‘and’.” “(Grice’s (1981) account
of asymmetric ‘and’ seems NOT to account for causal interpretations like
(1c).”Ryle says in “Informal logic,” 1953, in Dilemmas, “She felt ill and took
arsenic,” has the conscript ‘and’ of Whitehead and Russell, not the ‘civil’
‘and’ of the informalist. “Oxonian philosopher R. C. S. Walker – what took him
to respond to Cohen? Walker quotes from Bostock, who was Grice’s tutee at St.
John’s -- (1975, p. 136) suggests that the causal reading can be derived from
the maxim of Relation.”Nowell-Smith had spoken of ‘be relevant’ in Ethics. But
Grice HAD to be a Kantian!“Since conversationalists are expected to make their
utterances relevant, one expects that conjoined sentences will ‘have some
bearing to one another’, often a causal bearing. More nearly adequate accounts
of the temporal and causal uses of ‘and’ (so-called ‘conjunction buttressing’)
are found in linguist/philosopher Atlas and linguist Levinson (1981) and in
linguist Levinson (1983, 2000). Linguist Carston (1988, 2002) develops a rival
pragmatic account within the framework of anthropologist Sperber’s and linguist
Wilson’s Relevance Theory, on which temporal and causal readings are
explicatures rather than implicatures. For the purposes of this essay, it is
immaterial which of these accounts best accords with the data. In these and
many other cases, it seems that a general principle regarding communicative
RATIONALITY can provide an alternative to positing a semantic
ambiguity.”Williamson is lecturing at Yale that ‘rationality’ has little to do
with it!“But a Gricean goes a step further and claims that the implicatum
account (when available) is BETTER than an ambiguity or polysemy account. One
possible argument for the stronger thesis is that the various specialised uses
of ‘or’ (etc.) bear all the usual hallmarks of a conversational implicatum. An
implicatum is: calculable (i.e. derivable from what is said or dictum or
explicatum or explicitum via the Principle of conversational cooperation and
the conversational maxims); cancellable (retractable without contradiction),
and; non-detachable (incapable of being paraphrased away) Grice, 1975, pp. 50
and 57–58). They ought also to be, sort of, universal.” (Cf. Elinor Keenan
Ochs, “The universality of conversational implicature.” I hope Williamson
considers this. In Madagascar, they have other ‘norms’ of conversation: since
speakers are guarded, implicata to the effect, “I don’t know” are never
invited! Unlike the true lexical ambiguity that arises from a language-specific
convention, an implicatum derives rather from general features of communicative
RATIONALITY and should thus be similar across different languages (philosopher
Kripke, 1977; linguist Levinson, 1983).”I’m not sure. Cfr. Ochs in Madagascar.
But she is a linguist/anthropologist, rather than a philosopher? From a
philosophical point of view, perhaps the best who treated this issues is
English philosopher Martin Hollis in his essays on ‘rationality’ and
‘relativism’ (keywords!)“Since the ‘ambiguity’ in question here has all these
features, at least to some degree, the implicatum approach may well seem
irresistible. It is well known, however, that none of the features listed on
various occasions by Grice are sufficient (individually or jointly) to
establish the presence of a conversational implicatum (Grice, 1978; linguist
Sadock, 1978). Take calculability.” Or how to ‘work it out,’ to keep it
Anglo-Saxon, as pretentious Grice would not! The main difficulty is that a
conversationalimplicatum can become fossilized, or ‘conventionalised’ over time
but remain calculable nonetheless, as happens with some ‘dead’ metaphors —
one-time non-literal uses which congealed into a new conventional meaning.” A
linguist at Berkeley worked on this, Traugott, on items in the history of the
English language, or H-E-L, for short, H.O.T.E.L, history of the English
language. I don’t think Grice considers this. He sticks with old Roman ‘animal’
-> ‘non-human’, strictly, having a ‘soul,’ or animus, anima. (I think
Traugott’s focus was on verb forms, like “I have eaten,” meaning, literally, “I
possess eating,” or something. But she does quote Grice and speaks of
fossilization. “For instance, the expression.” ‘S went to the bathroom’
(Jones?) could, for obvious reasons, be used with its original, compositional,
meaning to implicate that S ‘relieved himself’.” “The intended meaning would
still be calculable today.”Or “went to powder her nose?” (Or consider the
pre-Griceian (?) child’s overinformative, standing from table at dinner, “I’m
going to the bathroom to do number 2 (unless he is flouting the maxim). “But
the use has been absorbed, or encoded into some people’s grammar, as witnessed
by the fact that ‘S went to the bathroom
on the living room carpet.’ is not contradictory (linguist J. L. Morgan, 1978;
linguist Sadock, 1978).”I wonder what some contextualists at Yale (De Rose)
would say about that!? Cf. Jason Stanley, enfant terrible. “Grice’s
cancellability is similarly problematic. While one may cancel the exclusive
interpretation of ‘p or q’ (e.g. by adding ‘or possibly both’), the added
remark could just as well be disambiguating an ambiguous utterance as canceling
the implicatum (philosopher Walker, 1975; linguist Sadock, 1978).”Excellent
POINT! Walker would be fascinated to see that Grice once coined
‘disimplicature’ for some loose uses. “Macbeth saw Banquo.” “That tie is yellow
under that light, but orange under this one.” Actually, Grice creates
‘disimplicature’ to refute Davidson on intending: “Jones intends to climb Mt
Everest next weekend.” Intending DOES entail BELIEF, but people abuse ‘intend’
and use it ‘loosely,’ with one sense dropped. Similarly, Grice says, with
“You’re the cream in my coffee,” where the ‘disimplicature’ is
TOTAL!“Non-detachability fares no better. When two sentences are synonymous (if
there is, pace Quine, such a thing), utterances of them ought to generate the
same implicatum. But they will also have the same semantic implications, so the
non-detachability of an alleged implicatum shows very little if anything at all
(linguist Sadock, 1978).”I never liked non-detachability, because it ENTAILS
that there MUST be a synonym expression: cfr. God? Divinity? “Universality is
perhaps the best test of the four.”I agree. When linguists like Elinor Keenan
disregard this, I tend to think: “the cunning of conversational reason,” alla
Hollis. Grice was a member of Austin’s playgroup, and the conversational MAXIMS
were ‘universalisable’ within THAT group. That seems okay for both Kant AND
Hegel!“Since an implicatum can fossilise into a conventional meanings, however,
it is always possible for a cross-linguistic alleged ‘ambiguity’ to be
pragmatic in some language though lexical in another.”Is that ‘f*rnication’? Or
is it Grice on ‘pushing up the daisies’ as an “established idiom” for ‘… is
dead’ in WJ5? Austin and Grice would I think take for granted THREE languages:
Greek and Roman, that they studied at their public schools – and this is
important, because Grice says his method of analysis is somehow grounded on his
classical education – and, well, English. Donald Davidson, in the New World,
would object to the ‘substantiation’ that speaking of “Greek” as a language,
say, may entail.“So while Grice’s tests are suggestive, they supply no clear
verdict on the presence of an implicatum. Besides these inconclusive tests for
implicature, Grice could also appeal to various diagnostic tests for alleged
ambiguity.” “And how to fail them,” to echo Zwicky. Grice himself suggests
three, although none of them prove terribly helpful.”Loved your terrible. Cfr.
‘terrific’. And the king entering St. Paul’s cathedral: “Aweful!” meaning
‘awe-some!’“First, Grice points out that each alleged sense Sn of an allegedly
ambiguous word E ought to be expressible ‘in a reasonably wide range of
linguistic environments’ (1978, p. 117). The fact that the strong implicatum of
‘or’ is UNavailable within the scope of a negation, for instance, would seem to
count AGAINST alleged ambiguity or polysemy. On the other hand, the strong
implicatum of ‘or’ IS available within the scope of a propositional-attitude
verb. A strong implicatum of ‘and’ is arguably available in both environments,
within the scope of a negation, and within the scope of a
psychological-attitude verb. So the first test seems a wash.”Metaphorically, or
implicaturally. J“Second, Grice
says, if the expression E is ambiguous with one sense S2 being derived
(somehow) from the initial or original or etymological sense S1, that
derivative sense S2 ‘ought to conform to whatever principle there may be which
governs the generation of derivative senses’ (pp. 117–118).”GRICE AT HIS BEST!
I think he is trying to irritate Quine, who is seating on second row at
Harvard! (After all Quine thought he was a field linguist!)Bontly, charmingly:
“Not knowing the content of thi principle Grice invokes— and Grice gives us no
hint as to what it might be — we cannot bring it, alas, to bear here!”I THINK
he was thinking Ullman. At Oxford, linguists were working on ‘semantics,’ cfr.
Gardiner. And he just thought that it would be Unphilosophical on his part to bore
his philosophical Harvard audience with ‘facts.’ At one point he does mention
that the facts of the history of the English language (how ‘disc’ can be used,
etc.) are not part of the philosopher’s toolkit?“Third and finally, Grice says,
we must ‘give due (but not undue) weight to MY INTUITIONS about the existence
(or indeed non-existence) of a putative sense S2 of a word E.’ (p.
120).”Emphasis on ‘my’ mine! -- As I say, I never had any intuition about an
expression having an extra-putative sense. Not even ‘bank,’ – since in Old
Germanic, it’s all etymologically related!Bontly: “But, even granting the point
that ‘or’ is NON-INTUITIVELY ambiguous in quite the same way that ‘bank’ IS,
allegedly, INTUITIVELY ambiguous, the source of our present difficulty is precisely
the fact that ‘p or q’ often *seems* intuitively to imply that one or the other
disjunct is false.”Grice apparently uses ‘intuition’ and ‘introspection’
interchangeably, if that helps? Continental phenomenological philosophers would
make MUCH of this! For Grice’s intuitions are HIS own. In a lecture at
Wellesley, of all places (in Grice 1989) he writes: “My problems with my use of
E arise from MY intuitions about the use of E. I don’t care how YOU use E.
Philosophy is personal.” Much criticised, but authentic, in a way!“Since he
discounts the latter intuition, Grice cannot place much weight on the
former!”As I say, Grice’s intuitions are hard to fathom! So are his
introspections! Actually, I think that Grice’s sticking with introspections and
intuitions save him, as Suppes shows in PGRICE ed Grandy and Warner, from being
a behaviourist. He is, rather, an intentionalist!“While a complete review of
ambiguity tests is beyond the scope of this essay, we have perhaps seen enough
to motivate the methodological problem with which we began: viz., that an,
intuitive, alleged, ambiguity seems fit to be explained either semantically
(ambiguity thesis, polysemy, bi-semy) or pragmatically/conversationally, with
little by way of direct evidence to tell us which is which!”“If philosophy
generated no problems, it would be dead!” – Grice. J“Linguists Zwicky and Sadock review
several linguistic tests for ambiguity (e.g. conjunction reduction) and point
out that most are ill-suited to detect ambiguities where the meanings in
question are privative opposites,”Oddly, Grice’s first publication ever was on
“Negation and privation,” 1938!Bontly: “i.e. where one meaning is a
specialization or specification of the other (as for instance with the female
and neutral senses of ‘goose’).”Or cf. Urmson, “There is an animal in the
backyard.” “You mean Aunt Matilda?”Bontly: “Since the putative ambiguities of
‘or’ and the like are all of this sort, it seems inevitable that these tests
will fail us here as well. For further discussion, see linguist Horn (1989, pp.
317–18 and 365–66) and linguist Carston (2002, pp. 274–77).It is hardly
surprising, therefore, to find that a Gricean typically falls back on a
methodological argument like parsimony, as instantiated in “M. O. R.”Let’s now
turn to Parsimony and Its Problems. It may, at first, be less than obvious why
an ambiguity or polysemy or bi-semy account should be deemed less parsimonious
than its Gricean rival.” Where the conventionalist or ambiguist posits an
additional sense S2, Grice adds, to S1, a conversational implicatum, I”. Cheap,
but no free lunch! (Grice saves)Bontly: “Superficially, little seems to be
gained.” Ah, the surfaces of Oxford superficiality! “Looking closer, however,
the methodological virtues of the Grice’s approach seem fairly
clear.”Good!Bontly: “First, the principles and inference patterns that a
pragmatic or conversational account utilizes are independently motivated. The
principles and inference patterns are needed in any case to account for the
relatively un-controversial class of particularized implicata, and they provide
an elegant approach to phenomena like figures of rhetoric, or speech --
metaphor, irony, meiosis, litotes, understatement, sarcasm – cfr. Holdcroft --
and tricks like Strawson’s presupposition. So it would seem that Grice can make
do with explanatory material already on hand, whereas the ambiguity or polysemy
theorist must posit a new semantic rule in each and every case. Furthermore,
the explanatory material has an independent grounding in considerations of
rationality.”I love that evening when Grice received a phonecall at Berkeley:
“Professor Grice: You have been appointed the Immanuel Kant Memorial Lecturer
at Stanford.” He gave the lectures on aspects of reason and reasoning!Bontly:
“Since conversation is typically a goal-directed activity, it makes sense for
conversationalists to abide by the Principle of Conversational Cooperation
(something like Kant’s categorical imperative, in conversational format) and
its (universalisable) conversational maxims, and so it makes sense for a
co-conversationalist to interpret the conversationalist accordingly. A
pragmatic explanation is therefore CHEAP – hence Occam on ‘aeconomicus’ -- the
principle it calls on being explainable by — and perhaps even reducible to —
facts about rational behavior in general.”I loved your “REDUCE.” B. F. Loar
indeed thought, and correctly, that the maxims are ‘empirical generalisations
over functional states.’ Genius!Bontly: A pragmatic account is not only more
economic, or cheaper. It also reveals an orderliness or systematicity that
positing a separate lexical ambiguity or polysemy or bisemy in each and every
case would seem to miss (linguist/philosopher Bach). To a Griceian, it is no
accident that a sentential connective or truth-functor (“not,” “and,” “or,” and
“if”), a quantified expression (Grice’s “all” and “some (at least one)”) and a
description (Grice’s “the”) all lend themselves to a weak and a stronger
interpretation”Cf. Holdcroft, “Weak or strong?” in “Words and deeds.”Bontly:
“Note, for instance, that a sentence with the logical form ‘Some Fs are
Gs’, and the pleonethetic, to use
Geach’s and Altham’s coinage, ‘Most Fs are Gs’, and ‘A few Fs are Gs’ are all
allegedly ‘ambiguous’ in the SAME way. Each of those expressions has an obvious
weak reading in addition to a stronger reading: ‘Not all Fs are Gs’.Good
because Grice’s first examination was: “That pillar-box seems red to me.” And
he analyses the oddness in terms of ‘strength.’ (Grice 1961). He tries to
analyse this ‘strength’ in terms of ‘entailment,’ but fails (“Neither ‘The
pillar-box IS red’ NOR ‘The pillar-box SEEMS red’ entail each other.”)Bontly:
For the conventionalist or polysemy theorist, there is no apparent reason why
this should be so. There is no reason, that is, why three etymologically
unrelated words (“some,” “most,” and “few”) should display the SAME pattern of
alleged ambiguity. The Gricean, on the other hand, explains each the SAME way,
by appealing to some rational principle of conversation. The implicata are all
‘scalar’ quantity implicata, attributable to the utterer U’s having uttered a
weaker, less informative, sentence than he might have.” Linguist Levinson,
1983). Together, these considerations make a persuasive case for the Grice’s
approach. A pragmatic explanation is more economical, and the resulting view of
conversation is more natural and unified. Since economy and unification are
both presumably virtues to be sought in a scientific or philosophical
explanation — virtues which for brevity I lump together under Occamist
‘parsimony’ — it would NOT be unreasonable to conclude that a pragmatic
explanation is (ceteris paribus) a better explanation. So it seems that Grice’s
principle, the “M. O. R.” is correct. Senses ought not to be multiplied when
pragmatics will do. Still, there are several reasons to be suspicious of the
parsimony argument. “I lay out three. It bears emphasis that none of these are
objections to the pragmatic approach per se.” I have no quarrel with the theory
of conversation or particular attempts to apply it to conversational phenomena.
The objections focus rather on the role that parsimony (or simplicity, or
generality, etc.) plays in arguments PRO the implicatum and CONTRA ambiguity or
polysemy.” Then, there’s Dead Metaphors. First is a worry that parsimony is too
blunt an instrument, generalizing to unwanted conclusions. Versions of this
objection appear in philosopher Walker (1975), linguist Morgan (1978), and
linguist Sadock (1978).” More recently, Reimer (1998) and Devitt (forthcoming)
use it to argue against a Gricean treatment of the referential/attributive
distinction.”But have they read Grice’s VACUOUS NAMES? I know you did! Grice
notes: “My distinction has nothing to do with Donnellan’s!” Grice’s approach is
syntactic: ‘the’ and “THE,” identificatory and non-identificatory uses. R. M.
Sainsbury and D. E. Over have worked on this. Fascinating. Bontly: “For as with
the afore-mentioned so-called ‘dead’ metaphor, it can happen that a word has a
secondary use that is pragmatically predictable, and yet fully conventional. In
many such cases, of course, the original, etymological meaning is long
forgotten: e. g. the contemporary use of ‘fornication’, originally a euphemism
for activities done in fornice (that is, in the vaulted underground dwellings
that once served as brothels in Rome). (I owe this [delightful] example to Sam
Wheeler). Few speakers recall the original meaning, so the metaphor can no
longer be ‘calculated,’ as Grice’s “You’re the cream in my coffee!” (title of
song) can!” The metaphor is both dead _and buried_.”Still un-buriable?“In other
cases, however, speakers do possess the information to construct a Gricean
explanation, and yet the metaphor is dead anyway.”Reimer’s (1998) example of
the verb ‘incense’ is a case in point. One conventional meaning (‘to make or
become angry’) began life as a metaphorical extension of the other (‘to make
fragrant with incense’). The reason for the extension is fairly transparent
(resting on familiar comparisons of burning and emotion), but the use allegedly
represents an additional sense nonetheless.”What dictionaries have as ‘fig.’
But are we sure that when the dictionaries list things like 1., 2., 3., they
are listing SENSES!? Cf. Grice, “I don’t give a hoot what the dictionary says,”
to Austin, “And that’s where you make your big mistake.” Once Grice actually
opened the dictionary (he was studying ‘feeling + adj.’ – he got to
‘byzantine,’ finding that MOST adjectives did, and got bored!Bontly: Such
examples suggest that an implicatum makes up an important source of
semantic—and, according to linguist Levinson (2000), syntactic—innovation. A
linguistic phenomenon can begin life as a pragmatic specialization or an
extension and subsequently become conventionalized by stages, making it
difficult to determine at what point (and for which ‘utterers’) a use has
become fully conventional. One consequence is that an expression E can have,
allegedly, a second sense S2, even when a pragmatic explanation appears to make
it explanatorily superfluous, and parsimony can therefore mislead.”I’m not sure
dictionary readers read ‘fig.’ as a different ‘sense,’ and lexicographers need
not be Griceian in style!Bontly: “A related point is that an ambiguity account
needn’t be LESS unified than an implicatum account after all. If pragmatic
considerations can explain the origin and development of new linguistic
conventions, the ambiguity or polysemy theorist can provide a unified
dia-chronic account of how several un-related expressions came to exhibit similar
patterns of alleged ‘ambiguity.’ Quantifiers like ‘some’, ‘most’, and ‘a few’
may be similarly allegedly ambiguous today because they generated similar
implicatures in the past (cf. Millikan, 2001).”OKAY, so that’s the right way to
go then? Diachrony and evolution, right?Bontly: “Then, there’s Tradeoffs. A
‘dead’ metaphor suggests that parsimony is too strong for the pragmatist’s
purposes, but as a pragmatic account could have hidden costs to offset the
semantic savings, parsimony may also be too weak! E. g. an implicatum account
looks, at least superficially, to multiply (to use Occam’s term) inferential
labour, leaving it to the addressee to infer the utterer’s intended meaning
from the words uttered, the context, and the conversational principle. Thus
there are trade-offs involved, and the account which is semantically more
parsimonious may be less parsimonious all things considered.”Grice once invited
the “P. E. R. E.,” principle of economy of rational effort, though. Things
which seem to be psychologically UNREAL are just DEEMED, tacitly, to
occur.Bontly: “To be clear, this is not to suggest that the ambiguity or
polysemy account can dispense with inference entirely. Were the exclusive and
inclusive senses of ‘or’ BOTH lexically encoded (as they were in Old Roman,
‘vel’ and ‘aut,’ hence Whitehead’s choice of ‘v’ for ‘p v q’) still hearers
would need to infer from contextual clues which meaning were intended. The
worry is not, therefore, so much that the implicatum account increases the
number of inferences which conversants or conversationalists have to perform.
The issue concerns rather the complexity of these inferences. Alleged
dis-ambiguation is a highly constrained process. In principle, one need only
choose the relevant sense Sn, from a finite list represented in the so-called
‘mental lexicon’. Implicature calculation, on the other hand, is a matter of
finding the best explanation (abductively, alla Hanson) for an utterer’s
utterance, the utterer’s meaning being introduced as an explanatory hypothesis,
answering to a ‘why’ question. Unlike dis-ambiguation, where the various
possible readings are known in advance, in the conversational explanation, the
only constraints are provided by the addressee’s understanding of the context
and the conversational principle. So it appears that Grice’s approach saves on
the lexical semantics by placing a greater inferential burden on utterer and
addressee.”But Grice played bridge, and loved those burdens. Stampe actually
gives a lovely bridge alleged counter-example to Grice (in Grice 1989).Bontly:
“Now, a Gricean can try to lessen this load in various ways. Grice can argue,
for instance, that the inference used to recover a generalised implicatum is
less demanding than that for a particularized one, that familiarity with types
of generalised implicate can “stream-line” the inferential process, and so
on.”Love that, P. E. R. E., or principle of economy of rational effort,
above?!Bontly: “We examine these moves. There’s Justification. Another
difficulty with Grice’s appeals to parsimony is the most fundamental. On the
one hand, it can hardly be denied that parsimony plays a role in scientific, if
not philosophical, inference.” Across the sciences, if not in philosophy, it is
standard practice to cite parsimony (simplicity, generality, etc.) as a reason
to choose one hypothesis over another; philosophers often do the same.”Bontly’s
‘often’ implicates, ‘often not’! Grice became an opponent of his own minimalism
at a later stage of his life, vide his “Prejudices and predilections; which
become, the life and opinions of Paul Grice,” by Paul Grice!Bontly: “At the
same time, however, it remains quite mysterious, if that’s the word, why
parsimony (etc.) should be given such weight by Occamists like Grice. If it
were safe to assume that Nature is simple and economical, the preference for
theories with these qualities would make perfect sense. Sir Isaac Newton offers
such an ontological rationale for parsimony in the “Principia.” Sir Isaac
writes (in Roman?) “I am to admit no more cause of a natural thing than such as
are true and sufficient to explain its appearance.” “To this purpose, the
philosopher says that Nature does nothing in vain, and more is in vain when
less serves.” “For Nature is pleased with simplicity, and affects not the pomp
of a superfluous cause.” “While a blanket assertion about the simplicity of
Nature is hardly uncommon in the history of science, today it is viewed with
suspicion.” Bontly: “Newton’s reasons
were presumably theological.” “If I knew that the Creator values simplicity and
economy, I should expect the creatION to display these qualities as well.”
“Lacking much information about the Creator’s tastes, however, the assumption
becomes quite difficult, if not impossible, to support.”Cfr. literature on
‘biological diversity.’Bontly: “(Sober discusses several objections to an
ontological justification for the principle of parsimony. Philosopher of
science Mary Hesse surveys several other attempts to justify the use of
parsimony and simplicity in scientific inference. Philosophers of science today
are largely persuaded that the role of parsimony is ‘purely methodological’
epistemological, pragmatist, rather than ontological — that it is rational to
reject unnecessary posits (or complex, dis-unified theories) no matter what
Nature is like. One might argue, for instance, that the principle of parsimony
is really just a principle of minimum risk. The more existence claims one
accepts, the greater the chance of accepting a falsehood. Better, then, to do
without any existence claim one does not need. Philosopher J. J. C. Smart
attributes this view to John Stuart Mill.”Cf. Grice: “Not to bring more Grice
to the Mill.”Bontly: “Now, risk minimization may be a reasonable methodological
principle, but it does not suffice to explain the role of parsimony in natural
science. When a theoretical posit is deemed explanatorily superfluous, the
accepted practice is not merely to withhold belief in its existence but to
conclude positively that it does not exist. As Sober notes, ‘Occam’s razor
preaches atheism about unnecessary entities, not just a-gnosticism.’”
Similarly, Grice’s razor tells us that we should believe an expression E to be
unambiguous, aequi-vocal, monosemous, unless we have evidence for a second
meaning. The absence of evidence for this alleged additional, ‘multiplied’
‘sense’ is presumed to count as evidence that this alleged second, additional,
multiplied, sense is absent, does not exist. But an absence of evidence is not
the same thing as evidence of an absence.” The difficult question about
scientific methodology is why we should count one as the other. Why, that is,
should a lack of evidence for an existence claim count as evidence for a
non-existence claim? The minimum risk argument leaves this question unanswered.
Indeed, philosophers of science have had so little success in explaining why
parsimony should be a guide to truth that many are tempted to conclude that it
and the other ‘super-empirical virtues’ have no epistemic value whatsoever.
Their role is rather pragmatic, or aesthetic.”This is in part Strawson’s reply
in his “If and the horseshoe” (1968), repr. in PGRICE, in Grandy/Warner. He
says words to the effect: “Grice’s theory may be more BEAUTIFUL than mine, but
that’s that!” (Strawson thinks that ‘if’ acts as ‘so’ or ‘therefore’ but in
UNASSERTED clauses. So it’s a matter of a ‘conventional’ IMPLICATUM to the
inferrability of “if p, q” or “p; so, q.” I agree with Strawson that Grice’s
account of ‘conventional’ implicatum is not precisely too beautiful?Bontly:
“Parsimony can make a theory easier to understand or apply, and it pleases
those of us with a taste for desert landscapes, but (according to these
sceptics) they do not make the theory any more likely to be true.”The reference
to the ‘desert landscape’ is genial. Cfr. Strawson’s “A logician’s landscape.”
Later in life, Grice indeed found it unfair that an explanation of cherry trees
blooming in spring should be explained as a ‘desert landscape.’ “That’s
impoverishing it!”Bontly: “van Fraassen, for instance, tells us that a
super-empirical virtue ‘does not concern the relation between the theory and
the world, but rather the use and usefulness of the theory; it provide reasons
to prefer the theory independently of questions of truth.” “If that were
correct, it would be doubtful that parsimony can shoulder the burden Grice
places on it.” “For then the conventionalist may happily grant that a pragmatic
explanation is clever and elegant, and beautiful.” “The conventionalist can agree that an implicature
account comprehends a maximum of phenomena with a minimum of theoretical
apparatus.” “But when it comes to truth, or alethic satisfactoriness, as Grice
would prefer, a conventionalist may insist that parsimony is simply
irrelevant.” “One Gricean sympathizer who apparently accepts the ‘aesthetic’
view of parsimony is the philosopher of science R. C. S. Walker (1975), who
claims that the ‘[c]hoice between Grice’s and Cohen’s theories is an aesthetic
matter’ and concludes that ‘we should not regard either the Conversationalist
Hypothesis or its [conventionalist] rivals as definitely right or wrong.’” Cfr.
Strawson in Grandy/Warner, but Strawson is no Griceian sympathiser! “Now asking
Grice to justify the principle of parsimony may seem a bit unfair.” “Grice also
assumes the reality of the external world, the existence of intentional mental
states, and the validity of modus ponens.” “Need Grice justify these
assumptions as well?” “Of course not!” “But even if the epistemic value of
parsimony is taken entirely for granted, it is unclear why it should even count
in semantics.” “All sides agree, after all, that many, perhaps even most,
expressions of natural language are allegedly ‘ambiguous.’” “There are both
poly-semies, where one word has multiple, though related, meanings (‘horn’,
‘trunk’), and homo-nymies, where two distinct words have converged on a single
phonological form (‘bat’, ‘pole’).” “The
distinction between poly-semy and homo-nymy is notoriously difficult to draw
with any precision, chiefly because we lack clear criteria for the identity of
words (Bach).” “If words are individuated phono-logically, there would be no
homo-nyms.” “If words are individuated semantically, there would be no
poly-semies.” “Individuating words historically leads to some odd consequences:
e.g., that ‘bank’ is poly-semous rather than homo-nymous, since the ‘sense’ in
which it means financial institution and the ‘sense’ in which it means edge of
a river are derived from a common source.” “I owe this example to David Sanford.
For further discussion, see Jackendoff.”Soon at Hartford. And Sanford is
right!Bontly: “Given that ambiguity is hardly rare, then, one wonders whether a
semantic theory ought really to minimize it (cf. Stampe, 1974).” “One might
indeed argue that the burden of proof here is on the pragmatist, not the
ambiguity or polysemy theorist.” “Perhaps we ought to assume, ceteris paribus,
that every regular use of an expression represents a SPECIAL sense.” “Such a
methodological policy may be less economical than Grice’s, but it does extend
the same pattern of explanation to all alleged ambiguities, and it might even
accord better with the haphazard ways in which natural languages are prone to
evolve (Millikan, 2001).”Yes, the evolutionary is the way to go!Bontly: “So
Grice owe us some reason to think that parsimony and the like should count in
semantics.” “He needn’t claim, of course, that parsimony is always and
everywhere a reason to believe a hypothesis true.” “He needn’t produce a global
justification for Occam’s Razor, that is—a local justification, one specific to
language, would suffice.” “I propose to set aside the larger issue about
parsimony in general, therefore, and argue that Modified Occam’s Razor can be
justified by considerations peculiar to the study of language.” “Now for A
Developmental Account of Semantic Parsimony.”
“My approach to parsimony in linguistics is inspired by Sober’s work on
parsimony arguments in evolutionary biology.”And Grice was an evolutionary
philosopher of sorts.Bontly: “In Sober’s view, philosophers have misunderstood
the role of parsimony in scientific inference, taking it to function as a
global, domain-general principle of scientific reasoning (akin perhaps to an
axiom of the probability calculus).” “A more realistic analysis, Sober claims,
shows that parsimony arguments function as tacit references to domain-specific
process assumptions — to assumptions (whether clearly articulated or not) about
the process(es) that generate the phenomena under study.” “Where these
processes tend to be frugal, parsimony is a reasonable principle of
theory-choice.” “Where they are apt to be profligate, it is not.” “What makes
parsimony reasonable in one area of inquiry may, on Sober’s view, be quite
unrelated to the reasons it counts in another.” “Parsimony arguments in the
units of selection controversy, for instance, rest on one set of process
assumptions (i.e. assumptions about the conditions necessary for ‘group’
selection to occur).” “The application of parsimony to ‘phylogenetic’ inference
rests on a completely different set of assumptions (about rates of evolutionary
change).” “As Sober notes, in either case the assumptions are empirically
testable, and it could turn out that parsimony is a reliable principle of
inference in one, both, or neither of these areas. Sober’s approach amounts to
a thorough-going local reductionism about parsimony.It counts in theory-choice
if and only if there are domain-specific reasons to think the theory which is
more economical (in some specifiable respect) is more likely to be true. The
‘only if’ claim is the more controversial part of the bi-conditional, and I
need not defend it here. For present purposes I need only the weaker claim that
domain-specific assumptions can be sufficient to justify using parsimony — that
parsimony is a sensible principle of inference if the phenomena in question
result from processes themselves biased, as it were, towards parsimony. Now, in
natural-language semantics, the phenomena in question are ordinarily taken to
be the semantic rules or conventions shared by a community of speakers.”Cf.
Peacocke on Grice as applied to ‘community of utterers,’ in Evans/McDowell,
Truth and meaning, Oxford. Bontly: “The task is to uncover the ‘arbitrary’
mappings between a sound and a meaning (or concepts or referent) of which
utterers have tacit knowledge. This ‘semantic competence’ is shaped by both the
inputs that language learners encounter and the cognitive processes that guide
language acquisition from infancy through adulthood. So the question is whether
that input and these processes are themselves biased toward semantic parsimony
and against the acquisition of multiple meanings for single phonological forms.
As I shall now argue, there are several reasons to suspect that such a bias
should exist. Psychologists often conceptualize learning in general and word
learning in particular as a process of generating and testing hypotheses. A
child (or, in many cases, an adult) encounters an unfamiliar word, forms one or
more hypotheses as to its possible meaning, checks the hypotheses against the
ways in which he hears the word used, and finally adopts one such hypothesis.
This ‘child-as-scientist’ model is plainly short on details, but whatever
mechanism implements the generating and testing, it would seem that the process
cannot be repeated with every subsequent exposure to a word. Once a hypothesis
is accepted — a word learned — the process effectively halts, so that the next
time the child hears that word, he doesn’t have to hypothesize. Instead, the
child can access the known meaning and use it to grasp the intended message.
For that reason, an unfamiliar word ought to be the only one to trigger the
learning process, and that of course makes ambiguity problematic. Take a person
who knows one meaning of an ambiguous word, but not the other. To him, the word
is not unfamiliar, even when used with an unfamiliar meaning. At least, it will
not sound unfamiliar. So, the learning process will not kick in unless some
other source of evidence suggests another, as-yet-unknown meaning. Presumably
the evidence will come from ‘anomalous’ utterances: i.e. uses that are
contextually absurd, given only the familiar meaning. This is not to say, of
course, that hearing one anomalous utterance would be sufficient to re-start
the learning process. Since there are other reasons why an utterance may seem
anomalous (e.g. the utterer simply misspoke), it might take several anomalies
to convince one that the word has another meaning. In the absence of anomalies,
however, it seems highly unlikely that learners would seriously entertain the
possibility of a second sense. A related point is that acquisition involves, or
is at least thought to involve, a variety of ‘boot-strapping’ operations where
the learner uses what he knows of the language in order to learn more.”Oddly
Grice has a bootstrap principle (it relates to having one’s metalanguage as
rich as one’s object-language.Bontly: “It has been argued, for instance, that
children use semantic information to constrain hypotheses about words’
syntactic features (Pinker) and, conversely, syntactic information to constrain
hypotheses about words’ semantic features (Gleitman). Likewise, children must
surely use their knowledge of some words’ meanings to constrain hypotheses as
to the meanings of others, thus inferring the meanings of unfamiliar words from
context. However, that process only works insofar as one can safely assume that
the familiar words in an utterance are typically used with their familiar
meanings. If it were assumed that familiar words are typically used with
unknown meanings, the bootstraps would be too weak. Together, these
considerations point to the hypothesis that language acquisition is
semantically conservative. Children will posit new meanings for familiar words
only when necessary—only when they encounter utterances that make no sense to
them, even though all the words are familiar. Interestingly, experimental work
in language acquisition provides empirical evidence for much the same
conclusion. Psychologists have long observed that children have considerable
difficulties learning and using homo-nyms (Peters and Zaidel), leading many to
suspect that young children operate under the helpful, though mistaken,
assumption that a word can have but one meaning (Slobin). Children have similar
difficulties acquiring synonyms and may likewise assume that a given meaning
can be represented by at most one word. (Markman & Wachtel, see Bloom for a
different explanation). I cannot here survey the many experimental studies bearing
on this hypothesis, but one series of experiments conducted by Michele Mazzocco
is particularly germane. Mazzocco presents children from several age-groups, as
well as adults, with stories designed to mimic one’s first encounter with the
secondary meaning of an ambiguous word. To control the effects of antecedent
familiarity with secondary meanings, the stories used familiar words (e.g.,
‘rope’) as if they had further unknown meanings—as ‘pseudo-homo-nyms’.For
comparison, other stories included a non-sense word (e.g. ‘blus’) used as if it
had a conventional meaning — as a ‘pseudo-word’ — to mimic one’s first
encounter with an entirely unfamiliar word.”Cf. Grice’s seminar at Berkeley:
“How pirots karulise elatically: some simpler ways.”“A pirot can be said to potch or cotch an obble as
fang or feng or fid with another obble.”“A person can be said to perceive or
cognize an object as having the property f or f2 or being in a relation R with
another object.”Bontly: Some stories, finally, used only genuine words with
only their familiar meanings. After hearing a story, subjects are presented
with a series of illustrations and asked to pick out the item referred to in
the story. In a subsequent experiment, subjects had to act out their
interpretations of the stories. In the pseudo-homo-nym condition, one picture
would always illustrate the word’s conventional but contextually inappropriate
meaning, one would depict the unfamiliar but contextually appropriate meaning,
and the rest would be distractors. As one would expect, adults and older
children (10- to 12-year-olds) performed equally well on these tasks, reliably
picking out the intended meanings for familiar words, non-sense words and
pseudo-homonyms alike. Young children (3- to 5-year-olds), on the other hand,
could understand the stories where familiar words were used conventionally, and
they were reasonably good at inferring the intended meanings of non-sense words
from context, but they could not do so for pseudo-homonyms. Instead, they
reliably chose the picture illustrating the familiar meaning, even though the
story made that meaning quite inappropriate. These results are noteworthy for
several reasons. It is significant, first of all, that spontaneous positing of
ambiguities did not occur. As long as the known meaning of a word comported
with its use in a story, subjects show not the slightest tendency to assign
that word a new, secondary meaning—just as one would expect if the acquisition
process were semantically conservative. Second, note that performance in the
non-sense word condition confirms the familiar finding that young children can
acquire the meanings of novel words from context — just as the bootstrapping
procedure suggests. Unlike older children and adults, however, these young
children are unable to determine the meanings of pseudo-homo-nyms from context,
even though they could do so for pseudo-words — exactly what one would expect
if young children assumed that words can have one meaning only. Why young
children would have such a conservative bias remains controversial.
Unfortunately it would take us too far afield to delve into this debate here.
Doherty finds evidence that the understanding of ambiguity is strongly
correlated with a grasp of synonymy, suggesting that these biases have a common
source.” Doherty also finds evidence that the understanding of
ambiguity/synonymy is strongly predicted by the ability to reason about false
beliefs, suggesting the intriguing hypothesis that young children’s biases are
due to their lack of a representational ‘theory of mind’).” Cf. Grice on transmission of true beliefs in
“Meaning, revisited.” – a transcendental argument.Bontly: “Nonetheless,
Mazzocco’s results provide empirical evidence for our conjecture that a person
will typically posit a second meaning for a known word only when necessary
(and, as with young children, not always then). And that, of course, is
precisely the sort of process assumption that would make Grice’s “M. O. R.” a
reasonable principle for theory choice in semantics. For we have been operating
under the assumption that the principal task of linguistic semantics is to
describe the competent speaker’s tacit linguistic knowledge. If that knowledge
is shaped by a process biased toward semantic parsimony, our semantic theorizing
ought surely to be biased in the same direction. Is Pragmatism Vindicated?”
That said, the question is still open whether Grice’s “M. O. R.,” understood
now developmentally, ontogenetically, and not phylogenetically, as perhaps
Millikan would prefer, has such consequences as Gricea typically assumes. In
particular, it remains for us to consider whether and, if so, when the above
process assumptions favor implicature hypotheses over ambiguity hypotheses, and
the answer would seem to hang on two further issues. First, there is in each
case the question whether a child learning the language will find it necessary
to posit a second sense for a given expression. The fact that linguists,
apprised as they are of the principles of conversation, find it unnecessary to
introduce a second sense for (e.g.) ‘or’ does NOT imply that children would
find it unnecessary. For one thing, children might acquire the various uses of
‘or’ well before they have any pragmatic understanding themselves.”Cfr. You can
eat the cake or the sandwich.”Bontly: Even if they do not, the order in which
the various uses are acquired could make considerable difference.It may be, for
instance, that a child who first learned the inclusive use of ‘or’ would have
no need to posit a second exclusive sense, whereas a child who originally
interpreted ‘or’ exclusively might need eventually to posit an additional,
inclusive sense. So we may well have to determine what meaning children first
attach to an expression in order to determine whether they would find it
necessary to posit a second. The issues raised above are pretty clearly
empirical ones, and significant inter-personal differences could complicate
matters considerably. Just for the sake of argument, however, let us grant that
children do indeed first learn to interpret ‘or’ inclusively, to interpret
‘and’ as mere conjunction, and so on. Let us assume, that is, that the meanings
which Grice typically takes to be conventional are just that. In fact, the
assumption that weak uses are typically learned first has garnered some
empirical support, as one referee brought to my attention. Paris shows that
children are less likely than adults to interpret ‘or’ exclusively (see also
Sternberg, and Braine and Rumain). More recent experimental work indicates that
children first learn to interpret ‘and’ a-temporally (Noveck and Chevaux) and
‘some’ weakly (as compatible with ‘all’) (Noveck, 2001). Even so, it remains an
interesting question whether children would posit secondary senses for any of
these expressions, and Grice would be on firm ground in arguing that they would
not. First, the ‘ambiguities’ discussed at the outset all involve secondary
uses which can, with the help of pragmatic principles, be understood in terms
of the presumed primary meaning of the expression. If a child, encountering
this secondary use for the first time, already knows the primary meaning, and
if he has moreover an understanding of the norms of conversation—if he is a
‘Griceian child’ —, he ought to be able to understand the secondary use
perfectly well. He can recover the implicature and infer the speaker’s meaning
from the encoded meaning of the utterance. To the ‘Griceian child,’ therefore,
the utterance would not be anomalous. It would make perfect sense in context,
giving him no reason to posit a secondary meaning. But what about children who
are not yet Griceans — children too young to understand pragmatic principles or
to have the conceptual resources to make inferences about other people’s likely
communicative intentions? While there seems to be no consensus as to when
pragmatic abilities emerge, several considerations suggest that they develop
fairly early. Bloom argues that pragmatic understanding is part of the best
account of how children learn the meanings of words. Papafragou discusses
evidence that children can calculate implicatures as early as age three. Such
children, knowing only the primary meaning of the expression, would be unable
to recover the conversational implicatum and thus unable to grasp the secondary
use of the expression via the pragmatic route. Nonetheless, I argue that they
would still (at least in most cases) find it unnecessary to posit a second
meaning for the expression. Consider: the ‘ambiguities’ at issue all involve
secondary meanings which are specificatory, being identical to the primary but
for some additional feature making it more restricted or specific. The primary
and second meanings would thus be privative, as opposed to polar, opposites;
Zwicky and Sadock). What a speaker means when he uses the expression in this
secondary way, therefore, would typically imply the proposition he would mean
if he were speaking literally (i.e. if he were using the primary meaning of the
expression). One could thus say something true using the secondary sense only
in contexts where one could say something true using the primary sense—whenever
‘P exclusive-or Q’ is true, so is ‘P inclusive-or Q’; whenever ‘P and-then Q’
is true, so is ‘P and Q’; and so on. Thus even when the intended meaning
involves the alleged second sense, the utterance would still come out true if
interpreted with the primary sense in mind. And this means, crucially, that the
utterance would not seem anomalous, there being no obvious clash between the
primary interpretation of the utterance and the conversational context. The
utterance may well be pragmatically inappropriate when interpreted this way,
but our pre-Gricean child is insensitive to such niceties. Otherwise, he would
be already a ‘Gricean’ child. On our account, therefore, the pre-Gricean child
still sees no need to posit a second meaning for the expression, even though he
could not grasp the intended (specificatory) meaning. We may illustrate the
above with the help of an ‘ambiguity’ in the indefinite description (“a dog”)
made famous by Grice. A philosopher would ordinarily take an expressions of the
form ‘an F’ to be a straightforward existential quantifier, “(Ex)”, as would
seem to be the case in ‘I am going to a meeting’ On the other hand, an
utterance of ‘I broke a finger’ seems to imply that it is my finger which I
broke (unless you are a nurse – I think Horn’s cancellation goes), whereas ‘I
saw a dog in the backyard’ would seem to carry the opposite sort of implication
— i.e. that it was not my dog which I saw.”Grice finds this delightful
‘reductio’ of the sense-positer: “a” would have _three_ senses!Bontly: “We have
then the potential for a three-way ambiguity, but our ruminations on word
learning argue against it.”Take a child who has learned (somehow) the weak
(existential quantier) use of ‘an F’ (Ex)Fx, but has for some reason never been
exposed to strong uses: ‘my,’ ‘not mine.’ Now the child hears his mother say
‘Come look! There is a dog in the backyard!’ Running to the window, the child
sees not his mother’s pet dog Fido, but some strange dog, that is not her
mother’s. To an adult, this would be entirely predictable.” Using the
indefinite description ‘a dog’ (logical form, “(Ex)Dx”) instead of the name for
the utterer’s dog would lead one to expect that Fido (the utterer’s dog) is not
the dog in question.”Actually, like Ryle, Grice has a shaggy-dog story in WJ5,
“That dog is hairy-coated.” “Shaggy, if you must!”. Bontly: “And if the child
were of an age to have a rudimentary understanding of the pragmatic aspects of
language use, he would make the same prediction and thus see no need here to
posit a second ‘sense’ for ‘an F,’ and take ‘not mine’ as an implicatum.”It’s
different with what Grice would have as an ‘established idiom’ (his example,
“He’s pushing up the daisies,” but not “He is fertilizing the daffodils”) as
one might argue that “I broke a finger” is. Bontly: “The child would not,
because the intended, contextually appropriate interpretation would be clear
given the primary meaning plus pragmatics, or implicatum. But even if the child
fails to grasp the intended meaning of his mother’s remark, it still seems
unlikely that the child would be compelled to posit an ambiguity. No matter
what the child’s mother means, there is, after all, a dog in the backyard
(“Gotcha! That’s _a_ dog, my Fido is, ain’t it?!”). So the primary
interpretation still yields a true proposition. While the ‘pre-Gricean child’
thus misses (part of) the intended meaning of the utterance, still he would not
experience a clash between his interpretation and the contextually appropriate
interpretation. Perhaps the pre-Gricean child could be forced to see an
anomaly. Consider the following example. A parent offers her pre-Gricean child
dessert, saying, ‘Ice-cream, or cake?’ When the child helps himself to some of
each, the mother removes the cake with a look of annoyance and says:‘I said
ice-cream OR cake’. “While the mother’s
behavioural response makes it abundantly clear that the child’s ‘inclusive’
interpretation is inappropriate, there are several reasons why he might still
refrain from positing an ambiguity. For one, young children, who are more
Griceian (even pre-Griceian) and logical than a few adults, appear to operate
under the assumption that a word can have one meaning only, and it may be that pre-Gricean
children are simply unable to override this assumption. This would seem
particularly likely if Doherty is right that the ability to understand
ambiguity requires a robust ‘theory of mind’.At any rate, the position taken
here is that recognition of anomaly is necessary for one to posit a second
meaning, not that it is sufficient. Contrast this with a similar case where,
coming to the window, the child sees no dog but does see (e.g.) a motorcycle, a
tree, a bird, and a fence.Then he would have reason to consider an ambiguity,
though other explanations might also fit.” “Perhaps Mom was joking or
hallucinating.” The claim is, then, that language acquisition works in such a
way as to make it unlikely that learners would introduce a second senses for the
‘ambiguities’ in question. Of course, that claim is contingent on a very large
assumption — viz., that the meaning which Grice take to be lexically ‘encoded’
is indeed the primary meaning of the expression — and that assumption may be
mistaken.” In the continuing debate over Donnellan’s referential/attributive
distinction, for instance, Grice takes it as uncontroversial that Russell on
‘the’ provides at least one of the conventional interpretations for sentences
of the form ‘The king of France is bald’ (i.e., the attributive
interpretation).” Grice’s example in “Vacuous names,” that Bontly quotes, is “Jones’s butler mixed our coats and hats,”
when “Jones’s butler” is actually Jones’s haberdasher dressed as a butler for
the occasion.” So Grice distinguishes between THE butler (identificatory) and
‘the’ butler (non-identificatory, whoever he might be). Bontly: From there,
they argue that we needn’t posit a secondary (referential) semantics for
descriptions since the referential use can be captured by Russell’s theory
supplemented by Grice’s pragmatics. Grice, 1969 (Vacuous Names); Kripke, 1977;
Neale, 1990). From a developmental perspective, however, the ‘uncontroversial’
assumption that Russell on ‘the’ provides the primary meaning for description
phrases is certainly questionable. It being likely that the vast majority of
descriptions children hear early in life are used referentially, Grice’s
position could conceivably have things exactly backwards— perhaps the
referential is primary with the attributive acquired later, either as an
additional meaning or a pragmatic extension. Still, the fact, if it is a fact,
that a referential use is more common in children’s early environment does not
imply that the referential is acquired first.” Exclusive uses of ‘or’ are at
least as frequent as inclusive uses, and yet there is a good deal of evidence
that the inclusive is developmentally primary. (Paris, Sternberg, Braine and
Rumain). Either way, the point remains that plausible assumptions about
language acquisition do indeed justify a role for parsimony in semantics. These
‘process’ assumptions may, of course, turn out to be incorrect.” If the
evidence points the other way—if it emerges that the learning process posits
ambiguities quite freely—then Grice’s “M. O. R.” could conceivably be
groundless.”Making it a matter of empirical support or lack thereof, and that
was perhaps why Millikan thought that was the wrong way to go? But then if she
thought the evolutionary was the right way to go, wouldn’t THAT make Grice’s initially
‘sort of’ analytic pragmatist methodological philosophical decision a matter of
fact or lack thereof? Bontly: “Nonetheless, we can see now that the debate
between Grice and the conventionalists is ultimately an empirical, rather than,
as Grice perhaps thougth, a conceptual one. Choices between pragmatic and
semantic accounts may be under-determined by Grice’s intuitions about meaning
and use, but they need not be under-determined tout court. Then there’s
Tradeoffs, Dead Metaphors, and a Dilemma. The developmental approach to
parsimony provides some purchase on the problems regarding tradeoffs and dead
metaphors as well. The former problem is that parsimony can be a double-edged
sword. While an ambiguity account does multiply senses, the implicature account
appears to multiply inferential labour. Hearers have to ‘work out’ or
‘calculate’ the utterer’s meaning from the conversational principle, without
the benefit of a list of possible meanings as in disambiguation. Pragmatic
inference thus seems complex and time-consuming. But the fact is that we are
rarely conscious of engaging in any reasoning of the sort Grice requires, pace
his Principle of Economy of Rational Effort. Consequently, the claim that
communicators actually work through all these complicated inferences seems
psychologically unrealistic. To combat these charges, Grice’s response is to
claim that implicature calculation is largely unconscious and implicit.”Indeed
Grice’s principle of economy of rational effort. Bontly: “Background assumptions
can be taken for granted, steps can be skipped, and only rarely need the entire
process breach the surface of consciousness. This picture seems particularly
plausible with a generalised implicatum as opposed to a particularized one.”
When a particular use of an expression E, though unconventional, has become
standard or regular (“I broke a finger”? “He’s pushing up the daisies”), the
inferential process can be considerably stream-lined; it gets ‘short-circuited’
or ‘compressed by precedent’ (Bach and Harnish). “Bach’s and Harnish’s notion
of short-circuited inference is similar to but not quite the same as J. L.
Morgan’s notion of short-circuited implicature. The latter involves conventions
of use (as Searle would put it), to which Bach and Harnish see their account as
an alternative. Levinson objects to Bach’s and Harnish’s characterization of
default inferences as those compressed by the weight of precedent. A
generalised implicatum, Levinson says, ‘is generative, driven by general
heuristics and not dependent on routinization’ But Levinson’s complaint against
Bach and Harnish may seem uncharitable. Even on Bach’s and Harnish’s view,
where a default inference is that ‘compressed by the weight of precedent’, a
generalised implicatum is still generative: it is still generated by the maxims
of conversation. Only the stream-lined character of the inference is dependent
on precedent, not the implicatum itself. If the addressee has calculated the
EXCLUSIVE meaning of ‘or’ enough times in the past (from his mother, we’ll assume) it becomes the
default, allowing one to proceed directly to the exclusive interpretation
(unless something about the context provides a clue that the standard
interpretation would here be inappropriate. Now, the idea that the generalised
implicatum can be the default interpretation, reached without all the fancy
inference, provides an obvious reply to the worry about tradeoffs. While it is
true that a pragmatic inference, as Grice calls it, in contrast with the
‘logical inference, -- “Retrospective Epilogue” -- are in principle abductive,
fairly complex and potentially laborious, familiarity can simplify the process
enormously, to the point where it becomes no more difficult than
dis-ambiguation.” But the appeal to a default interpretation raises an
interesting difficulty that (to my knowledge) Grice never adequately addressed.
It is now quite unclear why this default interpretation should be considered an
implicatum rather than an additional sense of the expression.”Because it’s
cancellable?Bontly: “To say that it is a default interpretation is, after all,
to say that utterers and addressees learn to associate that interpretation with
the type of expression in question. The default meaning is known in advance,
and all one has to do is be on the lookout for information that could rule it
out. “‘Short-circuited’ implicature-calculation is thus hard to differentiate
from disambiguation, making Grice’s hypothesis look more like a notional
variant than a real competitor to the ambiguity hypothesis. Insofar as Grice
has considered this problem, his answer appears to be that linguistic meanings,
being conventional, are inherently arbitrary.”cf. Bach and Harnish, 1979, pp.
192–195).”Indeed, in his evolutionary take on language, it all starts with Green’s
self-expression. You get hit, and you express pain unvoluntarily. Then you
proceed to simulate the response in absence of the hit, but the meaning is “I’m
in pain.” Finally, you adopt the conventions, arbitrary, and say, ‘pain,’ which
is only arbitrarily connected with, well, the pain. It is the last stage that
Grice stresses as ‘artificial,’ and ‘arbitrary,’ “non-iconic,” as he retorts to
Peirceian terminology he was familiar with since his Oxford days. Bontly: “The
exclusive use of ‘or’, on the other hand, is entirely predictable from the
conversational principle, so there is nothing arbitrary about it. Thus the
exclusive interpretation cannot be part of the encoded meaning, even if it is
the default interpretation. Familiarity with that use, in other words, can
remove the need to go through the canonical inference, but it does not change
the fact that the use has a ‘natural’ (i.e., non-conventional, principled,
indeed rational) explanation. It doesn’t change the fact that it is calculable.
At this point, however, Grice’s defense of default pragmatic interpretations
collides with our remaining issue, the problem of a dead metaphor, such as “He
is pushing up the daisies.”” Or as Grice prefers, an ‘established’ or
‘recognised’ ‘idiom.’Bontly: “A metaphor and other conversational implicata can
become conventionalized and ‘die’, turning into new senses. In many such cases
the original rationale for the use is long forgotten, but in other cases the
dead metaphor remains calculable. A dead metaphors thus pose a nasty, macabre?,
dilemma for Grice.”Especially if the implicatum is “He is dead”!Bontly: “On the
one hand, it is tempting to argue that a dead metaphor involves a new
conventional meaning precisely because the interpretation in question is no
longer actually inferred via Gricean inferences (though one could do so if one
had to—if, say, one somehow forgot that the expression had this secondary
meaning). If a conversational implicatum had to be not just calculaBLE but
actually calculatED, that would suffice to explain why this one-time, one-off,
implicatum is now semantically significant. But that reply is apparently closed
to pragmatists, for then it will be said that the same is true of (e.g.) the
exclusive use of ‘or.’ The exclusive interpretation is certainly calculabLE,
but since no one actually calculatES it (except in the most unusual of
circumstances, as Grice at Harvard!), the implication should be considered
semantic, not pragmatic. On the other hand, Grice might maintain that an
implicatum need only be calculabLE and stick by their view that the exclusive
reading of ‘or’ is conversationally implicated. But then we shall have to face
the consequence that many a dead metaphor (“He is pushing up the daisies”) is
likewise calculabLE and thus, according to the present view, ought not to be
considered conventional meanings of the expressions in question, which in most
cases seems quite wrong.”I’m never sure what Grice means by an ‘established
idiom.’ Established by whom? Perhaps he SHOULD consult the dictionary every now
and then! Sad the access to OED3 is so expensive!Bontly: What one needs,
evidently, is some reason to treat these two types of cases differently.To
treat the exclusive use of ‘or’ as an implicatum (even though it is only rarely
calculatED as such) while at the same time to view (e.g.) the once metaphorical
use of ‘incense’ (or ‘… pushing up the daisies”) as semantically significant
(even though it remains calculabLE).” And the developmental account of
parsimony offers just such a reason. On the present view, the reason that the
ambiguity account has the burden of proof has to do with the nature of the
acquisition, learning, ontogenetical process and specifically with the
presumption that language learners will avoid postulating unnecessary senses.
But the implicatum must be calculable by the learner, given his prior
understanding of the expression E and his level of pragmatic
sophistication.”Grice was a sophisticated. As I think Dora B.-O knows, Moore
has been claiming that Grice’s idea that animals cannot mean, because they are
not ‘sophisticated’ enough, is an empirical claim, even for Grice!Bontly: “t
may be, therefore, that children at the relevant developmental stage have no
difficulty understanding the exclusive use of ‘or’ (etc.) as an implicatum and
yet lack the understanding necessary to predict that ‘incense’ could be used to
mean to make or become angry, or that to say of someone that he ‘is pushing up
the daisies,’ means that, having died and getting buried, the corpse is helping
the flowers to grow. The child might not realize, for instance, that ‘incense’
also means an aromatic substance that burns with a pleasant odour, and even
those who do probably lack the general background knowledge necessary to
appreciate the metaphorical connections between burning and emotion.”Cf. Turner
and Fauconnier on ‘blends.’Bontly: Either way, the metaphor would be dead to
the child, forcing him to learn that use the same way they learn any arbitrary
convention.”It may do to explore ‘established idioms’ in, say, parts of
England, which are not so ‘established’ in OTHER parts. Nancy Mitford with his
U and non-U distinction may do. “He went to Haddon Hall” invites, for Mitford,
the ‘unintended’ implicature that the utterer is NOT upper-class. “Surely we drop
“hall.’ What else can Haddon be?” But the inference may be lacking for a non-U
addressee or utterer. Similarly, in the north of England, “our Mary,” invites
the implicature of ‘affection,’ and this may go over the head of members of the
south-of-England community.Bontly: “The way out of the dilemma, then, is to
look to learning.”Alla Kripkenstein?Bontly: To the problem of tradeoffs, Grice
can reply that it is better to multiply (if we must use the Occamist verb)
inferences – logical inference and pragmatic inference -- than multiply senses
because language acquisition is biased in that direction. And Grice may
likewise answer the problem of a dead metaphor, or established idiom like,
“He’s been pushing up the daisies for some time, now. The reason that Grice’s
“M. O. R.” does not mandate an implicatum account for Grice as well is that
such a dead metaphor or established idiom is not calculable by children at the
time they learn such expressions, even if they are calculable by some adult
speakers.”Is that a fact? I would think that a child is a ‘relentless
literalist,’ as Grice called Austin. “Pushing up the daisies?” “I don’t see any
daisies!”I think Brigitte Nerlich has a similar example re: irony: MOTHER: What
a BEAUTIFUL day! (ironically)CHILD: What do you mean? It’s pouring and nasty. MOTHER:
I was being ironic.I don’t think the child is going to posit a second sense to
‘beautiful’ meaning ‘nasty.’Bontly: “For the deciding question in applying
Grice’s “M. O. R.” is NOT whether the implicatum account is available to a
philosopher like Grice, but whether it is available to the learner! On this way
of carving things up, by the way, some alleged ambiguities which Grice would
treat as implicata could turn out to be semantically significant after all.
Likewise, some allegedly dead metaphor may turn out to be very much alive.”
Look! He did kick the bucket!” “But he’s PRETENDING to die, dear! Some uses,
finally, may vary from utterer to utterer, there being no guarantee that every
utterer will have learned the use in the same way. As a conclusion, a better
understanding of developmental processes might therefore enlarge our
appreciation of the ways in which semantics and pragmatics
interact.”Indeed.REFERENCES Atlas, J. D. “Philosophy without Ambiguity.”
Oxford: Clarendon Press. E: Wolfson, Oxford. Philosopher. And S. Levinson,
“It-clefts, informativeness, and logical form: Radical pragmatics (revised
standard version),” in P. Cole (ed.), Radical Pragmatics. New York: Academic
Press.Bach, K. “Thought and Reference,” Oxford.“Conversational impliciture,”
Mind & Language, 9And R. Harnish, “Linguistic Communication and Speech
Acts,” Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Bloom, P. “How Children Learn the Meanings of
Words,” Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
“Mind-reading, communication and the learning of names for things,” Mind
& Language, 17Braine, M. and Rumain, B. “Development of comprehension of
‘or’: evidence for a sequence of developmental competencies,” Journal of Experimental
Child Psychology, 31. Davis, S. (ed.) “Pragmatics: A Reader,” Oxford Devitt, M.
“The case for referential descriptions,” in M. Reimer/A. Bezuidenhout,
“Descriptions and Beyond,” Oxford Doherty, M. “Children’s understanding of
homonymy: meta-linguistic awareness and false belief,” Journal of Child
Language, 27 Gazdar, G. “Pragmatics: Implicature, Presupposition, and Logical
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meanings,” Language Acquisition, 1Grice, H. P. “Vacuous names,” in D. Davidson
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vol. 34. Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 1952. Noveck, I. When children
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& Language, 17Paris, S. “Comprehension of language connectives and
propositional logical relationships,” Journal of Experimental Child Psychology,
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“Language Learnability and Language Development,” Cambridge, MA: Harvard
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Philosophy of Science, 32“Reconstructing the Past,” Cambridge, MA: MIT
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Syntax and Semantics, vol. 4. New York: Academic Press.Refs: The Grice Papers, BANC, Bancroft.
modus. “The distinction between Judicative and Volitive
Interrogatives corresponds with the difference between cases in which a
questioner is indicated as being, in one way or another, concerned to obtain
information ("Is he at home?"), and cases in which the questioner is
indicated as being concerned to settle a problem about what he is to do ("Am
I to leave the door open?", "Is the prisoner to be released?",
"Shall I go on reading?"). This difference is better represented in
Grecian and Roman.”The
Greek word was ‘egklisis,’ which Priscian translates as ‘modus’ and defines as
‘inclinatio anima, affectionis demonstrans.’ The Greeks recognised five:
horistike, indicativus, pronuntiativus, finitus, or definitivus, prostastike,
imperativus, euktike, optativus, hypotaktike (subjunctivus, or conjunnctivus,
but also volitivus, hortativus, deliberativus, iussivus, prohibitivus anticipativus
) and aparemphatos infinitivus or infinitus.
modus optativus. optative enclisis (gre:
ευκτική έγκλιση, euktike enclisis, hence it may be seen as a modus optatīvus.
Something that fascinated Grice. The way an ‘action’ is modalised in the way
one describes it. He had learned the basics for Greek and Latin at Oxford, and
he was exhilarated to be able to teach now on the subtleties of the English
system of ‘aspect.’ To ‘opt’ is to choose. So ‘optativus’ is the deliberative
mode. Grice proved the freedom of the will with a “grammatical argument.”
‘Given that the Greeks and the Romans had an optative mode, there is free
will.” Romans, having no special verbal forms recognized as Optative, had no
need of the designation modus optativus. Yet they sometimes used it, ad
imitationem ..
myth: Grice was possibly motivated by Quine’s irreverent, “The
mth of meaning,” a talk at France, “Le mythe de la signification.” It’s odd
that he gives the example of a ‘social contract’, developed by G. R. Grice as a
‘myth’ as his own on ‘expressing pain.’ “My succession of stages is a
methodological myth designed to exhibit the conceptual link between expression
and communication. Rather than Plato, he appeals to Rawls and the myth of the
social conpact! Grice knows a little about Descartess “Discours de la methode,”
and he is also aware of similar obsession by Collingwood with philosopical
methodology. Grice would joke on midwifery, as the philosopher’s apter method
at Oxford: to strangle error at its birth. Grice typifies a generation at
Oxford. While he did not socialize with the crème de la crème in pre-war Oxford,
he shared some their approach. E.g. a love affair with Russell’s logical
construction. After the war, and in retrospect, Grice liked to associate
himself with Austin. He obviously felt the need to belong to a group, to make a
difference, to make history. Many participants of the play group saw themselves
as doing philosophy, rather than reading about it! It was long after that Grice
started to note the differences in methodology between Austin and himself. His
methodology changed a little. He was enamoured with formalism for a while, and
he grants that this love never ceased. In a still later phase, he came to
realise that his way of doing philosophy was part of literature (essay
writing). And so he started to be slightly more careful about his style – which
some found florid. The stylistic concerns were serious. Oxonian philosophers
like Holloway had been kept away from philosophy because of the stereotype that
the Oxonian philosophers style is pedantic, when it neednt! A philosopher
should be allowed, as Plato was, to use a myth, if he thinks his tutee will
thank him for that! Grice loved to compare his Oxonian dialectic with Platos
Athenian (strictly, Academic) dialectic. Indeed, there is some resemblance of
the use of myth in Plato and Grice for philosophical methodological purposes.
Grice especially enjoys a myth in his programme in philosophical psychology. In
this, he is very much being a philosopher. Non-philosophers usually criticise
this methodological use of a myth, but they would, wouldnt they. Grice suggests
that a myth has diagogic relevance. Creature construction, the philosopher as
demi-god, if mythical, is an easier way for a philosophy don to instil his
ideas on his tutee than, say, privileged access and incorrigibility. Refs.: The
main source is Grice’s essay on ‘myth’, in The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC.
need – H. P. Grice, “Need,” cf. D. Wiggins, “Need.” “What Toby
needs” Grice was also interested in the modal use of ‘need’. “You need to do
it.” “ ‘Need,’ like ‘ought’ takes ‘to.’” “It’s very Anglo-Saxon.”
non-conventional. Unfortunately, Grice never came up with a word or
sobriquet for the non-conventional, and kept using the ‘non-conventional.’
Similarly, he never came up with a positive way to refer to the non-natural,
and non-natural it remained. Luckily, we can take it as a joke. Convention
figures TWICE in Grice’s scheme. For his reductive analysis of communication,
he surely can avoid convention by relying on a self-referring anti-sneaky
clause. But when it comes to the ‘taxonomy’ of the ‘shades’ of implication, he
wants the emissor to implicate that p WITHOUT relying on a convention. If the
emissor RELIES on a convention, there are problems for his analysis. Why?
First, at the explicit level, it can be assumed that conventions will feature
(Smith’s dog is ‘by convention’ called ‘Fido”). At the level of the implied,
there are two ways where convention matters in a wrong way. “My neighbour’s
three-year-old is an adult” FLOUTS a convention – or meaning postulate. And it
corresponds to the entailment. But finally, there is a third realm of the
conventional. For particles like “therefore,” or ‘but.’ “But” Grice does not
care much about, but ‘therefore’ he does. He wants to say that ‘therefore’ is
mainly emphatic.The emissor implies a passage from premise to conclusion. And
that implication relies on a convention YET it is not part of the entailment.
So basically, it is an otiose addition. Why would rational conversationalists
rely on them? The rationale for this is that Grice wants to provide a GENERAL
theory of communication that will defeat Austin’s convention-tied ritualistic
view of language. So Grice needs his crucial philosophical refutations NOT to
rely on convention. What relies on convention cannot be cancellable. What
doesn’t can. I an item relies on convention it has not really redeemed from
that part of the communicative act that can not be explained rationally by
argument. There is no way to calculate a conventional item. It is just a given.
And Grice is interested in providing a rationale. His whole campaign relates to
this idea that Austin has rushed, having detected a nuance in a linguistic
phenomenon, to explain it away, without having explored in detail what kind of
nuance it is. For Grice it is NOT a conventional nuance – it’s a sous-entendu
of conversation (as Mill has it), an unnecessary implication (as Russell has
it). Why did Grice chose ‘convention’? The influence of Lewis seems minor,
because he touches on the topic in “Causal Theory,” before Lewis. The word
‘convention’ does NOT occur in “Causal Theory,” though. But there are phrasings
to that effect. Notably, let us consider his commentary in the reprint, when he
omits the excursus. He says that he presents FOUR cases: a particularized
conversational (‘beautiful handwriting’), a generalised conversational (“in the
kitchen or in the bedroom”), a ‘conventional implicature’ (“She was poor but
she was honest”) and a presupposition (“You have not ceased to eat iron”). So
the obvious target for exploration is the third, where Grice has the rubric
‘convention,’ as per ‘conventional.’ So his expansion on the ‘but’ example
(what Frege has as ‘colouring’ of “aber”) is interesting to revise. “plied is that Smith
has been bcating his wifc. (2) " She was poor but she was honcst ",
whele what is implied is (vcry roughly) that there is some contrast between
poverty and honesty, or between her poverty and her honesty. 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.” Since the actual wording ‘convention’ does not
occur it may do to revise how he words ‘convention’ in Essay 2 of WoW. So here
is the way he words it in Essay II.“In some cases the CONVENTIONAL meaning of
the WORDS used will DETERMINE what is impliccated, besides helping to determine
what is said.” Where ‘determine’ is the key word. It’s not “REASON,”
conversational reason that determines it. “If I say (smugly), ‘He is an
Englishman; he is, therefore, brave,’ I have certainly COMMITTED myself, by
virtue of the meaning of my words, to its being the case that his being brave
is a consequence of (follows from) his being an Englishman. But, while I have
said that [or explicitly conveyed THAT] he is an Englishman, and [I also have]
said that [or explicitly conveyed that] he is brave, I do not want to say [if I
may play with what people conventionally understand by ‘convention’] that I
have said [or explicitly conveyed] (in the favoured sense) that [or explicitly
conveyed that] it follows from his being an Englishman that he is brave, though
I have certainly INDICATED, and so implicated, that this is so.” The rationale
as to why the label is ‘convention’ comes next. “I do not want to say that my
utterance of this sentence would be, strictly speaking, FALSE should the
consequence in question fail to hold. So some implicatures are conventional,
unlike the one with which I introduce this discussion of
implicature.”Grice’s observation or suggestion then or advise then, in terms of
nomenclature. His utterance WOULD be FALSE if the MEANING of ‘therefore’ were carried
as an ENTAILMENT (rather than emphatic truth-value irrelevant rhetorical
emphasis). He expands on this in The John Lecture, where Jill is challenged.
“What do you mean, “Jack is an Englishman; he is, therefore, brave”?” What is
being challenged is the validity of the consequence. ‘Therefore’ is vague
enough NOT to specify what type of consequence is meant. So, should someone
challenge the consequence, Jill would still be regarded by Grice as having
uttered a TRUE utterance. The metabolism here is complex since it involves
assignment of ‘meaning’ to this or that expression (in this case ‘therefore’). In
Essay VI he is perhaps more systematic.The wider programme just mentioned
arises out of a distinction which, for purposes which I need not here specify,
I wish to make within the total signification of a remark: a distinction
between what the speaker has said (in a certain favoured, and maybe in some
degree artificial, sense of 'said'), and what he has 'implicated' (e.g.
implied, indicated, suggested, etc.), taking into account the fact that what he
has implicated may be either conventionally implicated (implicated by virtue of
the meaning of some word or phrase which he has used) or non-conventionally
implicated (in which case the specification of the implicature falls [TOTALLY]
outside [AND INDEPENDENTLY, i. e. as NOT DETERMINED BY] the specification of
the conventional meaning of the words used [Think ‘beautiful handwriting,’
think ‘In the kitchen or in the bedroom’). He is clearest in Essay 6 – where he
adds ‘=p’ in the symbolization.UTTERER'S MEANING, SENTENCE-MEANING, AND
WORD-MEANINGMy present aim is to throw light on the connection between (a) a
notion of ‘meaning’ which I want to regard as basic, viz. that notion which is
involved in saying of someone that ‘by’ (when) doing SUCH-AND-SUCH he means
THAT SO-AND-SO (in what I have called a non-natural use of 'means'), and (b)
the notions of meaning involved in saying First, that a given sentence means
'so-and-so' Second, that a given word or phrase means 'so-and-so'. What I have
to say on these topics should be looked upon as an attempt to provide a sketch
of what might, I hope, prove to be a viable theory, rather than as an attempt
to provide any part of a finally acceptable theory. The account which I shall
otTer of the (for me) basic notion of meaning is one which I shall not seek now to defend.I should like its
approximate correctness to be assumed, so that attention may be focused on its
utility, if correct, in the explication of other and (I hope) derivative
notions of meaning. This enterprise forms part of a wider programme which I
shall in a moment delineate, though its later stages lie beyond the limits
which I have set for this paper. The wider programme just mentioned arises out
of a distinction which, for purposes which I need not here specify, I wish to
make within the total signification of a remark: a distinction between what the
speaker has said (in a certain favoured, and maybe in some degree artificial,
sense of 'said'), and what he has 'implicated' (e.g. implied, indicated,
suggested, etc.), taking into account the fact that what he has implicated may
be either conventionally implicated (implicated by virtue of the meaning of
some word or phrase which he has used) or non-conventionally implicated (in
which case the specification of the implicature falls [TOTALLY] outside [AND
INDEPENDENTLY, i. e. as NOT DETERMINED BY] the specification of the
conventional meaning of the words used [Think ‘beautiful handwriting,’ think
‘In the kitchen or in the bedroom’). The programme is directed towards an
explication of the favoured SENSE of 'say' and a clarification of its relation
to the notion of conventional meaning. The stages of the programme are as
folIows: First, To distinguish between locutions of the form 'U (utterer) meant
that .. .' (locutions which specify what rnight be called 'occasion-meaning')
and locutions of the From Foundalions oJ Language. 4 (1968), pp. 1-18.
Reprinted by permission of the author and the editor of Foundations oJ Language.
I I hope that material in this paper, revised and re·arranged, will form part
of a book to be published by the Harvard University Press. form 'X (utterance-type) means H ••• "'.
In locutions of the first type, meaning is specified without the use of
quotation-marks, whereas in locutions of the second type the meaning of a
sentence, word or phrase is specified with the aid of quotation marks. This
difference is semantically important. Second, To attempt to provide a definiens
for statements of occasion-meaning; more precisely, to provide a definiens for
'By (when) uttering x, U meant that *p'. Some explanatory comments are needed
here. First, I use the term 'utter' (together with 'utterance') in an
artificially wide sense, to cover any case of doing x or producing x by the
performance of which U meant that so-and-so. The performance in question need
not be a linguistic or even a conventionalized performance. A specificatory
replacement of the dummy 'x' will in some cases be a characterization of a deed,
in others a characterization of a product (e.g. asound). (b) '*' is a dummy
mood-indicator, distinct from specific mood-indicators like 'I-' (indicative or
assertive) or '!' (imperative). More precisely, one may think of the schema
'Jones meant that *p' as yielding a full English sentence after two
transformation al steps: (i) replace '*' by a specific mood-indicator and
replace 'p' by an indicative sentence. One might thus get to 'Jones meant that
I- Smith will go home' or to 'Jones meant that! Smith will go horne'. (ii)
replace the sequence following the word 'that' by an appropriate clause in
indirect speech (in accordance with rules specified in a linguistic theory).
One might thus get to 'Jones meant that Srnith will go horne' 'Jones meant that
Srnith is to go horne'. Third, To attempt to elucidate the notion of the
conventional meaning of an utterance-type; more precisely, to explicate
sentences which make claims of the form 'X (utterance-type) means "*''',
or, in case X is a non-scntcntial utterancctype, claims of the form 'X means H
••• "', where the location is completed by a nonsentential expression.
Again, some explanatory comments are required. First, It will be convenient to
recognize that what I shall call statements of timeless meaning (statements of
the type 'X means " ... "', in which the ~pecification of meaning
involves quotation-marks) may be subdivided into (i) statements of timeless
'idiolect-meaning', e.g. 'For U (in U's idiolect) X means " ... '"
and (ü) statements of timeless 'Ianguage meaning', e.g. 'In L (language) X
means " ... "'. It will be convenient to handle these separately, and
in the order just given. (b) The truth of a statement to the effect that X
means ' .. .' is of course not incompatible with the truth of a further statement
to the effect that X me ans '--", when the two lacunae are quite
differently completed. An utterance-type rriay have more than one conventional
meaning, and any definiens which we offer must allow fOT this fact. 'X means
" ... '" should be understood as 'One of the meanings of X is "
... " '. (IV) In view of the possibility of multiplicity in the timeless
meaning of an utterance-type, we shall need to notice, and to provide an
explication of, what I shall call the applied timeless meaning of an utterance-type.
That is to say, we need a definiens for the schema 'X (utterance-type) meant
here " ... "', a schema the specifications of which announce the
correct reading of X for a given occasion of utterance. Comments. (a) We must
be careful to distinguish the applied timeless meaning of X (type) with respecf
to a particular token x (belonging to X) from the occasionmeaning of U's
utterance of x. The following are not equivalent: (i) 'When U uttered it, the
sentence "Palmer gave Nickiaus quite a beating" meant "Palmer
vanquished Nickiaus with some ease" [rather than, say, "Palmer
administered vigorous corporal punishment to NickIaus."]' (ii) 'When U
uttered the sentence "Palmer gave NickIaus quite a beating" U meant
that Palmer vanquished NickIaus with some ease.' U might have been speaking
ironically, in which case he would very likely have meant that NickIaus
vanquished Palmer with some ease. In that case (ii) would c1early be false; but
nevertheless (i) would still have been true. Second, There is some temptation
to take the view that the conjunction of One, 'By uttering X, U meant that *p'
and (Two, 'When uttered by U, X meant "*p'" provides a definiens for
'In uttering X, U said [OR EXPLICITLY CONVEYED] that *p'. Indeed, ifwe give
consideration only to utterance-types for which there are available adequate
statements of time1ess meaning taking the exemplary form 'X meant
"*p'" (or, in the case of applied time1ess meaning, the form 'X meant
here "*p" '), it may even be possible to uphold the thesis that such
a coincidence of occasion-meaning and applied time1ess meaning is a necessary
and sufficient condition for saying that *p. But a litde refiection should
convince us of the need to recognize the existence of statements of timeless
meaning which instantiate forms other than the cited exemplary form. There are,
I think, at least some sentences whose ‘timeless’ meaning is not adequately
specifiable by a statement of the exemplary form. Consider the sentence 'Bill
is a philosopher and he is, therefore, brave' (S ,). Or Jill:
“Jack is an Englishman; he is, therefore, brave.”It would be appropriate, I think, to make a partial specification of the timeless meaning of S, by saying 'Part of one meaning of S, is "Bill is occupationally engaged in philosophical studies" '. One might, indeed, give a full specifu::ation of timeless meaning for S, by saying 'One meaning of S, inc1udes "Bill is occupationally engaged in philosophie al studies" and "Bill is courageous" and "[The fact] That Bill is courageous follows from his being occupationally engaged in philosophical studies", and that is all that is included'. We might re-express this as 'One meaning of S, comprises "Bill is occupationally engaged (etc)", "Bill is courageous", and "That Bill is eourageous follows (ete .)".'] It will be preferable to speeify the timeless meaning of S I in this way than to do so as folIows: 'One meaning of S I is "Bill is occupationally engaged (etc.) and Bill is courageous and that Bill is eourageous follows (ete.)" '; for this latter formulation at least suggests that SI is synonymous with the conjunctive sentence quoted in the formulation, whieh does not seem to be the case. Since it is true that another meaning of SI inc1udes 'Bill is addicted to general reftections about life' (vice 'Bill is occupationally engaged (etc.)'), one could have occasion to say (truly), with respect to a given utterance by U of SI' 'The meaning of SI HERE comprised "Bill is oecupationally engaged (ete.)", "Bill is eourageous", and "That Bill is courageous follows (ete.)"', or to say 'The meaning of S I HERE included "That Bill is courageous follows (etc.)" '. It could also be true that when U uttered SI he meant (part of what he meant was) that that Bill is eourageous follows (ete.). Now I do not wish to allow that, in my favoured sense of'say', one who utters SI will have said [OR EXPLICITLY CONVEYED ] that Bill's being courageous follows from his being a philosopher, though he may weil have said that Bill is a philosopher and that Bill is courageous. I would wish to maintain that the SEMANTIC FUNCTION of the 'therefore' is to enable a speaker to indicate, though not to say [or explicitly convey], that a certain consequenee holds. Mutatis mutandis, I would adopt the same position with regard to words like 'but' and 'moreover'. In the case of ‘but’ – contrast.In the case of ‘moreover,’ or ‘furthermore,’ the speaker is not explicitly conveying that he is adding; he is implicitly conveying that he is adding, and using the emphatic, colloquial, rhetorical, device. Much favoured by rhetoricians. To start a sentence with “Furthermore” is very common. To start a sentence, or subsentence with, “I say that in addition to the previous, the following also holds, viz.”My primary reason for opting for this partieular sense of'say' is that I expect it to be of greater theoretical utility than some OTHER sense of'say' [such as one held, say, by L. J. Cohen at Oxford] would be. So I shall be committed to the view that applied timeless meaning and occasion=meaning may coincide, that is to say, it may be true both First, that when U uttered X the meaning of X inc1uded '*p' and Second, that part of what U meant when he uttered X was that *p, and yet be false that U has said, among other things, that *p. “I would like to use the expression 'conventionally meant that' in such a way that the fulfilment of the two conditions just mentioned, while insufficient for the truth of 'U said that *p' will be suffieient (and neeessary) for the truth of 'U conventionally meant that *p'.”The above is important because Grice is for the first time allowing the adverb ‘conventionally’ to apply not as he does in Essay I to ‘implicate’ but to ‘mean’ in general – which would INCLUDE what is EXPLICITLY CONVEYED. This will not be as central as he thinks he is here, because his exploration will be on the handwave which surely cannot be specified in terms of that the emissor CONVENTIONALLY MEANS.(V) This distinction between what is said [or explicity conveyed] and what is conventionally meant [or communicated, or conveyed simpliciter] creates the task of specifying the conditions in which what U conventionally means by an utterance is also part of what U said [or explicitly conveyed].I have hopes of being able to discharge this task by proceeding along the following lines.First, To specify conditions which will be satisfied only by a limited range of speech-acts, the members of which will thereby be stamped as specially central or fundamental. “Adding, contrasting, and reasoning” will not. Second, To stipulate that in uttering X [utterance type], U will have said [or explicitly conveyed] that *p, if both First, U has 1stFLOOR-ed that *p, where 1stFloor-ing is a CENTRAL speech-act [not adding, contrasting, or reasoning], and Second, X [the utterance type] embodies some CONVENTIONAL device [such as the mode of the copula] the meaning of which is such that its presence in X [the utterance type] indicates that its utterer is FIRST-FLOOR -ing that *p. Third, To define, for each member Y of the range of central speech-aets, 'U has Y -ed that *p' in terms of occasion-meaning (meaning that ... ) or in terms of some important elements) involved in the already provided definition of occasion-meaning. (VI) The fulfilment of the task just outlined will need to be supplemented by an account of this or that ELEMENT in the CONVENTIONAL MEANING of an utterance (such as one featuring ‘therefore,’ ‘but,’ or ‘moreover’) which is NOT part of what has been said [or explicitly conveyed].This account, at least for an important sub-class of such elements, might take the following shape: First, this or that problematic element is linked with this or that speech-act which is exhibited as posterior to, and such that their performance is dependent upon, some member or disjunction of members of the central, first-floor range; e. g. the meaning of 'moreover' would be linked with the speech-act of adding, the performance of which would require the performance of one or other of the central speech-acts. – [and the meaning of ‘but’ with contrasting, and the meaning of ‘therefore’ with reasoning, or inferring].Second, If SECOND-FLOOR-ing is such a non-central speech-act [such as inferring/reasoning, contrasting, or adding], the dependence of SECOND-FLOOR-ing that *p upon the performance of some central FIRST-FLOOR speech-act [such as stating or ordering] would have to be shown to be of a nature which justifies a RELUCTANCE to treat SECOND-FLOOR-ing (e. g. inferring, contrasting, adding) that *p as a case not merely of saying that *p, but also of saying that = p, or of saying that = *p (where' = p', or ' = *p', is a representation of one or more sentential forms specifically associated with SECOND-FLOOR-ing). Z Third, The notion of SECOND-FLOOR-ing (inferring, contrasting, adding) that *p (where Z-ing is non-central) would be explicated in terms of the nation of meaning that (or in terms of some important elements) in the definition of that notion). When Grice learned that that brilliant Harvardite, D. K. Lewis, was writing a dissertation under Quine on ‘convention’ he almost fainted! When he noticed that Lewis was relying rightly on Schelling and mainly restricting the ‘conventionality’ to the ‘arbitrariness,’ which Grice regarded as synonym with ‘freedom’ (Willkuere, liber arbitrium), he recovered. For Lewis, a two-off predicament occurs when you REPEAT. Grice is not interested. When you repeat, you may rely on some ‘arbitrariness.’ This is usually the EMISSOR’s auctoritas. As when Humptyy Dumpty was brought to Davidson’s attention. “Impenetrability!” “I don’t know what that means.” “Well put, Alice, if that is your name, as you said it was. What I mean by ‘impenetrability’ is that we rather change the topic, plus it’s tea time, and I feel like having some eggs.” Grice refers to this as the ‘idion.’ He reminisces when he was in the bath and designed a full new highway code (“Nobody has yet used it – but the pleasure was in the semiotic design.”). A second reminiscence pertains to his writing a full grammar of “Deutero-Esperanto.” “I loved it – because I had all the power a master needs! I decide what it’s proper!” In the field of the implicata, Grice uses ‘convention’ casually, mainly to contrast it with HIS field, the non-conventional. One should not attach importance to this. On occasion Grice used Frege’s “Farbung,” just to confuse. The sad story is that Strawson was never convinced by the non-conventional. Being a conventionalist at heart (vide his “Intention and convention in speech acts,”) and revering Austin, Strawson opposes Grice’s idea of the ‘non-conventional.’ Note that in Grice’s general schema for the communicatum, the ‘conventional’ is just ONE MODE OF CORRELATION between the signum and the signatum, or the communicatum and the intentum. The ‘conventional’ can be explained, unlike Lewis, in mere terms of the validatum. Strawson and Wiggins “Cogito; ergo, sum”: What is explicitly conveyed is: “cogito” and “sum”. The conjunction “cogito” and “sum” is not made an ‘invalidatum’ if the implicated consequence relation, emotionally expressed by an ‘alas’-like sort of ejaculation, ‘ergo,’ fails to hold. Strawson and Wiggins give other examples. For some reason, Latin ‘ergo’ becomes the more structured, “therefore,” which is a composite of ‘there’ and ‘fore.’ Then there’s the very Hun, “so,” (as in “so so”). Then there’s the “Sie schoene aber poor,” discussed by Frege --“but,” – and Strawson and Wiggins add a few more that had Grice elaborating on first-floor versus second-floor. Descartes is on the first floor. He states “cogito” and he states “sum.” Then he goes to the second floor, and the screams, “ergo,” or ‘dunc!’” The examples Strawson and Wiggins give are: “although” (which looks like a subordinating dyadic connector but not deemed essential by Gazdar’s 16 ones). Then they give an expression Grice quite explored, “because,” or “for”as Grice prefers (‘since it improves on Stevenson), the ejaculation “alas,” and in its ‘misusage,’ “hopefully.” This is an adverbial that Grice loved: “Probably, it will rains,” “Desirably, there is icecream.”
“Jack is an Englishman; he is, therefore, brave.”It would be appropriate, I think, to make a partial specification of the timeless meaning of S, by saying 'Part of one meaning of S, is "Bill is occupationally engaged in philosophical studies" '. One might, indeed, give a full specifu::ation of timeless meaning for S, by saying 'One meaning of S, inc1udes "Bill is occupationally engaged in philosophie al studies" and "Bill is courageous" and "[The fact] That Bill is courageous follows from his being occupationally engaged in philosophical studies", and that is all that is included'. We might re-express this as 'One meaning of S, comprises "Bill is occupationally engaged (etc)", "Bill is courageous", and "That Bill is eourageous follows (ete .)".'] It will be preferable to speeify the timeless meaning of S I in this way than to do so as folIows: 'One meaning of S I is "Bill is occupationally engaged (etc.) and Bill is courageous and that Bill is eourageous follows (ete.)" '; for this latter formulation at least suggests that SI is synonymous with the conjunctive sentence quoted in the formulation, whieh does not seem to be the case. Since it is true that another meaning of SI inc1udes 'Bill is addicted to general reftections about life' (vice 'Bill is occupationally engaged (etc.)'), one could have occasion to say (truly), with respect to a given utterance by U of SI' 'The meaning of SI HERE comprised "Bill is oecupationally engaged (ete.)", "Bill is eourageous", and "That Bill is courageous follows (ete.)"', or to say 'The meaning of S I HERE included "That Bill is courageous follows (etc.)" '. It could also be true that when U uttered SI he meant (part of what he meant was) that that Bill is eourageous follows (ete.). Now I do not wish to allow that, in my favoured sense of'say', one who utters SI will have said [OR EXPLICITLY CONVEYED ] that Bill's being courageous follows from his being a philosopher, though he may weil have said that Bill is a philosopher and that Bill is courageous. I would wish to maintain that the SEMANTIC FUNCTION of the 'therefore' is to enable a speaker to indicate, though not to say [or explicitly convey], that a certain consequenee holds. Mutatis mutandis, I would adopt the same position with regard to words like 'but' and 'moreover'. In the case of ‘but’ – contrast.In the case of ‘moreover,’ or ‘furthermore,’ the speaker is not explicitly conveying that he is adding; he is implicitly conveying that he is adding, and using the emphatic, colloquial, rhetorical, device. Much favoured by rhetoricians. To start a sentence with “Furthermore” is very common. To start a sentence, or subsentence with, “I say that in addition to the previous, the following also holds, viz.”My primary reason for opting for this partieular sense of'say' is that I expect it to be of greater theoretical utility than some OTHER sense of'say' [such as one held, say, by L. J. Cohen at Oxford] would be. So I shall be committed to the view that applied timeless meaning and occasion=meaning may coincide, that is to say, it may be true both First, that when U uttered X the meaning of X inc1uded '*p' and Second, that part of what U meant when he uttered X was that *p, and yet be false that U has said, among other things, that *p. “I would like to use the expression 'conventionally meant that' in such a way that the fulfilment of the two conditions just mentioned, while insufficient for the truth of 'U said that *p' will be suffieient (and neeessary) for the truth of 'U conventionally meant that *p'.”The above is important because Grice is for the first time allowing the adverb ‘conventionally’ to apply not as he does in Essay I to ‘implicate’ but to ‘mean’ in general – which would INCLUDE what is EXPLICITLY CONVEYED. This will not be as central as he thinks he is here, because his exploration will be on the handwave which surely cannot be specified in terms of that the emissor CONVENTIONALLY MEANS.(V) This distinction between what is said [or explicity conveyed] and what is conventionally meant [or communicated, or conveyed simpliciter] creates the task of specifying the conditions in which what U conventionally means by an utterance is also part of what U said [or explicitly conveyed].I have hopes of being able to discharge this task by proceeding along the following lines.First, To specify conditions which will be satisfied only by a limited range of speech-acts, the members of which will thereby be stamped as specially central or fundamental. “Adding, contrasting, and reasoning” will not. Second, To stipulate that in uttering X [utterance type], U will have said [or explicitly conveyed] that *p, if both First, U has 1stFLOOR-ed that *p, where 1stFloor-ing is a CENTRAL speech-act [not adding, contrasting, or reasoning], and Second, X [the utterance type] embodies some CONVENTIONAL device [such as the mode of the copula] the meaning of which is such that its presence in X [the utterance type] indicates that its utterer is FIRST-FLOOR -ing that *p. Third, To define, for each member Y of the range of central speech-aets, 'U has Y -ed that *p' in terms of occasion-meaning (meaning that ... ) or in terms of some important elements) involved in the already provided definition of occasion-meaning. (VI) The fulfilment of the task just outlined will need to be supplemented by an account of this or that ELEMENT in the CONVENTIONAL MEANING of an utterance (such as one featuring ‘therefore,’ ‘but,’ or ‘moreover’) which is NOT part of what has been said [or explicitly conveyed].This account, at least for an important sub-class of such elements, might take the following shape: First, this or that problematic element is linked with this or that speech-act which is exhibited as posterior to, and such that their performance is dependent upon, some member or disjunction of members of the central, first-floor range; e. g. the meaning of 'moreover' would be linked with the speech-act of adding, the performance of which would require the performance of one or other of the central speech-acts. – [and the meaning of ‘but’ with contrasting, and the meaning of ‘therefore’ with reasoning, or inferring].Second, If SECOND-FLOOR-ing is such a non-central speech-act [such as inferring/reasoning, contrasting, or adding], the dependence of SECOND-FLOOR-ing that *p upon the performance of some central FIRST-FLOOR speech-act [such as stating or ordering] would have to be shown to be of a nature which justifies a RELUCTANCE to treat SECOND-FLOOR-ing (e. g. inferring, contrasting, adding) that *p as a case not merely of saying that *p, but also of saying that = p, or of saying that = *p (where' = p', or ' = *p', is a representation of one or more sentential forms specifically associated with SECOND-FLOOR-ing). Z Third, The notion of SECOND-FLOOR-ing (inferring, contrasting, adding) that *p (where Z-ing is non-central) would be explicated in terms of the nation of meaning that (or in terms of some important elements) in the definition of that notion). When Grice learned that that brilliant Harvardite, D. K. Lewis, was writing a dissertation under Quine on ‘convention’ he almost fainted! When he noticed that Lewis was relying rightly on Schelling and mainly restricting the ‘conventionality’ to the ‘arbitrariness,’ which Grice regarded as synonym with ‘freedom’ (Willkuere, liber arbitrium), he recovered. For Lewis, a two-off predicament occurs when you REPEAT. Grice is not interested. When you repeat, you may rely on some ‘arbitrariness.’ This is usually the EMISSOR’s auctoritas. As when Humptyy Dumpty was brought to Davidson’s attention. “Impenetrability!” “I don’t know what that means.” “Well put, Alice, if that is your name, as you said it was. What I mean by ‘impenetrability’ is that we rather change the topic, plus it’s tea time, and I feel like having some eggs.” Grice refers to this as the ‘idion.’ He reminisces when he was in the bath and designed a full new highway code (“Nobody has yet used it – but the pleasure was in the semiotic design.”). A second reminiscence pertains to his writing a full grammar of “Deutero-Esperanto.” “I loved it – because I had all the power a master needs! I decide what it’s proper!” In the field of the implicata, Grice uses ‘convention’ casually, mainly to contrast it with HIS field, the non-conventional. One should not attach importance to this. On occasion Grice used Frege’s “Farbung,” just to confuse. The sad story is that Strawson was never convinced by the non-conventional. Being a conventionalist at heart (vide his “Intention and convention in speech acts,”) and revering Austin, Strawson opposes Grice’s idea of the ‘non-conventional.’ Note that in Grice’s general schema for the communicatum, the ‘conventional’ is just ONE MODE OF CORRELATION between the signum and the signatum, or the communicatum and the intentum. The ‘conventional’ can be explained, unlike Lewis, in mere terms of the validatum. Strawson and Wiggins “Cogito; ergo, sum”: What is explicitly conveyed is: “cogito” and “sum”. The conjunction “cogito” and “sum” is not made an ‘invalidatum’ if the implicated consequence relation, emotionally expressed by an ‘alas’-like sort of ejaculation, ‘ergo,’ fails to hold. Strawson and Wiggins give other examples. For some reason, Latin ‘ergo’ becomes the more structured, “therefore,” which is a composite of ‘there’ and ‘fore.’ Then there’s the very Hun, “so,” (as in “so so”). Then there’s the “Sie schoene aber poor,” discussed by Frege --“but,” – and Strawson and Wiggins add a few more that had Grice elaborating on first-floor versus second-floor. Descartes is on the first floor. He states “cogito” and he states “sum.” Then he goes to the second floor, and the screams, “ergo,” or ‘dunc!’” The examples Strawson and Wiggins give are: “although” (which looks like a subordinating dyadic connector but not deemed essential by Gazdar’s 16 ones). Then they give an expression Grice quite explored, “because,” or “for”as Grice prefers (‘since it improves on Stevenson), the ejaculation “alas,” and in its ‘misusage,’ “hopefully.” This is an adverbial that Grice loved: “Probably, it will rains,” “Desirably, there is icecream.”
nowell-smithianism. “The Nowell is redundant,” Grice would say. P. H.
Nowell-Smith adopted the “Nowell” after his father’s first name. In “Ethics,”
he elaborates on what he calls ‘contextual implication.’ The essay was widely
read, and has a freshness that other ‘meta-ethicist’ at Oxford seldom display.
His ‘contextual implication’ compares of course to Grice’s ‘conversational
implicature.’ Indeed, by using ‘conversational implicature,’ Grice is following
an Oxonian tradition started with C. K. Grant and his ‘pragmatic implication,’
and P. H. Nowell-Smith and his ‘contextual implication.’ At Oxford, they were
obsessed with these types of ‘implicata,’ because it was the type of thing that
a less subtle philosopher would ignore. Grice’s cancellability priority for his
type of implicata hardly applies to Nowell-Smith. Nowell-Smith never displays
the ‘rationalist’ bent that Grice wants to endow to his principle of
conversational co-operation. Nowell-Smith, rather, calls his ‘principles’
“rules of conversational etiquette.” If you revise the literature, you will see
that things like “avoid ambiguity,” “don’t play unnecessary with words,” are
listed indeed in what is called a ‘conversational manual,’ of ‘conversational
etiquette,’ that is. In his rationalist bent, Grice narrows down the use of
‘conversational’ to apply to ‘conversational maxim,’ which is only a
UNIVERSALISABLE one, towards the overarching goal of rational co-operation. In
this regard, many of the rules of ‘conversational etiquette’ (Grice even
mentions ‘moral rules,’ and a rule like ‘be polite’) to fall outside the
principle of conversational helpfulness, and thus, not exactly generating a
‘conversational implicatum.’ While Grice gives room to allow such
non-conversational non-conventional implicata to be ‘calculable,’ that is,
‘rationalizable, by ‘argument,’ he never showed any interest in giving one
example – for the simple reason that none of those ‘maxims’ generated the type
of ‘mistake’ on the part of this or that philosopher, as he was interested in
rectifying.
O:
particularis abdicativa. See Grice, “Circling the Square of Opposition.”
objectivism:
Grice reads Meinong on objectivity and finds it funny! Meinong distinguishes
four classes of objects: ‘Objekt,’ simpliciter, which can be real (like horses)
or ideal (like the concepts of difference, identity, etc.) and “Objectiv,” e.g.
the affirmation of the being (Sein) or non-being (Nichtsein), of a being-such
(Sosein), or a being-with (Mitsein) - parallel to existential, categorical and
hypothetical judgements. An “Objectiv” is close to what contemporary
philosophers call states of affairs (where these may be actual—may obtain—or
not). The third class is the dignitative, e.g. the true, the good, the beautiful.
Finally, there is the desiderative, e.g. duties, ends, etc. To these four
classes of objects correspond four classes of psychological acts: (re)presentation (das Vorstellen), for
objects thought (das Denken), for the objectives feeling (das Fühlen), for
dignitatives desire (das Begehren), for the desideratives. Grice starts with
subjectivity. Objectivity can be constructed as non-relativised
subjectivity. Grice discusses of Inventing right and wrong by Mackie. In
the proceedings, Grice quotes the artless sexism of Austin in talking
about the trouser words in Sense and Sensibilia. Grice tackles all the
distinctions Mackie had played with: objective/Subjectsive, absolute/relative,
categorical/hypothetical or suppositional. Grice quotes directly from Hare:
Think of one world into whose fabric values are objectively built; and think of
another in which those values have been annihilated. And remember that in both
worlds the people in them go on being concerned about the same things—there is
no difference in the Subjectsive value. Now I ask, what is the difference
between the states of affairs in these two worlds? Can any answer be given
except, none whatever? Grice uses the Latinate objective (from objectum). Cf.
Hare on what he thinks the oxymoronic sub-jective value. Grice considered more
seriously than Barnes did the systematics behind Nicolai Hartmanns
stratification of values. Refs.: the most explicit allusion is a specific essay
on “objectivity” in The H. P. Grice Papers. Most of the topic is covered in “Conception,”
Essay 1. BANC.
objectivum.
Here the contrast is what what is subjective, or subjectivum. Notably value.
For Hartmann and Grice, a value is rational, objective and absolute, and
categorical (not relative).
objectum. For Grice the subjectum is prior. While ‘subject’ and
‘predicate’ are basic Aristotelian categories, the idea of the direct object or
indirect object seems to have little philosophical relevance. (but cf. “What is
the meaning of ‘of’? Genitivus subjectivus versus enitivus objectivus. The
usage that is more widespread is a misnomer for ‘thing’. When an empiricist
like Grice speaks of an ‘obble’ or an ‘object,’ he means a thing. That is
because, since Hume there’s no such thing as a ‘subject’ qua self. And if there
is no subject, there is no object. No Copernican revolution for empiricists.
one-at-a-time-sailor. He is loved by the altogether nice girl. Or grasshopper:
Grice’s one-at-a-time grasshopper. His rational reconstruction of ‘some’ and
‘all.’ “A simple proposal for the treatment of the two quantifiers, rendered
otiosely in English by “all” and “some (at least one),” – “the” is definable in
terms of “all” -- would call for the assignment to a predicate such as that of
‘being a grasshopper,” symbolized by “G,” besides its normal or standard
EXtension, two special things (or ‘object,’ if one must use Quine’s misnomer),
associated with quantifiers, an 'altogether' ‘substitute’, thing or object and
a 'one-at-a-time' non-substitute thing or object.”“To the predicate
'grasshopper' is assigned not only an individual, viz. a grasshopper, but also
what I call ‘The All-Together Grass-Hopper,’
or species-1and ‘The One-At-A-Time Grass-Hopper,’ or species-2. “I now
stipulate that an 'altogether' item satisfies such a predicate as “being a
grasshopper,” or G, just in case every normal or standard item associated with
“the all-to-gether” grasshopper satisfies the predicate in question. Analogously,
a 'one-at-a-time' item satisfies a predicate just in case “SOME (AT LEAST ONE)”
of the associated standard items satisfies that predicate.”“So ‘The All-To-Gether
Grass-Hopper izzes green just in case every individual grasshopper is green.The
one-at-a-time grasshopper izzes green just in case some (at least one) individual
grasshopper izzes green.”“We can take this pair of statements about these two special
grasshoppers as providing us with representations of (respectively) the
statements, ‘Every grass-hopper is green,’ and ‘Some (at least one) grasshopper
is green.’“The apparatus which Grice sketched is plainly not, as it stands,
adequate to provide a comprehensive treatment of quantification.”“It will not,
e. g. cope with well-known problems of multiple quantification,” as in “Every
Al-Together Nice Grass-Hopper Loves A Sailing Grass-Hopper.”“It will not
deliver for us distinct representations of the two notorious (alleged) readings
of ‘Every nice girl loves a sailor,” in one of which (supposedly) the universal
quantifier is dominant with respect to scope, and in the other of which the
existential quantifier is dominant.”The ambiguity was made ambiguous by Marie
Lloyd. For every time she said “a sailor,” she pointed at herself – thereby
disimplicating the default implicatum that the universal quantifier be
dominant. “To cope with Marie Lloyd’s problem it might be sufficient to
explore, for semantic purposes, the device of exportation, and to distinguish
between, 'There exists a sailor such that every nice girl loves him', which
attributes a certain property to the one-at-a-time sailor, and (ii) 'Every nice
girl is such that she loves some sailor', which attributes a certain (and
different) property to the altogether nice girl.Note that, as one makes this
move, that though exportation, when applied to statements about individual
objects, seems not to affect truth-value, whatever else may be its semantic function,
when it is applied to sentences about special objects it may, and sometimes
will, affect truth-value.”“But however effective this particular shift may be,
it is by no means clear that there are not further demands to be met which
would overtax the strength of the envisaged apparatus.It is not, for example,
clear whether it could be made adequate to deal with indefinitely long strings
of 'mixed' quantifiers.”“The proposal might also run into objections of a more
conceptual character from those who would regard the special objects which it
invokes as metaphysically disreputable – for where would an ‘altogether sailor”
sail?, or an one-at-a-time grasshopper hop?“Should an alternative proposal be reached
or desired, one (or, indeed, more than one) is available.”“One may be regarded
as a replacement for, an extension of, or a reinterpretation of the scheme just
outlined, in accordance with whatever view is finally taken of the potency and
respectability of the ideas embodied in that scheme.” “This proposal treats a
propositional complexum as a sequence, indeed as ordered pairs containing a subject-item
and a predicate-item.It thus offers a subject-predicate account of
quantification (as opposed to what?, you may wonder). However, it will not
allow an individual, i. e. a sailor, or a nice girl, to appear as COMPONENTS in
a propositional complexum.The sailor and the nice girl will always be reduced,
‘extensionally,’ or ‘extended,’ if you wish, as a set or an attribute.“According
to the class-theoretic version, we associate with the subject-expression of a
canonically formulated sentence a class of (at least) a second order. If the
subject expression is a singular name, like “Grice,” its ontological correlatum
will be the singleton of the singleton of the entity which bears the name
Grice, or Pop-Eye.” “The treatment of a singular terms which are not names – e.
g. ‘the sailor’ -- will be parallel, but is here omitted. It involves the iota
operator, about which Russell would say that Frege knew a iota. If the subject-expression
is an indefinite quantificational phrase, like 'some (at least one) sailor’ ‘or
some (at least one) grasshopper', its ontological correlatum will be the set of
all singletons whose sole member is a member belonging to the extension of the
predicate to which the indefinite modifier “some (at least one)” is attached.So
the ontological correlatum of the phrase ‘some (at least one) sailor’ or 'some (at
least one) grasshopper' will be the class of all singletons whose sole member
is an individuum (sailor, grasshopper). If the subject expression is a universal
quantificational phrase, like ‘every nice girl’ its ontological correlatum will
be the singleton whose sole member is the class which forms the extension of
the predicate to which the universal modifier (‘every’) is attached.Thus, the correlate of the phrase 'every nice girl' will
be the singleton of the class of nice girls.The song was actually NOT written
by a nice girl – but by a bad boy.A predicate of a canonically formulated
sentence is correlated with the classes which form its extension.As for the
predication-relation, i. e., the relation which has to obtain between
subject-element and predicate-element in a propositional complex for that
complex to be factive, a propositional complexum is factive or
value-satisfactory just in case its subject-element contains as a member at least
one item which is a sub-class of the predicate-element.”If the ontological
correlatum of 'a sailor,’ or, again, of 'every nice girl') contains as a member
at least one subset of the ontological correlata of the dyadic predicate ' …
loves … ' (viz. the class of love), the propositional complexum directly
associated with the sentence ‘A sailor loves every nice girl’ is factive, as is
its converse“Grice devotes a good deal of energy to the ‘one-at-a-time-sailor,’
and the ‘altogether nice girl’ and he convinced himself that it offered a
powerful instrument which, with or without adjustment, is capable of handling
not only indefinitely long sequences of ‘mixed’ quantificational phrases, but
also some other less obviously tractable problems, such as the ‘ground’ for
this being so: what it there about a sailor – well, you know what sailors are.
When the man o' war or merchant ship comes sailing into port/The jolly tar with
joy, will sing out, Land Ahoy!/With his pockets full of money and a parrot in a
cage/He smiles at all the pretty girls upon the landing stage/All the nice
girls love a sailor/All the nice girls love a tar/For there's something about a
sailor/(Well you know what sailors are!)/Bright and breezy, free and easy,/He's
the ladies' pride and joy!/He falls in love with Kate and Jane, then he's off
to sea again,/Ship ahoy! Ship ahoy!/He will spend his money freely, and he's
generous to his pals,/While Jack has got a sou, there's half of it for you,/And
it's just the same in love and war, he goes through with a smile,/And you can
trust a sailor, he's a white man (meaning: honest man) all the while!“Before
moving on, however, I might perhaps draw attention to three features of the
proposal.”“First, employing a strategy which might be thought of as Leibnizian,
it treats a subject-element (even a lowly tar) as being of an order HIGHER than,
rather than an order LOWER than, the predicate element.”“Second, an individual
name, such as Grice, is in effect treated like a universal quantificational
phrase, thus recalling the practice of old-style traditionalism.“Third, and
most importantly, the account which is offered is, initially, an account of
propositional complexes, not of propositions; as I envisage them, propositions
will be regarded as families of propositional complexes.”“Now the propositional
complexum directly associated with the sentence “Every nice girl loves a
sailor” (WoW: 34) will be both logically equivalent to and numerically distinct
from the propositional complex directly associated with ‘It is not the case
that no nice girl loves no sailor.’ Indeed for any given propositional complex
there will be indefinitely many propositional complexes which are both equipolent
to yet numerically distinct from the original complexum. Strawson used to play
with this. The question of how tight or how relaxed are to be the family ties
which determine the IDENTITY of propositio 1 with propositio 2 remains to be decided. Such conditions will vary
according to context or purpose.
occam : a picturesque village in Surrey. His most notable
resident is William. When William left Occam, he was often asked, “Where are
you from?” In the vernacular, he would make an effort to aspirate the ‘h’
Ock-Home.’ His French friends were unable to aspirate, and he ended up
accepting that perhaps he WAS from “Occam.” Vide Modified Occam’s Razor.
Occasion:
Grice struggled with the lingo and he not necessarily arrived at the right
choice. Occasion he uses in the strange phrase “occasion-meaning” (sic). Surely
not ‘occasional meaning.’ What is an occasion? Surely it’s a context. But Grice
would rather be seen dead than using a linguistic turn of phrase like Firth’s
context-of-utterance! So there you have the occasion-meaning. Basically, it’s
the PARTICULARISED implicature. On occasion o, E communicates that p. Grice
allows that there is occasion-token and occasion-type.
one-off communicatum. The
condition for an action to be taken in a specific way in cases where the
audience must recognize the utterer’s intention (a ‘one-off predicament’). The
recognition of the C-intention does not have to occur ‘once we have habits of
taking utterances one way or another.’
Blackburn: From one-off AIIBp to
one-off GAIIB. Surely we have to generalise the B into the PSI. Plus,
'action' is too strong, and should be replaced by 'emitting'This
yields From EIIψp GEIIψp. According to this
assumption, an emissor who is not assuming his addressee shares any system of
communication is in the original situation that S. W. Blackburn, of Pembroke,
dubbs “the one-off
predicament, and one can provide a scenario where the Griciean conditions, as
they are meant to hold, do hold, and emissor E communicates that p i. e. C1,
C2, and C3, are fulfilled.
. be accomplished in the "one-off predicament" (in which no
linguistic or other conventional ...The Gricean mechanism with its complex
communicative intentions has a clear point in what Blackburn calls “a one-off predicament”
- a . Simon Blackburn's "one-off predicament"
of communicating without a shared language illustrates how Grice's theory can
be applied to iconic signals such as the ...Blackburn's "one-off
predicament" of communicating without a shared language illustrates how
Grice's theory can be applied to iconic signals such as the drawing of a skull
to wam of danger. See his Spreading the Word. III. 112.Thus S may draw a pic- "one-off
predicament"). ... Clarendon, 1976); and Simon Blackburn, Spreading the Word
(Oxford: Clarendon, 1984) ...by
Blackburn in “Spreading the word.” Since Grice’s main motivation is to progress
from one-off to philosophers’s mistakes, he does not explore the situation. He
gets close to it in “Meaning Revisited,” when proposing a ‘rational
reconstruction,’ FROM a one-off to a non-iconic system of communication, where
you can see his emphasis and motivation is in the last stage of the progress. Since
he is having the ‘end result,’ sometimes he is not careful in the description
of the ‘one-off,’ or dismissive of it. But as Blackburn notes, it is crucial
that Grice provides the ‘rudiments’ for a ‘meaning-nominalism,’ where an
emissor can communicate that p in a one-off scenario. This is all Grice needs
to challenge those accounts based on ‘convention,’ or the idea of a ‘system’ of
communication. There is possibly an implicature to the effect that if something
is a device is not a one-off, but that is easily cancellable. “He used a
one-off device, and it worked.”
one-piece-repertoire: of hops and rye, and he told me that in twenty-two years
neither the personnel of the three-piece band nor its one-piece repertoire had
undergone a change.
ontogenesis. Grice taught his children “not to tell lies” – “as my
father and my mother taught me.” One of his favourite paintings was “When did
you last see your father?” “I saw him in my dreams,” – “Not a lie, you see.” it
is interesting that Grice was always enquiring his childrens playmates: Can a
sweater be red and green all over? No stripes allowed! One found a
developmental account of the princile of conversational helpfulness boring, or
as he said, "dull." Refs.: There is an essay on the semantics of
children’s language, BANC.
ontological
marxism: As opposed to ‘ontological laisssez-faire’ Note
the use of ‘ontological’ in ‘ontological’ Marxism. Is not metaphysical Marxism,
so Grice knows what he is talking about. Many times when he uses ‘metaphysics,’
he means ‘ontological.’ Ontological for Grice
is at least liberal. He is hardly enamoured of some of the motivations which
prompt the advocacy of psycho-physical identity. He has in mind a concern to
exclude an entity such as as a ‘soul,’ an event of the soul, or a property of
the soul. His taste is for keeping open house for all sorts of conditions of
entities, just so long as when the entity comes in it helps with the housework,
i. e., provided that Grice see the entity work, and provided that it is not
detected in illicit logical behaviour, which need not involve some degree of
indeterminacy, The entity works? Ergo, the entity exists. And, if it comes on
the recommendation of some transcendental argument the entity may even qualify
as an entium realissimum. To exclude an honest working entitiy is metaphysical
snobbery, a reluctance to be seen in the company of any but the best. A
category, a universalium plays a role in Grice’s meta-ethics. A principles or
laws of psychology may be self-justifying, principles connected with the
evaluation of ends. If these same principles play a role in determining
what we count as entia realissima, metaphysics, and an abstractum would be
grounded in part in considerations about value (a not unpleasant
project). This ontological Marxism is latter day. In “Some remarks,” he
expresses his disregard for what he calls a “Wittgensteinian” limitation in
expecting behavioural manifestation of an ascription about a soul. Yet in
“Method” he quotes almost verbatim from Witters, “No psychological postulation
without the behaviour the postulation is meant to explain.” It was possibly D.
K. Lewis who made him change his mind. Grice was obsessed with Aristotle on
‘being,’ and interpreted Aristotle as holding a thesis of unified semantic
‘multiplicity.’ This is in agreement with the ontological Marxism, in more than
one ways. By accepting a denotatum for a praedicatum like ‘desideratum,’ Grice
is allowing the a desideratum may be the subject of discourse. It is an
‘entity’ in this fashion. Marxism and laissez-faire both exaggerate the role of the economy. Society
needs a safety net to soften the rough edges of free enterprise. Refs.:
H. P. Grice, “Ontological Marxism and ontological laissez-faire.”
casus obliquus – casus rectus (orthe ptosis) vs. ‘casus obliquus – plagiai
ptoseis – genike, dotike, aitiatike. “ptosis” is not
attested in Grecian before Plato. A noun of action based on the radical of
πίπτω, to fall, ptôsis means literally a fall: the fall of a die Plato,
Republic, X.604c, or of lightning Aristotle, Meteorology, 339a Alongside this
basic value and derived metaphorical values: decadence, death, and so forth, in
Aristotle the word receives a linguistic specification that was to have great
influence: retained even in modern Grecian ptôsê πτώση, its Roman Tr. casus allowed it to designate grammatical
case in most modern European languages. In fact, however, when it first appears
in Aristotle, the term does not initially designate the noun’s case inflection.
In the De Int. chaps. 2 and 3, it qualifies the modifications, both semantic
and formal casual variation of the verb and those of the noun: he was well, he
will be well, in relation to he is well; about Philo, to Philo, in relation to
Philo. As a modification of the noun—that is, in Aristotle, of its basic form,
the nominative—the case ptôsis differs from the noun insofar as, associated
with is, was, or will be, it does not permit the formation of a true or false
statement. As a modification of the verb, describing the grammatical tense, it
is distinguished from the verb that oversignifies the present: the case of the
verb oversignifies the time that surrounds the present. From this we must
conclude that to the meaning of a given verb e.g., walk the case of the verb
adds the meaning prossêmainei πϱοσσημαίνει of its temporal modality he will
walk. Thus the primacy of the present over the past and the future is affirmed,
since the present of the verb has no case. But the Aristotelian case is a still
broader, vaguer, and more elastic notion: presented as part of expression in
chapter 20 of the Poetics, it qualifies variation in number and modality. It
further qualifies the modifications of the noun, depending on the gender ch.21
of the Poetics; Top. as well as adverbs
derived from a substantive or an adjective, like justly, which is derived from
just. The notion of case is thus essential for the characterization of
paronyms. Aristotle did not yet have specialized names for the different cases
of nominal inflection. When he needs to designate them, he does so in a
conventional manner, usually by resorting to the inflected form of a pronoun—
τούτου, of this, for the genitive, τούτῳ, to this, for the dative, and so on —
and sometimes to that of a substantive or adjective. In the Prior Analytics, Aristotle
insists on distinguishing between the terms ὅϱοι that ought always to be stated
in the nominative ϰλῆσεις, e.g. man, good, contraries, but the premisses ought
to be understood with reference to the cases of each term—either the dative,
e.g. ‘equal to this’ toutôi, dative, or the genitive, e.g. ‘double of this’
toutou, genitive, or the accusative, e.g. ‘that which strikes or v.s this’
τούτο, accusative, or the nominative, e.g. ‘man is an animal’ οὗτος,
nominative, or in whatever other way the word falls πίπτει in the premiss Anal.
Post., I.36, 48b, 4 In the latter expression, we may find the origin of the
metaphor of the fall—which remains controversial. Some commentators relate the
distinction between what is direct and what is oblique as pertains to
grammatical cases, which may be direct orthê ptôsis or oblique plagiai ptôseis,
but also to the grand metaphoric and conceptual register that stands on this
distinction to falling in the game of jacks, it being possible that the jack
could fall either on a stable side and stand there—the direct case—or on three
unstable sides— the oblique cases. In an unpublished dissertation on the
principles of Stoic grammar, Hans Erich Müller proposes to relate the Stoic
theory of cases to the theory of causality, by trying to associate the
different cases with the different types of causality. They would thus
correspond in the utterance to the different causal postures of the body in the
physical field. For the Stoics, predication is a matter not of identifying an
essence ousia οὖσια and its attributes in conformity with the Aristotelian
categories, but of reproducing in the utterance the causal relations of action
and passion that bodies entertain among themselves. It was in fact with the
Stoics that cases were reduced to noun cases—in Dionysius Thrax TG, 13, the
verb is a word without cases lexis aptôton, and although egklisis means mode,
it sometimes means inflection, and then it covers the variations of the verb,
both temporal and modal. If Diogenes Laertius VII.192 is to be believed,
Chrysippus wrote a work On the Five Cases. It must have included, as Diogenes
VII.65 tells us, a distinction between the direct case orthê ptôsis—the case
which, constructed with a predicate, gives rise to a proposition axiôma,
VII.64—and oblique cases plagiai ptseis, which now are given names, in this
order: genitive genikê, dative dôtikê, and accusative aitiatikê. A
classification of predicates is reported by Porphyry, cited in Ammonius
Commentaire du De Int. d’Aristote, 44, 19f.. Ammonius 42, 30f. reports a
polemic between Aristotle and the Peripatetics, on the one hand, and the Stoics
and grammarians associated with them, on the other. For the former, the
nominative is not a case, it is the noun itself from which the cases are
declined; for the latter, the nominative is a full-fledged case: it is the
direct case, and if it is a case, that is because it falls from the concept,
and if it is direct, that is because it falls directly, just as the stylus can,
after falling, remain stable and straight. Although ptôsis is part of the
definition of the predicate—the predicate is what allows, when associated with
a direct case, the composition of a proposition—and figures in the part of
dialectic devoted to signifieds, it is neither defined nor determined as a
constituent of the utterance alongside the predicate. In Stoicism, ptôsis v.ms
to signify more than grammatical case alone. Secondary in relation to the
predicate that it completes, it is a philosophical concept that refers to the
manner in which the Stoics v.m to have criticized the Aristotelian notion of
substrate hupokeimenon ὑποϰειμένον as well as the distinction between substance
and accidents. Ptôsis is the way in which the body or bodies that our
representation phantasia φαντασία presents to us in a determined manner appear
in the utterance, issuing not directly from perception, but indirectly, through
the mediation of the concept that makes it possible to name it/them in the form
of an appellative a generic concept, man, horse or a name a singular concept,
Socrates. Cases thus represent the diverse ways in which the concept of the
body falls in the utterance though Stoic nominalism does not admit the
existence of this concept—just as here there is no Aristotelian category
outside the different enumerated categorial rubrics, there is no body outside a
case position. However, caring little for these subtleties, the scholiasts of
Technê v.m to confirm this idea in their own context when they describe the
ptôsis as the fall of the incorporeal and the generic into the specific ἔϰ τοῦ
γενιϰοῦ εἰς τὸ εἰδιϰόν. In the work of the grammarians, case is reduced to the
grammatical case, that is, to the morphological variation of nouns, pronouns,
articles, and participles, which, among the parts of speech, accordingly
constitute the subclass of casuels, a parts of speech subject to case-based
inflection πτωτιϰά. The canonical list of cases places the vocative klêtikê ϰλητιϰή
last, after the direct eutheia εὐθεῖα case and the three oblique cases, in
their Stoic order: genitive, dative, accusative. This order of the oblique
cases gives rise, in some commentators eager to rationalize Scholia to the
Technê, 549, 22, to a speculation inspired by localism: the case of the PARONYM
743 place from which one comes in Grecian , the genitive is supposed naturally
to precede that of the place where one is the dative, which itself naturally
precedes that of the place where one is going the accusative. Apollonius’s
reflection on syntax is more insightful; in his Syntax III.15888 he presents,
in this order, the accusative, the genitive, and the dative as expressing three
degrees of verbal transitivity: conceived as the distribution of activity and
passivity between the prime actant A in the direct case and the second actant B
in one of the three oblique cases in the process expressed by a biactantial
verb, the transitivity of the accusative corresponds to the division A all
active—B all passive A strikes B; the transitivity of the genitive corresponds
to the division A primarily active/passive to a small degree—B primarily
passive/active to a small degree A listens to B; and the transitivity of the
dative, to the division A and B equally active-passive A fights with The direct
case, at the head of the list, owes its prmacy to the fact that it is the case
of nomination: names are given in the direct case. The verbs of existence and
nomination are constructed solely with the direct case, without the function of
the attribute being thematized as such. Although Chrysippus wrote about five
cases, the fifth case, the vocative, v.ms to have escaped the division into
direct and oblique cases. Literally appelative prosêgorikon πϱοσηγοϱιϰόν, it
could refer not only to utterances of address but also more generally to
utterances of nomination. In the grammarians, the vocative occupies a marginal
place; whereas every sentence necessarily includes a noun and a verb, the
vocative constitutes a complete sentence by itself. Frédérique Ildefonse REFS.:
Aristotle. Analytica priorTr. J.
Jenkinson. In the Works of Aristotle, vol. 1, ed. and Tr.
W. D. Ross, E. M. Edghill, J. Jenkinson, G.R.G. Mure, and Wallace
Pickford. Oxford: Oxford , 192 . Poetics. Ed.
and Tr. Stephen Halliwell.
Cambridge: Harvard / Loeb Classical
Library, . Delamarre, Alexandre. La notion de ptōsis chez Aristote et les
Stoïciens. In Concepts et Catégories dans la pensée antique, ed. by Pierre Aubenque, 3214 : Vrin, . Deleuze,
Gilles. Logique du sens. : Minuit, . Tr.
Mark Lester with Charles Stivale: The Logic of Sense. Ed. by Constantin V. Boundas. : Columbia , .
Dionysius Thrax. Technē grammatikē. Book I, vol. 1 of Grammatici Graeci,
ed. by Gustav Uhlig. Leipzig: Teubner,
188 Eng. Tr. T. D. son: The Grammar. St. Louis, 187 Fr. Tr. J.
Lallot: La grammaire de Denys le Thrace. 2nd rev. and expanded ed. : CNRS
Éditions, . Frede, Michael. The Origins of Traditional Grammar. In Historical
and Philosophical Dimensions of Logic, Methodology, and Phil. of Science, ed. by E. H. Butts and J. Hintikka, 517 Dordrecht,
Neth.: Reiderl, . Reprinted, in M. Frede, Essays in Ancient Phil. , 3385 Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, . . The Stoic Notion of a Grammatical Case.
Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies of the University of 39 : 132
Hadot, Pierre. La notion de ‘cas’ dans la logique stoïcienne. Pp. 10912 in
Actes du XIIIe Congrès des sociétés de philosophie en langue française. Geneva:
Baconnière, . Hiersche, Rolf. Entstehung und Entwicklung des Terminus πτῶσις,
‘Fall.’ Sitzungsberichte der deutschen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin:
Klasse für Sprachen, Literatur und Kunst 3 1955: 51 Ildefonse, Frédérique. La
naissance de la grammaire dans l’Antiquité grecque. : Vrin, . Imbert, Claude.
Phénoménologies et langues formularies. : Presses Universitaires de France, .
Pinborg, Jan. Classical Antiquity: Greece. In Current Trends in Linguistics,
ed. by Th. Sebeok. Vol. 13 in
Historiography of Linguistics series. The Hague and : Mouton, .-- oratio obliqua: The idea of ‘oratio’ is central. Grice’s
sentence. It expresses ‘a thought,’ a ‘that’-clause. Oratio recta is central,
too. Grice’s example is “The dog is shaggy.” The use of ‘oratio’ here Grice
disliked. One can see a squarrel grabbing a nut, Toby judges that a nut is to
eat. So we would have a ‘that’-clause, and in a way, an ‘oratio obliqua,’ which
is what the UTTERER (not the squarrel) would produce as ‘oratio recta,’ ‘A nut
is to eat,’ should the circumstance obtains. At some points he allows things
like “Snow is white” means that snow is white. Something at the Oxford
Philosohical Society he would not. Grice is vague in this. If the verb is a ‘verbum
dicendi,’ ‘oratio obliqua’ is literal. If it’s a verbum sentiendi or
percipiendi, volendi, credendi, or cognoscenti, the connection is looser. Grice
was especially concerned that buletic verbs usually do not take a that-clause
(but cf. James: I will that the distant table sides over the floor toward me.
It does not!). Also that seems takes a that-clause in ways that might not
please Maucalay. Grice had explored that-clauses with Staal. He was concerned about
the viability of an initially appealing etymological approach by Davidson to
the that-clause in terms of demonstration. Grice had presupposed the logic of
that-clauses from a much earlier stage, Those spots mean that he has
measles.The f. contains a copy of Davidsons essay, On saying that, the
that-clause, the that-clause, with Staal . Davidson quotes from Murray et
al. The Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford. Cf. Onions, An Advanced English
Syntax, and remarks that first learned that that in such contexts evolved
from an explicit demonstrative from Hintikkas Knowledge and Belief. Hintikka
remarks that a similar development has taken place in German Davidson owes the
reference to the O.E.D. to Stiezel. Indeed Davidson was fascinated by the fact
that his conceptual inquiry repeated phylogeny. It should come as no surprise
that a that-clause utterance evolves through about the stages our
ruminations have just carried us. According to the Oxford English Dictionary,
the use of that in a that-clause is generally held to have arisen out of the
demonstrative pronoun pointing to the clause which it introduces. The sequence
goes as follows. He once lived here: we all know that; that, now this, we all
know: he once lived here; we all know that, or this: he once lived here; we all
know that he once lived here. As Hintikka notes, some pedants trying to display
their knowledge of German, use a comma before that: We all know, that he once
lived here, to stand for an earlier :: We all know: that he once lived
here. Just like the English translation that, dass can be omitted in a sentence. Er glaubt, dass die Erde eine Scheibe sei. He believes that the Earth is a disc. Er
glaubt, die Erde sei eine Scheibe. He believes the Earth is a disc. The
that-clause is brought to the fore by Davidson, who, consulting the OED,
reminds philosophers that the English that is very cognate with the German
idiom. More specifically, that is a demonstrative, even if the syntax, in
English, hides this fact in ways which German syntax doesnt. Grice needs
to rely on that-clauses for his analysis of mean, intend, and notably
will. He finds that Prichards genial discovery was the license to use
willing as pre-facing a that-clause. This allows Grice to deals with
willing as applied to a third person. I will that he wills that he wins the
chess match. Philosophers who disregard this third-person use may indulge in
introspection and Subjectsivism when they shouldnt! Grice said that Prichard
had to be given great credit for seeing that the accurate specification of
willing should be willing that and not willing to. Analogously, following
Prichard on willing, Grice does not
stipulate that the radix for an intentional (utterer-oriented or
exhibitive-autophoric-buletic) incorporate a reference to the utterer (be in
the first person), nor that the radix for an imperative (addressee-oriented or
hetero-phoric protreptic buletic) or desiderative in general, incorporate a
reference of the addressee (be in the second person). They shall not pass is a
legitimate intentional as is the ‘you shall not get away with it,’either
involves Prichards wills that, rather than wills to). And the sergeant is to
muster the men at dawn (uttered by a captain to a lieutenant) is a perfectly
good imperative, again involving Prichards wills that, rather than wills to. Refs.:
The allusions are scattered, but there are specific essays, one on the
‘that’-clause, and also discussions on Davidson on saying that. There is a
reference to ‘oratio obliqua’ and Prichard in “Uncertainty,” BANC.
optimum. If (a) S accepts at t an
alethic acceptability-conditional C 1 , the antecedent of which favours, to
degree d, the consequent of C 1 , (b) S accepts at t the antecedent of C 1 ,
end p.81 (c) after due search by S for such a (further) conditional, there is
no conditional C 2 such that (1) S accepts at t C 2 and its antecedent, (2) and
the antecedent of C 2 is an extension of the antecedent of C 1 , (3) and the
consequent of C 2 is a rival (incompatible with) of the consequent of C 1 , (4)
and the antecedent of C 2 favours the consequent of C 2 more than it favours
the consequent of C 1 : then S may judge (accept) at t that the consequent of C
1 is acceptable to degree d. For convenience, we might abbreviate the complex
clause (C) in the antecedent of the above rule as 'C 1 is optimal for S at t';
with that abbreviation, the rule will run: "If S accepts at t an alethic
acceptability-conditional C 1 , the antecedent of which favours its consequent
to degree d, and S accepts at t the antecedent of C 1 , and C 1 is optimal for
S at C 1 , then S may accept (judge) at t that the consequent of C 1 is
acceptable to degree d." Before moving to the practical dimension, I have
some observations to make.See validum. For
Grice, the validum can attain different shapes or guises. One is the optimum.
He uses it for “Emissor E communicates thata p” which ends up denotating an
‘ideal,’ that can only be deemed, titularily, to be present ‘de facto.’ The
idea is that of the infinite, or rather self-reference regressive closure. Vide
Blackburn on “open GAIIB.” Grice uses ‘optimality’ as one guise of value.
Obviously, it is, as Short and Lewis have it, the superlative of ‘bonum,’ so
one has to be careful. Optimum is used in value theory and decision theory,
too. Cf. Maximum, and minimax. In terms
of the principle of least conversational effort, the optimal move is the least
costly. To utter, “The pillar box seems red” when you can utter, “The pillar
box IS red” is to go into the trouble when you shouldn’t. So this maximin
regulates the conversational exchange. The utterer is meant to be optimally
efficient, and the addressee is intended to recognise that.
ostensum: In his analysis of the two basic procedures, one involving
the subjectum, and another the praedicatum, Grice would play with the utterer
OSTENDING that p. This relates to his semiotic approach to communication, and
avoiding to the maximum any reference to a linguistic rule or capacity or
faculty as different from generic rationality. In WoW:134 Grice explores what
he calls ‘ostensive correlation.’ He is exploring communication scenarios where
the Utterer is OSTENDING that p, or in predicate terms, that the A is B. He is
not so much concerned with the B, but with the fact that “B” is predicated of a
particular denotatum of “the A,” and by what criteria. He is having in mind his
uncle’s dog, Fido, who is shaggy, i.e. fairy coated. So he is showing to
Strawson that that dog over there is the one that belongs to his uncle, and
that, as Strawson can see, is a shaggy dog, by which Grice means hairy coated.
That’s the type of ‘ostensive correlation’ Grice is having in mind. In an
attempted ostensive correlation of the predicate B (‘shaggy’) with the feature
or property of being hairy coated, as per a standard act of communication in
which Grice, uttering, “Fido is shaggy’ will have Strawson believe that Uncle
Grice’s dog is hairy coated – (1) U will perform a number of acts in each of
which he ostends a thing (a1, a2, a3,
etc.). (2) Simultaneously with each ostension, he utters a token of the
predicate “shaggy.” (3) It is his intention TO OSTEND, and to be recognised as
ostending, only things which are either, in his view, plainly hairy-coated, or
are, in his view, plainly NOT hairy-coated. (4) In a model sequence these
intentions are fulfilled. Grice grants that this does not finely distinguish
between ‘being hairy-coated’ from ‘being such that the UTTERER believes to be
unmistakenly hairy coated.’ But such is a problem of any explicit correlation,
which are usually taken for granted – and deemed ‘implicit’ in standard acts of
communication. In primo actu non indiget volunta* diiectivo , sed sola_»
objecti ostensio ...
non potest errar* ciica finem in universali ostensum , potest tamen secundum
eos ...
oxonianism: Grice was “university lecturer in philosophy” and
“tutorial fellow in philosophy” – that’s why he always saw philosophy, like
virtue, as entire. He would never accept a post like “professor of moral
philosophy” or “professor of logic,” or “professor of metaphysical philosophy,”
or “reader in natural theology,” or “reader in mental philosophy.” So he felt a
responsibility towards ‘philosophy undepartmentilised’ and he succeded in never
disgressing from this gentlemanly attitude to philosophy as a totum, and not a
technically specified field of ‘expertise.’ See playgroup. The playgroup was
Oxonian. There are aspects of Grice’s philosophy which are Oxonian but not
playgroup-related, and had to do with his personal inclinations. The fact that
it was Hardie who was his tutor and instilled on him a love for Aristotle.
Grice’s rapport with H. A. Prichard. Grice would often socialize with members
of Ryle’s group, such as O. P. Wood, J. D. Mabbott, and W. C. Kneale. And of
course, he had a knowleddge of the history of Oxford philosophy, quoting from
J. C. Wilson, G. F. Stout, H. H. Price, Bosanquet, Bradley. He even had his
Oxonian ‘enemies,’ Dummett, Anscombe. And he would quote from independents,
like A. J. P. Kenny. But if he had to quote someone first, it was a member of
his beloved playgroup: Austin, Strawson, Warnock, Urmson, Hare, Hart,
Hampshire. Grice cannot possibly claim to talk about post-war Oxford
philosophy, but his own! Cf. Oxfords post-war philosophy. What were
Grices first impressions when arriving at Oxford. He was going to learn. Only
the poor learn at Oxford was an adage he treasured, since he wasnt
one! Let us start with an alphabetical listing of Grices play Group
companions: Austin, Butler, Flew, Gardiner, Grice, Hare, Hampshire, Hart,
Nowell-Smith, Parkinson, Paul, Pears, Quinton, Sibley, Strawson, Thomson,
Urmson, and Warnock. Grices main Oxonian association is St.
Johns, Oxford. By Oxford Philosophy, Grice notably refers to Austins Play
Group, of which he was a member. But Grice had Oxford associations
pre-war, and after the demise of Austin. But back to the Play Group, this, to
some, infamous, playgroup, met on Saturday mornings at different venues at
Oxford, including Grices own St. John’s ‒ apparently, Austins favourite
venue. Austin regarded himself and his kindergarten as linguistic or
language botanists. The idea was to list various ordinary uses of this or that
philosophical notion. Austin: They say philosophy is about language; well,
then, let’s botanise! Grices involvement with Oxford philosophy of course
predated his associations with Austins play group. He always said he was
fortunate of having been a tutee to Hardie at Corpus. Corpus, Oxford.
Grice would occasionally refer to the emblematic pelican, so prominently
displayed at Corpus. Grice had an interim association with the venue one
associates most directly with philosophy, Merton ‒: Grice, Merton,
Oxford. While Grice loved to drop Oxonian Namess, notably his rivals, such
as Dummett or Anscombe, he knew when not to. His Post-war Oxford philosophy, as
opposed to more specific items in The Grice Collection, remains general in
tone, and intended as a defense of the ordinary-language approach to
philosophy. Surprisingly, or perhaps not (for those who knew Grice), he takes a
pretty idiosyncratic characterisation of conceptual analysis. Grices
philosophical problems emerge with Grices idiosyncratic use of this or that
expression. Conceptual analysis is meant to solve his problems, not others, repr.
in WOW . Grice finds it important to reprint this since he had updated
thoughts on the matter, which he displays in his Conceptual analysis and the
province of philosophy. The topic represents one of the strands he
identifies behind the unity of his philosophy. By post-war Oxford
philosophy, Grice meant the period he was interested in. While he had been
at Corpus, Merton, and St. Johns in the pre-war days, for some reason, he felt
that he had made history in the post-war period. The historical reason
Grice gives is understandable enough. In the pre-war days, Grice was the
good student and the new fellow of St. Johns ‒ the other one was
Mabbott. But he had not been able to engage in philosophical discussion
much, other than with other tutees of Hardie. After the war, Grice indeed joins
Austins more popular, less secretive Saturday mornings. Indeed, for Grice,
post-war means all philosophy after the war (and not just say, the forties!)
since he never abandoned the methods he developed under Austin, which were
pretty congenial to the ones he had himself displayed in the pre-war days, in
essays like Negation and Personal identity. Grice is a bit of an expert on
Oxonian philosophy. He sees himself as a member of the school of analytic
philosophy, rather than the abused term ordinary-language philosophy. This
is evident by the fact that he contributed to such polemic ‒ but
typically Oxonian ‒ volumes such as Butler, Analytic Philosophy,
published by Blackwell (of all publishers). Grice led a very social life
at Oxford, and held frequent philosophical discussions with the Play group
philosophers (alphabetically listed above), and many others, such as Wood.
Post-war Oxford philosophy, miscellaneous, Oxford philosophy, in WOW, II,
Semantics and Met. , Essay. By Oxford philosophy, Grice means his own. Grice
went back to the topic of philosophy and ordinary language, as one of his
essays is precisely entitled, Philosophy and ordinary language, philosophy and
ordinary language, : ordinary-language philosophy, linguistic botanising. Grice
is not really interested in ordinary language as a philologist might. He spoke
ordinary language, he thought. The point had been brought to the fore by
Austin. If they think philosophy is a play on words, well then, lets play
the game. Grices interest is methodological. Malcolm had been claiming
that ordinary language is incorrigible. While Grice agreed that language can be
clever, he knew that Aristotle was possibly right when he explored ta
legomena in terms of the many and the selected wise, philosophy and
ordinary language, philosophy and ordinary language, : philosophy, ordinary
language. At the time of writing, ordinary-language philosophy had become,
even within Oxford, a bit of a term of abuse. Grice tries to defend
Austins approach to it, while suggesting ideas that Austin somewhat ignored,
like what an utterer implies by the use of an ordinary-language expression,
rather than what the expression itself does. Grice is concerned, contra
Austin, in explanation (or explanatory adequacy), not taxonomy (or descriptive
adequacy). Grice disregards Austins piecemeal approach to ordinary
language, as Grice searches for the big picture of it all. Grice never used
ordinary language seriously. The phrase was used, as he explains, by those who
HATED ordinary-language philosophy. Theres no such thing as ordinary language.
Surely you cannot fairly describe the idiosyncratic linguistic habits of an Old
Cliftonian as even remotely ordinary. Extra-ordinary more likely! As far as the
philosophy bit goes, this is what Bergmann jocularly described as the
linguistic turn. But as Grice notes, the linguistic turn involves both the
ideal language and the ordinary language. Grice defends the choice by Austin of
the ordinary seeing that it was what he had to hand! While Grice seems to be in
agreement with the tone of his Wellesley talk, his idioms there in. Youre
crying for the moon! Philosophy need not be grand! These seem to contrast with
his more grandiose approach to philosophy. His struggle was to defend the
minutiæ of linguistic botanising, that had occupied most of his professional
life, with a grander view of the discipline. He blamed Oxford for that. Never
in the history of philosophy had philosophers shown such an attachment to
ordinary language as they did in post-war Oxford, Grice liked to say.
Having learned Grecian and Latin at Clifton, Grice saw in Oxford a way to go
back to English! He never felt the need to explore Continental modern languages
like German or French. Aristotle was of course cited in Greek, but Descartes is
almost not cited, and Kant is cited in the translation available to Oxonians
then. Grice is totally right that never has philosophy experienced such a
fascination with ordinary use except at Oxford. The ruthless and unswerving
association of philosophy with ordinary language has been peculiar to the
Oxford scene. While many found this attachment to ordinary usage insidious, as
Warnock put it, it fit me and Grice to a T, implicating you need a sort of
innate disposition towards it! Strawson perhaps never had it! And thats why
Grices arguments contra Strawson rest on further minutiæ whose detection by
Grice never ceased to amaze his tutee! In this way, Grice felt he WAS Austins
heir! While Grice is associated with, in chronological order, Corpus, Merton,
and St. Johns, it is only St. Johns that counts for the Griceian! For it is at
St. Johns he was a Tutorial Fellow in Philosophy! And we love him as a
philosopher. Refs.: The obvious keyword is “Oxford.” His essay in WoW on
post-war Oxford philosophy is general – the material in the H. P. Grice papers
is more anecdotic. Also “Reply to Richards,” and references above under
‘linguistic botany’ and ‘play group,’ in BANC.
palæo-Griceian: Within the Oxford group, Grice was the first, and it’s
difficult to find a precursor. It’s obviously Grice was not motivated to create
or design his manoeuvre to oppose a view by Ryle – who cared about Ryle in the
playgroup? None – It is obviously more clear that Grice cared a hoot about
Vitters, Benjamin, and Malcolm. So that leaves us with the philosophers Grice
personally knew. And we are sure he was more interested in criticizing Austin
than his own tutee Strawson. So ths leaves us with Austin. Grice’s manoeuvre
was intended for Austin – but he waited for Austin’s demise to present it. Even
though the sources were publications that were out there before Austin died
(“Other minds,” “A plea for excuses”). So Grice is saying that Austin is wrong,
as he is. In order of seniority, the next was Hart (who Grice mocked about
‘carefully’ in Prolegomena. Then came more or less same-generational Hare (who
was not too friendly with Grice) and ‘to say ‘x is good’ is to recommend x’ (a
‘performatory fallacy’) and Strawson with ‘true’ and, say, ‘if.’ So, back to
the palaeo-Griceian, surely nobody was in a position to feel a motivation to
criticise Austin, Hart, Hare, and Strawson! When philosophers mention this or
that palaeo-Griceian philosopher, surely the motivation was different. And a
philosophical manoevre COMES with a motivation. If we identify some previous
(even Oxonian) philosopher who was into the thing Grice is, it would not have
Austin, Hart, Hare or Strawson as ‘opponents.’ And of course it’s worse with
post-Griceians. Because, as Grice says, there was no othe time than post-war
Oxford philosophy where “my manoeuvre would have make sense.’ If it does, as it
may, post-Grice, it’s “as derivative” of “the type of thing we were doing back
in the day. And it’s no fun anymore.” “Neo-Griceian” is possibly a misnomer. As
Grice notes, “usually you add ‘neo-’ to sell; that’s why, jokingly, I call
Strawson a neo-traditionalist; as if he were a bit of a neo-con, another
oxymoron, as he was!’
That
is H. P. Grice was the first member of the play group to come up with a system
of ‘pragmatic rules.’ Or perhaps he wasn’t. In any case, palaeo-Griceian refers
to any attempt by someone who is an Oxonian English philosopher who suggested
something like H. P. Grice later did! There are palaeo-Griceian suggestions in
Bradley – “Logic” --, Bosanquet, J. C. Wilson (“Statement and inference”) and a
few others. Within those who interacted with Grice to provoke him into the
‘pragmatic rule’ account were two members of the play group. One was not
English, but a Scot: G. A. Paul. Paul had been to ‘the other place,’ and was at
Oxford trying to spread Witters’s doctrine. The bafflement one gets from “I
certainly don’t wish to cast any doubt on the matter, but that pillar box seems
red to me; and the reason why it is does, it’s because it is red, and its
redness causes in my sense of vision the sense-datum that the thing is red.” Grice
admits that he first came out with the idea when confronted with this example.
Mainly Grice’s motivation is to hold that such a ‘statement’ (if statement, it
is, -- vide Bar-Hillel) is true. The other member was English: P. F. Strawson.
And Grice notes that it was Strawson’s Introduction to logical theory that
motivated him to apply a technique which had proved successful in the area of
the philosophy of perception to this idea by Strawson that Whitehead and
Russell are ‘incorrect.’ Again, Grice’s treatment concerns holding a
‘statement’ to be ‘true.’ Besides these two primary cases, there are others.
First, is the list of theses in “Causal Theory.” None of them are assigned to a
particular philosopher, so the research may be conducted towards the identification
of these. The theses are, besides the one he is himself dealing, the
sense-datum ‘doubt or denial’ implicatum: One, What is actual is not also
possible. Two, What is known to be the case is not also believed to be the
case. Three, Moore was guilty of misusing the lexeme ‘know.’ Four, To say that
someone is responsible is to say that he is accountable for something
condemnable. Six, A horse cannot look like a horse. Now, in “Prolegomena” he
add further cases. Again, since this are palaeo-Griceian, it may be a matter of
tracing the earliest occurrences. In “Prolegomena,” Grice divides the examples
in Three Groups. The last is an easy one to identity: the ‘performatory’
approach: for which he gives the example by Strawson on ‘true,’ and mentions two
other cases: a performatory use of ‘I know’ for I guarantee; and the
performatory use of ‘good’ for ‘I approve’ (Ogden). The second group is easy to
identify since it’s a central concern and it is exactly Strawson’s attack on
Whitehead and Russell. But Grice is clear here. It is mainly with regard to
‘if’ that he wants to discuss Strawson, and for which he quotes him at large.
Before talking about ‘if’, he mentions the co-ordinating connectives ‘and’ and
‘or’, without giving a source. So, here there is a lot to research about the
thesis as held by other philosophers even at Oxford (where, however, ‘logic’
was never considered a part of philosophy proper). The first group is the most
varied, and easier to generalise, because it refers to any ‘sub-expression’ held
to occur in a full expression which is held to be ‘inappropriate.’ Those who
judge the utterance to be inappropriate are sometimes named. Grice starts with
Ryle and The Concept of Mind – palaeo-Griceian, in that it surely belongs to
Grice’s previous generation. It concerns the use of the adverb ‘voluntary’ and
Grice is careful to cite Ryle’s description of the case, using words like
‘incorrect,’ and that a ‘sense’ claimed by philosophers is an absurd one. Then
there is a third member of the playgroup – other than G. A. Paul and P. F.
Strawson – the Master Who Wobbles, J. L. Austin. Grice likes the way Austin
offers himself as a good target – Austin was dead by then, and Grice would
otherwise not have even tried – Austin uses variables: notably Mly, and a
general thesis, ‘no modification without aberration.’ But basically, Grice
agrees that it’s all about the ‘philosophy of action.’ So in describing an
agent’s action, the addition of an adverb makes the whole thing inappropriate.
This may relate to at least one example in “Causal” involving ‘responsible.’
While Grice there used the noun and adjective, surely it can be turned into an
adverb. The fourth member of the playgroup comes next: H. L. A. Hart. Grice
laughs at Hart’s idea that to add ‘carefully’ in the description of an action
the utterer is committed to the idea that the agent THINKS the steps taken for
the performance are reasonable. There is a thesis he mentions then which alla
“Causal Theory,” gets uncredited – about ‘trying.’ But he does suggest Witters.
And then there is his own ‘doubt or denial’ re: G. A. Paul, and another one in
the field of the philosophy of perception that he had already mentioned vaguely
in “Causal”: a horse cannot look like a horse. Here he quotes Witters in
extenso, re: ‘seeing as.’ While Grice mentions ‘philosophy of action,’ there is
at least one example involving ‘philosophical psychology’: B. S. Benjamin on C.
D. Broad on the factiveness of ‘remember.’ When one thinks of all the
applications that the ‘conversational model’ has endured, one realizes that
unless your background is philosophical, you are bound not to realise the
centrality of Grice’s thesis for philosophical methodology.
paradigm-case argument: Grice tries to give the general form of this argument, as
applied to Urmson, and Grice and Strawson. I wonder if Grice thought that
STRAWSON’s appeal to resentment to prove freewill is paradigm case? The idiom
was coined by Grice’s first tutee at St. John’s, G. N. A. Flew, and he applied
it to ‘free will.’ Grice later used it to describe the philosophising by Urmson
(in “Retrospetive”). he issue of analyticity is, as Locke puts it, the issue of
whats trifle. That a triangle is trilateral Locke considers a trifling
proposition, like Saffron is yellow. Lewes (who calls mathematical propositions
analytic) describes the Kantian problem. The reductive analysis of meaning Grice
offers depends on the analytic. Few Oxonian philosophers would follow Loar, D.
Phil Oxon, under Warnock, in thinking of Grices conversational maxims as
empirical inductive generalisations over functional states! Synthesis may do in
the New World,but hardly in the Old! The locus classicus for the
ordinary-language philosophical response to Quine in Two dogmas of empiricism.
Grice and Strawson claim that is analytic does have an ordinary-language use,
as attached two a type of behavioural conversational response. To an
analytically false move (such as My neighbours three-year-old son is an adult)
the addressee A is bound to utter, I dont understand you! You are not being
figurative, are you? To a synthetically false move, on the other hand (such as
My neighbours three-year-old understands Russells Theory of Types), the
addressee A will jump with, Cant believe it! The topdogma of analyticity
is for Grice very important to defend. Philosophy depends on it! He
knows that to many his claim to fame is his In defence of a dogma, the topdogma
of analyticity, no less. He eventually turns to a pragmatist justification
of the distinction. This pragmatist justification is still in accordance
with what he sees as the use of analytic in ordinary language. His infamous
examples are as follows. My neighbours three-year old understands Russells
Theory of Types. A: Hard to believe, but I will. My neighbours three-year
old is an adult. Metaphorically? No. Then I dont understand you, and
what youve just said is, in my scheme of things, analytically false.
Ultimately, there are conversational criteria, based on this or that principle
of conversational helfpulness. Grice is also circumstantially concerned with
the synthetic a priori, and he would ask his childrens playmates: Can a
sweater be red and green all over? No stripes allowed! The distinction is
ultimately Kantian, but it had brought to the fore by the linguistic turn, Oxonian
and other! In defence of a dogma, Two dogmas of empiricism, :
the analytic-synthetic distinction. For Quine, there are two. Grice is
mainly interested in the first one: that there is a distinction between the
analytic and the synthetic. Grice considers Empiricism as a monster on his way
to the Rationalist City of Eternal Truth. Grice came back time and again
to explore the analytic-synthetic distinction. But his philosophy remained
constant. His sympathy is for the practicality of it, its rationale. He sees it
as involving formal calculi, rather than his own theory of conversation as
rational co-operation which does not presuppose the analytic-synthetic
distinction, even if it explains it! Grice would press the issue here: if one
wants to prove that such a theory of conversation as rational co-operation has
to be seen as philosophical, rather than some other way, some idea of
analyticity may be needed to justify the philosophical enterprise. Cf. the
synthetic a priori, that fascinated Grice most than anything Kantian else! Can
a sweater be green and red all over? No stripes allowed. With In defence of a
dogma, Grice and Strawson attack a New-World philosopher. Grice had previously
collaborated with Strawson in an essay on Met.
(actually a three-part piece, with Pears as the third author). The
example Grice chooses to refute attack by Quine of the top-dogma is the
Aristotelian idea of the peritrope, as Aristotle refutes Antiphasis in
Met. (v. Ackrill, Burnyeat and Dancy).
Grice explores chapter Γ 8 of Aristotles Met. . In Γ
8, Aristotle presents two self-refutation arguments against two theses,
and calls the asserter, Antiphasis, T1 = Everything is true, and T2 =
Everything is false, Metaph. Γ 8, 1012b13–18. Each thesis is exposed to
the stock objection that it eliminates itself. An utterer who explicitly
conveys that everything is true also makes the thesis opposite to his own true,
so that his own is not true (for the opposite thesis denies that his is true),
and any utterer U who explicitly conveys that everything is false also belies
himself. Aristotle does not seem to be claiming that, if everything
is true, it would also be true that it is false that everything is true and,
that, therefore, Everything is true must be false: the final, crucial
inference, from the premise if, p, ~p to the conclusion ~p is
missing. But it is this extra inference that seems required to have a
formal refutation of Antiphasiss T1 or T2 by consequentia mirabilis. The
nature of the argument as a purely dialectical silencer of Antiphasis is
confirmed by the case of T2, Everything is false. An utterer who explicitly
conveys that everything is false unwittingly concedes, by self-application,
that what he is saying must be false too. Again, the further and different
conclusion Therefore; it is false that everything is false is
missing. That proposal is thus self-defeating, self-contradictory (and
comparable to Grices addressee using adult to apply to three-year old, without
producing the creature), oxymoronic, and suicidal. This seems all that
Aristotle is interested in establishing through the self-refutation stock
objection. This is not to suggest that Aristotle did not believe that Everything
is true or Everything is false is false, or that he excludes that he can prove
its falsehood. Grice notes that this is not what Aristotle seems to be
purporting to establish in 1012b13–18. This holds for a περιτροπή (peritrope)
argument, but not for a περιγραφή (perigraphe) argument (συμβαίνει δὴ καὶ τὸ
θρυλούμενον πᾶσι τοῖς τοιούτοις λόγοις, αὐτοὺς ἑαυτοὺς ἀναιρεῖν. ὁ μὲν γὰρ
πάντα ἀληθῆ λέγων καὶ τὸν ἐναντίον αὑτοῦ λόγον ἀληθῆ ποιεῖ, ὥστε τὸν ἑαυτοῦ οὐκ
ἀληθῆ (ὁ γὰρ ἐναντίος οὔ φησιν αὐτὸν ἀληθῆ), ὁ δὲ πάντα ψευδῆ καὶ αὐτὸς
αὑτόν.) It may be emphasized that Aristotles argument does not contain an
explicit application of consequentia mirabilis. Indeed, no
extant self-refutation argument before Augustine, Grice is told by Mates,
contains an explicit application of consequentia mirabilis. This observation is
a good and important one, but Grice has doubts about the consequences one may
draw from it. One may take the absence of an explicit application of
consequentia mirabilis to be a sign of the purely dialectical nature of the
self-refutation argument. This is questionable. The formulation of a
self-refutation argument (as in Grices addressee, Sorry, I misused adult.) is
often compressed and elliptical and involves this or that implicatum. One
usually assumes that this or that piece in a dialectical context has been
omitted and should be supplied (or worked out, as Grice prefers) by the
addressee. But in this or that case, it is equally possible to supply some
other, non-dialectical piece of reasoning. In Aristotles arguments from Γ
8, e.g., the addressee may supply an inference to the effect that the thesis
which has been shown to be self-refuting is not true. For if Aristotle
takes the argument to establish that the thesis has its own contradictory version
as a consequence, it must be obvious to Aristotle that the thesis is not true
(since every consequence of a true thesis is true, and two contradictory theses
cannot be simultaneously true). On the further assumption (that Grice
makes explicit) that the principle of bivalence is applicable, Aristotle may
even infer that the thesis is false. It is perfectly plausible to
attribute such an inference to Aristotle and to supply it in his argument from
Γ 8. On this account, there is no reason to think that the argument is of
an intrinsically dialectical nature and cannot be adequately represented as a
non-dialectical proof of the non-truth, or even falsity, of the thesis in
question. It is indeed difficult to see signs of a dialectical exchange
between two parties (of the type of which Grice and Strawson are champions) in
Γ8, 1012b13–18. One piece of evidence is Aristotles reference to the
person, the utterer, as Grice prefers who explicitly conveys or asserts (ὁ
λέγων) that T1 or that T2. This reference by the Grecian philosopher to
the Griceian utterer or asserter of the thesis that everything is true would be
irrelevant if Aristotles aim is to prove something about T1s or T2s
propositional content, independently of the act by the utterer of uttering
its expression and thereby explicitly conveying it. However, it is not
clear that this reference is essential to Aristotles argument. One may
even doubt whether the Grecian philosopher is being that Griceian, and actually
referring to the asserter of T1 or T2. The *implicit* (or implicated)
grammatical Subjects of Aristotles ὁ λέγων (1012b15) might be λόγος, instead of
the utterer qua asserter. λόγος is surely the implicit grammatical Subjects of
ὁ λέγων shortly after ( 1012b21–22. 8). The passage may be taken to be
concerned with λόγοι ‒ this or that statement, this or that
thesis ‒ but not with its asserter. In the Prior Analytics,
Aristotle states that no thesis (A three-year old is an adult) can necessarily
imply its own contradictory (A three-year old is not an adult) (2.4,
57b13–14). One may appeal to this statement in order to argue for
Aristotles claim that a self-refutation argument should NOT be analyzed as
involving an implicit application of consequentia mirabilis. Thus, one should
deny that Aristotles self-refutation argument establishes a necessary
implication from the self-refuting thesis to its contradictory. However,
this does not explain what other kind of consequence relation Aristotle takes
the self-refutation argument to establish between the self-refuting thesis and
its contradictory, although dialectical necessity has been suggested.
Aristotles argument suffices to establish that Everything is false is either
false or liar-paradoxical. If a thesis is liar-paradoxical (and Grice
loved, and overused the expression), the assumption of its falsity leads to
contradiction as well as the assumption of its truth. But Everything is
false is only liar-paradoxical in the unlikely, for Aristotle perhaps
impossible, event that everything distinct from this thesis is false. So,
given the additional premise that there is at least one true item distinct from
the thesis Everything is false, Aristotle can safely infer that the thesis is
false. As for Aristotles ὁ γὰρ λέγων τὸν ἀληθῆ λόγον ἀληθῆ ἀληθής,, or eliding
the γὰρ, ὁ λέγων τὸν ἀληθῆ λόγον ἀληθῆ ἀληθής, (ho
legon ton alethe logon alethe alethes) may be rendered as either: The statement
which states that the true statement is true is true, or, more alla Grice,
as He who says (or explicitly conveys, or indicates) that the true thesis
is true says something true. It may be argued that it is quite baffling
(and figurative or analogical or metaphoric) in this context, to take ἀληθής to
be predicated of the Griceian utterer, a person (true standing for truth
teller, trustworthy), to take it to mean that he says something true,
rather than his statement stating something true, or his statement being true.
But cf. L and S: ἀληθής [α^], Dor. ἀλαθής, [α^], Dor. ἀλαθής, ές, f. λήθω, of
persons, truthful, honest (not in Hom., v. infr.), ἀ. νόος Pi. O.2.92;
κατήγορος A. Th. 439; κριτής Th. 3.56; οἶνος ἀ. `in vino veritas, Pl. Smp.
217e; ὁ μέσος ἀ. τις Arist. EN 1108a20. Admittedly, this or that non-Griceian
passage in which it is λόγος, and not the utterer, which is the implied
grammatical Subjects of ὁ λέγων can be found in Metaph. Γ7, 1012a24–25; Δ6,
1016a33; Int. 14, 23a28–29; De motu an. 10, 703a4; Eth. Nic. 2.6, 1107a6–7.
9. So the topic is controversial. Indeed such a non-Griceian exegesis of
the passage is given by Alexander of Aphrodisias (in Metaph. 340. 26–29):9,
when Alexander observes that the statement, i.e. not the utterer, that says
that everything is false (ὁ δὲ πάντα ψευδῆ εἶναι λέγων λόγος) negates itself,
not himself, because if everything is false, this very statement, which, rather
than, by which the utterer, says that everything is false, would be false, and
how can an utterer be FALSE? So that the statement which, rather than the
utterer who, negates it, saying that not everything is false, would be true,
and surely an utterer cannot be true. Does Alexander misrepresent Aristotles
argument by omitting every Griceian reference to the asserter or utterer qua
rational personal agent, of the thesis? If the answer is negative, even if the
occurrence of ὁ λέγων at 1012b15 refers to the asserter, or utterer, qua
rational personal agent, this is merely an accidental feature of Aristotles
argument that cannot be regarded as an indication of its dialectical nature.
None of this is to deny that some self-refutation argument may be of an
intrinsically dialectical nature; it is only to deny that every one is This is
in line with Burnyeats view that a dialectical self-refutation, even if
qualified, as Aristotle does, as ancient, is a subspecies of self-refutation,
but does not exhaust it. Granted, a dialectical approach may provide a useful
interpretive framework for many an ancient self-refutation argument. A
statement like If proof does not exist, proof exists ‒ that occurs in an
anti-sceptical self-refutation argument reported by Sextus
Empiricus ‒ may receive an attractive dialectical re-interpretation.
It may be argued that such a statement should not be understood at the
level of what is explicated, but should be regarded as an elliptical reminder
of a complex dialectical argument which can be described as follows. Cf. If
thou claimest that proof doth not exist, thou must present a proof of what thou
assertest, in order to be credible, but thus thou thyself admitest that proof
existeth. A similar point can be made for Aristotles famous argument in the
Protrepticus that one must philosophise. A number of sources state that this
argument relies on the implicature, If one must not philosophize, one must
philosophize. It may be argued that this implicature is an elliptical reminder
of a dialectical argument such as the following. If thy position is that thou
must not philosophise, thou must reflect on this choice and argue in its
support, but by doing so thou art already choosing to do philosophy, thereby
admitting that thou must philosophise. The claim that every instance of an
ancient self-refutation arguments is of an intrinsically dialectical nature is
thus questionable, to put it mildly. V also 340.19–26, and A. Madigan, tcomm.,
Alexander of Aphrodisias: On Aristotles Met.
4, Ithaca, N.Y., Burnyeat, Protagoras and Self-Refutation in Later Greek
Philosophy,. Grices implicature is that Quine should have learned Greek before
refuting Aristotle. But then *I* dont speak Greek! Strawson refuted. Refs.: The
obvious keyword is ‘analytic,’ in The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC. : For one,
Grice does not follow Aristotle, but Philo. the conditional If Alexander exists,
Alexander talks or If Alexander exists, he has such-and-such an age is not
true—not even if he is in fact of such-and-such an age when the proposition is
said. (in APr 175.34–176.6)⁴³ ⁴³
… δείκνυσιν ὅτι μὴ οἷόν τε δυνατῷ τι ἀδύνατον ἀκολουθεῖν, ἀλλ᾿ ἀνάγκη ἀδύνατον
εἶναι ᾧ τὸ ἀδύνατον ἀκολουθεῖ, ἐπὶ πάσης ἀναγκαίας ἀκολουθίας. ἔστι δὲ ἀναγκαία
ἀκολουθία οὐχ ἡ πρόσκαιρος, ἀλλὰ ἐν ᾗ ἀεὶ τὸ ἑπόμενον ἕπεσθαι ἔστι τῷ τὸ εἰλημμένον
ὡς ἡγούμενον εἶναι. οὐ γὰρ ἀληθὲς συνημμένον τὸ εἰ ᾿Αλέξανδρος ἔστιν, ᾿Αλέξανδρος
διαλέγεται, ἢ εἰ ᾿Αλέξανδρος ἔστι, τοσῶνδε ἐτῶν ἐστι, καὶ εἰ εἴη ὅτε λέγεται ἡ
πρότασις τοσούτων ἐτῶν. vide Barnes. ...
έχη δε και επιφοράν το 5 αντικείμενον τώ ήγουμένω, τότε ο τοιούτος γίνεται
δεύτερος αναπόδεικτος, ώς το ,,ει ημέρα έστι, φώς έστιν ουχί δέ γε φώς
έστιν ουκ άρα ...εί ημέρα εστι
, φως έστιν ... eine unrichtige (
μοχθηρόν ) bezeichnet 142 ) , und Zwar war es besonders Philo ... οίον , , εί ημέρα εστι , φως έστιν , ή
άρχεται από ψεύδους και λήγει επί ψεύδος ... όπερ ήν λήγον . bei der
Obwaltende Conditional -
Nexus gar nicht in Betracht ...Philo:
If it is day, I am talking. One of Grice’s favorite paradoxes, that display the
usefulness of the implicatum are the so-called ‘paradoxes of implication.’
Johnson, alas, uses ‘paradox’ in the singular. So there must be earlier
accounts of this in the history of philosophy. Notably in the ancient
commentators to Philo! (Greek “ei” and Roman “si”). Misleading but true – could
do.” Note that Grice has an essay on the ‘paradoxes of entailment’. As Strawson
notes, this is misleading. For Strawson these are not paradoxes. The things are
INCORRECT. For Grice, the Philonian paradoxes are indeed paradoxical because
each is a truth. Now, Strawson and Wiggins challenge this. For Grice, to utter
“if p, q” implicates that the utterer is not in a position to utter anything
stronger. He implicates that he has NON-TRUTH-FUNCTIONAL REASON or grounds to
utter “if p, q.” For Strawson, THAT is precisely what the ‘consequentialist’ is
holding. For Strawson, the utterer CONVENTIONALLY IMPLIES that the consequent
or apodosis follows, in some way, from the antecedent or protasis. Not for
Grice. For Grice, what the utterer explicitly conveys is that the conditions
that obtain are those of the Philonian conditional. He implicitly conveys that
there is n inferrability, and this is cancellable. If Strawson holds that it is
a matter of a conventional implicatum, the issue of cancellation becomes
crucial. For Grice, to add that “But I don’t want to covey that there is any
inferrability between the protasis and the apodosis” is NOT a contradiction.
The utterer or emissor is NOT self-contradicting. And he isn’t! The first to
use the term ‘paracox’ here is a genius. Possibly Philo. It
was W. E. Johnson who first used
the expression 'paradox of
implication', explaining that a paradox of this sort arises when a
logician proceeds step by step, using accepted
principles, until a formula is reached which conflicts with common sense
[Johnson, 1921, 39].The
paradox of implication assumes many forms, some of which are not easily
recognised as involving mere varieties of the same fundamental principle.
But COMPOUND PROPOSITIONS 47 I believe that they
can all be resolved by the consideration that we cannot ivithotd qjialification
apply a com- posite and (in particular) an implicative proposition
to the further process of inference. Such application is possible
only when the composite has been reached irrespectively of any assertion
of the truth or falsity of its components. In other words, it is a
necessary con- dition for further inference that the components of
a composite should really have been entertained hypo- thetically
when asserting that composite. § 9. The theory of compound
propositions leads to a special development when in the conjunctives
the components are taken — not, as hitherto, assertorically — but
hypothetically as in the composites. The conjunc- tives will now be
naturally expressed by such words as possible or compatible, while the
composite forms which respectively contradict the conjunctives will be
expressed by such words as necessary or impossible. If we select
the negative form for these conjunctives, we should write as
contradictory pairs : Conjunctives {possible) Composites
{fiecessary) a. p does not imply q 1, p is not
implied by q c. p is not co-disjunct to q d. p is not
co-alternate to q a, p implies q b, p is implied
by q c, p is co-disjunct to q d, p is co-alternate to
q Or Otherwise, using the term 'possible' throughout,
the four conjunctives will assume the form that the several conjunctions
— pq^pq, pq ^-nd pq — are respectively /^i*- sidle. Here the word
possible is equivalent to being merely hypothetically entertained, so
that the several conjunctives are now qualified in the same way as
are the simple components themselves. Similarly the four CHAPTER HI
corresponding composites may be expressed negatively by using the
term 'impossible,' and will assume the form that the ^^;yunctions pq^ pq,
pq and pq are re- spectively impossible, or (which means the same)
that the ^zVjunctions/^, ^^, pq Rnd pq are necessary. Now just as
'possible* here means merely 'hypothetically entertained/ so 'impossible'
and 'necessary' mean re- spectively 'assertorically denied' and
'assertorically affirmed/ The above scheme leads to the
consideration of the determinate relations that could subsist of p to q
when these eight propositions (conjunctives and composites) are
combined in everypossibleway without contradiction. Prima facie there are
i6 such combinations obtained by selecting a or ay b or 3, c or c, d or J
for one of the four constituent terms. Out of these i6 combinations,
how- ever, some will involve a conjunction of supplementaries (see
tables on pp. 37, 38), which would entail the as- sertorical affirmation
or denial of one of the components / or q, and consequently would not
exhibit a relation of p to q. The combinations that, on this ground, must
be disallowed are the following nine : cihcd, abed, abed,
abed] abed, bacd, cabd, dabc\ abed. The combinations that remain to
be admitted are therefore the followino- seven : abld, cdab\
abed, bald, cdab^ dcab\ abed. In fact, under the imposed
restriction, since a or b cannot be conjoined with c or d, it follows
that we must always conjoin a with c and d\ b with e and d\ c with
a and b\ ^with a and b. This being understood, the COMPOUND
PROPOSITIONS 49 seven permissible combinations that remain are
properly to be expressed in the more simple forms: ab, cd\
ab, ba, cd, dc\ and abed These will be represented (but re-arranged
for purposes of symmetry) in the following table giving all the
possible relations of any proposition/ to any proposition q. The
technical names which 1 propose to adopt for the several relations are
printed in the second column of the table. Table of possible
relations of propositio7i p to proposition q. 1. {a,b)\ p
implies and is implied by q 2. (a, b) : p implies but is not
implied by q, 3. {b^d): p is implied by but does not imply q,
4. {djb^'c^d): p is neither implicans nor impli cate nor co-disjunct
nor co-alternate to g. 5. {dy c)\ /is co-alternate but not
co-disjunct to $r, 6. {Cyd):
/isco-disjunctbutnotco-alternateto$^. 7. {Cjd)'. p is co-disjunct
and co-alternate to q, p is co-implicant to q p is
super-implicant to q. p is sub-implicant to q. p is
independent of q p is sub-opponent to q p is
super-opponent to q, p is co-opponent to q, Here the symmetry
indicated by the prefixes, co-, super-, sub-, is brought out by reading
downwards and upwards to the middle line representing independence.
In this order the propositional forms range from the supreme degree of
consistency to the supreme degree of opponency, as regards the relation
of/ to ^. In tradi- tional logic the seven forms of relation are known
respec- tively by the names equipollent, superaltern, subaltern,
independent, sub-contrary, contrary, contradictory. This latter
terminology, however, is properly used to express the formal relations of
implication and opposition, whereas the terminology which I have adopted
will apply indifferently both for formal and for material relations. One of Grice’s claims to fame is his paradox, under ‘Yog
and Zog.’ Another paradox that Grice examines at length is paradox by Moore.
For Grice, unlike Nowell-Smith, an utterer who, by uttering The cat is on the
mat explicitly conveys that the cat is on the mat does not thereby implicitly
convey that he believes that the cat is on the mat. He, more crucially
expresses that he believes that the cat is on the mat ‒ and this is not
cancellable. He occasionally refers to Moores paradox in the buletic mode, Close
the door even if thats not my desire. An imperative still expresses someones
desire. The sergeant who orders his soldiers to muster at dawn because he is
following the lieutenants order. Grices first encounter with paradox remains
his studying Malcolms misleading exegesis of Moore. Refs.: The main sources
given under ‘heterologicality,’ above. ‘Paradox’ is a good keyword in The H. P.
Grice Papers, since he used ‘paradox’ to describe his puzzle about ‘if,’ but
also Malcolm on Moore on the philosopher’s paradox, and paradoxes of material
implication and paradoxes of entailment. Grice’s point is that a paradox is not
something false. For Strawson it is. “The so-called paradoxes of ‘entailment’
and ‘material implication’ are a misnomer. They statements are not paradoxical,
they are false.” Not for Grice! Cf. aporia. The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC MSS
90/135c, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.
pearsianism – after D. F. Pears, one of Grice’s collaborators in the
Play Group. “In them days, we would never publish, since the only philosophers
we were interested in communicating with we saw at least every Saturday!” –
With D. F. Pears, and J. F. Thomson, H. P. Grice explored topics in the
philosophy of action and ‘philosophical psychology.’ Actually, Grice carefully
writes ‘philosophy of action.’ Why? Well, because while with Pears and Thomson
he explored toopics like ‘intending’ and ‘deciding,’ it was always with a vew
towards ‘acting,’ or ‘doing.’ Grice is
very clear on this, “even fastidiously so,” as Blackburn puts it. In the
utterance of an imperative, or an intention, which may well be other-directed,
the immediate response or effect in your co-conversationalist is a
‘recognition,’ i. e. what Grice calls an ‘uptake,’ some sort of ‘understanding.’
In the case of these ‘desiderative’ moves, the recognition is that the
communicator WILLS something. Grice uses a ‘that’-clause attached to ‘will,’ so
that he can formulate the proposition “p” – whose realization is in question.
Now, this ‘will’ on the part of the ‘communicator’ needs to be ‘transmitted.’
So the communicator’s will includes his will that his emissee will adopt this
will. “And eventually act upon it!” So, you see, while it looks as if Pears and
Thomson and Grice are into ‘philosophical psychology,’ they are into ‘praxis.’
Not alla Althuser, but almost! Pears explored the idea of the conversational
implicatum in connection, obviously, with action. There is a particular type of
conditional that relates to action. Grice’s example, “If I COULD do it, I would
climb Mt. Everest on hands and knees.”
Grice and Pears, and indeed Thomson, analysed this ‘if.’ Pears thinks
that ‘if’ conversationally implicates ‘if and only if.’ Grice called that
“Perfecct pears.”
perceptum: the traditional distinction is perceptum-conceptum: nihil
est in intellectu quod prius non fuerit in sensu. this is Grice on sense-datum.
Grice feels that the kettle is hot; Grice sees that the kettle is hot; Grice
perceives that the kettle is hot. WoW:251 uses this example. It may be argued
that the use of ‘see’ is there NOT factive. Cf. “I feel hot but it’s not hot.”
Grice modifies the thing to read, “DIRECTLY PERCEIVING”: Grice only indirectly
perceives that the kettle is hot’ if what he is doing is ‘seeing’ that the
kettle is hot. When Grice sees that the kettle is hot, it is a ‘secondary’
usage of ‘see,’ because it means that Grice perceives that the kettle has some
visual property that INDICATES the presence of hotness (Grice uses phi for the
general formula). Cf. sensum. Lewis and Short have “sentĭo,” which they
render, aptly, as “to sense,” ‘to discern by the senses; to feel, hear, see,
etc.; to perceive, be sensible of (syn. percipio).”
Note that Price is also cited by Grice in Personal identity. Grice: That pillar
box seems red to me. The locus classicus in the philosophical literature for
Grices implicatum. Grice introduces a dout-or-denial condition for an utterance
of a phenomenalist report (That pillar-box seems red to me). Grice attacks
neo-Wittgensteinian approaches that regard the report as _false_. In a long
excursus on implication, he compares the phenomenalist report with utterances
like He has beautiful handwriting (He is hopeless at philosophy), a
particularised conversational implicatum; My wife is in the kitchen or the
garden (I have non-truth-functional grounds to utter this), a generalised
conversational implicatum; She was poor but she was honest (a Great-War
witty (her poverty and her honesty contrast), a conventional implicatum; and
Have you stopped beating your wife? an old Oxonian conundrum. You have
been beating your wife, cf. Smith has not ceased from eating iron, a
presupposition. More importantly, he considers different tests for each
concoction! Those for the conversational implicatum will become crucial:
cancellability, calculability, non-detachability, and indeterminacy. In the
proceedings he plays with something like the principle of conversational
helpfulness, as having a basis on a view of conversation as rational
co-operation, and as giving the rationale to the implicatum. Past the excursus,
and back to the issue of perception, he holds a conservative view as presented
by Price at Oxford. One interesting reprint of Grices essay is in Daviss volume
on Causal theories, since this is where it belongs! White’s response is usually
ignored, but shouldnt. White is an interesting Australian philosopher at Oxford
who is usually regarded as a practitioner of ordinary-language philosophy.
However, in his response, White hardly touches the issue of the implicature
with which Grice is primarily concerned. Grice found that a full reprint from
the PAS in a compilation also containing the James Harvard would be too
repetitive. Therefore, he omits the excursus on implication. However, the way
Grice re-formulates what that excursus covers is very interesting. There is the
conversational implicatum, particularised (Smith has beautiful handwriting) and
generalised (My wife is in the kitchen or in the garden). Then there is the
præsuppositum, or presupposition (You havent stopped beating your wife).
Finally, there is the conventional implicatum (She was poor, but she was
honest). Even at Oxford, Grices implicature goes, philosophers ‒ even Oxonian
philosophers ‒ use imply for all those different animals! Warnock had attended
Austins Sense and Sensibilia (not to be confused with Sense and Sensibility by
Austen), which Grice found boring, but Warnock didnt because Austin reviews his
"Berkeley." But Warnock, for obvious reasons, preferred
philosophical investigations with Grice. Warnock reminisces that Grice once
tells him, and not on a Saturday morning, either, How clever language is, for
they find that ordinary language does not need the concept of a visum. Grice
and Warnock spent lovely occasions exploring what Oxford has as the philosophy
of perception. While Grice later came to see philosophy of perception as a bit
or an offshoot of philosophical psychology, the philosophy of perception is
concerned with that treasured bit of the Oxonian philosophers lexicon, the sense-datum,
always in the singular! The cause involved is crucial. Grice plays with an
evolutionary justification of the material thing as the denotatum of a
perceptual judgement. If a material thing causes the sense-datum of a nut, that
is because the squarrel (or squirrel) will not be nourished by the sense datum
of the nut; only by the nut! There are many other items in the Grice Collection
that address the topic of perception – notably with Warnock, and criticizing
members of the Ryle group like Roxbee-Cox (on vision, cf. visa ‒ taste, and
perception, in general – And we should not forget that Grice contributed a
splendid essay on the distinction of the senses to Butlers Analytic philosophy,
which in a way, redeemed a rather old-fashioned discipline by shifting it to
the idiom of the day, the philosophy of perception: a retrospective, with
Warnock, the philosophy of perception, : perception, the philosophy of
perception, visum. Warnock was possibly the only philosopher at Oxford
Grice felt congenial enough to engage in different explorations in the
so-called philosophy of perception. Their joint adventures involved the
disimplicature of a visum. Grice later approached sense data in more
evolutionary terms: a material thing is to be vindicated transcendentally, in
the sense that it is a material thing (and not a sense datum or collection
thereof) that nourishes a creature like a human. Grice was particularly
grateful to Warnock. By reprinting the full symposium on “Causal theory” of
perception in his influential s. of Oxford Readings in Philosophy, Warnock had
spread Grices lore of implicature all over! In some parts of the draft he uses
more on visa, vision, vision, with Warnock, vision. Of the five senses,
Grice and Warnock are particularly interested in seeing. As Grice will put it
later, see is a factive. It presupposes the existence of the event reported
after the that-clause; a visum, however, as an intermediary between the
material thing and the perceiver does not seem necessary in ordinary discourse.
Warnock will reconsider Grices views too (On what is seen, in Sibley). While
Grice uses vision, he knows he is interested in Philosophers paradox concerning
seeing, notably Witters on seeing as, vision, taste and the philosophy of
perception, vision, seeing. As an Oxonian philosopher, Grice was of course
more interested in seeing than in vision. He said that Austin would criticise
even the use of things like sensation and volition, taste, The Grice Papers,
keyword: taste, the objects of the five senses, the philosophy of perception,
perception, the philosophy of perception; philosophy of perception, vision,
taste, perception. Mainly with Warnock. Warnock repr. Grice’s “Causal
theory” in his influential Reading in Philosophy, The philosophy of perception,
perception, with Warnock, with Warner; perception. Warnock learns about
perception much more from Grice than from Austin, taste, The philosophy of
perception, the philosophy of perception, notes with Warnock on visum, : visum,
Warnock, Grice, the philosophy of perception. Grice kept the lecture
notes to a view of publishing a retrospective. Warnock recalled Grice
saying, how clever language is! Grice took the offer by Harvard University
Press, and it was a good thing he repr. part of “Causal theory.” However, the relevant
bits for his theory of conversation as rational co-operation lie in the
excursus which he omitted. What is Grices implicature: that one should consider
the topic rather than the method here, being sense datum, and causation, rather
than conversational helpfulness. After all, That pillar box seems red to me,
does not sound very helpful. But the topic of Causal theory is central for his
view of conversation as rational co-operation. Why? P1 gets an
impression of danger as caused by the danger out there. He communicates the
danger to P1, causing in P2 some behaviour. Without
causation, or causal links, the very point of offering a theory of conversation
as rational co-operation seems minimized. On top, as a metaphysician, he was
also concerned with cause simpliciter. He was especially proud that Price’s
section on the casual theory of perception, from his Belief, had been repr.
along with his essay in the influential volume by Davis on “Causal theories.”
In “Actions and events,” Grice further explores cause now in connection with
Greek aitia. As Grice notes, the original usage of this very Grecian item is
the one we find in rebel without a cause, cause-to, rather than cause-because.
The two-movement nature of causing is reproduced in the conversational exchange:
a material thing causes a sense datum which causes an expression which gets
communicated, thus causing a psychological state which will cause a behaviour.
This causation is almost representational. A material thing or a situation
cannot govern our actions and behaviours, but a re-præsentatum of it might.
Govern our actions and behaviour is Grices correlate of what a team of
North-Oxfordshire cricketers can do for North-Oxfordshire: what North
Oxfordshire cannot do for herself, Namesly, engage in a game of cricket! In
Retrospective epilogue he casts doubts on the point of his causal approach. It
is a short paragraph that merits much exploration. Basically, Grice is saying
his causalist approach is hardly an established thesis. He also proposes a similar
serious objection to his view in Some remarks about the senses, the other essay
in the philosophy of perception in Studies. As he notes, both engage with some
fundamental questions in the philosophy of perception, which is hardly the same
thing as saying that they provide an answer to each question! Grice: The
issue with which I have 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 I think need to be examined in order to see whether
or not they are sufficiently parallel to the thesis which I have been
discussing to be amenable to treatment of the same general kind. Examples which
occur to me are the following six. You cannot see a knife ‘as’ a knife, though
you may see what is not a knife ‘as’ a knife (keyword: ‘seeing as’). When he
said he ‘knew’ that the objects before him were human hands, Moore was guilty
of misusing ‘know.’ For an occurrence to be properly said to have a ‘cause,’ it
must be something abnormal or unusual (keyword: ‘cause’). For an action to be
properly described as one for which the agent is ‘responsible,’ it must be the
sort of action for which people are condemned (keyword: responsibility). What
is actual is not also possible (keyword: actual). What is known by me to be the
case is not also believed by me to be the case (keyword: ‘know’ – cf. Urmson on
‘scalar set’). And cf. with the extra examples he presents in “Prolegomena.” I
have no doubt that there will be other candidates besides the six which I have
mentioned. I must emphasize that I am not saying that all these examples are
importantly similar to the thesis which I have been criticizing, only that, for
all I know, they may be. To put the matter more generally, the position adopted
by my objector seems to me to involve a type of manoeuvre which is
characteristic of more than one contemporary mode of philosophizing. I am not
condemning this kind of manoeuvre. I am 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 detectcd, we should make sure
that we are reasonably clear what sort of nuances they are. “Causal theory”,
knowledge and belief, knowledge, belief, philosophical psychology. Grice: the
doxastic implicatum. I know only implicates I do not believe. The following is
a mistake by a philosopher. What is known by me to be the case is not also
believed by me to be the case. The topic had attracted the attention of some
Oxonian philosophers such as Urmson in Parenthetical verbs. Urmson speaks of a
scale: I know can be used parenthetically, as I believe can. For Grice, to
utter I believe is obviously to make a weaker conversational move than you
would if you utter I know. And in this case, an approach to informativeness in
terms of entailment is in order, seeing that I know entails I believe. A is
thus allowed to infer that the utterer is not in a position to make the
stronger claim. The mechanism is explained via his principle of conversational
helpfulness. Philosophers tend two over-use these two basic psychological
states, attitudes, or stances. Grice is concerned with Gettier-type cases, and
also the factivity of know versus the non-factivity of believe. Grice follows
the lexicological innovations by Hintikka: the logic of belief is doxastic; the
logic of knowledge is epistemic. The last thesis that Grice lists in Causal
theory that he thinks rests on a big mistake he formulates as: What is known by
me to be the case is NOT also believed by me to be the case. What are his
attending remarks? Grice writes: The issue with which I have 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 I
think need to be examined in order to see whether or not they are sufficiently
parallel to the thesis which I have been discussing to be amenable to treatment
of the same general kind. An example which occurs to me is the following: What
is known by me to be the case is not also believed by me to be the case. I must
emphasise that I am not saying that this example is importantly similar to the
thesis which I have been criticising, only that, for all I know, it may be. To
put the matter more generally, the position adopted by my objector seems to me
to involve a type of manoeuvre which is characteristic of more than one
contemporary mode of philosophizing. I am not condemning this kind of
manoeuvre. I am 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! The ætiological implicatum.
Grice. For an occurrence to be properly said to have a cause, it must be
something abnormal or unusual. This is an example Grice lists in Causal theory
but not in Prolegomena. But cf. ‘responsible’ – and Hart and Honoré on
accusation -- accusare
"call to account, make complaint against," from ad causa, from “ad,”
with regard to, as in ‘ad-’) + causa, a cause; a lawsuit,’ v. cause. For an occurrence to be properly said to have a cause, it
must be something abnormal or unusual. Similar commentary to his example on
responsible/condemnable apply. The objector may stick with the fact that he is
only concerned with proper utterances. Surely Grice wants to go to a
pre-Humeian account of causation, possible Aristotelian, aetiologia. Where
everything has a cause, except, for Aristotle, God! What are his attending
remarks? Grice writes: The issue with which I have 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 I think need to be examined
in order to see whether or not they are sufficiently parallel to the thesis
which I have been discussing to be amenable to treatment of the same general
kind. An example which occurs to me is the following: What is known by me to be
the case is not also believed by me to be the case. 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 my objector seems to me to involve a type of
manoeuvre which is characteristic of more than one contemporary mode of
philosophising. I am not condemning this kind of manoeuvre. I am 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! Causal theory, cause, causality, causation, conference, colloquium,
Stanford, cause, metaphysics, the abnormal/unusual implicatum, ætiology,
ætiological implicatum. Grice: the ætiological implicatum. Grices explorations
on cause are very rich. He is concerned with some alleged misuse of cause in
ordinary language. If as Hume suggests, to cause is to will, one would say that
the decapitation of Charles I wills his death, which sounds harsh, if not
ungrammatical, too. Grice later relates cause to the Greek aitia, as he should.
He notes collocations like rebel without a cause. For the Greeks, or Grecians,
as he called them, and the Griceians, it is a cause to which one should be
involved in elucidating. A ‘cause to’ connects with the idea of freedom.
Grice was constantly aware of the threat of mechanism, and his idea was to
provide philosophical room for the idea of finality, which is not
mechanistically derivable. This leads him to discussion of overlap and priority
of, say, a physical-cum-physiological versus a psychological theory explaining
this or that piece of rational behaviour. Grice can be Wittgensteinian when
citing Anscombes translation: No psychological concept without the behaviour
the concept is brought to explain. It is best to place his later
treatment of cause with his earlier one in Causal theory. It is surprising
Grice does not apply his example of a mistake by a philosopher to the causal
bit of his causal theory. Grice states the philosophical mistake as follows:
For an occurrence to be properly said to have a cause, it must be something abnormal
or unusual. This is an example Grice lists in Causal theory but not in
Prolegomena. For an occurrence to be properly said to have a cause, it must be
something abnormal or unusual. A similar commentary to his example on
responsible/condemnable applies: The objector may stick with the fact that he
is only concerned with PROPER utterances. Surely Grice wants to embrace a
pre-Humeian account of causation, possible Aristotelian. Keyword: Aitiologia,
where everything has a cause, except, for Aristotle, God! What are his
attending remarks? Grice writes: The issue with which I have 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 Grice
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. One example which occurs to Grice is the
following: For an occurrence to be properly said to have a cause, it must be
something abnormal or unusual. Grice feels he must emphasise that he is 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 my objector seems to me to involve a type of
manoeuvre which is characteristic of more than one contemporary mode of
philosophizing. I am not condemning this kind of manoeuvre. I am 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! Re: responsibility/condemnation. Cf. Mabbott, Flew on punishment,
Philosophy. And also Hart. At Corpus, Grice enjoys his tutor Hardies
resourcefulness in the defence of what may be a difficult position, a
characteristic illustrated by an incident which Hardie himself once told Grice
about himself. Hardie had parked his car and gone to a cinema. Unfortunately,
Hardie had parked his car on top of one of the strips on the street by means of
which traffic-lights were, at the time, controlled by the passing traffic. As a
result, the lights are jammed, and it requires four policemen to lift Hardies
car off the strip. The police decides to prosecute. Grice indicated to Hardie
that this hardly surprised him and asked him how he fared. Oh, Hardie says, I
got off. Then Grice asks Hardie how on earth he managed that! Quite simply,
Hardie answers. I just invoked Mills method of difference. The police charged
me with causing an obstruction at 4 p.m. I told the police that, since my car
was parked at 2 p.m., it could not have been my car which caused the
obstruction at 4 p.m. This relates to an example in Causal theory that he Grice
does not discuss in Prolegomena, but which may relate to Hart, and closer to
Grice, to Mabbotts essay on Flew on punishment, in Philosophy. Grice states the
philosophical mistake as follows: For an action to be properly described as one
for which the agent is responsible, it must be thc sort of action for which
people are condemned. As applied to Hardie. Is Hardie irresponsible? In any
case, while condemnable, he was not! Grice writes: The issue with which I have
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 I think need to be examined in order to see whether or not they are
sufficiently parallel to the thesis which I have been discussing to be amenable
to treatment of the same general kind. An example which occurs to me is the
following: For an action to be properly described as one for which the agent is
responsible, it must be the sort of action for which people are condemned. 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 my objector seems to
me to involve a type of manoeuvre which is characteristic of more than one
contemporary mode of philosophizing. I am not condemning this kind of
manoeuvre. I am 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. The modal example, what is
actual is not also possible, should discussed under Indicative conditonals,
Grice on Macbeth’s implicature: seeing a dagger as a dagger. Grice elaborates
on this in Prolegomena, but the austerity of Causal theory is charming, since
he does not give a quote or source. Obviously, Witters. Grice writes: Witters
might say that one cannot see a knife as a knife, though one may see what is
not a knife as a knife. The issue, Grice notes, with which I have 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 I
think need to be examined in order to see whether or not they are sufficiently
parallel to the thesis which I have been discussing to be amenable to treatment
of the same general kind. An example which occurs to Grice is the following:
You cannot see a knife as a knife, though you may see what is not a knife as a
knife. Grice feels that he must emphasise that he is 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 my objector seems to me to involve a type of manoeuvre
which is characteristic of more than one contemporary mode of philosophizing. I
am not condemning this kind of manoeuvre. I am 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! Is this a
dagger which I see before me, the handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch
thee. I have thee not, and yet I see thee still. Art thou not, fatal vision,
sensible to feeling as to sight? or art thou but A dagger of the mind, a false
creation, Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain? I see thee yet, in form as
palpable as this which now I draw. Thou marshallst me the way that I was going;
and such an instrument I was to use. Mine eyes are made the fools o the other
senses, Or else worth all the rest; I see thee still, and on thy blade and
dudgeon gouts of blood, which was not so before. Theres no such thing: It is
the bloody business which informs Thus to mine eyes. Now oer the one halfworld Nature
seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse The curtaind sleep; witchcraft celebrates
Pale Hecates offerings, and witherd murder, Alarumd by his sentinel, the wolf,
Whose howls his watch, thus with his stealthy pace. With Tarquins
ravishing strides, towards his design Moves like a ghost. Thou sure and
firm-set earth, Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear Thy very
stones prate of my whereabout, And take the present horror from the time, Which
now suits with it. Whiles I threat, he lives: Words to the heat of deeds too
cold breath gives. I go, and it is done; the bell invites me. Hear it not,
Duncan; for it is a knell that summons thee to heaven or to hell. The Moore
example is used both in “Causal theory” and “Prolegomena.” But the use in “Causal
Theory” is more austere: Philosophers mistake: Malcolm: When Moore said he knew
that the objects before him were human hands, he was guilty of misusing the
word know. Grice writes: The issue with which I have 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 I think need to be
examined in order to see whether or not they are sufficiently parallel to the
thesis which I have been discussing to be amenable to treatment of the same
general kind. An example which occurs to me is the following: When Moore said
he knew that the objects before him were human hands, he was guilty of misusing
the word know. 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 my objector seems to me to involve a type of manoeuvre which is
characteristic of more than one contemporary mode of philosophizing. I am not
condemning this kind of manoeuvre. Grice 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! So surely
Grice is meaning: I know that the objects before me are human hands as uttered
by Moore is possibly true. Grice was amused by the fact that while at Madison,
Wisc., Moore gave the example: I know that behind those curtains there is a
window. Actually he was wrong, as he soon realised when the educated
Madisonians corrected him with a roar of unanimous laughter. You see, the
lecture hall of the University of Wisconsin at Madison is a rather, shall we
say, striking space. The architect designed the lecture hall with a parapet
running around the wall just below the ceiling, cleverly rigged with indirect
lighting to create the illusion that sun light is pouring in through windows
from outside. So, Moore comes to give a lecture one sunny day. Attracted as he
was to this eccentric architectural detail, Moore gives an illustration of
certainty as attached to common sense. Pointing to the space below the ceiling,
Moore utters. We know more things than we think we know. I know, for example,
that the sunlight shining in from outside proves At which point he was somewhat startled (in
his reserved Irish-English sort of way) when his audience burst out laughing!
Is that a proof of anything? Grice is especially concerned with I seem He needs
a paradeigmatic sense-datum utterance, and intentionalist as he was, he finds
it in I seem to see a red pillar box before me. He is relying on Paul. Grice
would generalise a sense datum by φ I seem to perceive that the alpha is phi.
He agrees that while cause may be too much, any sentence using because will do:
At a circus: You seem to be seeing that an elephant is coming down the street
because an elephant is coming down the street. Grice found the causalist theory
of perception particularly attractive since its objection commits one same
mistake twice: he mischaracterises the cancellable implicatum of both seem and
cause! While Grice is approaching the philosophical item in the philosophical
lexicon, perceptio, he is at this stage more interested in vernacular that-
clauses such as sensing that, or even more vernacular ones like seeming that,
if not seeing that! This is of course philosophical (cf. aesthetikos vs.
noetikos). L and S have “perceptĭo,” f. perceptio, as used by Cicero (Ac. 2, 7,
22) translating catalepsis, and which they render as “a taking, receiving; a
gathering in, collecting;’ frugum fruetuumque reliquorum, Cic. Off. 2, 3, 12:
fructuum;’ also as perception, comprehension, cf.: notio, cognition; animi
perceptiones, notions, ideas; cognitio aut perceptio, aut si verbum e verbo
volumus comprehensio, quam κατάληψιν illi vocant; in philosophy, direct
apprehension of an object by the mind, Zeno Stoic.1.20, Luc. Par. 4, al.; τῶν μετεώρων;”
ἀκριβὴς κ. Certainty; pl., perceptions, Stoic.2.30, Luc. Herm.81, etc.;
introduced into Latin by Cicero, Plu. Cic. 40. As for “causa” Grice is even
more sure he was exploring a time-honoured philosophical topic. The entry in L
and S is “causa,’ perh. root “cav-“ of “caveo,” prop. that which is defended or
protected; cf. “cura,” and that they render as, unhelpfully, as “cause,” “that
by, on account of, or through which any thing takes place or is done;” “a
cause, reason, motive, inducement;” also, in gen., an occasion, opportunity;
oeffectis; factis, syn. with ratio,
principium, fons, origo, caput; excusatio, defensio; judicium, controversia,
lis; partes, actio; condicio, negotium, commodum, al.); correlated to aition,
or aitia, cause, δι᾽ ἣν αἰτίην ἐπολέμησαν,” cf. Pl. Ti. 68e, Phd. 97a sq.; on
the four causes of Arist. v. Ph. 194b16, Metaph. 983a26: αἰ. τοῦ γενέσθαι or
γεγονέναι Pl. Phd. 97a; τοῦ μεγίστου ἀγαθοῦ τῇ πόλει αἰτία ἡ κοινωνία Id. R.
464b: αἰτίᾳ for the sake of, κοινοῦ τινος ἀγαθοῦ.” Then there is “αἴτιον” (cf.
‘αἴτιος’) is used like “αἰτία” in the sense of cause, not in that of
‘accusation.’ Grice goes back to perception at a later stage, reminiscing
on his joint endeavours with akin Warnock, Ps karulise elatically, potching and
cotching obbles, Pirotese, Pirotese, creature construction, philosophical
psychology. Grice was fascinated by Carnaps Ps which karulise elatically.
Grice adds potching for something like perceiving and cotching for something
like cognising. With his essay Some remarks about the senses, Grice
introduces the question by which criterion we distinguish our five senses into
the contemporary philosophy of perception. The literature concerning this
question is not very numerous but the discussion is still alive and was lately
inspired by the volume The Senses2. There are four acknowledged possible
answers to the question how we distinguish the senses, all of them already
stated by Grice. First, the senses are distinguished by the properties we perceive
by them. Second, the senses are distinguished by the phenomenal qualities of
the perception itself or as Grice puts it “by the special introspectible
character of the experiences” Third, the senses are distinguished by the
physical stimuli that are responsible for the relevant perceptions. Fourth, The
senses are distinguished by the sense-organs that are (causally) involved in
the production of the relevant perceptions. Most contributions discussing this
issue reject the third and fourth answers in a very short argumentation. Nearly
all philosophers writing on the topic vote either for the first or the second
answer. Accordingly, most part of the debate regarding the initial question
takes the form of a dispute between these two positions. Or” was a big thing
in Oxford philosophy. The only known published work of Wood, our philosophy
tutor at Christ Church, was an essay in Mind, the philosophers journal,
entitled “Alternative Uses of “Or” ”, a work which was every bit as
indeterminate as its title. Several years later he published another paper,
this time for the Aristotelian Society, entitled On being forced to a
conclusion. Cf. Grice and Wood on the demands of conversational reason. Wood,
The force of linguistic rules. Wood, on the implicatum of or in review in Mind
of Connor, Logic. The five senses, as Urmson notes, are to see that the sun is
shining, to hear that the car collided, to feel that her pulse is beating, to
smell that something has been smoking and to taste that. An interesting piece
in that it was commissioned by Butler, who knew Grice from his Oxford days.
Grice cites Wood and Albritton. Grice is concerned with a special topic in the
philosophy of perception, notably the identification of the traditional five
senses: vision, audition, taste, smell, and tact. He introduces what is
regarded in the philosophical literature as the first thought-experiment, in
terms of the senses that Martians may have. They have two pairs of eyes: are we
going to allow that they see with both pairs? Grice introduces a sub-division
of seeing: a Martian x-s an object with his upper pair of eyes, but he y-s an
object with the lower pair of eyes. In his exploration, he takes a realist
stance, which respects the ordinary discursive ways to approach issues of
perception. A second interesting point is that in allowing this to be repr. in
Butlers Analytic philosophy, Grice is demonstrating that analytic philosophers
should NOT be obsessed with ordinary language. Butlers compilation, a rather
dry one, is meant as a response to the more linguistic oriented ones by Flew
(Grices first tutee at St. Johns, as it happens), also published by Blackwell,
and containing pieces by Austin, and company. One philosopher who took Grice
very seriously on this was Coady, in his The senses of the Martians. Grice
provides a serious objection to his own essay in Retrospective epilogue We see
with our eyes. I.e. eye is teleologically defined. He notes that his way of
distinguishing the senses is hardly an established thesis. Grice actually advances
this topic in his earlier Causal theory. Grice sees nothing absurd in the idea
that a non-specialist concept should contain, so to speak, a blank space to be
filled in by the specialist; that this is so, e.g., in the case of the concept
of seeing is perhaps indicated by the consideration that if we were in doubt
about the correctness of speaking of a certain creature with peculiar
sense-organs as seeing objects, we might well wish to hear from a specialist a
comparative account of the human eye and the relevant sense-organs of the
creature in question. He returns to the point in Retrospective epilogue with a
bit of doxastic humility, We see with our eyes is analytic ‒ but
philosophers should take that more seriously. Grice tested the
playmates of his children, aged 7 and 9, with Nothing can be green
and red all over. Instead, Morley Bunker preferred
philosophy undergrads. Aint that boring? To give examples:
Summer follows Spring was judged analytic by Morley-Bunkers informants, as
cited by Sampson, in Making sense (Clarendon) by highly significant majorities
in each group of Subjectss, while We see with our eyes was given near-even
split votes by each group. Over all, the philosophers were somewhat more
consistent with each other than the non-philosophers. But that global finding
conceals results for individual sentences that sometimes manifested the
opposed tendency. Thus, Thunderstorms are electrical disturbances in the
atmosphere is judged analytic by a highly significant majority of the non-philosophers,
while a non-significant majority of the philosophers deemed it non-analytic or
synthetic. In this case, it seems, philosophical training, surely not
brain-washing, induces the realisation that well-established results of
contemporary science are not necessary truths. In other cases, conversely,
cliches of current philosophical education impose their own mental blinkers on
those who undergo it: Nothing can be completely red and green all over is
judged analytic by a significant majority of philosophers but only by a
non-significant majority of non-philosophers. All in all, the results argue
strongly against the notion that our inability to decide consistently whether
or not some statement is a necessary truth derives from lack of skill in
articulating our underlying knowledge of the rules of our language. Rather, the
inability comes from the fact that the question as posed is unreal. We choose
to treat a given statement as open to question or as unchallengeable in the
light of the overall structure of beliefs which we have individually
evolved in order to make sense of our individual experience. Even the cases
which seem clearly analytic or synthetic are cases which individuals judge
alike because the relevant experiences are shared by the whole community, but
even for such cases one can invent hypothetical or suppositional future
experiences which, if they should be realised, would cause us to revise our
judgements. This is not intended to call into question the special status of
the truths of logic, such as either Either it is raining or it is not. He
is of course inclined to accept the traditional view according to which logical
particles such as not and or are distinct from the bulk of the vocabulary in
that the former really are governed by clear-cut inference rules. Grice
does expand on the point. Refs.: Under sense-datum, there are groups of essays.
The obvious ones are the two essays on the philosophy of perception in WOW. A
second group relates to his research with G. J. Warnock, where the keywords are
‘vision,’ ‘taste,’ and ‘perception,’ in general. There is a more recent group
with this research with R. Warner. ‘Visum’ and ‘visa’ are good keywords, and
cf. the use of ‘senses’ in “Some remarks about the senses,” in BANC.Philo: Grice’s
favourite philosopher, after Ariskant. The [Greek: protos logos anapodeiktos]
of the Stoic logic ran thus [Greek: ei hemera esti, phos estin ... alla men
hemera estin phos ara estin] (Sext. _P.H._ II. 157, and other passages qu.
Zeller 114). This bears a semblance of inference and isnot so utterly tautological as Cic.'s translation, which
merges [Greek: phos] and [Greek: hemera] into one word, or that of Zeller (114,
note). Si
dies est lucet: a better trans of
Greek: ei phos estin, hemera estin] than was given in 96, where see n. _Aliter
Philoni_: not Philo of Larissa, but a noted dialectician, pupil of Diodorus the
Megarian, mentioned also in 75. The dispute between Diodorus and Philo is
mentioned in Sext. _A.M._ VIII. 115--117 with the same purpose as here, see
also Zeller 39. Conexi = Gr. “synemmenon,” cf. Zeller 109. This was the proper
term for the hypothetical judgment. _Superius_: the Greek: synemmenon consists
of two parts, the hypothetical part and the affirmative--called in Greek
[Greek: hegoumenon] and [Greek: legon]; if one is admitted the other follows of
course.Philo's criterion for the truth of “if p, q” is truth-functional. Philo’s
truth-functional criterion is generally accepted as a minimal condition.Philo
maintains that “If Smith is in London, he, viz. Smith, is attending the meeting
there, viz. in London” is true (i) when the antecedens (“Smith is in London”)
is true and the consequens (“Smith is in London at a meeting”) is true (row 1)
and (ii) when the antecedent is false (rows 3 and 4); false only when the antecedens
(“Smith is in London”) is true and the consequens (“Smith is in London, at a
meeting”) is false. (Sext. Emp., A.
M., 2.113-114).
Philo’s “if p, q” is what Whitehead
and Russell call, misleadingly, ‘material’ implication, for it’s neither an implication,
nor materia.In “The Influence of Grice on Philo,” Shropshire puts forward the
thesis that Philo was aware of Griceian ideas on relative identity,
particularly time-relative identity. Accordingly, Philo uses subscript for
temporal indexes. Once famous discussion took place one long winter night.“If
it is day, it is night.”“False!” Diodorus screamed.“True,” his tutee Philo
courteously responded. “But true at night only.”Philo's suggestion is
remarkable – although not that remarkable if we assume he read the now lost
Griceian tract.Philo’s “if,” like Grice’s “if,” – on a bad day -- deviates
noticeably from what Austin (and indeed, Austen) used to refer to as ‘ordinary’
language.As Philo rotundly says: “The Griceian ‘if’ requires abstraction on the
basis of a concept of truth-functionality – and not all tutees will succeed in
GETTING that.” The hint was on Strawson.Philo's ‘if’ has been criticised on two
counts. First, as with Whitehead’s and Russell’s equally odd ‘if,’ – which they
symbolise with an ‘inverted’ C, to irritate Johnson, -- “They think ‘c’ stands
for either ‘consequentia’ or ‘contentum’ -- in the case of material
implication, for the truth of the conditional no connection (or better, Kant’s
relation) of content between antecedent and consequent is required. Uttered or
emitted during the day, e. g. ‘If virtue
benefits, it is day’ is Philonianly true. This introduces a variant of the
so-called ‘paradoxes’ of material implication (Relevance Logic, Conditionals 2.3;
also, English Oxonian philosopher Lemmon 59-60, 82). This or that ancient
philosopher was aware of what he thought was a ‘problem’ for Philo’s ‘if.’
Vide: SE, ibid. 113-117). On
a second count, due to the time-dependency or relativity of the ‘Hellenistic’ ‘proposition,’
Philo's truth-functional criterion implies that ‘if p, q’ changes its truth-value
over time, which amuses Grice, but makes Strawson sick. In Philo’s infamous
metalinguistic disquotational version that Grice finds genial:‘If it is day, it
is night’ is true if it is night, but false if it is day. This is
counter-intuitive in Strawson’s “London,” urban, idiolect (Grice is from the
Heart of England) as regards an utterance in ‘ordinary-language’ involving
‘if.’“We are not THAT otiose at busy London!On a third count, as the concept of
“if” (‘doubt’ in Frisian) also meant to provide for consequentia between from a
premise to a conclusio, this leads to the “rather” problematic result –
Aquinas, S. T. ix. 34) that an ‘argumentum,’ as Boethius calls it, can in
principle change from being valid to being invalid and vice versa, which did
not please the Saint Thomas (Aquinas), “or God, matter of fact.”From Sextus: A.
M., 2.113ffA non-simple proposition is such composed of a duplicated
proposition or of this or that differing proposition. A complex proposition is
controlled by this or that conjunction. 109. Of
these let us take the hypo-thetical proposition, so-called. This, then, is
composed of a duplicated proposition or of differing propositions, by means of
the conjunction “if” (Gr. ‘ei,’ L. ‘si’, German ‘ob’). Thus, e. g. from a
duplicated proposition and the conjunction “if” (Gr. ‘ei,’ L. ‘si,’ G.
‘ob’) there is composed such a hypothetical proposition as this. “If it is day,
it is day’ (110) and from differing
propositions, and by means of the conjunction “if” , one in this
form, “If it is day, it is light.” “Si dies est, lucet.” And of the two propositions
contained in the hypo-thetical proposition, or subordinating clause that which
is placed immediately AFTER the conjunction or subordinating particle “if”
is called “ante-cedent,” or “first;” and ‘if’ being ‘noncommutative,’ and
the other one “consequent” or “second,” EVEN if the whole proposition
is reversed IN ORDER OF EXPRESSION – this is a conceptual issue, not a
grammatical one! -- as thus — “It is light, if it is day.” For in this,
too, the proposition, “It is light,” (lucet) is called consequent although
it is UTTERED first, and ‘It is day’ antecedent, although it is UTTERED second,
owing to the fact that it is placed after the conjunction or subordinating
particle “if.” 111. Such
then is the construction of the hypothetical proposition, and a proposition of
this kind seems to “promise” (or suggest, or implicate) that the ‘consequent’
(or super-ordinated or main proposition) logically follows the ‘antecedens,’ or
sub-ordinated proposition. If the antecedens is true, the consequens is true.
Hence, if this sort of “promise,” suggestio, implicature, or what have you, is
fulfilled and the consequens follows the antecedent, the hypothetical
proposition is true. If the promise is not fulfilled, it is false (This is
something Strawson grants as a complication in the sentence exactly after the
passage that Grice extracts – Let’s revise Strawson’s exact wording. Strawson
writes:“There is much more to be noted about ‘if.’ In particular, about whether
the antecedens has to be a ‘GOOD’ antecedens, i. e. a ‘good’ ground – not
inadmissible evidence, say -- or good reason for accepting the consequens, and
whether THIS is a necessary condition for the whole ‘if’ utterance to be TRUE.’
Surely not for Philo. Philo’s criterion is that an ‘if’ utterance is true iff it
is NOT the case that the antecedens is true and it is not the case that the
consequens is true. 112. Accordingly,
let us begin at once with this problem, and consider whether any hypothetical
proposition can be found which is true and which fulfills the promise or
suggestio or implicature described. Now all philosophers agree that a hypothetical
proposition is true when the consequent follows the antecedent. As to when the
consequens follows from the antecedens philosophers such as Grice and his tutee
Strawson disagree with one another and propound conflicting criteria. 113. Philo and Grice
declares that the ‘if’ utterance is true whenever it is not the case that
the antecedens (“Smith is in London”) is true and it is not the case that the
consequens (“Smith is in London attending a meeting”) is true. So that,
according to Grice and Philo (vide, “The influence of Grice on Philo”), the hypothetical
is true in three ways or rows (row 1, row 3, and row 4) and false in one way or
row (second row, antecedens T and consequence F). For the first row, whenever
the ‘if’ utterance begins with truth and ends in truth it is true. E. g. “If it
is day, it is light.” “Si dies est, lux est.”For row 4: the ‘if’ utterance is
also true whenever the antecedens is false and the consequens is false. E. g. “If
the earth flies, the earth has wings.” ει πέταται ή γή, πτέρυγας έχει
ή γή (“ei petatai he ge, pteguras ekhei
he ge”) (Si terra volat, habet alas.”)114. Likewise
also that which begins with what is false and ends with what is true is true,
as thus — If the earth flies, the earth exists. “Si terra volat, est
terra”. dialecticis,
in quibus ſubtilitatem nimiam laudando, niſi fallimur, tradu xit Callimachus. 2
Cujus I. ſpecimen nobis fervavit se XTVS EMPI . RIC V S , a qui de Diodori,
Philonis & Chryſippi diſſenſu circa propofi tiones connexas prolixe
diſſerit. Id quod paucis ita comprehendit ci . CERO : 6 In hoc ipfo , quod in
elementis dialectici docent, quomodo judi care oporteat, verum falſumne fit ,
fi quid ita connexum eſt , ut hoc: fi dies eft, lucet, quanta contentio eft,
aliter Diodoro, aliter Philoni, Chry fappo aliter placet. Quæ ut clarius
intelligantur, obſervandum eſt, Dia lecticos in propofitionum conditionatarum ,
quas connexas vocabant, explicatione in eo convenisse, verum esse consequens,
si id vera consequentia deducatur ex antecedente; falsum, si non ſequatur; in
criterio vero , ex quo dijudicanda est consequentiæ veritas, definiendo inter
se diſſenſiſſe. Et Philo quidem veram esse propoſitionem connexam putabat, fi
& antecedens & consequens verum esset , & ſi antecedens atque
conſequens falsum eſſet, & fi a falſo incipiens in verum defineret, cujus
primi exemplum eſt : “Si dies est, lux est,” secondi. “Si terra volat, habet
alas.” Tertii. “Si terra volat, est terra.” Solum vero falsum , quando
incipiens a vero defineret in falſum . Diodorus autem hoc falſum interdum eſſe,
quod contingere pof ſet, afferens, omne quod contigit , ex confequentiæ
complexu removit , ficque, quod juxta Philonem verum eft, fi dies eſt, ego
diſſero, falſum eſſe pronunciavit, quoniam contingere poffit, ut quis, ſi dies
fit, non differat, ſed fileat. Ex qua Dialecticorum diſceptatione Sextus
infert, incertum eſſe criterium propoſitionum hypotheticarum . Ex quibus parca
, ut de bet, manu prolatis, judicium fieri poteſt , quam miſeranda facies
fuerit shia lecticæ eriſticæ , quæ ad materiam magis argumentorum , quam ad formam
- & ad verba magis, quam ideas, quæ ratiocinia conſtituunt refpiciens, non
potuit non innumeras ſine modo & ratione technias & difficultates
ftruere, facile fumi inſtar diſſipandas, fi ad ipſam ratiocinandi & ideas
inter ſe con ferendi & ex tertia judicandi formam attendatur. Quod fi enim
inter ve ritate conſequentiæ & confequentis, ( liceat pauliſper cum
ſcholaſticis barbare loqui diſtinxiffent, inanis diſputatio in pulverem
abiiffet, & eva nuiſſet; nam de prima Diodorus, de altera Philo , & hic
quidem inepte & minus accurate loquebatur. Sed hæc ws šv zapóów . Ceterum
II. in fo phiſma t) Coutra Gramm . S.309.Log. I. II.S. 115.Seqq. ) Catalogum
Diodororum ſatis longum exhi # Nominateas CLEM . ALE X. Strom . I. IV . ber
FABRIC. Bibl.Gr. vol. II. p . 775. pag. 522. % ) Cujusverſus vide apud LAERT.
& SEXT. * Contra Iovinian . I. I. conf. MENAG. ad l. c. H . cc. Laërt .
& Hiſt. phil. mal. Ø . 60 . ubi tamen quatuor A ) Adv. Logic. I. c .
noininat, cum quinque fuerint. b ) Acad. 29. I. IV . 6. 47. DE SECTAM E GARICA
phiſinatibus ftruendis Diodorum excelluiffe, non id folum argumentum eft, nuod
is quibusdam auctor argumenti, quod velatum dicitur , fuifle aflera tur, fed
& quod argumentum dominans invexerit, de quo, ne his nugis lectori moleſti
fimus, Epictetum apud ARRIANVM conſuli velimus. Er ad hæc quoque Dialecticæ
peritiæ acumina referendum eſt argumentum , quo nihilmoveri probabat. Quod ita
sexTvs enarrat: Si quid move tur, aut in eo , in quo eft , loco movetur, aut in
eo , in quo non eſt. At neque in quo eſt movetur, manet enim in eo , fi in eo
eft ; nec vero , in quo non eſt,movetur; ubi enim aliquid non eſt, ibi neque
agere quidquam ne que pati poteft. Non ergo movetur quicquam . Quo argumento
non ideo ufus eſt Diodorus, quod putat Sextus, ut more Eleaticorum probaret :
non darimotum in rerum natura, & nec interire quicquam nec oriri ; fed ut
ſubtilitatem ingenii dialecticam oftenderet, verbisque circumveniret. Qua
ratione Diodorum mire depexum dedit Herophilusmedicus. Cum enim luxato humero
ad eum veniffet Diodorus, ut ipſum curaret , facete eum irriſit, eodem
argumento probando humerum non excidiffe : adeo ut precaretur fophifta ,
omiffis iis cavillationibus adhiberet ei congruens ex artemedica remedium . f .
. Tandem & III . inter atomiſticæ p hiloſophiæ ſectatores numerari folet
Diodorus, eo quod énocy iso xei dueen CÁMata minima & indiviſibilia cor
pora Itatuerit,numero infinita , magnitudine finita , ut ex veteribus afferunt
præter SEXTVM , & EVSEBIVŠ, \ CHALCIDIVS, ISTOBAEVS k alii , quibus ex recentioribus
concinunt cvDWORTHVS 1 & FABRICIV'S. * Quia vero veteres non addunt, an
indiviſibilia & minima ifta corpuſcula , omnibus qualitatibus præter
figuram & fitum fpoliata poſuerit, fine formi dine oppoſiti inter
ſyſtematis atomiſtici fectatores numerari non poteſt. Nam alii quoque
philoſophi ejusmodi infecabilia corpuſcula admiſerunt ; nec tamen atomos
Democriticos ſtatuerunt. "Id quod acute monuit cel. MOSHEMIV S . n . irAnd it is false only in this one way, when it begins with
truth and ends in what is false, as in a proposition of this kind. “If it is
day, it is night.” “Si dies est, nox est”. (Cf. Cole Porter, “Night and day, day and
night!”.For if it IS day, the clause ‘It is day’ is true, and this is
the antecedent, but the clause ‘It is night,’ which is the consequens, is
false. But when uttered at night, it is true. 115. —
But Diodorus asserts that the hypothetical proposition is true which
neither admitted nor admits of beginning with truth and ending in
falsehood. And this is in conflict with the statement of Philo. For a
hypothetical of this kind — If it is day, I am conversing, when at
the present moment it is day and I am conversing, is true according to Philo
since it begins with the true clause It is day and ends with the true I
am conversing; but according to Diodorus it is false, for it admits of
beginning with a clause that is, at one time, true and ending in the false
clause I am conversing, when I have ceased speaking; also it admitted
of beginning with truth and ending with the falsehood I am
conversing, 116. for before I began to
converse it began with the truth It is day and ended in the
falsehood I am conversing. Again, a proposition in this form
— If it is night, I am conversing, when it is day and I am silent, is
likewise true according to Philo, for it begins with what is false and ends in
what is false; but according to Diodorus it is false, for it admits of
beginning with truth and ending in falsehood, after night has come on, and when
I, again, am not conversing but keeping silence. 117. Moreover,
the proposition If it is night, it is day, when it is day, is true
according to Philo for the reason that it begins with the false It is
night and ends in the true It is day; but according to Diodorus it is
false for the reason that it admits of beginning, when night comes on, with the
truth It is night and ending in the falsehood It is day.Philo is
sometimes called ‘Philo of Megara,’ where ‘of’ is used alla Nancy Mitford, of
Chatworth. Although no essay by Philo is preserved (if he wrote it), there are
a number of reports of his doctrine, not all positive!Some think Philo made a
groundbreaking contribution to the development of semantics (influencing
Peirce, but then Peirce was influenced by the World in its totality), in
particular to the philosophy of “as if” (als ob), or “if.”A conditional (sunêmmenon), as Philo calls it, is a
non-simple, i. e. molecular, non atomic, proposition composed of two
propositions, a main, or better super-ordinated proposition, or consequens, and
a sub-ordinated proposition, the antecedens, and the subordinator ‘if’. Philo
invented (possibly influenced by Frege) what he (Frege, not Philo) calls
truth-functionality.Philo puts forward a criterion of truth as he called what
Witters will have as a ‘truth table’ for ‘if’ (or ‘ob,’ cognate with Frisian
gif, doubt).A conditional is is true in three truth-value combinations, and
false when and only when its antecedent is true and
its consequent is false.The Philonian ‘if’ Whitehead and Russell re-labelled
‘material’ implication – irritating Johnson who published a letter in The
Times, “… and dealing with the paradox of implication.”For Philo, like Grice, a
proposition is a function of time that can have different truth-values at
different times—it may change its truth-value over time. In Philo’s
disquotational formula for ‘if’:“If it is day, ‘if it is day, it is night’ is
false; if it is night, ‘if it is day, it is night’ is true.”(Tarski translated
to Polish, in which language Grice read it).Philo’s ramblings on ‘if’ lead to
foreshadows of Whitehead’s and Russell’s ‘paradox of implication’ that
infuriated Johnson – In Russell’s response in the Times, he makes it plain:
“Johnson shouldn’t be using ‘paradox’ in the singular. Yours, etc. Baron
Russell, Belgravia.”Sextus Empiricus [S. E.] M. 8.109–117, gives a precis of Johnson’s paradox of
implication, without crediting Johnson. Philo and Diodorus each considered the
four modalities possibility, impossibility, necessity and non-necessity. These
were conceived of as modal properties or modal values of propositions, not as
modal operators. Philo defined them as follows: ‘Possible is that which is
capable of being true by the proposition’s own nature … necessary is that which
is true, and which, as far as it is in itself, is not capable of being false.
Non-necessary is that which as far as it is in itself, is capable of being
false, and impossible is that which by its own nature is not capable of being
true.’ Boethius fell in love with Philo, and he SAID it! (In Arist. De Int., sec. ed., 234–235
Meiser).Cf. (Epict. Diss.
II.19). Aristotle’s De
Interpretatione 9 (Aulus
Gellius 11.12.2–3).
philosophism:
birrellism – general refelction on life. Grice defines a philosopher as someone
‘addicted to general reflections on life,’ like Birrell did. f. paraphilosophy
– philosophical hacks. “Austin’s expressed view -- the formulation of which no
doubt involves some irony -- is that we ‘philosophical hacks’ spend the week
making, for the benefit of our tutees, direct attacks on this or that philosophical
issue, and that we need to be refreshed, at the week-end, by some suitably
chosen ‘para-philosophy’ in which some non-philosophical
conception is to be examined with the full rigour of the Austinian Code, with a
view to an ultimate analogical pay-off (liable never to be reached) in philosophical currency.” His feeling of
superiority as a philosopher is obvious in various fields. He certaintly would
not get involved in any ‘empirical’ survey (“We can trust this, qua
philosophers, as given.”) Grice held a MA (Lit. Hum.) – Literae Humaniores
(Philosophy). So he knew what he was talking about. The curriculum was an easy
one. He plays with the fact that empiricists don’t regard philosophy as a
sovereign monarch: philosophia regina scientiarum, provided it’s queen consort.
In “Conceptual analysis and the province of philosophy,” he plays with the idea
that Philosophy is the Supreme Science. Grice was somewhat obsessed as to what
‘philosohical’ stood for, which amused the members of his play group! His play
group once spends five weeks in an effort to explain why, sometimes, ‘very’
allows, with little or no change of meaning, the substitution of ‘highly’ (as
in ‘very unusual’) and sometimes does not (as in ‘very depressed’ or ‘very
wicked’); and we reached no conclusion. This episode was ridiculed by some as
an ultimate embodiment of fruitless frivolity. But that response is as out of
place as a similar response to the medieval question, ‘How many angels can
dance on a needle’s point?’” A needless point?For much as this medieval
question is raised in order to display, in a vivid way, a difficulty in the
conception of an immaterial substance, so The Play Group discussion is
directed, in response to a worry from me, towards an examination, in the first
instance, of a conceptual question which is generally agreed among us to be a
strong candidate for being a question which had no philosophical importance,
with a view to using the results of this examination in finding a distinction
between philosophically important and philosophically unimportant enquiries. Grice
is fortunate that the Lit. Hum. programme does not have much philosophy! He
feels free! In fact, the lack of a philosophical background is felt as a badge
of honour. It is ‘too clever’ and un-English to ‘know’ things. A pint of
philosophy is all Grice wanted. Figurative. This is Harvardite Gordon’s attempt
to formulate a philosophy of the minimum fundamental ideas that all people on
the earth should come to know. Reviewed by A. M. Honoré: Short measure. Gordon,
a Stanley Plummer scholar, e: Bowdoin and Harvard, in The Eastern Gazette.
Grice would exclaim: I always loved Alfred Brooks Gordon! Grice was slightly
disapppointed that Gordon had not included the fundamental idea of implicature
in his pint. Short measure, indeed. Grice gives seminars on Ariskant (“the
first part of this individual interested some of my tutees; the second,
others.” Ariskant philosophised in Grecian, but also in the pure Teutonic, and
Grice collaborated with Baker in this area. Curiously, Baker majors in French
and philosophy and does research at the Sorbonne. Grice would sometimes define
‘philoosphy.’ Oddly, Grice gives a nice example of ‘philosopher’ meaning
‘addicted to general, usually stoic, reflections about life.’ In the context
where it occurs, the implicatum is Stevensonian. If Stevenson says that an
athlete is usually tall, a philosopher may occasionally be inclined to reflect
about life in general, as a birrelist would. Grice’s gives an alternate
meaning, intended to display circularity: ‘engaged in philosophical studies.’
The idea of Grice of philosophy is the one the Lit. Hum. instills. It is a unique experience, unknown in the New
World, our actually outside Oxford, or post-Grice, where a classicist is not
seen as a philosopher. Once a tutorial fellow in philosophy (rather than
classics) and later university lecturer in philosophy (rather than classics)
strengthens his attachment. Grice needs to regarded by his tutee as a
philosopher simpliciter, as oppoosed to a prof: the Waynflete is a
metaphysician; the White is a moralist, the Wykeham a logician, and the Wilde a
‘mental’. For Grice’s “greatest living philosopher,” Heidegger, ‘philosophy’ is
a misnomer. While philology merely discourses (logos) on love, the philosopher claims
to be a wizard (sophos) of love. Liddell and Scott have “φιλοσοφία,” which they
render as “love of knowledge, pursuit thereof, speculation,” “ἡ φ. κτῆσις
ἐπιστήμης.” Then there’s “ἡ πρώτη φ.,” with striking originality, metaphysic,
Arist. Metaph. 1026a24. Just one sense, but various ambiguities remain in
‘philosopher,’ as per Grice’s two
usages. As it happens, Grice is both addicted to general, usually stoic,
speculations about life, and he is a member of The Oxford Philosophical
Society.Refs.: The main sources in the Grice Papers are under series III, of
the doctrines. See also references under ‘lingusitic botany,’ and Oxonianism. Grice
liked to play with the adage of ‘philosophia’ as ‘regina scientiarum.’ A
specific essay in his update of “post-war Oxford philosophy,” in WoW on
“Conceptual analysis and the province of philosophy,” BANC.
physiologicum: Oddly, among the twelve isms that attack Grice on his
ascent to the city of eternal truth, there is Naturalism and Physicalism – but
Roman natura is Grecian physis. In “Some remarks about the senses,” Grice
distinguishes a physicalist identification of the senses (in terms of the
different stimuli and the mechanisms that connects the organs to the brain)
versus other criteria, notably one involving introspection and the nature of
‘experience’ – “providing,” he adds, that ‘seeing’ is an experience! Grice
would use ‘natural,’ relying on the idea that it’s Grecian ‘physis.’ Liddell and Scott
have “φύσις,” from “φύω,” and which they render as “origin.” the natural form
or constitution of a person or thing as the result of growth, and hence nature,
constitution, and nature as an originating power, “φ. λέγεται . . ὅθεν ἡ
κίνησις ἡ πρώτη ἐν ἑκάστῳ τῶν φύσει ὄντων” Arist.Metaph.1014b16; concrete, the
creation, 'Nature.’ Grice is casual in his use of ‘natural’ versus
‘non-natural’ in 1948 for the Oxford Philosophical Society. In later works,
there’s a reference to naturalism, which is more serious. Refs.: The keyword
should be ‘naturalism,’ but also Grice’s diatribes against ‘physicalism,’ and
of course the ‘natural’ and ‘non-natural,’ BANC.
pilgrimage: Grice’s
pilgrimage. In his pilgrimage towards what he calls the city of Eternal Truth
he finds twelve perils – which he lists. The first is Extensionalism (as opposed
to Intensionalism – vide intentum -- consequentes
rem intellectam: intendere est essentialiter ipsum esse intentio ...
quam a concepto sibi adequato: Odint 226; esse intentum est esse non reale: The
second is Nominalism (opposite Realism and Conceptualism – Universalism,
Abstractionism). It is funny that Grice was criticised for representing each of
the perils!The third is Positivism. Opposite to Negativism. Just kidding. Opposite to anything Sir Freddie Ayer was opposite
to!The fourth is Naturalism. Opposite Non-Naturalism. Just joking! But that’s
the hateful word brought by G. E. Moore, whom Grice liked (“Some like Witters,
but Moore’s MY man.”) The fifth is Mechanism. Opposite Libertarianism, or
Finalism, But I guess one likes Libertarianism.The sixth is Phenomenalism. You
cannot oppose it to Physicalism, beause that comes next. So this is G. A. Paul
(“Is there a problem about sense data?). And the opposite is anything this
Scots philosopher was against!The seventh is Reductionism. Opposite Reductivism.
Grice was proud to teach J. M. Rountree the distinction between a benevolent
reductionist and a malignant eliminationist reductionist. The eighth is
physicalism.Opposite metaphysicalism.
The ninth is materialism. Hyleism. Opposite Formalism. Or Immaterialism.
The tenth is Empiricism. Opposite Rationalism. The eleventh is
Scepticism.Opposite Dogmatism.and the twelfth is functionalism. Opposite Grice!
So now let’s order the twelve perils alphabetically. Empiricism.
Extensionalism. Functionalism. MaterialismMechanism. Naturalism. Nominalism.
Phenomenalism. Positivism. Physicalism. Reductionism. Scepticism. Now let us
see how they apply to the theory of the conversational implicatum and
conversation as rational cooperation. Empiricism – Grice is an avowed rationalist.Extensionalism
– His main concern is that the predicate in the proposition which is
communicated is void, we yield the counterintuitive result that an emissor who
communicates that the S is V, where V is vacuous communicates the same thing he
would be communicating for any other vacuous predicate V’Functionalism – There
is a purely experiential qualia in some emissor communicating that p that is
not covered by the common-or-garden variety of functionalism. E.g. “I love
myself.” Materialism – rationalism means dealing with a realm of noumena which
goes beyond materialismMechanism – rationalism entails end-setting unweighed
finality and freedom. Naturalism – communication involves optimality which is
beyond naturalism Nominalism – a predicate is an abstractum. Phenomenalism –
there is realism which gives priority to the material thing, not the sense
datum. A sense datum of an apple does not nourish us. Positivism – an emissor
may communicate a value, which is not positivistically reduced to something verifiable.
Physicalism – there must be multiple realization, and many things physicalists
say sound ‘harsh’ to Grice’s ears (“Smith’s brain being in state C doesn’t have
adequate evidence”). Reductionism – We are not eliminating anything. Scepticism
– there are dogmas which are derived from paradigm cases, even sophisticated
ones.How to introduce the twelve entriesEmpiricism – from Greek empereia – cf.
etymology for English ‘experience.’Extensionalism -- extensumFunctionalism –
functum. Materialism -- Mechanism
Naturalism Nominalism Phenomenalism Positivism Physicalism Reductionism
Scepticism. this section events are
reviewed according to principal scenes of action. Place names appear in the
order in which major incidents occur. City
of Destruction. The city stands as a symbol of the entire world as it
is, with all of its sins, corruptions, and sorrows. No one living there can
have any hope of salvation. Convinced that the city is about to be blasted by
the wrath of God, Christian flees and sets out alone on a pilgrimage which he
hopes will lead him to Mount Zion, to the Celestial City, where he can enjoy
eternal life in the happy company of God and the Heavenly Host. Slough of Despond. A swamp, a bog, a
quagmire, the first obstacle in Christian's course. Pilgrims are apt to get
mired down here by their doubts and fears. After much difficulty and with some
providential help, Christian finally manages to flounder across the treacherous
bog and is on his way again. Village of
Morality. Near the village Christian meets Mr. Worldly Wiseman, who,
though not religiously inclined, is a friendly and well-disposed person. He
tells Christian that it would be foolish of him to continue his pilgrimage, the
end of which could only be hunger, pain, and death. Christian should be a
sensible fellow and settle down in the Village of Morality. It would be a good
place to raise a family, for living was cheap there and they would have honest,
well-behaved people as neighbors — people who lived by the Ten Commandments.
More than a little tempted by this, Christian decides that he should at least
have a look at Morality. But along the way he is stopped by his friend
Evangelist, who berates him sharply for having listened to anything Mr. Worldly
Wiseman might have to say. If Christian is seriously interested in saving his
soul, he would be well advised to get back as quickly as possible on the path
to the Wicket Gate which Evangelist had pointed out to him before. Wicket Gate. Arriving almost out of
breath, Christian reads the sign on the gate: "Knock and it shall be
opened unto you." He knocks a number of times before arousing the
gatekeeper, a "grave person" named Good-will, who comes out to ask
what Christian wants. After the latter has explained his mission, he is let
through the gate, which opens on the Holy Way, a straight and narrow path
leading toward the Celestial City. Christian asks if he can now be relieved of
the heavy burden — a sack filled with his sins and woes — that he has been
carrying on his back for so long. Good-will replies that he cannot help him,
but that if all goes well, Christian will be freed of his burden in due course.
Interpreter's House. On
Good-will's advice, Christian makes his first stop at the large house of
Interpreter, a character symbolizing the Holy Spirit. Interpreter shows his
guest a number of "excellent things." These include a portrait of the
ideal pastor with the Bible in his hand and a crown of gold on his head; a
dusty parlor which is like the human heart before it is cleansed with the Gospel;
a sinner in an iron cage, an apostate doomed to suffer the torments of Hell
through all eternity; a wall with a fire burning against it. A figure (the
Devil himself) is busily throwing water on the fire to put it out. But he would
never succeed, Interpreter explains, because the fire represents the divine
spirit in the human heart and a figure on the far side of the wall keeps the
fire burning brightly by secretly pouring oil on it — "the oil of Christ's
Grace." The Cross. Beyond
Interpreter's House, Christian comes to the Cross, which stands on higher
ground beside the Holy Way. Below it, at the foot of the gentle slope, is an
open sepulcher. When Christian stops by the Cross, the burden on his back
suddenly slips from his shoulders, rolls down the slope, and falls into the
open sepulcher, to be seen no more. As Christian stands weeping with joy, three
Shining Ones (angels) appear. They tell him all his sins are now forgiven, give
him bright new raiment to replace his old ragged clothes, and hand him a parchment,
"a Roll with a seal upon it." For his edification and instruction,
Christian is to read the Roll as he goes along, and when he reaches the Pearly
Gates, he is to present it as his credentials a sort of passport to Heaven, as
it were. Difficulty Hill. The
Holy Way beyond the Cross is fenced in with a high wall on either side. The
walls have been erected to force all aspiring Pilgrims to enter the Holy Way in
the proper manner, through the Wicket Gate. As Christian is passing along, two
men — Formalist and Hypocrisy — climb over the wall and drop down beside him.
Christian finds fault with this and gives the wall-jumpers a lecture on the
dangers of trying shortcuts. They have been successfully taking shortcuts all
their lives, the intruders reply, and all will go well this time. Not too
pleased with his company, Christian proceeds with Hypocrisy and Formalist to
the foot of Difficulty Hill, where three paths join and they must make a
choice. One path goes straight ahead up the steep slope of the hill; another
goes around the base of the hill to the right; the third, around the hill to
the left. Christian argues that the right path is the one leading straight
ahead up Difficulty Hill. Not liking the prospect of much exertion, Formalist
and Hypocrisy decide to take the easier way on the level paths going around the
hill. Both get lost and perish. Halfway up Difficulty Hill, so steep in places
that he has to inch forward on hands and knees, Christian comes to a pleasant
arbor provided for the comfort of weary Pilgrims. Sitting down to rest,
Christian reaches into his blouse and takes out his precious Roll. While
reading it, he drops off to sleep, being awakened when he hears a voice saying
sternly: "Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise."
Jumping up, Christian makes with all speed to the top of the hill, where he
meets two Pilgrims coming toward him — Timorous and Mistrust. They have been up
ahead, they say, and there are lions there. They are giving up their pilgrimage
and returning home, and unsuccessfully try to persuade Christian to come with
them. Their report about the lions disturbs Christian, who reaches into his
blouse to get his Roll so that he may read it and be comforted. To his
consternation, the Roll is not there. Carefully searching along the way,
Christian retraces his steps to the arbor, where, as he recalls, he had been
reading the Roll when he allowed himself to doze off in "sinful
sleep." Not finding his treasure immediately, he sits down and weeps,
considering himself utterly undone by his carelessness in losing "his pass
into the Celestial City." When in deepest despair, he chances to see
something lying half-covered in the grass. It is his precious Roll, which he
tucks away securely in his blouse. Having offered a prayer of thanks "to
God for directing his eye to the place where it lay," Christian wearily
climbs back to the top of Difficulty Hill. From there he sees a stately
building and as it is getting on toward dark, hastens there. Palace Beautiful. A narrow path leads
off the Holy Way to the lodge in front of Palace Beautiful. Starting up the
path, Christian sees two lions, stops, and turns around as if to retreat. The
porter at the lodge, Watchful, who has been observing him, calls out that there
is nothing to be afraid of if one has faith. The lions are chained, one on
either side of the path, and anyone with faith can pass safely between them if
he keeps carefully to the middle of the path, which Christian does. Arriving at
the lodge, he asks if he can get lodging for the night. The porter, Watchful,
replies that he will find out from those in charge of Palace Beautiful. Soon,
four virgins come out to the lodge, all of them "grave and beautiful
damsels": Discretion, Prudence, Piety, and Charity. Satisfied with Christian's
answers to their questions, they invite him in, introduce him to the rest of
the family, serve him supper, and assign him to a beautiful bedroom — Peace —
for the night. Next morning, the virgins show him the "rarities" of
the place: First, the library, filled with ancient documents dating back to the
beginning of time; next, the armory, packed with swords, shields, helmets,
breastplates, and other things sufficient to equip all servants of the Lord,
even if they were as numerous as the stars in the sky. Leading their guest to
the roof of the palace, the virgins point to mountains in the distance — the
Delectable Mountains, which lie on the way to the Celestial City. Before
allowing Christian to depart, the virgins give him arms and armor to protect
himself during the next stretch of his journey, which they warn will be
dangerous. Valley of Humiliation. Here
Christian is attacked and almost overcome by a "foul fiend" named
Apollyon — a hideous monster with scales like a fish, wings like a dragon, mouth
like a lion, and feet like a bear; flames and smoke belch out of a hole in his
belly. Christian, after a painful struggle, wounds the fiend with his sword and
drives him off. Valley of the Shadow of
Death. This is a wilderness, a land of deserts and pits, inhabited only
by yowling hobgoblins and other dreadful creatures. The path here is very
narrow, edged on one side by a deep, water-filled ditch in which many have
drowned; on the other side, by a treacherous bog. Walking carefully, Christian
goes on and soon finds himself close to the open mouth of Hell, the Burning
Pit, out of which comes a cloud of noxious fumes, long fingers of fire, showers
of sparks, and hideous noises. With flames flickering all around and smoke
almost choking him, Christian manages to get through by use of
"All-prayer." Nearing the end of the valley, he hears a shout raised
by someone up ahead: "Though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of
Death, I will fear none ill, for Thou art with me." As only a Pilgrim
could have raised that cry, Christian hastens forward to see who it might be.
To his surprise and delight he finds that it is an old friend, Faithful, one of
his neighbors in the City of Destruction. Vanity Fair. Happily journeying together, exchanging stories about
their adventures and misadventures, the two Pilgrims come to the town of Vanity
Fair, through which they must pass. Interested only in commerce and
money-making, the town holds a year-round fair at which all kinds of things are
bought and sold — "houses, lands, trades, titles, . . . lusts, pleasures,
. . . bodies, souls, silver, gold, pearls, precious stones, and what not."
Christian and Faithful infuriate the merchandisers by turning up their noses at
the wares offered them, saying that they would buy nothing but the Truth. Their
presence and their attitude cause a hubbub in the town, which leads the
authorities to jail them for disturbing the peace. The prisoners conduct
themselves so well that they win the sympathy of many townspeople, producing
more strife and commotion in the streets, and the prisoners are held
responsible for this, too, though they have done nothing. It is decided to
indict them on the charge of disrupting trade, creating dissension, and
treating with contempt the customs and laws laid down for the town by its
prince, old Beelzebub himself. Brought to trial first, Faithful is convicted
and sentenced to be executed in the manner prescribed by the presiding judge,
Lord Hate-good. The hapless Faithful is scourged, brutally beaten, lanced with knives,
stoned, and then burned to ashes at the stake. Thus, he becomes another of the
Christian martyrs assured of enjoying eternal bliss up on high. Doubting Castle and Giant Despair. In
a manner only vaguely explained, Christian gets free and goes on his way — but
not alone, for he has been joined by Hopeful, a native of Vanity Fair who is
fleeing in search of better things. After a few minor adventures, the two reach
a sparkling stream, the River of the Water of Life, which meanders through
beautiful meadows bright with flowers. For a time the Holy Way follows the
river bank but then veers off into rougher ground which is hard on the sore
tired feet of the travelers. Wishing there were an easier way, they plod along
until they come to another meadow behind a high fence. Having climbed the fence
to have a look, Christian persuades Hopeful that they should move over into
By-path Meadow, where there is a soft grassy path paralleling theirs. Moving
along, they catch up with Vain-confidence, who says that he is bound for the
Celestial City and knows the way perfectly. Night comes on, but he continues to
push ahead briskly, with Christian and Hopeful following. Suddenly, the latter
hear a frightened cry and a loud thud. Vain-confidence has been dashed to
pieces by falling into a deep pit dug by the owner of the meadow. Christian and
Hopeful retreat, but as they can see nothing in the dark, they decide to lie
down in the meadow to pass the night. Next morning, they are surprised and
seized by the prince of By-path Meadow, a giant named Despair. Charging them
with malicious trespassing, he hauls them to his stronghold, Doubting Castle,
and throws them into a deep dark dungeon, where they lie for days without food
or drink. At length, Giant Despair appears, beats them almost senseless, and
advises them to take their own lives so that he will not have to come back to
finish them off himself. When all seems hopeless, Christian suddenly brightens
up, "as one half amazed," and exclaims: "What a fool am I, thus
to lie in a stinking dungeon when I may as well walk at liberty. I have a key
in my bosom called Promise which will (I am persuaded) open any lock in
Doubting Castle." Finding that the magic key works, the prisoners are soon
out in the open and running as fast as they can to get back onto the Holy Way,
where they erect a sign warning other Pilgrims against being tempted by the
apparent ease of traveling by way of By-path Meadow. Delectable Mountains. Christian and Hopeful next come to the
Delectable Mountains, where they find gardens, orchards, vineyards, and
fountains of water. Four shepherds — Experience, Knowledge, Watchful, and
Sincere — come to greet them, telling them that the mountains are the Lord's,
as are the flocks of sheep grazing there. Having been escorted around the
mountains and shown the sights there, the two Pilgrims on the eve of their
departure receive from the shepherds a paper instructing them on what to do and
what to avoid on the journey ahead. For one thing, they should not lie down and
sleep in the Enchanted Ground, for that would be fatal. Country of Beulah. This is a happy land where the sun shines day
and night, flowers bloom continuously, and the sweet and pleasant air is filled
with bird-song. There is no lack of grain and wine. Christian and Hopeful stop
to rest and enjoy themselves here, pleased that the Celestial City is now
within sight, which leads them to assume that the way there is now clear. Dark River. Proceeding, they are
amazed when they come to the Dark River, a wide, swift-flowing stream. They
look around for a bridge or boat on which to cross. A Shining One appears and
tells them that they must make their way across as best they can, that fording
the river is a test of faith, that those with faith have nothing to fear.
Wading into the river, Hopeful finds firm footing, but Christian does not He is
soon floundering in water over his head, fearing that he will be drowned, that
he will never see "the land that flows with milk and honey." Hopeful
helps Christian by holding his head above water, and the two finally achieve
the crossing. Celestial City. On
the far side of the river, two Shining Ones are waiting for the Pilgrims and
take them by the arm to assist them in climbing the steep slope to the
Celestial City, which stands on a "mighty hill . . . higher than the
clouds." Coming to the gate of the city, built all of precious stones,
Christian and Hopeful present their credentials, which are taken to the King
(God). He orders the gate to be opened, and the two weary but elated Pilgrims
go in, to find that the streets are paved with gold and that along them walk
many men with crowns on their heads and golden harps in their hands.
playgroup: The motivation
for the three playgroups were different. Austin’s first playgroup was for fun. Grice
never attended. Austin’s new playgroup, or ‘second’ playgroup, if you must, was
a sobriquet Grice gave because it was ANYTHING BUT. Grice’s playgroup upon
Austin’s death was for fun, like the ‘first’ playgroup. Since Grice
participated in the second and third, he expanded. The second playgroup was for
‘philosophical hacks’ who needed ‘para-philosophy.’ The third playgroup was for
fun fun. While Austin belonged to the first and the second playgroups, there
were notorious differences. In the first playgroup, he was not the master, and
his resentment towards Ayer can be seen in “Sense and Sensibilia.” The second
playgroup had Austin as the master. It is said that the playgroup survived
Austin’s demise with Grice’s leadership – But Grice’s playgroup was still a
different thing – some complained about the disorderly and rambling nature –
Austin had kept a very tidy organisation and power structure. Since Grice does
NOT mention his own playgroup, it is best to restrict playgroup as an ironic
sobriquet by Grice to anything but a playgroup, conducted after the war by
Austin, by invitation only, to full-time university lecturers in philosophy.
Austin would hold a central position, and Austin’s motivation was to ‘reach’
agreement. Usually, when agreement was not reached, Austin could be pretty
impolite. Grice found himself IN THE PLAYGROUP. He obviously preferred a
friendlier atmosphere, as his own group later testified. But he was also
involved in philosophical activity OTHER than the play group. Notably his joint
endeavours with Strawson, Warnock, Pears, and Thomson. For some reason he chose
each for a specific area: Warnock for the philosophy of perception (Grice’s
implicature is that he would not explore meta-ethics with Warnock – he wouldn’t
feel like, nor Warnock would). Philosophy of action of all things, with J. F.
Thomson. Philosophical psychology with D. F. Pears – so this brings Pears’s
observations on intending, deciding, predicting, to the fore. And ontology with
P. F. Strawson. Certainlty he would not involve with Strawson on endless
disagreements about the alleged divergence or lack thereof between
truth-functional devices and their vernacular counterparts! Grice also mentions
collaboration with Austin in teaching – “an altogether flintier experience,” as
Warnock knows and “Grice can testify.” – There was joint seminars with A. M.
Quinton, and a few others. One may add the tutorials. Some of his tutees left
Griceian traces: A. G. N. Flew, David Bostock, J. L. Ackrill, T. C. Potts. The term was meant ironically. The playgroup
activities smack of military or civil service! while this can be safely called Grice’s
playgroup, it was founded by Austin at All Souls, where it had only seven
members. After the war, Grice joined in. The full list is found elsewhere. With
Austin’s death, Grice felt the responsibility to continue with it, and plus, he
enjoyed it! In alphabetical order. It is this group that made history. J. L. Austin, A. G. N. Flew, P. L. Gardiner,
H. P. Grice, S. N. Hampshire, R. M. Hare, H. L. A. Hart, P. H. Nowell-Smith, G. A. Paul, D. F. Pears,
P. F. Strawson, J. F. Thomson, J. O. Urmson, G. J. Warnock, A. D. Woozley.
Grice distinguishes it very well from Ryle’s group, and the group of
neo-Wittgensteinians. And those three groups were those only involved with
‘ordinary language.’
principium. Grice. Principle
of conversational helpfulness. “I call it ‘principle,’ echoing Boethius.”Mention should also he made of Boethius’ conception, that
there are certain principles, sentences which have no demonstration — probatio
— which he calls principales propositiones or probationis principia. Here is
the fragment from his Commentary on Topics treating of principles; El iliac
quidem (propositiones) quarum nulla probatio est, maximae ac principales vocantur,
quod his illas necesse est approbari, quae ut demonstrari valeant, non
recusant/ est auteni maxima proposiiio ut liaec « si de aequalibus aequalia
demas, quae derelinquitur aequalia sunt », ita enim hoc per se notion est, ut
aliud notius quo approbari valeat esse non possit; quae proposi- tiones cum
(idem sui natura propria gerant, non solum alieno ad (idem non egent argumento,
oerum ceteris quoque probationis sclent esse principium; igitur per se notae
propositiones, quibus nihil est notius, indemonstrabiles ac maxime et
principales vocantur (“Indeed those sentences that have no demonstration are
called maximum or principal [sentences], because they are not rejected since
they are necessary to those that have to be demonstrated and which are valid
for making a demonstration ; but a maximum sentence such as « if from equal
[quantifies], equal [quantities] are taken, what is left are equal
[quantities]*, is self- evident, and there is nothing which can be better known
self-evidently valid, and self- demonstrating, therefore they are sentences
containing their certitude in their very nature and not only do they need no
additional argument to demonstrate their certitude, but are also the principles
of demonstration of the other [sentences]; so they are, self-evident sen-
tences, nothing being better known than they are, and are called undemonstrable
or maxi- mum and principal”). Boethius’ idea coincides with Aristotle’s;
deduction must start from somewhere, we must begin with something unproved. The
Stagirite, how- ever, gave an explanation of the existence of principles and
the possibility of their being grasjied by the active intellect, whereas with
Boethius princi- ples appear as severed from the sentences demonstrated in a
more formal manner: there are two kinds of sentences: some which are
demonstrable and others which need no demonstration
praedicabile: As in qualia being the plural of quale and universalia
being the plural of universale, predicabilia is Boethius’s plural for the
‘predicabile’ -- something Grice knew by heart from giving seminars at Oxfrod
on Aristotle’s categories with Austin and Strawson. He found the topic boring
enough to give the seminar ALONE!
prædicatum: vide Is there a praedicatum in Blackburn’s one-off
predicament. He draws a skull and communicates that there is danger. The
drawsing of the skull is not syntactically structured. So it is difficult to
isolate the ‘praedicatum.’ That’s why Grice leaves matters of the praedicatum’
to reductive analyses at a second stage of his programme, where one wants to
apply, metabolically, ‘communicate’ to what an emissum does. The emissum of the
form, The S is P, predicates P of S.
Vide subjectification, and subjectum. Of especial interest to Grice and
Strawson. Lewis and Short have “praedīco,” which they render as “to say or
mention before or beforehand, to premise.” Grice as a modista is interested in
parts of speech: nomen (onoma) versus verbum (rhema) being the classical, since
Plato. The mediaeval modistae like Alcuin adapted Aristotle, and Grice follows
suit. Of particular relevance are the ‘syncategoremata,’ since Grice was
obsessed with particles, and we cannot say that ‘and’ is a predicate! This
relates to the ‘categorema.’ Liddell and Scott have “κατηγόρ-ημα,” which they
render as “accusation, charge,” Gorg.Pal.22; but in philosophy, as “predicate,”
as per Arist.Int.20b32, Metaph.1053b19, etc.; -- “οὐκ εὔοδον τὸ ἁπλοῖν
ἐστι κ.” Epicur.Fr.18. – and as “head of predicables,” in
Arist.Metaph.1028a33,Ph.201a1, Zeno Stoic.1.25, etc.; περὶ κατηγορημάτων
Sphaer.ib.140. The term syncategorema comes from a passage of Priscian in
his Institutiones grammatice II , 15. “coniunctae
plenam faciunt orationem, alias autem partes, κατηγορήματα, hoc est consignificantia, appellabant.”
A distinction is made between two types of word classes ("partes
orationis," singular, "pars orationis") distinguished by
philosophers since Plato, viz. nouns (nomen, onoma) and verbs (verbum, rhema)
on the one hand, and a 'syncategorema or consignificantium. A
consignificantium, just as the unary functor "non," and any of the
three dyadic functors, "et," "vel" (or "aut") and
"si," does not have a definitive meaning on its own -- cf.
praepositio, cited by Grice, -- "the meaning of 'to,' the meaning of
'of,'" -- rather, they acquire meaning in combination or when con-joined
to one or more categorema. It is one thing to say that we employ a certain part
of speech when certain conditions are fulfilled and quite another to claim that
the role in the language of that part of speech is to say, even in an extended
sense, that those conditions are fulfilled. In Logic, the verb 'kategoreo' is
'predicate of a person or thing,' “τί τινος” Arist.Cat.3a19,al., Epicur.Fr.250;
κυρίως, καταχρηστικῶς κ., Phld.Po.5.15; “ἐναντίως ὑπὲρ τῶν αὐτῶν” Id.Oec.p.60
J.: —more freq. in Pass., to be predicated of . . , τινος Arist.Cat.2a21, APr.
26b9, al.; “κατά τινος” Id.Cat.2a37; “κατὰ παντὸς ἢ μηδενός” Id.APr.24a15: less
freq. “ἐπί τινος” Id.Metaph.998b16, 999a15; so later “ἐφ᾽ ἑνὸς οἴονται θεοῦ
ἑκάτερον τῶν ὀνομάτων -εῖσθαι” D.H.2.48; “περί τινος” Arist. Top.140b37; “τὸ
κοινῇ -ούμενον ἐπὶ πᾶσιν” Id.SE179a8: abs., τὸ κατηγορούμενον the
predicate, opp. τὸ ὑποκείμενον (the subject), Id.Cat.1b11,
cf.Metaph.1043a6, al.; κατηγορεῖν καὶ -εῖσθαι to be subject and predicate,
Id.APr.47b1. BANC.
prejudices:
the life and opinions of H. P. Grice, by H. P. Grice! PGRICE had been in the
works for a while. Knowing this, Grice is able to start his auto-biography, or
memoir, to which he later adds a specific reply to this or that objection by
the editors. The reply is divided in neat sections. After a preamble displaying
his gratitude for the volume in his honour, Grice turns to his prejudices
and predilections; which become, the life and opinions of H. P. Grice. The
third section is a reply to the editorss overview of his work. This reply
itself is itself subdivided into questions of meaning and rationality, and
questions of Met. , philosophical psychology, and value. As the latter is repr.
in “Conception” it is possible to cite this sub-section from the Reply as a
separate piece. Grice originally entitles his essay in a brilliant manner,
echoing the style of an English non-conformist, almost: Prejudices and
predilections; which become, the life and opinions of H. P. Grice. With his
Richards, a nice Welsh surNames, Grice is punning on the first Names of both
Grandy and Warner. Grice is especially concerned with what Richards see as
an ontological commitment on Grices part to the abstract, yet poorly
individuated entity of a proposition. Grice also deals with the alleged
insufficiency in his conceptual analysis of reasoning. He brings for good
measure a point about a potential regressus ad infinitum in his account of a
chain of intentions involved in meaning that p and communicating that p. Even
if one of the drafts is titled festschrift, not by himself, this is not
strictly a festschrift in that Grices Names is hidden behind the acronym:
PGRICE. Notably on the philosophy of perception. Also in “Conception,”
especially that tricky third lecture on a metaphysical foundation for objective
value. Grice is supposed to reply to the individual contributors, who
include Strawson, but does not. I cancelled the implicatum! However, we may
identify in his oeuvre points of contacts of his own views with the
philosophers who contributed, notably Strawson. Most of this material is
reproduced verbatim, indeed, as the second part of his Reply to Richards, and
it is a philosophical memoir of which Grice is rightly proud. The life and
opinions are, almost in a joke on Witters, distinctly separated. Under Life,
Grice convers his conservative, irreverent rationalism making his early initial
appearance at Harborne under the influence of his non-conformist father, and
fermented at his tutorials with Hardie at Corpus, and his associations with
Austins play group on Saturday mornings, and some of whose members he lists
alphabetically: Austin, Gardiner, Grice, Hampshire, Hare, Hart, Nowell-Smith,
Paul, Pears, Strawson, Thomson, Urmson, and Warnock. Also, his joint
philosophising with Austin, Pears, Strawson, Thomson, and Warnock. Under
Opinions, Grice expands mainly on ordinary-language philosophy and his Bunyanesque
way to the City of Eternal Truth. Met. , Philosophical Psychology, and
Value, in “Conception,” is thus part of his Prejudices and predilections.
The philosophers Grice quotes are many and varied, such as Bosanquet and
Kneale, and from the other place, Keynes. Grice spends some delightful time
criticising the critics of ordinary-language philosophy such as Bergmann (who
needs an English futilitarian?) and Gellner. He also quotes from Jespersen, who
was "not a philosopher but wrote a philosophy of grammar!" And Grice
includes a reminiscence of the bombshells brought from Vienna by the enfant
terrible of Oxford philosophy Freddie Ayer, after being sent to the Continent
by Ryle. He recalls an air marshal at a dinner with Strawson at Magdalen relishing
on Cook Wilsons adage, What we know we know. And more besides! After
reminiscing for Clarendon, Grice will go on to reminisce for Harvard University
Press in the closing section of the Retrospective epilogue. Refs.: The main
source is “Reply to Richards,” and references to Oxonianism, and linguistic
botanising, BANC.
prescriptum: prescriptivism. According to Grice’s prescriptive
meta-ethics, by uttering ‘p,’ the emissor may intend his recipient to entertain
a desiderative state of content ‘p.’ In which case, the emissor is
‘prescribing’ a course of conduct. As opposed to the ‘descriptum,’ which just
depicts a ‘state’ of affairs that the emissor wants to inform his recipient
about. Surely there are for Grice at
least two different modes, the buletic, which tends towards the prescriptive,
and the doxastic, which is mostly ‘descriptive.’ One has to be careful because
Grice thinks that what a philosopher like Strawson does with ‘descriptive’
expression (like ‘true,’ ‘know’ and ‘good’) and talk of pseudo-descriptive. What
is that gives the buletic a ‘prescritive’ or deontic ring to it? This is Kant’s
question. Grice kept a copy of Foots on morality as a system of hypothetical
imperatives. “So Somervillian Oxonian it hurts!”. Grice took virtue ethics more
seriously than the early Hare. Hare will end up a virtue ethicist, since he
changed from a meta-ethicist to a moralist embracing a hedonistic version of
eudaemonist utilitarianism. Grice was more Aristotelianly conservative! Unlike
Hares and Grices meta-ethical sensitivities (as members of the Oxonian school
of ordinary-language philosophy), Foot suggests a different approach to ethics.
Grice admired Foots ability to make the right conceptual distinction. Foot
is following a very Oxonian tradition best represented by the work of
Warnock. Of course, Grice was over-familiar with the virtue vs. vice
distinction, since Hardie had instilled it on him at Corpus! For Grice,
virtue and vice (and the mesotes), display an interesting logical grammar,
though. Grice would say that rationality is a virtue; fallacious reasoning is a
vice. Some things Grice takes more of a moral standpoint about. To cheat
is neither irrational nor unreasonble: just plain repulsive. As
such, it would be a vice ‒ mind not getting caught in its grip! Grice is
concerned with vice in his account of akrasia or incontinentia. If agent A
KNOWS that doing x is virtuous, yet decides to do ~x, which is vicious, A is
being akratic. For Grice, akratic behaviour applies both in the buletic or
boulomaic realm and in the doxastic realm. And it is part of the
philosopher’s job to elucidate the conceptual intricacies attached to
it. 1. prima-facie (p⊃!q) V probably (p⊃q). 2.
prima-facie ((A and B) ⊃!p) V probably ( (A and B) ⊃p). 3. prima-facie ((A and B and C) ⊃!p) V probably ( (A and B and C,) ⊃p). 4. prima-facie ((all things before P V!p) V
probably ((all things before P) ⊃ p). 5.
prima-facie ((all things are considered ⊃ !p)
V probably (all things are considered, ⊃ p). 6.
!q V .q 7. Acc. Reasoning P wills that !q V Acc. Reasoning P that judges
q. Refs.: The main sources under ‘meta-ethics,’ above, BANC.
Prince Maurice’s parrot: The ascription of ‘that’-clause in the report of a
communicatum by a pirot of stage n-1 may be a problem by a priot in stage n. Do
we want to say that the parrot communicates that he finds Prince Maurice an
idiot? While some may not be correct that Griciean principles can be explained
on practical, utilitarian grounds, Grice’s main motivation is indeed to capture
the ‘rational’ capacity. Since I think I may be confident, that, whoever should
see a creature of his own shape or make, though it had no more reason all its
life than a cat or a parrot, would call him still a man; or whoever should hear
a cat or a parrot discourse, reason, and philosophize, would call or think it
nothing but a cat or a parrot; and say, the one was a dull irrational man, and
the other a very intelligent rational parrot. A relation we have in an author
of great note, is sufficient to countenance the supposition of a rational
parrot. His words are: "I had a mind to know, from Prince Maurice's own
mouth, the account of a common, but much credited story, that I had heard so
often from many others, of an old parrot he had in Brazil, during his
government there, that spoke, and asked, and answered common questions, like a
reasonable creature: so that those of his train there generally concluded it to
be witchery or possession; and one of his chaplains, who lived long afterwards
in Holland, would never from that time endure a parrot, but said they all had a
devil in them. I had heard many particulars of this story, and as severed by
people hard to be discredited, which made me ask Prince Maurice what there was
of it. He said, with his usual plainness and dryness in talk, there was
something true, but a great deal false of what had been reported. I desired to
know of him what there was of the first. He told me short and coldly, that he
had heard of such an old parrot when he had been at Brazil; and though he
believed nothing of it, and it was a good way off, yet he had so much curiosity
as to send for it: that it was a very great and a very old one; and when it came
first into the room where the prince was, with a great many Dutchmen about him,
it said presently, What a company of white men are here! They asked it, what it
thought that man was, pointing to the prince. It answered, Some General or
other. When they brought it close to him, he asked it, D'ou venez-vous? It
answered, De Marinnan. The Prince, A qui estes-vous? The Parrot, A un
Portugais. The Prince, Que fais-tu la? Parrot, Je garde les poulles. The Prince
laughed, and said, Vous gardez les poulles? The Parrot answered, Oui, moi; et
je scai bien faire; and made the chuck four or five times that people use to
make to chickens when they call them. I set down the words of this worthy
dialogue in French, just as Prince Maurice said them to me. I asked him in what
language the parrot spoke, and he said in Brazilian. I asked whether he
understood Brazilian; he said No, but he had taken care to have two
interpreters by him, the one a Dutchman that spoke Brazilian, and the other a
Brazilian that spoke Dutch; that he asked them separately and privately, and
both of them agreed in telling him just the same thing that the parrot had
said. I could not but tell this odd story, because it is so much out of the
way, and from the first hand, and what may pass for a good one; for I dare say
this Prince at least believed himself in all he told me, having ever passed for
a very honest and pious man: I leave it to naturalists to reason, and to other
men to believe, as they please upon it; however, it is not, perhaps, amiss to relieve
or enliven a busy scene sometimes with such digressions, whether to the purpose
or no." I have taken care that the reader should have the story at large
in the author's own words, because he seems to me not to have thought it
incredible; for it cannot be imagined that so able a man as he, who had
sufficiency enough to warrant all the testimonies he gives of himself, should
take so much pains, in a place where it had nothing to do, to pin so close, not
only on a man whom he mentions as his friend, but on a Prince in whom he
acknowledges very great honesty and piety, a story which, if he himself thought
incredible, he could not but also think ridiculous. The Prince, it is plain,
who vouches this story, and our author, who relates it from him, both of them
call this talker a parrot: and I ask any one else who thinks such a story fit
to be told, whether, if this parrot, and all of its kind, had always talked, as
we have a prince's word for it this one did,- whether, I say, they would not
have passed for a race of rational animals; but yet, whether, for all that,
they would have been allowed to be men, and not parrots? For I presume it is
not the idea of a thinking or rational being alone that makes the idea of a man
in most people's sense: but of a body, so and so shaped, joined to it: and if
that be the idea of a man, the same successive body not shifted all at once,
must, as well as the same immaterial spirit, go to the making of the same man.
principle of economy of rational
effort: (principium oeconomiae effortis
rationalis). Cf. his metaphor of the hamburger. Grice knew that ‘economy’ is
vague. It relates to the ‘open house.’ But is a crucial concept. It is not the
principle of parsimony of rational effort. It is not the principle of
‘minimisaation’ of rational effort. It is the principle of the ‘economy’ of
rational effort. ‘Economy’ is already a value-oriented word, since it is a
branch of politics and meta-ethics. oecŏnŏmĭcus , a, um, adj., = οἰκονομικός.
I. Of or relating to domestic economy; subst.: oecŏnŏmĭcus , i, m., a work of
Xenophon on domestic economy. in eo libro, qui Oeconomicus inscribitur, Cic.
Off. 2, 24, 87; Gell. 15, 5, 8.— II. Of or belonging to a proper (oratorical)
division or arrangement; orderly, methodical: “oeconomica totius causae
dispositio,” Quint. 7, 10, 11. οἰκονομ-ικός , ή, όν, A.practised in the management of a household or
family, opp. πολιτικός, Pl.Alc.1.133e, Phdr.248d, X.Oec.1.3, Arist.Pol.1252a8,
etc. : Sup., [κτημάτων] τὸ βέλτιστον καὶ-ώτατον, of man, Phld.Oec.p.30 J. :
hence, thrifty, frugal, economical, X.Mem.4.2.39, Phylarch.65 J. (Comp.) : ὁ οἰ.
title of treatise on the duties of domestic life, by Xenophon ; and τὰ οἰ.
title of treatise on public finance, ascribed to Aristotle, cf. X.Cyr.8.1.14 : ἡ
-κή (sc. τέχνη) domestic economy, husbandry, Pl.Plt.259c, X.Mem. 3.4.11, etc. ;
οἰ. ἀρχή defined as ἡ τέκνων ἀρχὴ καὶ γυναικὸς καὶ τῆς οἰκίας πάσης,
Arist.Pol.1278b38 ; applied to patriarchal rule, ib.1285b32. Adv.“-κῶς”
Ph.2.426, Plu.2.1126a ; also in literary sense, in a well ordered manner,
Sch.Th.1.63. Grice’s conversational maximin. Blackburn
draws a skull to communicate that there is danger. The skull complete with the
rest of the body will not do. So abiding by this principle has nothing to do
with an arbitrary convention. Vide principle of least conversational effort.
Principle of conversational least effort. No undue effort (candour), no
unnecessary trouble (self-love) if doing A involves too much conversational
effort, never worry: you will be DEEMED to have made the effort. Invoked by
Grice in “Prejudices and predilections; which become, the life and opinions of
H. P. Grice.” When Grice qualifies this as ‘rational’ effort, what other
efforts are there? Note that the lexeme ‘effort’ does NOT feature in the
formulation of the principle itself. Grice confesses to be strongly inclined to
assent to the principle of economy of rational conversational effort or the
principle of economy of conversational effort, or the principle of economy of
conversational expenditure, or the principle of minimisation of rational expenditure,
or the principle of minimization of conversational expenditure, or the principle
of minimisation of rational cost, or the conversational maximin. The principle
of least cost. The principle of economy of rational expenditure states that,
where there is a ratiocinative procedure for arriving rationally at certain
outcome, a procedure which, because it is ratiocinative, involves an
expenditure of time and energy, if there is a NON-ratiocinative, and so more
economical procedure which is likely, for the most part, to reach the same
outcome as the ratiocinative procedure, provided the stakes are not too high,
it is rational to employ the cheaper though somewhat less reliable
non-ratiocinative procedure as a substitute for ratiocination. Grice thinks
this principle would meet with genitorial approval, in which case the genitor
would install it for use should opportunity arise. This applies to the charge
of overcomplexity and ‘psychological irreality’ of the reasoning involved in
the production and design of the maximally efficient conversational move and
the reasoning involved in the recognition of the implicatum by the addressee.
In “Epilogue” he goes by yet another motto, Do not multiply rationalities
beyond necessity: The principle of conversational rationality, as he calls it
in the Epilogue, is a sub-principle of a principle of rationality simpiciter,
not applying to a pursuit related to ‘communication,’ as he puts it.
prolatum – participle for ‘proferre,’ to
utter. A much better choice than Austin’s pig-latin “utteratum”! Grice prefferd
Latinate when going serious. While the verb is ‘profero – the participle
corresponds to the ‘implicatum’: what the emissor profers. profer (v.)c. 1300, "to
utter, express," from Old French proferer (13c.)
"utter, present verbally, pronounce," from Latin proferre "to
bring forth, produce," figuratively "make known, publish, quote,
utter." Sense confused with proffer. Related: Profered; profering.
propositio
universalis: cf. substitutional
account of universal quantification, referred to by Grice for his treatment of
what he calls a Ryleian agitation caused by his feeling Byzantine. Vide
inverted A. A proposition (protasis), then, is a sentence affirming or denying
something of something; and this is either universal or particular or
indefinite. By universal I mean a statement that something belongs to all or
none of something; by particular that it belongs to some or not to some or not
to all; by indefinite that it does or does not belong, without any mark of
being universal or particular, e.g. ‘contraries are subjects of the same
science’, or ‘pleasure is not good’. (Prior Analytics I, 1, 24a16–21.)
propositional complexum: In logic, the first
proposition of a syllogism (class.): “propositio est, per quem locus is
breviter exponitur, ex quo vis omnis oportet emanet ratiocinationis,” Cic. Inv.
1, 37, 67; 1, 34, 35; Auct. Her. 2, 18, 28.— B. Transf. 1. A principal subject,
theme (class.), Cic. de Or. 3, 53; Sen. Ben. 6, 7, 1; Quint. 5, 14, 1.— 2.
Still more generally, a proposition of any kind (post-Aug.), Quint. 7, 1, 47, §
9; Gell. 2, 7, 21.—Do not expect Grice to use the phrase ‘propositional
content,’ as Hare does so freely. Grices proposes a propositional complexum,
rather, which frees him from a commitment to a higher-order calculus and the
abstract entity of a feature or a proposition. Grice regards a proposition as
an extensional family of propositional complexa (Paul saw Peter; Peter was seen
by Paul). The topic of a propositional complex Grice regards as Oxonian in
nature. Peacocke struggles with the same type of problems, in his essays on
content. Only a perception-based account of content in terms of qualia
gets the philosopher out of the vicious circle of appealing to a linguistic
entity to clarify a psychological entity. One way to discharge the burden
of giving an account of a proposition involves focusing on a range of
utterances, the formulation of which features no connective or quantifier. Each
expresses a propositional complexum which consists of a sequence simplex-1
and simplex-2, whose elements would be a set and an ordered sequence of this or
that individuum which may be a member of the set. The propositional
complexum ‘Fido is shaggy’ consists of a sequence of the set of shaggy
individua and the singleton consisting of the individuum Fido. ‘Smith loves
Fido’ is a propositional complexum, i. e., a sequence whose first element
is the class “love” correlated to a two-place predicate) and a the ordered pair
of the singletons Smith and Fido. We define alethic satisfactoriness. A
propositional complexum is alethically satisfactory just in case the sequence
is a member of the set. A “proposition” (prosthesis) simpliciter is defined as
a family of propositional complexa. Family unity may vary in
accordance with context.
proprium: idion. See
Nicholas White's "The Origin of Aristotle's Essentialism," Review of
Metaphysics ~6. (September 1972): ... vice versa. The proprium is
a necessary, but non-essential, property. ... Alan Code pointed this out to me. '
Does Aristotle ... The
proprium is defined by the fact that it only holds of a
particular subject or ... Of the appropriate answers some are more specific or
distinctive (idion)
and are in ... and property possession comes close to what Alan Code in
a seminal paper ... but "substance of" is what is
"co-extensive (idion)
with each thing" (1038b9); so ... by an alternative name or definition,
and by a proprium)
and the third which is ... Woods's idea (recently nicknamed "Izzing before
Having" by Code and Grice) . As my chairmanship was
winding down, I suggested to Paul Grice on one of his ... in Aristotle's
technical sense of an idion (Latin proprium),
i.e., a characteristic or feature ... Code, which, arguably, is part of the
theory of Izzing and Having: D. Keyt. a proprium, since proprium belongs
to the genus of accident. ... Similarly, Code claims (10): 'In its other uses
the predicate “being'' signifies either “what ... Grice adds
a few steps to show that the plurality of universals signified correspond ...
Aristotle elsewhere calls an idion.353 If one predicates the genus in the
absence of. has described it by a paronymous form, nor as a property (idion), nor ...
terminology of Code and Grice.152 Thus
there is no indication that they are ... (14,20-31) 'Genus' and 'proprium'
(ἰδίου) are said homonymously in ten ways, as are. Ackrill replies to
this line of argument (75) as follows: [I]t is perfectly clear that Aristotle’s
fourfold classification is a classification of things and not names, and that
what is ‘said of’ something as subject is itself a thing (a species or genus)
and not a name. Sometimes, indeed, Aristotle will speak of ‘saying’ or
‘predicating’ a name of a subject; but it is not linguistic items but the
things they signify which are ‘said of a subject’… Thus at 2a19 ff. Aristotle
sharply distinguishes things said of subjects from the names of those things.
This last argument seems persuasive on textual grounds. After all, τὰ καθ᾽
ὑποκειμένου λεγόμενα ‘have’ definitions and names (τῶν καθ᾽ υποκειμένου
λεγομένων… τοὔνομα καὶ τὸν λὸγον, 2a19-21): it is not the case that they ‘are’
definitions and names, to adapt the terminology of Code and Grice.152 See A.
Code, ‘Aristotle: Essence and Accident’, in Grandy and Warner (eds.),
Philosophical Grounds of Rationality (Oxford, 1986), 411-39: particulars have
their predicables, but Forms are their predicables. Thus there is no indication
that they are linguistic terms in their own right.
prudens: practical reason: In “Epilogue” Grice states that the principle of
conversational rationality is a sub-principle of the principle of rationality,
simpliciter, which is not involved with ‘communication’ per se. This is an
application of Occam’s razor: Rationalities are not to be multiplied beyond
necessity.” This motto underlies his aequi-vocality thesis: one reason:
desiderative side, judicative side. Literally, ‘practical reason’ is the
buletic part of the soul (psyche) that deals with praxis, where the weighing is
central. We dont need means-end rationality, we need value-oriented
rationality. We dont need the rationality of the means – this is obvious --. We
want the rationality of the ends. The end may justify the means. But Grice is
looking for what justifies the end. The topic of freedom fascinated Grice,
because it merged the practical with the theoretical. Grice sees the
conception of freedom as crucial in his elucidation of a rational being.
Conditions of freedom are necessary for the very idea, as Kant was well aware.
A thief who is forced to steal is just a thief. Grice would engage in a bit of
language botany, when exploring the ways the adjective free is used, freely, in
ordinary language: free fall, alcohol-free, sugar-free, and his favourite:
implicature-free. Grices more systematic reflections deal with Pology, or
creature construction. A vegetals, for example is less free than an animal, but
more free than a stone! And Humans are more free than non-human. Grice wants to
deal with some of the paradoxes identified by Kant about freedom, and he
succeeds in solving some of them. There is a section on freedom in Action and
events for PPQ where he expands on
eleutheria and notes the idiocy of a phrase like free fall. Grice was irritated
by the fact that his friend Hart wrote an essay on liberty and not on freedom,
cf. praxis. Refs.: essays on ‘practical reason,’ and “Aspects,” in BANC.
ψ-transmissum. Or ‘soul-to-soul transfer’ “Before we study
‘psi’-transmission we should study ‘transmission’ simpliciter. It is cognate
with ‘emission.’ So the emissor is a transmissor. And the emissee is a transemissee.
Grice would never have thougth that he
had to lecture on what conversation is all about! He would never have lectured
on this to his tutees at St. John’s – but at Brighton is all different. So, to
communicate, for an emissor is to intend his recipient to be in a state with
content “p.” The modality of the ‘state’ – desiderative or creditative – is not
important. In a one-off predicament, the emissor draws a skull to indicate that
there is danger. So his belief and desire were successfully transmitted. A good
way to formulate the point of communication. Note that Grice is never sure
about analsans and analysandum: Emissor communicates THAT P iff Emissor
M-INTENDS THAT addressee is to psi- that P. Which seems otiose. “It is raining”
can be INFORMATIVE, but it is surely INDICATIVE first. So it’s moke like the
emissor intends his addressee to believe that he, the utterer believes that p
(the belief itself NOT being part of what is meant, of course). So, there is
psi-transmission not necessarily when the utterer convinces his addressee, but
just when he gets his addressee to BELIEF that he, the utterer, psi-s that p.
So the psi HAS BEEN TRANSMITTED. Surely when the Beatles say “HELP” they don’t
expect that their addressee will need help. They intend their addressee to HELP
them! Used by Grice in WoW: 287, and emphasised by J. Baker. The gist of
communication. trans-mitto or trāmitto , mīsi, missum, 3, v. a. I. To send,
carry, or convey across, over, or through; to send off, despatch, transmit from
one place or person to another (syn.: transfero, traicio, traduco). A. Lit.:
“mihi illam ut tramittas: argentum accipias,” Plaut. Ep. 3, 4, 27: “illam
sibi,” id. ib. 1, 2, 52: “exercitus equitatusque celeriter transmittitur (i. e.
trans flumen),” are conveyed across, Caes. B. G. 7, 61: “legiones,” Vell. 2,
51, 1: “cohortem Usipiorum in Britanniam,” Tac. Agr. 28: “classem in Euboeam ad
urbem Oreum,” Liv. 28, 5, 18: “magnam classem in Siciliam,” id. 28, 41, 17:
“unde auxilia in Italiam transmissurus erat,” id. 23, 32, 5; 27, 15, 7:
transmissum per viam tigillum, thrown over or across, id. 1, 26, 10: “ponte
transmisso,” Suet. Calig. 22 fin.: in partem campi pecora et armenta, Tac. A.
13, 55: “materiam in formas,” Col. 7, 8, 6.— 2. To cause to pass through: “per
corium, per viscera Perque os elephanto bracchium transmitteres,” you would
have thrust through, penetrated, Plaut. Mil. 1, 30; so, “ensem per latus,” Sen.
Herc. Oet. 1165: “facem telo per pectus,” id. Thyest. 1089: “per medium amnem
transmittit equum,” rides, Liv. 8, 24, 13: “(Gallorum reguli) exercitum per
fines suos transmiserunt,” suffered to pass through, id. 21, 24, 5: “abies
folio pinnato densa, ut imbres non transmittat,” Plin. 16, 10, 19, § 48:
“Favonios,” Plin. Ep. 2, 17, 19; Tac. A. 13, 15: “ut vehem faeni large onustam
transmitteret,” Plin. 36, 15, 24, § 108.— B. Trop. 1. To carry over, transfer,
etc.: “bellum in Italiam,” Liv. 21, 20, 4; so, “bellum,” Tac. A. 2, 6: “vitia
cum opibus suis Romam (Asia),” Just. 36, 4, 12: vim in aliquem, to send
against, i. e. employ against, Tac. A. 2, 38.— 2. To hand over, transmit,
commit: “et quisquam dubitabit, quin huic hoc tantum bellum transmittendum sit,
qui, etc.,” should be intrusted, Cic. Imp. Pomp. 14, 42: “alicui signa et
summam belli,” Sil. 7, 383: “hereditas transmittenda alicui,” to be made over,
Plin. Ep. 8, 18, 7; and with inf.: “et longo transmisit habere nepoti,” Stat.
S. 3, 3, 78 (analog. to dat habere, Verg. A. 9, 362; “and, donat habere,” id.
ib. 5, 262); “for which: me famulo famulamque Heleno transmisit habendam,” id.
ib. 3, 329: “omne meum tempus amicorum temporibus transmittendum putavi,”
should be devoted, Cic. Imp. Pomp. 1, 1: “poma intacta ore servis,” Tac. A. 4,
54.— 3. To let go: animo transmittente quicquid acceperat, letting pass
through, i. e. forgetting, Sen. Ep. 99, 6: “mox Caesarem vergente jam senectā
munia imperii facilius tramissurum,” would let go, resign, Tac. A. 4, 41:
“Junium mensem transmissum,” passed over, omitted, id. ib. 16, 12 fin.: “Gangen
amnem et quae ultra essent,” to leave unconquered, Curt. 9, 4, 17: “leo
imbelles vitulos Transmittit,” Stat. Th. 8, 596.— II. To go or pass over or
across, to cross over; to cross, pass, go through, traverse, etc. A. Lit. 1. In
gen. (α). Act.: “grues cum maria transmittant,” Cic. N. D. 2, 49, 125: “cur
ipse tot maria transmisit,” id. Fin. 5, 29, 87; so, “maria,” id. Rep. 1, 3, 6:
“satis constante famā jam Iberum Poenos transmisisse,” Liv. 21, 20, 9 (al.
transisse): “quem (Euphratem) ponte,” Tac. A. 15, 7: “fluvium nando,” Stat. Th.
9, 239: “lacum nando,” Sil. 4, 347: “murales fossas saltu,” id. 8, 554:
“equites medios tramittunt campos,” ride through, Lucr. 2, 330; cf.: “cursu
campos (cervi),” run through, Verg. A. 4, 154: quantum Balearica torto Funda
potest plumbo medii transmittere caeli, can send with its hurled bullet, i. e.
can send its bullet, Ov. M. 4, 710: “tectum lapide vel missile,” to fling over,
Plin. 28, 4, 6, § 33; cf.: “flumina disco,” Stat. Th. 6, 677.—In pass.: “duo
sinus fuerunt, quos tramitti oporteret: utrumque pedibus aequis tramisimus,”
Cic. Att. 16, 6, 1: “transmissus amnis,” Tac. A. 12, 13: “flumen ponte
transmittitur,” Plin. Ep. 8, 8, 5.— (β). Neutr.: “ab eo loco conscendi ut
transmitterem,” Cic. Phil. 1, 3, 7: “cum exercitus vestri numquam a Brundisio
nisi summā hieme transmiserint,” id. Imp. Pomp. 12, 32: “cum a Leucopetrā
profectus (inde enim tramittebam) stadia circiter CCC. processissem, etc.,” id.
Att. 16, 7, 1; 8, 13, 1; 8, 11, 5: “ex Corsicā subactā Cicereius in Sardiniam
transmisit,” Liv. 42, 7, 2; 32, 9, 6: “ab Lilybaeo Uticam,” id. 25, 31, 12: “ad
vastandam Italiae oram,” id. 21, 51, 4; 23, 38, 11; 24, 36, 7: “centum
onerariae naves in Africam transmiserunt,” id. 30, 24, 5; Suet. Caes. 58:
“Cyprum transmisit,” Curt. 4, 1, 27. — Pass. impers.: “in Ebusum insulam
transmissum est,” Liv. 22, 20, 7.—* 2. In partic., to go over, desert to a
party: “Domitius transmisit ad Caesa rem,” Vell. 2, 84 fin. (syn. transfugio).—
B. Trop. (post-Aug.). 1. In gen., to pass over, leave untouched or disregarded
(syn praetermitto): “haud fas, Bacche, tuos taci tum tramittere honores,” Sil.
7, 162; cf.: “sententiam silentio, deinde oblivio,” Tac. H. 4, 9 fin.: “nihil
silentio,” id. ib. 1, 13; “4, 31: aliquid dissimulatione,” id. A. 13, 39: “quae
ipse pateretur,” Suet. Calig. 10; id. Vesp. 15. — 2. In partic., of time, to
pass, spend (syn. ago): “tempus quiete,” Plin. Ep. 9, 6, 1: so, “vitam per
obscurum,” Sen. Ep. 19, 2: steriles annos, Stat. S. 4, 2, 12: “aevum,” id. ib.
1, 4, 124: “quattuor menses hiemis inedia,” Plin. 8, 25, 38, § 94: “vigiles
noctes,” Stat. Th. 3, 278 et saep. — Transf.: “febrium ardorem,” i. e. to
undergo, endure, Plin. Ep. 1, 22, 7; cf. “discrimen,” id. ib. 8, 11, 2:
“secessus, voluptates, etc.,” id. ib. 6, 4, 2.
quasi-demonstratum: The use of ‘quasi-‘ is implicatural. Grice is
implicating this is NOT a demonstratum. By a demonstratum he is having in mind
a Kaplanian ‘dthis’ or ‘dthat.’ Grice was obsessed with this or that. An
abstractum (such as “philosopher”) needs to be attached in a communicatum by
what Grice calls a ‘quasi-demonstrative,’ and for which he uses “φ.” Consider,
Grice says, an utterance, out of the blue, such as ‘The philosopher in the
garden seems bored,’ involving two iota-operators. As there may be more that a
philosopher in a garden in the great big world, the utterer intends his
addressee to treat the utterance as expandable into ‘The A which is φ is
B,’ where “φ” is a quasi-demonstrative epithet to be identified in a particular
context of utterance. The utterer intends that, to identify the denotatum
of “φ” for a particular utterance of ‘The philosopher in the garden seems
bored,’ the addressee wil proceed via the identification of a particular
philosopher, say Grice, as being a good candidate for being the philosopher
meant. The addressee is also intended to identify the candidate for a denotatum
of φ by finding in the candidate a feature, e. g., that of being the garden at
St. John’s, which is intended to be used to yield a composite epithet
(‘philosopher in St. John’s garden’), which in turn fills the bill of being the
epithet which the utterer believes is being uniquely satisfied by the
philosopher selected as the candidate. Determining the denotatum of “φ”
standardly involve determining what feature the utterer believes is uniquely
instantiated by the predicate “philosopher.” This in turn involves satisfying
oneself that some particular feature is in fact uniquely satisfied by a
particular actual item, viz. a particular philosopher such as Grice seeming
bored in the garden of St. John’s.
A.M. Quinton’s
Gedanke Experiment: from “Spaces and
Times,” Philosophy.“hardly Thought Out” – Is this apriori or a posteriori? H.
P. Grice. Space is ordinarily seen to be a
unique individual. All real things are contained in one and the same space, and
all spaces are part of the one space. In principle, every place can be reached
from every other place by traveling through intermediate places. The spatial
relation is symmetrical. Grice’s friend, A. M. Quinton devised a thought
experiment to challenge this picture. Suppose that we have richly coherent and
connected experience in our dreams just as we have in waking life, so that it
becomes arbitrary to claim that our dream experience is not of an objectively
existing world like the world of our waking experience. If the space of my
waking world and my dream world are not mutually accessible, it is unlikely
that we are justified in claiming to be living in a single spatially isolated
world. Hence, space is not essentially singular. In assessing this account, we
might distinguish between systematic and public physical space and fragmentary
and private experiential space. The two-space myth raises questions about how
we can justify moving from experiential space to objective space in the world
as it is. “We can at least conceive circumstances in which we should have good
reason to say that we know of real things located in two distinct spaces.”
Quinton, “Spaces and Times,” Philosophy 37
ramseyified
description. Grice enjoyed Ramsey’s
Engish humour: if you can say it, you can’t whistle it either. Applied by Grice
in “Method.”Agent A is in a D state just in case there is a predicate
“D” introduced via implicit definition
by nomological generalisation L within theory θ, such L obtains, A
instantiates D. Grice distinguishes the ‘descriptor’ from a more primitive
‘name.’ The reference is to Ramsey. The issue is technical and relates to the
introduction of a predicate constant – something he would never have dared to at
Oxford with Gilbert Ryle and D. F. Pears next to him! But in the New World,
they loved a formalism! And of course Ramsey would not have anything to do with
it! Refs: “Philosophical psychology,” in BANC. ‘
rational
choice: as oppose to irrational
choice. V. choose. Grice, “Impicatures of ‘choosing’” “Hobson’s choice, or
Hobson’s ‘choice’?” Pears on conversational implicature and choosing. That includes choosing in its meaning, and then it is easy to
ac- cept the suggestion that choosing might be an S-factor, and that the
hypothetical might be a Willkür:
one of Grice’s favourite words from Kant – “It’s so Kantish!” I told Pears
about this, and having found it’s cognate with English ‘choose,’ he immediately
set to write an essay on the topic!” f., ‘option, discretion, caprice,’ from
MidHG. willekür, f., ‘free
choice, free will’; gee kiesen and Kur-.kiesen,
verb, ‘to select,’ from Middle High German kiesen, Old High German chiosan, ‘to test, try, taste for the purpose of testing, test
by tasting, select after strict examination.’ Gothic kiusan, Anglo-Saxon ceósan, English to choose. Teutonic root kus (with the change of s into r, kur in the participle erkoren, see also Kur, ‘choice’), from pre-Teutonic gus, in Latin gus-tus, gus-tare, Greek γεύω for γεύσω, Indian root juš, ‘to select, be fond of.’
Teutonic kausjun passed
as kusiti into
Slavonic. Insofar as a philosopher
explains and predicts the actum as consequences of a choice, which are
themselves explained in terms of alleged reasons, it must depict agents as to
some extent rational. Rationality, like reasons, involves evaluation, and just
as one can assess the rationality of individual choices, so one can assess the
rationality of social choices and examine how they are and ought to be related
to the preferences and judgments of the actor. In addition, there are intricate
questions concerning rationality in ‘strategic’ situations in which outcomes
depend on the choices of multiple individuals. Since rationality is a central
concept in branches of philosophy such as Grice’s pragmatics, action theory,
epistemology, ethics, and philosophy of mind, studies of rationality frequently
cross the boundaries various branches of philosophy. The barebones theory of
rationality takes an agent’s preferences, i. e. his rankings of states of affairs, to be
rational if they are complete and transitive, and it takes the agent’s choice
to be rational if the agent does not prefer any feasible alternative to the one
he chooses. Such a theory of rationality is clearly too weak. It says nothing
about belief or what rationality implies when the agent does not know (with
certainty) everything relevant to his choice. It may also be too strong, since there
is nothing irrational about having incomplete preferences in situations
involving uncertainty. Sometimes it is rational to suspend judgment and to
refuse to rank alternatives that are not well understood. On the other hand,
transitivity is a plausible condition, and the so-called “money pump” argument
demonstrates that if one’s preferences are intransitive and one is willing to
make exchanges, then one can be exploited. Suppose an agent A prefers X to Y, Y to Z and Z to X, and
that A will
pay some small amount of money $P to exchange Y for X, Z for Y, and X for Z. That means
that, starting with Z, A will pay $P for Y, then $P again
for X,
then $P again
for Z and
so on. An agent need not be this stupid. He will instead refuse to trade or
adjust his preferences to eliminate the intransitivity. On the other hand, there
is evidence that an agent’s preferences are not in fact transitive. Such
evidence does not establish that transitivity is not a requirement of
rationality. It may show instead that an agent may sometimes not be rational.
In, e. g. the case of preference reversals,” it seems plausible that the agent
in fact makes the ‘irrational choice.’ Evidence of persistent violations of
transitivity is disquieting, since standards of rationality should not be impossibly
high. A further difficulty with the
barebones theory of rationality concerns the individuation of the objects of
preference or choice. Consider e. g. data from a multi-stage ultimatum game.
Suppose A can
propose any division of $10 between A and B. B can
accept or reject A’s proposal. If B rejects the proposal, the amount
of money drops to $5, and B gets to offer a division of the $5 which A can
accept or reject. If A rejects B’s offer, both players get nothing.
Suppose that A proposes
to divide the money with $7 for A and $3 for B. B declines
and offers to split the $5 evenly, with $2.50 for each. Behaviour such as this
is, in fact, common. Assuming that B prefers more money to less,
these choices appear to be a violation of transitivity. B prefers
$3 to $2.50, yet declines $3 for certain for $2.50 (with some slight chance
of A declining
and B getting
nothing). But the objects of choice are not just quantities of money. B is
turning down $3 as part of “a raw deal” in favour of $2.50 as part of a fair
arrangement. If the objects of choice are defined in this way, there is no
failure of transitivity. This plausible
observation gives rise to a serious conceptual problem that Grice thinks he can
solve. Unless there are constraints on how the objects of choice are
individuated, conditions of rationality such as transitivity are empty. A’s choice
of X over Y, Y over Z and Z over X does
not violate transitivity if “X when the alternative is Y” is not the
same object of choice as “X when the alternative is Z”. A further
substantive principle of rationality isrequired to limit how alternatives are
individuated or to require that agents be indifferent between alternatives such
as “X when
the alternative is Y” and “X when the alternative is Z.” To extend
the theory of rationality to circumstances involving risk (where the objects of choice are lotteries with
known probabilities) and uncertainty (where agents do not know the
probabilities or even all the possible outcomes of their choices) requires a
further principle of rationality, as well as a controversial technical
simplification. Subjective Bayesians suppose that the agent in circumstances of
uncertainty has well-defined subjective probabilities (degrees of belief) over
all the payoffs and thus that the objects of choice can be modeled as
lotteries, just as in circumstances involving risk, though with subjective
probabilities in place of objective probabilities. The most important of the
axioms needed for the theory of rational choice under conditions of risk and
uncertainty is the independence condition. The preferences of a rational agent
between two lotteries that differ in only one outcome should match his
preferences between the differing outcomes. A considerable part of Grice’s rational
choice theory is concerned with formalizations of conditions of rationality and
investigation of their implications. When they are complete and transitive and
satisfy a further continuity condition, the agent’s preferences can be
represented by an ordinal utility function, i. e. it is then possible to define
a function that represents an agent’s preferences so that U(X) > U(Y) iff if the
agent prefers X to Y, and U(X) = U(Y) iff if the
agent is indifferent between X and Y. This
function represents the preference ranking, and contains no information beyond
the ranking. When in addition they satisfy the independence condition, the
agent’s preferences can be represented by an expected utility function (Ramsey
1926). Such a function has two important properties. First, the expected
utility of a lottery is equal to the sum of the expected utilities of its
prizes weighted by their probabilities. Second, expected utility functions are
unique up to a positive affine transformation. If U and V are
both expected utility functions representing the preferences of an agent, for
all objects of preference, X, V(X) must be equal to aU(X) + b, where a and b are
real numbers and a is positive. The axioms of rationality imply that
the agent’s degrees of belief will satisfy the axioms of the probability
calculus. A great deal of controversy surrounds Grice’s theory of rationality,
and there have been many formal investigations into amendeding it. Although a
conversational pair is very different from this agent and this other agent, the
pair has a mechanism to evaluate alternatives and make a choice. The evaluation
and the choice may be rational or irrational. Pace Grice’s fruitful seminars on
rational helpfulness in cooperation, t is not, however, obvious, what
principles of rationality should govern the choices and evaluations of the
conversational dyad. Transitivity is one plausible condition. It seems that a
conversational dyad that chooses X when faced with the
alternatives X or Y, Y when faced
with the alternatives Y or Z and Z when
faced with the alternatives X or Z, the conversational dyad has had “a
change of hearts” or is choosing ‘irrationally.’ Yet, purported irrationalities
such as these can easily arise from a standard mechanism that aims to link a
‘conversational choice’ and individual preferences. Suppose there are two
conversationalists in the dyad. Individual One ranks the alternatives X, Y, Z. Individual
Two ranks them Y, Z, X. (An Individual Three if he comes by, may ranks them Z, X, Y). If
decisions are made by pairwise majority voting, X will be
chosen from the pair (X, Y), Y will be chosen from (Y, Z), and Z will be
chosen from (X, Z). Clearly
this is unsettling. But is a possible cycle in a ‘conversational choice’ “irrational”? Similar
problems affect what one might call the logical coherence of a conversational
judgment Suppose the dyad consists of two individuals who make the following
judgments concerning the truth or falsity of the propositions P and Q and
that “conversational” judgment follows the majority. P if P, Q Q
Conversationalist A true
true true Conversationalist B false true false (Conversationalist C, if he
passes by) true false false
“Conversation” as an Institution: true true false. The judgment of each conversationalist
is consistent with the principles of logic, while the “conversational
co-operative” judgment violates the principles of logic. The “cooperative
conversational,” “altruistic,” “joint judgment” need not be consistent with the
principles of egoist logic. Although conversational choice theory bears on
questions of conversational rationality, most work in conversational choice
theory explores the consequences of principles of rationality coupled with this
or that explicitly practical, or meta-ethical constraint. Grice does not
use ‘moral,’ since he distinguishes what he calls a ‘conversational maxim’ from
a ‘moral maxim’ of the type Kant universalizes. Arrow’s impossibility theorem
assumes that an individual preference and a concerted, joint preference are
complete and transitive and that the method of forming a conversational,
concerted, joint preference (or making a conversational, concerted, choice)
issues in some joint preference ranking or joint choice for any possible
profile (or dossier, as Grice prefers) of each individual preference. Arrow’s
impossibility theorem imposes a weak UNANIMITY (one-soul) condition. If A and B
prefers X to Y, Y must
not jointly preferred. Arrow’s impossibility theorem requires that there be no
boss (call him Immanuel, the Genitor) whose preference determines a joint
preference or choice irrespective of the preferences of anybody else. Arrow’s
impossibility theorem imposes the condition that the joint concerted
conversational preference between X and Y should
depend on how A and B rank X and Y and on nothing else. Arrow’s
impossibility theorem proves that no method of co-relating or linking
conversational and a monogogic preference can satisfy all these conditions. If
an monopreference and a mono-evaluations both satisfy the axioms of expected
utility theory (with shared or objective probabilities) and that a
duo-preference conform to the unanimous mono-preference, a duo- evaluation is
determined by a weighted sum of individual utilities. A form of weighted futilitarianism,
which prioritizes the interests of the recipient, rather than the emissor,
uniquely satisfies a longer list of rational and practical constraints. When
there are instead disagreements in probability assignments, there is an
impossibility result. The unanimity (‘one-soul’) condition implies that for
some profiles of individual preferences, a joint or duo-evaluation will not
satisfy the axioms of expected utility theory. When outcomes depend on what at
least two autonomous free agents do, one agent’s best choice may depend on what
the other agent chooses. Although the principles of rationality governing
mono-choice still apply, there is a further principle of conversational rationality
governing the ‘expectation’ (to use Grice’s favourite term) of the action (or
conversational move) of one’s co-conversationalist (and obviously, via the
mutuality requirement of applicational universalizability) of the
co-conversationalist’s ‘expectation’ concerning the conversationalist’s action
and expectation, and so forth. Grice’s Conversational Game Theory plays a
protagonist role within philosophy, and it is relevant to inquiries concerning conversational
rationality and inquiries concerning conversational ethics.
reductionism: The issue of reductionism is very much twentieth-century.
There was Wisdom’s boring contribtions to Mind on ‘logical construction,’ Grice
read the summary from Broad. One of the twelve –isms that Grice finds on his
ascent to the City of Eternal Truth. He makes the reductive-reductionist
distinction. Against J. M. Rountree. So, for Grice, the bad heathen vicious
Reductionism can be defeated by the good Christian virtuous Reductivism. A
reductivist tries to define, say, what an emissor communicates (that p) in
terms of the content of that proposition that he intends to transmit to his
recipient. Following Aristotle, Grice reduces the effect to a ‘pathemata
psucheos,’ i. e. a passio of the anima, as Boethius translates. This can be
desiderative (“Thou shalt not kill”) or creditativa (“The grass is green.”)
re-praesentatum: Grice plays with this as a philosophical semanticist,
rather than a philosophical psychologist. But the re-praesentatum depends on
the ‘praesentatum,’ which corresponds to Grice’s sub-perceptum (not the
‘conceptus’). cf. Grice on Peirce’s representamen (“You don’t want to go
there,” – Grice to his tutees). It seems that in the one-off predicament,
iconicy plays a role: the drawing of a skull to indicate danger, the drawing of
an arrow at the fork of a road to indicate which way the emissor’s flowers, who
were left behind, are supposed to take (Carruthers). Suppose Grice joins the
Oxfordshire cricket club. He will represent Oxfordshire. He will do for
Oxfordshire what Oxfordshire cannot do for herself. Similarly, by uttering
“Smoke!,” the utterer means that there is fire somewhere. “Smoke!” is a
communication-device if it does for smoke what smoke cannot do for itself,
influence thoughts and behaviour. Or does it?! It MWheIGHT. But suppose that
the fire is some distant from the addresse. And the utterer HAS LEARNED That
there is fire in the distance. So he utters ‘Smoke!’ Where? Oh, you won’t see
it. But I was told there is smoke on the outskirts. Thanks for warning me!
rĕ-praesento , āvi, ātum, 1, v. a. I. To bring before one, to bring back;
to show, exhibit, display, manifest, represent (class.): “per quas (visiones)
imagines rerum absentium ita repraesentantur animo, ut eas cernere oculis ac
praesentes habere videamur,” Quint. 6, 2, 29: “memoriae vis repraesentat
aliquid,” id. 11, 2, 1; cf. Plin. Ep. 9, 28, 3: “quod templum repraesentabat
memoriam consulatūs mei,” Cic. Sest. 11, 26: si quis vultu torvo ferus simulet
Catonem, Virtutemne repraesentet moresque Catonis? * Hor. Ep. 1, 19, 14:
“imbecillitatem ingenii mei,” Val. Max. 2, 7, 6: “movendi ratio aut in
repraesentandis est aut imitandis adfectibus,” Quint. 11, 3, 156: “urbis
species repraesentabatur animis,” Curt. 3, 10, 7; cf.: “affectum patris
amissi,” Plin. Ep. 4, 19, 1: “nam et vera esse et apte ad repraesentandam iram
deūm ficta possunt,” Liv. 8, 6, 3 Weissenb. ad loc.: “volumina,” to recite,
repeat, Plin. 7, 24, 24, § 89: “viridem saporem olivarum etiam post annum,”
Col. 12, 47, 8: “faciem veri maris,” id. 8, 17, 6: “colorem constantius,” to
show, exhibit, Plin. 37, 8, 33, § 112: “vicem olei,” i. e. to supply the place
of, id. 28, 10, 45, § 160; cf. id. 18, 14, 36, § 134.— B. Of painters,
sculptors, etc., to represent, portray, etc. (post-Aug. for adumbro):
“Niceratus repraesentavit Alcibiadem,” Plin. 34, 8, 19, § 88.—With se, to
present one's self, be present, Col. 1, 8, 11; 11, 1, 26; Dig. 48, 5, 15, § 3.—
II. In partic., mercant. t. t., to pay immediately or on the spot; to pay in
ready money: reliquae pecuniae vel usuram Silio pendemus, dum a Faberio vel ab
aliquo qui Faberio debet, repraesentabimus, shall be enabled to pay
immediately, Cic. Att. 12, 25, 1; 12, 29, 2: “summam,” Suet. Aug. 101:
“legata,” id. Calig. 16: “mercedem,” id. Claud. 18; id. Oth. 5; Front. Strat.
1, 11, 2 Oud. N. cr.: “dies promissorum adest: quem etiam repraesentabo, si
adveneris,” shall even anticipate, Cic. Fam. 16, 14, 2; cf. fideicommissum, to
discharge immediately or in advance, Dig. 35, 1, 36.— B. Transf., in gen., to
do, perform, or execute any act immediately, without delay, forthwith; hence, not
to defer or put off; to hasten (good prose): se, quod in longiorem diem
collaturus esset, repraesentaturum et proximā nocte castra moturum, * Caes. B.
G. 1, 40: “festinasse se repraesentare consilium,” Curt. 6, 11, 33: “petis a
me, ut id quod in diem suum dixeram debere differri, repraesentem,” Sen. Ep.
95, 1; and Front. Aquaed. 119 fin.: “neque exspectare temporis medicinam, quam
repraesentare ratione possimus,” to apply it immediately, Cic. Fam. 5, 16, 6;
so, “improbitatem suam,” to hurry on, id. Att. 16, 2, 3: “spectaculum,” Suet.
Calig. 58: “tormenta poenasque,” id. Claud. 34: “poenam,” Phaedr. 3, 10, 32;
Val. Max. 6, 5, ext. 4: “verbera et plagas,” Suet. Vit. 10: “vocem,” to sing
immediately, id. Ner. 21 et saep.: “si repraesentari morte meā libertas
civitatis potest,” can be immediately recovered, Cic. Phil. 2, 46, 118: “minas
irasque caelestes,” to fulfil immediately, Liv. 2, 36, 6 Weissenb. ad loc.; cf.
Suet. Claud. 38: “judicia repraesentata,” held on the spot, without
preparation, Quint. 10, 7, 2.— C. To represent, stand in the place of (late
Lat.): nostra per eum repraesentetur auctoritas, Greg. M. Ep. 1, 1.
Response: Chomsky hated it. Grice changed it to
‘effect.’ Or not. “Stimulus and response,” Skinner's
behavioral theory was largely set forth in his first book, Behavior of
Organisms (1938).[9] Here, he gives a systematic description of the manner in
which environmental variables control behavior. He distinguished two sorts of
behavior which are controlled in different ways: Respondent behaviors are
elicited by stimuli, and may be modified through respondent conditioning, often
called classical (or pavlovian) conditioning, in which a neutral stimulus is
paired with an eliciting stimulus. Such behaviors may be measured by their
latency or strength. Operant behaviors are 'emitted,' meaning that initially
they are not induced by any particular stimulus. They are strengthened through
operant conditioning (aka instrumental conditioning), in which the occurrence
of a response yields a reinforcer. Such behaviors may be measured by their
rate. Both of these sorts of behavior had already been studied experimentally,
most notably: respondents, by Ivan Pavlov;[25] and operants, by Edward Thorndike.[26]
Skinner's account differed in some ways from earlier ones,[27] and was one of
the first accounts to bring them under one roof.
scepticism:
For some reason, Grice was irritated by Wood’s sobriquet of Russell as a
“passionate sceptic”: ‘an oxymoron.” The most specific essay by Grice on this
is an essay he kept after many years, that he delivered back in the day at
Oxford, entitled, “Scepticism and common sense.” Both were traditional topics
at Oxford at the time. Typically, as in the Oxonian manner, he chose two
authors, New-World’s Malcolm’s treatment of Old-World Moore, and brings in
Austin’s ‘ordinary-language’ into the bargain. He also brings in his own
obsession with what an emissor communicates. In this case, the “p” is the
philosopher’s sceptical proposition, such as “That pillar box is red.” Grice
thinks ‘dogmatic’ is the opposite of ‘sceptic,’ and he is right! Liddell and
Scott have “δόγμα,”
from “δοκέω,” and which they render as “that which seems to one, opinion or
belief;” Pl.R.538c; “δ. πόλεως κοινόν;” esp. of philosophical doctrines,
Epicur.Nat.14.7; “notion,” Pl.Tht.158d; “decision, judgement,” Pl. Lg.926d; (pl.); public decree,
ordinance, esp. of Roman
Senatus-consulta, “δ. συγκλήτου” “δ. τῆς
βουλῆς” So note that there is nothing ‘dogmatic’ about ‘dogma,’ as it derives
from ‘dokeo,’ and is rendered as ‘that which seems to one.’ So the keyword
should be later Grecian, and in the adjectival ‘dogmatic.’ Liddell and Scott
have “δογματικός,” which they render as “of or for doctrines, didactic,
[διάλογοι] Quint.Inst.2.15.26, and “of persons, δ. ἰατροί,” “physicians who go
by general principles,” opp. “ἐμπειρικοί and μεθοδικοί,” Dsc.Ther.Praef.,
Gal.1.65; in Philosophy, S.E.M.7.1, D.L.9.70, etc.; “δ. ὑπολήψεις” Id.9.83; “δ.
φιλοσοφία” S.E. P.1.4. Adv. “-κῶς” D.L.9.74, S.E.P.1.197: Comp. “-κώτερον”
Id.M. 6.4. Why is Grice interested in
scepticism. His initial concern, the one that Austin would authorize, relates
to ‘ordinary language.’ What if ‘ordinary language’ embraces scepticism? What
if it doesn’t? Strawso notes that the world of ordinary language is a world of
things, causes, and stuff. None of the good stuff for the sceptic. what is
Grice’s answer to the sceptic’s implicature? The sceptic’s implicatum is a
topic that always fascinated Girce. While Grice groups two essays as dealing
with one single theme, strictly, only this or that philosopher’s paradox (not
all) may count as sceptical. This or that philosopher’s paradox may well not be
sceptical at all but rather dogmatic. In fact, Grice defines philosophers
paradox as anything repugnant to common sense, shocking, or extravagant ‒ to
Malcolms ears, that is! While it is, strictly, slightly odd to quote this
as a given date just because, by a stroke of the pen, Grice writes that
date in the Harvard volume, we will follow his charming practice. This is
vintage Grice. Grice always takes the sceptics challenge seriously, as any
serious philosopher should. Grices takes both the sceptics explicatum and the
scepticss implicatum as self-defeating, as a very affront to our idea of
rationality, conversational or other. V: Conversations with a sceptic: Can he
be slightly more conversational helpful? Hume’ sceptical attack is
partial, and targeted only towards practical reason, though. Yet, for
Grice, reason is one. You cannot really attack practical or buletic reason
without attacking theoretical or doxastic reason. There is such thing as a
general rational acceptance, to use Grice’s term, that the sceptic is getting
at. Grice likes to play with the idea that ultimately every syllogism is
buletic or practical. If, say, a syllogism by Eddington looks doxastic, that is
because Eddington cares to omit the practical tail, as Grice puts it. And
Eddington is not even a philosopher, they say. Grice is here concerned with
a Cantabrigian topic popularised by Moore. As Grice recollects, Some
like Witters, but Moore’s my man. Unlike Cambridge analysts such as
Moore, Grice sees himself as a linguistic-turn Oxonian analyst. So it is only
natural that Grice would connect time-honoured scepticism of Pyrrhos vintage,
and common sense with ordinary language, so mis-called, the elephant in
Grices room. Lewis and Short have “σκέψις,” f. σκέπτομαι, which they render as “viewing,
perception by the senses, ἡ διὰ τῶν ὀμμάτων ςκέψις, Pl. Phd. 83a;
observation of auguries; also as examination, speculation, consideration, τὸ
εὕρημα πολλῆς σκέψιος; βραχείας ςκέψις; ϝέμειν ςκέψις take thought of a
thing; ἐνθεὶς τῇ τέχνῃ ςκέψις; ςκέψις ποιεῖσθαι; ςκέψις προβέβληκας;
ςκέψις λόγων; ςκέψις περί τινος inquiry into, speculation on a thing;
περί τι Id. Lg. 636d;ἐπὶ σκέψιν τινὸς ἐλθεῖν; speculation, inquiry,ταῦτα
ἐξωτερικωτέρας ἐστὶ σκέψεως; ἔξω τῆς νῦν ςκέψεως; οὐκ οἰκεῖα τῆς παρούσης
ςκέψις; also hesitation, doubt, esp. of the Sceptic or Pyrthonic philosophers,
AP 7. 576 (Jul.); the Sceptic philosophy, S. E. P. 1.5; οἱ ἀπὸ τῆς
ςκέψεως, the Sceptics, ib. 229. in politics, resolution, decree, συνεδρίον
Hdn. 4.3.9, cf. Poll. 6.178. If scepticism attacks common sense and fails,
Grice seems to be implicating, that ordinary language philosophy is a good
antidote to scepticism. Since what language other than ordinary language does
common sense speak? Well, strictly, common sense doesnt speak. The man in the
street does. Grice addresses this topic in a Mooreian way in a later essay,
also repr. in Studies, Moore and philosophers paradoxes, repr. in Studies.
As with his earlier Common sense and scepticism, Grice tackles Moores and
Malcolms claim that ordinary language, so-called, solves a few of philosophers
paradoxes. Philosopher is Grices witty way to generalise over your
common-or-garden, any, philosopher, especially of the type he found eccentric,
the sceptic included. Grice finds this or that problem in this overarching
Cantabrigian manoeuvre, as over-simplifying a pretty convoluted
terrain. While he cherishes Austins Some like Witters, but Moores MY man!
Grice finds Moore too Cantabrigian to his taste. While an Oxonian thoroughbred,
Grice is a bit like Austin, Some like Witters, but Moores my man, with this or
that caveat. Again, as with his treatment of Descartes or Locke, Grice is
hardly interested in finding out what Moore really means. He is a philosopher,
not a historian of philosophy, and he knows it. While Grice agrees with Austins
implicature that Moore goes well above Witters, if that is the expression (even
if some like him), we should find the Oxonian equivalent to Moore. Grice would
not Names Ryle, since he sees him, and his followers, almost every day. There
is something apostolic about Moore that Grice enjoys, which is just as well,
seeing that Moore is one of the twelve. Grice found it amusing that the
members of The Conversazione Society would still be nickNamesd apostles when
their number exceeded the initial 12. Grice spends some time exploring what
Malcolm, a follower of Witters, which does not help, as it were, has to say
about Moore in connection with that particularly Oxonian turn of phrase, such
as ordinary language is. For Malcolms Moore, a paradox by philosopher
[sic], including the sceptic, arises when philosopher [sic], including the
sceptic, fails to abide by the dictates of ordinary language. It might merit some
exploration if Moore’s defence of common sense is against: the sceptic may be
one, but also the idealist. Moore the realist, armed with ordinary language
attacks the idealists claim. The idealist is sceptical of the realists claim.
But empiricist idealism (Bradley) has at Oxford as good pedigree as empiricist
realism (Cook Wilson). Malcolm’s simplifications infuriate Grice, and ordinary
language has little to offer in the defense of common sense realism against
sceptical empiricist idealism. Surely the ordinary man says ridiculous, or
silly, as Russell prefers, things, such as Smith is lucky, Departed spirits
walk along this road on their way to Paradise, I know there are infinite stars,
and I wish I were Napoleon, or I wish that I had been Napoleon, which
does not mean that the utterer wishes that he
were like Napoleon, but that he wishes that he had lived
not in the his century but in the XVIIIth century. Grice is being specific
about this. It is true that an ordinary use of language, as Malcolm
suggests, cannot be self-contradictory unless the ordinary use of language is
defined by stipulation as not self-contradictory, in which case an appeal to
ordinary language becomes useless against this or that paradox by Philosopher.
I wish that I had been Napoleon seems to involve nothing but an ordinary use of
language by any standard but that of freedom from absurdity. I wish
that I had been Napoleon is not, as far as Grice can see, philosophical, but
something which may have been said and meant by numbers of ordinary
people. Yet, I wish that I had been Napoleon is open to the suspicion of
self-contradictoriness, absurdity, or some other kind of
meaninglessness. And in this context suspicion is all Grice needs. By
uttering I wish that I had been Napoleon U hardly means the same as he
would if he uttered I wish I were like Napoleon. I wish that I had been
Napoleon is suspiciously self-contradictory, absurd, or meaningless, if, as
uttered by an utterer in a century other than the XVIIIth century, say, the
utterer is understood as expressing the proposition that the utterer wishes
that he had lived in the XVIIIth century, and not in his century, in which case
he-1 wishes that he had not been him-1? But blame it on the
buletic. That Moore himself is not too happy with Malcolms criticism can
be witnessed by a cursory glimpse at hi reply to Malcolm. Grice is totally
against this view that Malcolm ascribes to Moore as a view that is too broad to
even claim to be true. Grices implicature is that Malcolm is appealing to Oxonian
turns of phrase, such as ordinary language, but not taking proper Oxonian care
in clarifying the nuances and stuff in dealing with, admittedly, a non-Oxonian
philosopher such as Moore. When dealing with Moore, Grice is not necessarily
concerned with scepticism. Time is unreal, e.g. is hardly a sceptic utterance.
Yet Grice lists it as one of Philosophers paradoxes. So, there are various to
consider here. Grice would start with common sense. That is what he does when
he reprints this essay in WOW, with his attending note in both the preface and
the Retrospective epilogue on how he organizes the themes and strands. Common
sense is one keyword there, with its attending realism. Scepticism is another,
with its attending empiricist idealism. It is intriguing that in the first two
essays opening Grices explorations in semantics and metaphysics it seems its
Malcolm, rather than the dryer Moore, who interests Grice most. While he would
provide exegeses of this or that dictum by Moore, and indeed, Moore’s response to
Malcolm, Grice seems to be more concerned with applications of his own views.
Notably in Philosophers paradoxes. The fatal objection Grice finds for the
paradox propounder (not necessarily a sceptic, although a sceptic may be one of
the paradox propounders) significantly rests on Grices reductive analysis of
meaning that as ascribed to this or that
utterer U. Grice elaborates on circumstances that hell later take up in the
Retrospective epilogue. I find myself not understanding what I mean is
dubiously acceptable. If meaning, Grice claims, is about an utterer U intending
to get his addressee A to believe that U ψ-s that p, U must think there is a
good chance that A will recognise what he is supposed to believe, by, perhaps,
being aware of the Us practice or by a supplementary explanation which might
come from U. In which case, U should not be meaning what Malcolm claims U might
mean. No utterer should intend his addressee to believe what is conceptually
impossible, or incoherent, or blatantly false (Charles Is decapitation willed
Charles Is death.), unless you are Queen in Through the Looking Glass. I
believe five impossible things before breakfast, and I hope youll soon get the
proper training to follow suit. Cf. Tertulian, Credo, quia absurdum est. Admittedly,
Grice edits the Philosophers paradoxes essay. It is only Grices final objection
which is repr. in WOW, even if he provides a good detailed summary of the
previous sections. Grice appeals to Moore on later occasions. In Causal theory,
Grice lists, as a third philosophical mistake, the opinion by Malcolm that
Moore did not know how to use knowin a sentence. Grice brings up the same
example again in Prolegomena. The use of factive know of Moore may well be a
misuse. While at Madison, Wisconsin, Moore lectures at a hall
eccentrically-built with indirect lighting simulating sun rays, Moore
infamously utters, I know that there is a window behind that curtain, when
there is not. But it is not the factiveness Grice is aiming at, but the
otiosity Malcolm misdescribes in the true, if baffling, I know that I have two
hands. In Retrospective epilogue, Grice uses M to abbreviate Moore’s fairy
godmother – along with G (Grice), A (Austin), R (Ryle) and Q (Quine)! One
simple way to approach Grices quandary with Malcolm’s quandary with Moore is
then to focus on know. How can Malcolm claim that Moore is guilty of misusing
know? The most extensive exploration by Grice on know is in Grices third James
lecture (but cf. his seminar on Knowledge and belief, and his remarks on some
of our beliefs needing to be true, in Meaning revisited. The examinee
knows that the battle of Waterloo was fought in 1815. Nothing odd about that,
nor about Moores uttering I know that these are my hands. Grice is perhaps the
only one of the Oxonian philosophers of Austins play group who took common
sense realsim so seriously, if only to crticise Malcoms zeal with it. For
Grice, common-sense realism = ordinary language, whereas for the typical
Austinian, ordinary language = the language of the man in the street. Back at
Oxford, Grice uses Malcolm to contest the usual criticism that Oxford
ordinary-language philosophers defend common-sense realist assumptions just
because the way non-common-sense realist philosopher’s talk is not ordinary
language, and even at Oxford. Cf. Flews reference to Joness philosophical
verbal rubbish in using self as a noun. Grice is infuriated by all this unclear
chatter, and chooses Malcolms mistreatment of Moore as an example. Grice is
possibly fearful to consider Austins claims directly! In later essays, such as
‘the learned’ and ‘the lay,’ Grice goes back to the topic criticising now the
scientists jargon as an affront to the ordinary language of the layman that
Grice qua philosopher defends. Refs.: The obvious source is the essay on
scepticism in WoW, but there are allusions in “Prejudices and predilections,
and elsewhere, in The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC.
semantics:
Grice was careful with what he felt was an abuse of ‘semantic’ – v. Evans:
“Meaning and truth: essayis in semantics.” “Well, that’s what ‘meaning’ means,
right?” The semantics is more reated to the signatum than to the significatum.
The Grecians did not have anything remotely similar to the significatum, which
is all about the making (facere) of a sign (as in Grice’s example of the
handwave). This is the meaning Grice gives to ‘semantics.’ There is no need for
the handwave to be part of a system of communication, or have syntactic
structure, or be ‘arbitrary.’ Still, one thing is communicated from the emissor
to his recipient, and that is all count. “I know the route” is the message, or
“I will leave you soon.” The handwave may be ambiguous. Grice is aware that
formalists like Hilbert and Gentzen think that they can do without semantics –
but as long as there is something ‘transmitted,’ or ‘messaged,’ it cannot. In
the one-off predicament, Emissor E emits x and communicates that p. Since an
intention with a content involving a psychological state is involved and
attached, even in a one-off, to ‘x,’ we can legitimately say the scenario may
be said to describe a ‘semantic’ phenomenon. Grice would freely use ‘semantic,’
and the root for ‘semantics,’ that Grice does use, involves the richest root of
all Grecian roots: the ‘semion.’ Liddell and Scott have “τό σημεῖον,” Ion.
σημήϊον , Dor. σα_μήϊον IG12(3).452 (Thera, iv B.C.), σα_μεῖον IPE12.352.25
(Chersonesus, ii B.C.), IG5(1).1390.16 (Andania, i B.C.), σα_μᾶον CIG5168
(Cyrene); = σῆμα in all senses, and more common in Prose, but never in Hom. or
Hes.; and which they render as “mark by which a thing is known,” Hdt.2.38;”
they also have “τό
σῆμα,” Dor. σᾶμα Berl.Sitzb.1927.161 (Cyrene), etc.; which they render as “sign,
mark, token,” “ Il.10.466, 23.326, Od.19.250, etc.” Grice lectured not only on
Cat. But the next, De Int. As Arsitotle puts it, an expression is a symbol
(symbolon) or sign (semeion) of an affections or impression (pathematon) of the
soul (psyche). An affection of the soul, of which a word is primarily a sign, are the same for the whole
of mankind, as is also objects (pragmaton) of which the affections is a
representation or likenes, image, or copiy (homoiomaton). [De Int., 1.16a4] while
Grice is NOT concerned about the semantics of utterers meaning (how could he,
when he analyses means in terms of
intends , he is about the semantics of
expression-meaning. Grices second stage (expression meaing) of his
programme about meaning begins with specifications of means as applied to x, a token
of X. He is having Tarski and Davidson in their elaborations of schemata
like ‘p’ ‘means’ that p. ‘Snow is white’ ‘means’ that snow is white,
and stuff! Grice was especially concerned with combinatories, for both unary
and dyadic operators, and with multiple quantifications within a first-order
predicate calculus with identity. Since in Grice’s initial elaboration on
meaning he relies on Stevenson, it is worth exploring how ‘semantics’ and
‘semiotics’ were interpreted by Peirce and the emotivists. Stevenson’s main
source is however in the other place, though, under Stevenson. Refs.: The main
sources are his lectures on language and reality – part of them repr. in WOW.
The keywords under ‘communication,’ and ‘signification,’ that Grice
occasionally uses ‘the total signification’ of a remark, above, BANC.
Semeiotics:
semiological: or is it semiotics? Cf. semiological, semotic. Since Grice uses
‘philosophical psychology’ and ‘philosopical biology,’ it may do to use
‘semiology,’ indeed ‘philosophical semiology,’ here. Oxonian semiotics is unique. Holloway
published his “Language and Intelligence” and everyone was excited. It is best
to see this as Grices psychologism. Grice would rarely use ‘intelligent,’ less
so the more pretentious, ‘intelligence,’ as a keyword. If he is doing it, it is
because what he saw as the misuse of it by Ryle and Holloway. Holloway, a PPE,
is a tutorial fellow in philosophy at All Souls. He acknowledges Ryle as his
mentor. (Holloway also quotes from Austin). Grice was amused that J. N.
Findlay, in his review of Holloway’s essay in “Mind,” compares Holloway to C.
W. Morris, and cares to cite the two relevant essay by Morris: The Foundation
in the theory of signs, and Signs, Language, and Behaviour. Enough for Grice to
feel warmly justified in having chosen another New-World author, Peirce, for
his earlier Oxford seminar. Morris studied under G. H. Mead. But is
‘intelligence’ part of The Griceian Lexicon?Well, Lewis and Short have
‘interlegere,’ to chose between. Lewis and Short have ‘interlĕgo , lēgi, lectum,
3, v. a., I’.which they render it as “to cull or pluck off here and there
(poet. and postclass.).in tmesi) uncis Carpendae manibus frondes, interque
legendae, Verg. G. 2, 366: “poma,” Pall. Febr. 25, 16; id. Jun. 5, 1.intellĕgo
(less correctly intellĭgo), exi, ectum (intellexti for intellexisti, Ter. Eun.
4, 6, 30; Cic. Att. 13, 32, 3: I.“intellexes for intellexisses,” Plaut. Cist.
2, 3, 81; subj. perf.: “intellegerint,” Sall. H. Fragm. 1, 41, 23 Dietsch);
“inter-lego,” “to see into, perceive, understand.” I. Lit. A. Lewis and Short
render as “to perceive, understand, comprehend.” Cf. Grice on his handwriting
being legible to few. And The child is an adult as being UNintelligible until
the creature is produced. In “Aspects,” he mentions flat rationality, and
certain other talents that are more difficult for the philosopher to
conceptualise, such as nose (i.e. intuitiveness), acumen, tenacity, and
such. Grices approach is Pological. If Locke had used intelligent to refer
to Prince Maurices parrot, Grice wants to find criteria for intelligent as
applied to his favourite type of P, rather (intelligent, indeed rational.).
Refs.: The most specific essay is his lecture on Peirce, listed under
‘communication, above. A reference to ‘criteria of intelligence relates. The H.
P. Grice Papers, BANC.
sententia: For some reason, perhaps of his eccentricity, J. L. Austin
was in love with Chomsky. He would read “Syntactic Structures” aloud to the
Play Group. And Grice was listening. This stuck with Grice, who started to use
‘sentence,’ even in Polish, when translating Tarski. Hardie had taught him that
‘sententia’ was a Roman transliteration of ‘dia-noia,’ which helped. Since “Not
when the the of dog” is NOT a sentence, not even an ‘ill-formed sentence,’
Grice concludes that like ‘reason,’ and ‘cabbage,’ sentence is a
value-paradeigmatic concept. His favourite sentence was “Fido is shaggy,”
uttered to communicate that Smith’s dog is hairy coated. One of Grice’s
favourite sentences was Carnap’s “Pirots karulise elatically,” which Carnap
borrowed from (but never returned to) Baron Russell. (“I later found out a
‘pirot’ is an extinct fish, which destroyed my whole implicatum – talk of
ichthyological necessity!” (Carnap contrasted, “Pirots karulise elatically,”
with “The not not if not the dog the.”
shaggy-dog
story, v. Grice’s shaggy-dog story
shared
experience: WoW: 286.
signatum: Cf. “to sign” as a verb – from French. Grice uses
designatum, too – but more specifically within the ‘propositio’ as a compound
of a subjectum and a predicatum. The subject-item indicates a thing; and the
predicate-item designates a property. As Grice notes, there is a distinction
between Aristotle’s use, in De Int., of ‘sumbolon,’ for which Aristotle
sometimes means ‘semeion,’ and their Roman counterparts, ‘signum’ sounds otiose
enough. But ‘significo’ does not. There is this –fico thing that sounds
obtrusive. The Romans, however, were able to distinguish between ‘make a sign,’
and just ‘signal.’ The point is important when Grice tries to apply the
Graeco-Roman philosophical terminology to a lexeme which does not belong in
there: “mean.” His example is someone in pain, uttering “Oh.” If he later gains
voluntary control, by uttering “Oh” he means that he is in pain, and even at a
later stage, provided he learns ‘lupe,’ he may utter the expression which is
somewhat correlated in a non-iconic fashion with something which iconically is
a vehicle for U to mean that he is in pain. In this way, in a
communication-system, a communication-device, such as “Oh” does for the state
of affairs something that the state of affairs cannot do for itself, govern the
addresee’s thoughts and behaviour (very much as the Oxfordshire cricket team
does for Oxfordshire what Oxfordshire cannot do for herself, viz. to engage in
a game of cricket. There’s rae-presentatum, for you! Short and Lewis have
‘signare,’ from ‘signum,’ and which they render as ‘to set a mark upon, to
mark, mark out, designate (syn.: noto, designo),’ Lit. A. In gen. (mostly poet.
and in post-Aug. prose): discrimen non facit neque signat linea alba, Lucil.
ap. Non. 405, 17: “signata sanguine pluma est,” Ov. M. 6, 670: “ne signare
quidem aut partiri limite campum Fas erat,” Verg. G. 1, 126: “humum limite
mensor,” Ov. M. 1, 136; id. Am. 3, 8, 42: “moenia aratro,” id. F. 4, 819: “pede
certo humum,” to print, press, Hor. A. P. 159; cf.: “vestigia summo pulvere,”
to mark, imprint, Verg. G. 3, 171: auratā cyclade humum, Prop. 4 (5), 7, 40.
“haec nostro signabitur area curru,” Ov. A. A. 1, 39: “locum, ubi ea (cistella)
excidit,” Plaut. Cist. 4, 2, 28: “caeli regionem in cortice signant,” mark,
cut, Verg. G. 2, 269: “nomina saxo,” Ov. M. 8, 539: “rem stilo,” Vell. 1, 16,
1: “rem carmine,” Verg. A. 3, 287; “for which: carmine saxum,” Ov. M. 2, 326:
“cubitum longis litteris,” Plaut. Rud. 5, 2, 7: “ceram figuris,” to imprint,
Ov. M. 15, 169: “cruor signaverat herbam,” had stained, id. ib. 10, 210; cf.
id. ib. 12, 125: “signatum sanguine pectus,” id. A. A. 2, 384: “dubiā lanugine
malas,” id. M. 13, 754: “signata in stirpe cicatrix,” Verg. G. 2, 379: “manibus
Procne pectus signata cruentis,” id. ib. 4, 15: “vocis infinitios sonos paucis
notis,” Cic. Rep. 3, 2, 3: “visum objectum imprimet et quasi signabit in animo
suam speciem,” id. Fat. 19, 43.— B. In partic. 1. To mark with a seal; to seal,
seal up, affix a seal to a thing (usually obsignare): “accepi a te signatum
libellum,” Cic. Att. 11, 1, 1: “volumina,” Hor. Ep. 1, 13, 2: locellum tibi
signatum remisi, Caes. ap. Charis. p. 60 P.: “epistula,” Nep. Pel. 3, 2:
“arcanas tabellas,” Ov. Am. 2, 15, 15: “signatis quicquam mandare tabellis,”
Tib. 4, 7, 7: “lagenam (anulus),” Mart. 9, 88, 7: “testamentum,” Plin. Ep. 2,
20, 8 sq.; cf. Mart. 5, 39, 2: “nec nisi signata venumdabatur (terra),” Plin.
35, 4, 14, § 33.—Absol., Mart. 10, 70, 7; Quint. 5, 7, 32; Suet. Ner. 17.— 2.
To mark with a stamp; hence, a. Of money, to stamp, to coin: “aes argentum
aurumve publice signanto,” Cic. Leg. 3, 3, 6; cf.: “qui primus ex auro denarium
signavit ... Servius rex primus signavit aes ... Signatum est nota pecudum,
unde et pecunia appellata ... Argentum signatum est anno, etc.,” Plin. 33, 3,
13, § 44: “argentum signatum,” Cic. Verr. 2, 5, 25, § 63; Quint. 5, 10, 62; 5,
14, 26: “pecunia signata Illyriorum signo,” Liv. 44, 27, 9: “denarius signatus
Victoriā,” Plin. 33, 3, 13, § 46: “sed cur navalis in aere Altera signata est,”
Ov. F. 1, 230: “milia talentūm argenti non signati formā, sed rudi pondere,”
Curt. 5, 2, 11.— Hence, b. Poet.: “signatum memori pectore nomen habe,”
imprinted, impressed, Ov. H. 13, 66: “(filia) quae patriā signatur imagine
vultus,” i. e. closely resembles her father, Mart. 6, 27, 3.— c. To stamp, i.
e. to license, invest with official authority (late Lat.): “quidam per ampla
spatia urbis ... equos velut publicos signatis, quod dicitur, calceis agitant,”
Amm. 14, 6, 16.— 3. Pregn., to distinguish, adorn, decorate (poet.): “pater
ipse suo superūm jam signat honore,” Verg. A. 6, 781 Heyne: caelum corona,
Claud. Nupt. Hon. et Mar. 273. to point out, signify, indicate, designate,
express (rare; more usually significo, designo; in Cic. only Or. 19, 64, where
dignata is given by Non. 281, 10; “v. Meyer ad loc.): translatio plerumque
signandis rebus ac sub oculos subiciendis reperta est,” Quint. 8, 6, 19:
“quotiens suis verbis signare nostra voluerunt (Graeci),” id. 2, 14, 1; cf.:
“appellatione signare,” id. 4, 1, 2: “utrius differentiam,” id. 6, 2, 20; cf.
id. 9, 1, 4; 12, 10, 16: “nomen (Caieta) ossa signat,” Verg. A. 7, 4: “fama
signata loco est,” Ov. M. 14, 433: “miratrixque sui signavit nomine terras,”
designated, Luc. 4, 655; cf.: “(Earinus) Nomine qui signat tempora verna suo,”
Mart. 9, 17, 4: “Turnus ut videt ... So signari oculis,” singled out, looked
to, Verg. A. 12, 3: signare responsum, to give a definite or distinct answer,
Sen. Ben. 7, 16, 1.—With rel.-clause: “memoria signat in quā regione quali
adjutore legatoque fratre meo usus sit,” Vell. 2, 115.— B. To distinguish,
recognize: “primi clipeos mentitaque tela Adgnoscunt, atque ora sono discordia
signant,” Verg. A. 2, 423; cf.: “sonis homines dignoscere,” Quint. 11, 3, 31:
“animo signa quodcumque in corpore mendum est,” Ov. R. Am. 417.— C. To seal,
settle, establish, confirm, prescribe (mostly poet.): “signanda sunt jura,”
Prop. 3 (4), 20, 15. “signata jura,” Luc. 3, 302: jura Suevis, Claud. ap. Eutr.
1, 380; cf.: “precati deos ut velint ea (vota) semper solvi semperque signari,”
Plin. Ep. 10, 35 (44). To close, end: “qui prima novo signat quinquennia
lustro,” Mart. 4, 45, 3.—Hence, A. signan-ter , adv. (acc. to II. A.),
expressly, clearly, distinctly (late Lat. for the class. significanter):
“signanter et breviter omnia indicare,” Aus. Grat. Act. 4: “signanter et
proprie dixerat,” Hier. adv. Jovin. 1, 13 fin. signātus, a, um, P. a. 1. (Acc.
to I. B. 1. sealed; hence) Shut up, guarded, preserved (mostly ante- and
post-class.): signata sacra, Varr. ap. Non. 397, 32: limina. Prop. 4 (5), 1,
145. Chrysidem negat signatam reddere, i. e. unharmed, intact, pure, Lucil. ap.
Non. 171, 6; cf.: “assume de viduis fide pulchram, aetate signatam,” Tert.
Exhort. 12.— 2. (Acc. to II. A.) Plain, clear, manifest (post-class. for “significans”
– a back formation!): “quid expressius atque signatius in hanc causam?” Tert.
Res. Carn.Adv.: signātē , clearly, distinctly (post-class.): “qui (veteres)
proprie atque signate locuti sunt,” Gell. 2, 6, 6; Macr. S. 6, 7 Comp.:
“signatius explicare aliquid,” Amm. 23, 6, 1.
significatum: or better ‘signatum.’ Grice knew that in old Roman, signatum
was intransitive, as originally ‘significatum’ was – “He is signifying,” i. e.
making signs. In the Middle Ages it was applied to ‘utens’ of this or that
expression, as was an actum, ‘agitur,’ Thus an expression was not said to
‘signify’ in the same way. Grice plays with the expression-communication
distinction. When dealing with a lexeme that does NOT belong in the
Graeco-Roman tradition, that of “mean,” he is never sure. His doubts were
hightlighted in essays on “Grice without an audience.” While Grice explicitly
says that a ‘word’ is not a sign, he would use ‘signify’ at a later stage,
including the implicatum as part of the significatum. There is indeed an entry
for signĭfĭcātĭo, f. significare. L and S render it, unhelpfully, as “a
pointing out, indicating, denoting, signifying; an
expression, indication, mark, sign, token, = indicium,
signum, ἐπισημασία, etc., freq. and class. As with Stevenson’s ‘communico,’
Grice goes sraight to ‘signĭfĭco,’ also dep. “signĭfĭcor,” f.
‘significare,’ from signum-facere, to make sign, signum-facio, I make sign,
which L and S render as to signify, which is perhaps not too helpful. Grice, if
not the Grecians, knew that. Strictly, L and S render significare as to show by
signs; to show, point out, express, publish, make known, indicate; to intimate,
notify, signify, etc. Note that the cognate signify almost comes last, but not
least, if not first. Enough to want to coin a word to do duty for them all.
Which is what Grice (and the Grecians) can, but the old Romans cannot, with
mean. If that above were not enough, L and S go on, also, to betoken,
prognosticate, foreshow, portend, mean (syn. praedico), as in to betoken a
change of weather (post-Aug.): “ventus Africus tempestatem significat,
etc.,”cf. Grice on those dark clouds mean a storm is coming. Short
and Lewis go on, to say that significare may be rendered as to call, name; to
mean, import, signify. Hence, ‘signĭfĭcans,’ in rhet. lang., of
speech, full of meaning, expressive, significant; graphic, distinct,
clear: adv.: signĭfĭcanter, clearly, distinctly, expressly, significantly,
graphically: “breviter ac significanter ordinem rei protulisse;” “rem indicare
(with proprie),” “dicere (with
ornate),” “apertius, significantius
dignitatem alicujus defendere,” “narrare,”“disponere,” “appellare aliquid (with
consignatius);” “dicere (with probabilius).”
st. john’s: st. john’s keeps a record of all of H. P. Grice’s tutees. It
is fascinating that Strawson’s closest collaboration, as Plato with Socrates,
and Aristotle with Plato, was with his tutee Strawson – whom Grice calls a
‘pupil,’ finding ‘tutee’ too French to his taste. G. J. Warnock recalls that,
of all the venues that the play group held, their favourite one was the room
overlooking the garden at st. john’s. “It’s one of the best gardens in England,
you know. Very peripathetic.” In alphabetical order, some of his English
‘gentlemanly’ tutees include: London-born J. L. Ackrill, London-born David
Bostock, London-born A. G. N. Flew, Leeds-born T. C. Potts, London-born P. F.
Strawson. They were happy to have Grice as a tutorial fellow, since he, unlike
Mabbot, was English, and did not instill on the tutees a vernacular furrin to
the area.
strawsonise: verb invented by A. M. Kemmerling. To adopt Strawson’s
manoever in the analysis of ‘meaning.’ “A form of ‘disgricing,’” – Kemmerling
adds.
Strawsonism
– Grice’s favourite Strawsonisms were too many to count. His first was Strawson
on ‘true’ for ‘Analysis.’ Grice was amazed by the rate of publishing in
Strawson’s case. Strawson kept publishing and Grice kept criticizing. In
“Analysis,’ Strawson gives Grice his first ‘strawsonism’ “To say ‘true’ is
ditto.’ The second strawsonism is that there is such a thing as ‘ordinary
language’ which is not Russellian. As Grice shows, ordinary language IS
Russellian. Strawson said that composing “In defence of a dogma” was torture
and that it is up to Strawson to finish the thing off. So there are a few strawonisms there, too. Strawson
had the courtesy never to reprint ‘In defence’ in any of his compilations, and
of course to have Grice as fist author. There are ‘strawsonisms’ in Grice’s
second collaboration with Strawson – that Grice intentionally ignores in “Life
and opinions.” This is a transcript of the talk of the dynamic trio: Grice, Pears,
and Strawson, published three years later by Pears in “The nature of
metaphysics.” Strawson collaborated with “If and the horseshoe” to PGRICE, but
did not really write it for the occasion. It was an essay he had drafted ages
ago, and now saw fit to publish. He expands on this in his note on Grice for
the British Academy, and in his review of Grice’s compilation. Grice makes an
explicit mention of Strawson in a footnote in “Presupposition and
conversational implicature,” the euphemism he uses is ‘tribute’: the refutation
of Strawson’s truth-value gap as a metaphysical excrescence and unnecessary is
called a ‘tribute,’ coming from the tutor – “in this and other fields,”
implicating, “there may be mistakes all over the place.” Kemmerling somewhat
ignores Urmson when he says, “Don’t disgrice if you can grice.” To strawsonise,
for Kemmerling is to avoid Grice’s direct approach and ask for a higher-level
intention. To strawsonise is the first level of disgrice. But Grice first
quotes Urmson and refers to Stampe’s briddge example before he does to
Strawson’s rat-infested house example.
strawson’s rat-infested house. Few in Grice’s playgroup had Grice’s analytic skills.
Only a few cared to join him in his analysis of ‘mean.’ The first was Urmson
with the ‘bribe.’ The second was Strawson, with his rat-infested house. Grice
re-writes Strawson’s alleged counterexample. To deal with his own rat-infested
house example, Strawson proposes that the analysans of "U means that
p" might be restricted by the addition of a further condition, namely that
the utterer U should utter x not only, as already provided, with the intention
that his addressee should think that U intends to obtain a certain response
from his addressee, but also with the intention that his addressee should think
(recognize) that U has the intention just mentioned. In Strawson's
example, in The Philosohical Review (that Grice cites on WOW:x) repr. in his
"Logico-Linguistic Papers," the potential home buyer is intended to
think that the realtor wants him to think that the house is rat-infested.
However, the potential house-buyer is not intended by the realtor to think that
he is intended to think that the realtor wants him to think that the house is
rat infested. The addressee is intended to think that it is only as a
result of being too clever for the realtor that he has learned that the
potential home buyer wants him to think that the house is
rat-infested; the potential home-buyer is to think that he is supposed to
take the artificially displayed dead rat as a evidence that the
house is rat infested. U wants to get A to believe that the house A is thinking
of buying is rat-infested. S decides to· bring about this belief in A by taking
into the house and letting loose a big fat sewer rat. For S has the following
scheme. He knows that A is watching him and knows that A believes that S
is unaware that he, A, is watching him. It isS's intention that A should
(wrongly) infer from the fact that S let the rat loose that S did so with the
intention that A should arrive at the house, see the rat, and, taking the rat
as "natural evidence", infer therefrom that the house is
rat-infested. S further intends A to realize that given the nature of the rat's
arrival, the existence of the rat cannot be taken as genuine or natural
evidence that the house is rat-infested; but S kilows that A will believe that
S would not so contrive to get A to believe the house is rat-infested unless
Shad very good reasons for thinking that it was, and so S expects and intends A
to infer that the house is rat-infested from the fact that Sis letting the rat
loose with the intention of getting A to believe that the house is
rat-infested. Thus S satisfies the conditions purported to be necessary and
sufficient for his meaning something by letting the rat loose: S lets the rat
loose intending (4) A to think that the house is rat-infested, intending
(1)-(3) A to infer from the fact that S let the rat loose that S did so
intending A to think that the house is rat-infested, and intending (5) A's recognition
of S's . intention (4) to function as his reason for thinking that the house is
rat-infested. But even though S's action meets these
conditions, Strawson feels that his scenario fits Grice's conditions in
Grice's reductive analysis and not yet Strawson's intuition about his own use
of 'communicate.' To minimise Strawson's discomfort, Grice brings an
anti-sneaky clause. ("Although I never shared Strawson's intuition about
his use of 'communicate;' in fact, I very rarely use 'communicate that...' To
exterminate the rats in Strawson's rat-infested house, Grice uses, as he
should, a general "anti-deception" clause. It may be that
the use of this exterminating procedure is possible. It may be that any
'backward-looking' clauses can be exterminated, and replaced by a general
prohibitive, or closure clause, forbidding an intention by the utterer to be
sneaky. It is a conceptual point that if you intend your addressee NOT TO
REALISE that p, you are not COMMUNICATING that p. (3A) (if) (3r)
(ic): (a) U utters x intending (I) A to think x possesses
f (2) A to thinkf correlated in way c with the type to which r
belongs (3) A to think, on the basis of the fulfillment of (I) and (3)
that U intends A to produce r (4) A, on the basis of the fulfillment of (3) to
produce r, and (b) There is no inference-element E such that U
intends both (I') A in his determination of r to rely on E (2') A to think Uto
intend (I') to be false. In the final version Grice reaches after considering
alleged counterexamples to the NECESSITY of some of the conditions in the
analysans, Grice reformulates. It is not the case that, for some inference
element E, U intends x to be such that anyone who
has φ both rely on E in coming to ψ, or think that U ψ-s, that p and think that (Ǝφ) U intends x to be
such that anyone who has φ come to ψ (or think that U ψ-s) that
p without relying on E. Embedded in the general definition. By uttering x,
U means that-ψb-dp ≡ (Ǝφ)(Ǝf)(Ǝc) U
utters x intending x to be such that anyone who
has φ think that x has f, f is correlated in way c
with ψ-ing that p, and (Ǝφ') U intends x to be such
that anyone who has φ' think, via thinking that x has
f and that f is correlated in way c with ψ-ing that p, that U ψ-s that
p, and in view of (Ǝφ') U intending x to be such
that anyone who has φ' think, via thinking that x has
f, and f is correlated in way c with ψ-ing that p, that U ψ-s that
p, U ψ-s that p, and, for some
substituends of ψb-d, U utters x
intending that, should there actually be anyone who
has φ, he will, via thinking in view of (Ǝφ') U
intending x to be such that anyone who has φ' think, via
thinking that x has f, and f is correlated in way c
with ψ-ing that p, that U ψ-s that p, U ψ-s that
p himself ψ that p, and it is not
the case that, for some inference element E, U intends x to be such
that anyone who has φ both rely on E in coming to ψ, or think that U ψ-s, that p and think that (Ǝφ) U intends x to be
such that anyone who has φ come to ψ (or think that U ψ-s) that
p without relying on E.
subjectification: Grice
is right in distinguishing this from nominalization, because not all
nominalization takes the subject position. Grice plays with this. It is a
derivation of the ‘subjectum,’ which Grice knows it is Aristotelian. Liddell
and Scott have the verb first, and the neuter singular later. “τὸ ὑποκείμενον,”
Liddell and Scott note “has three main applications.” The first is “to the
matter (hyle) which underlies the form (eidos), as opp. To both “εἶδος” and
“ἐντελέχεια” Met. 983a30; second, to the substantia (hyle + morphe) which
underlies the accidents, and as opposed to “πάθη,” and “συμβεβηκότα,” as in
Cat. 1a20,27 and Met.1037b16, 983b16; third, and this is the use that
‘linguistic’ turn Grice and Strawson are interested in, “to the logical subject
to which attributes are ascribed,” and here opp. “τὸ κατηγορούμενον,” (which
would be the ‘praedicatum’), as per Cat.1b10,21, Ph.189a31. If Grice uses
Kiparsky’s factive, he is also using ‘nominalisation’ as grammarians use it.
Refs.: Grice, “Reply to Richards,” in PGRICE, also BANC.
subjectivism: When Grice
speaks of the subjective condition on intention, he is using ‘subject,’ in a
way a philosophical psychologist would. He does not mean Kant’s transcendental
subject or ego. Grice means the simpler empiricist subject, personal identity,
or self. The choice is unfelicitious in that ‘subject’ contrasts with ‘object.’
So when he speaks of a ‘subjective’ person he means an ‘ego-centric’ condition,
or a self-oriented condition, or an agent-oriented condition, or an ‘utterer-oriented’
or ‘utterer-relative’ condition. But this is tricky. His example: “Nixon should
get that chair of theology.” The utterer may have to put into Nixon’s shoes. He
has to perceive Nixon as a PERSON, a rational agent, with views of his own. So,
the philosophical psychologist that Grice is has to think of a conception of
the self by the self, and the conception of the other by the self. Wisdom used
to talk of ‘other minds;’ Grice might speak of other souls. Grice was concerned
with intending folloed by a that-clause. Jeffrey defines desirability as
doxastically modified. It is entirely possible for someone to desire the love
that he already has. It is what he thinks that matters. Cf. his dispositional
account to intending. A Subjectsive condition takes into account the
intenders, rather than the ascribers, point of view: Marmaduke Bloggs
intends to climb Mt. Everest on hands and knees. Bloggs might
reason: Given my present state, I should do what is fun. Given my
present state, the best thing for me to do would be to do what is fun. For
me in my present state it would make for my well-being, to have
fun. Having fun is good, or, a good. Climbing a mountain would be fun.
Climbing the Everest would be/make for climbing fun. So, I shall climb the
Everest. Even if a critic insisted that a practical syllogism is the way
to represent Bloggs finding something to be appealing, and that it should be
regarded as a respectable evaluation, the assembled propositions dont do the
work of a standard argument. The premises do not support or yield the
conclusion as in a standard argument. The premises may be said to yield the
conclusion, or directive, for the particular agent whose reasoning process it
is, only on the basis of a Subjectsive condition: that the agent is in a certain
Subjectsive state, e.g. feels like going out for dinner-fun. Rational beings
(the agent at some other time, or other individuals) who do not have that
feeling, will not accept the conclusion. They may well accept as true. It is
fun to climb Everest, but will not accept it as a directive unless they feel
like it now. Someone wondering what to do for the summer might think that if he
were to climb Everest he would find it fun or pleasant, but right now she does
not feel like it. That is in general the end of the matter. The alleged
argument lacks normativity. It is not authoritative or directive unless there
is a supportive argument that he needs/ought to do something diverting/pleasant
in the summer. A practical argument is different. Even if an agent did not feel
like going to the doctor, an agent would think I ought to have a medical check
up yearly, now is the time, so I should see my doctor to be a directive with
some force. It articulates a practical argument. Perhaps the strongest
attempt to reconstruct an (acceptable or rational) thought
transition as a standard arguments is to treat the Subjectsive
condition, I feel like having climbing fun in the summer, as a premise, for
then the premises would support the conclusion. But the individual, whose
thought transition we are examining, does not regard a description of his
psychological state as a consideration that supports the conclusion. It
will be useful to look more closely at a variant of the example to note when it
is appropriate to reconstruct thinking in the form of argument. Bloggs,
now hiking with a friend in the Everest, comes to a difficult spot and
says: I dont like the look of that, I am frightened. I am going back. That
is usually enough for Bloggs to return, and for the friend to turn back with
him. Bloggss action of turning back, admittedly motivated by fear, is, while
not acting on reasons, nonetheless rational unless we judge his fear to be
irrational. Bloggss Subjectsive condition can serve as a
premise, but only in a very different situation. Bloggs resorts to reasons.
Suppose that, while his friend does not think Bloggss fear irrational, the
friend still attempts to dissuade Bloggs from going back. After listening and
reflecting, Bloggs may say I am so frightened it is not worth it. I am not
enjoying this climbing anymore. Or I am too frightened to be able to safely go
on. Or I often climb the Everest and dont usually get frightened. The fact that
I am now is a good indication that this is a dangerous trail and I should turn
back. These are reasons, considerations implicitly backed by principles, and
they could be the initial motivations of someone. But in Bloggss case they
emerged when he was challenged by his friend. They do not express his initial
practical reasoning. Bloggs was frightened by the trail ahead, wanted to go
back, and didnt have any reason not to. Note that there is no general
rational requirement to always act on reasons, and no general truth that a
rational individual would be better off the more often he acted on reasons. Faced
with his friends objections, however, Bloggs needed justification for acting on
his fear. He reflected and found reason(s) to act on his fear. Grice plays with
Subjectsivity already in Prolegomena. Consider the use of carefully. Surely we
must include the agents own idea of this. Or consider the use of phi and phi –
surely we dont want the addressee to regard himself under the same guise with
which the utterer regards him. Or consider “Aspects”: Nixon must be appointed
professor of theology at Oxford. Does he feel the need? Grice raises the topic
of Subjectsivity again in the Kant lectures just after his discussion of mode,
in a sub-section entitled, Modalities: relative and absolute. He finds the
topic central for his æqui-vocality thesis: Subjectsive conditions seem
necessary to both practical and alethic considerations. Refs.: The source is
his essay on intentions and the subjective condition, The H. P. Grice Papers,
BANC.
subjectum. When Frege
turned from ‘term logic’ to ‘predicate logic’ “he didn’t know what he was
doing.” Cf. Oxonian nominalization. Grice plays a lot on that. His presentation
at the Oxford Philosophical Society he entitled, in a very English way, as
“Meaning” (echoing Ogden and Richards). With his “Meaning, Revisited,” it seems
more clearly that he is nominalizing. Unless he means, “The essay “Meaning,”
revisited,” – alla Putnam making a bad joke on Ogden: “The meaning of
‘meaning’” – “ ‘Meaning,’ revisited” -- Grice is very familiar with this since it’s
the literal transliteration of Aristotle’s hypokeimenon, opp. in a specific
context, to the ‘prae-dicatum,’ or categoroumenon. And with the same sort of
‘ambiguity,’ qua opposite a category of expression, thought, or reality. In
philosophical circles, one has to be especially aware of the subject-object
distinction (which belong in philosophical psychology) and the thing which
belongs in ontology. Of course there’s the substance (hypousia, substantia),
the essence, and the sumbebekon, accidens. So one has to be careful. Grice
expands on Strawson’s explorations here. Philosophy, to underlie, as the
foundation in which something else inheres, to be implied or presupposed by
something else, “ἑκάστῳ τῶν ὀνομάτων . . ὑ. τις ἴδιος οὐσία” Pl.Prt.349b, cf.
Cra.422d, R.581c, Ti.Locr.97e: τὸ ὑποκείμενον has three main applications: (1)
to the matter which underlies the form, opp. εἶδος, ἐντελέχεια,
Arist.Metaph.983a30; (2) to the substance (matter + form) which underlies the
accidents, opp. πάθη, συμβεβηκότα, Id.Cat.1a20,27, Metaph.1037b16, 983b16; (3)
to the logical subject to which attributes are ascribed, opp. τὸ
κατηγορούμενον, Id.Cat.1b10,21, Ph.189a31: applications (1) and (2) are
distinguished in Id.Metaph.1038b5, 1029a1-5, 1042a26-31: τὸ ὑ. is occasionally
used of what underlies or is presupposed in some other way, e. g. of the
positive termini presupposed by change, Id.Ph.225a3-7. b. exist, τὸ ἐκτὸς
ὑποκείμενον the external reality, Stoic.2.48, cf. Epicur.Ep.1pp.12,24 U.; “φῶς
εἶναι τὸ χρῶμα τοῖς ὑ. ἐπιπῖπτον” Aristarch. Sam. ap. Placit.1.15.5; “τὸ κρῖνον
τί τε φαίνεται μόνον καὶ τί σὺν τῷ φαίνεσθαι ἔτι καὶ κατ᾽ ἀλήθειαν ὑπόκειται”
S.E.M.7.143, cf. 83,90,91, 10.240; = ὑπάρχω, τὰ ὑποκείμενα πράγματα the
existing state of affairs, Plb.11.28.2, cf. 11.29.1, 15.8.11,13, 3.31.6,
Eun.VSp.474 B.; “Τίτος ἐξ ὑποκειμένων ἐνίκα, χρώμενος ὁπλις μοῖς καὶ τάξεσιν
αἷς παρέλαβε” Plu.Comp.Phil.Flam.2; “τῆς αὐτῆς δυνάμεως ὑποκειμένης” Id.2.336b;
“ἐχομένου τοῦ προσιόντος λόγου ὡς πρὸς τὸν ὑποκείμενον” A.D.Synt.122.17. c. ὁ
ὑ. ἐνιαυτός the year in question, D.S.11.75; οἱ ὑ. καιροί the time in question,
Id.16.40, Plb.2.63.6, cf. Plu.Comp.Sol.Publ.4; τοῦ ὑ. μηνός the current month,
PTeb.14.14 (ii B. C.), al.; ἐκ τοῦ ὑ. φόρου in return for a reduction from the
said rent, PCair.Zen.649.18 (iii B. C.); πρὸς τὸ ὑ. νόει according to the
context, Gp.6.11.7. Note that both Grice and Strawson oppose Quine’s Humeian
dogma that, since the subjectum is beyond comprehension, we can do with a
‘predicate’ calculus, only. Vide Strawson, “Subject and predicate in logic and
grammar.” Refs: H. P. Grice, Work on the categories with P. F. Strawson, The H.
P. Grice Papers, BANC MSS 90/135c.
subperceptum. This
relates to Stich and his sub-doxastic. For Aristotle, “De An.,” the anima leads
to the desideratum. Unlike in ‘phuta,’ or vegetables, which are still ‘alive,’
(‘zoa’ – he had a problem with ‘sponges’ which were IN-animate, to him, most
likely) In WoW:139, Grice refers to “the pillar box seems red” as
“SUB-PERCEPTUAL,” the first of a trio. The second is the perceptual, “A
perceives that the pillar box is red,” and the third, “The pillar box is red.”
He wishes to explore the truth-conditons of the subperceptum, and although
first in the list, is last in the analsysis. Grice proposes: ‘The pillar box
seems red” iff (1) the pillar box is red; (2) A perceives that the pillar box
is red; and (3) (1) causes (2). In this there is a parallelism with his
quasi-causal account of ‘know’ (and his caveat that ‘literally,’ we may just
know that 2 + 2 = 4 (and such) (“Meaning Revisited). In what he calls ‘accented
sub-perceptum,’ the idea is that the U is choosing the superceptum (“seems”) as
opposed to his other obvious choices (“The pillar box IS red,”) and the
passive-voice version of the ‘perceptum’: “The pillar box IS PERCEIVED red.”
The ‘accent’ generates the D-or-D implicatum: By uttering “The pillar box seems
red,” U IMPLICATES that it is denied that or doubted that the pillar box is
perceived red by U or that the pillar box is red. In this, the accented version
contrasts with the unaccented version where the implicatum is NOT generated,
and the U remains uncommitted re: this doubt or denial implicatum. It is this
uncommitment that will allow to disimplicate or cancel the implicatum should
occasion arise. The reference Grice makes between the sub-perceptum and the
perceptum is grammatical, not psychological. Or else he may be meaning that in
uttering, “I perceive that the pillar box is red,” one needs to appeal to
Kant’s apperception of the ego. Refs.: Pecocke, Sense and content, Grice, BANC.
subscriptum:
Quine thought that Grice’s subscript device was otiose, and that he would rather
use brackets, or nothing, any day. Grice
plays with various roots of ‘scriptum.’ He was bound to. Moore had showed that
‘good’ was not ‘descriptive.’ Grice thinks it’s pseudo-descriptive. So here we
have the first, ‘descriptum,’ where what is meant is Griceian: By uttering the
“The cat is on the mat” U means, by his act of describing, that the cat is on
the mat. Then there’s the ‘prae-scriptum.’ Oddly, Grice, when criticizing the
‘descriptive’ fallacy, seldom mentions the co-relative ‘prescriptum.’ “Good”
would be understood in terms of a ‘prae-scriptum’ that appeals to his utterer’s
intentions. Then there’s the subscriptum. This may have various use, both in
Grice. “I subscribe,” and in the case of “Pegasus flies.” Where the utterer
subscribes to his ontological commitment. subscript device. Why does Grice
think we NEED a subscript device? Obviously, his wife would not use it. I mean,
you cannot pronounce a subscript device or a square-bracket device. So his
point is ironic. “Ordinary” language does not need it. But if Strawson and
Quine are going to be picky about stuff – ontological commitment, ‘existential
presupposition,’ let’s subscribe and bracket! Note that Quine’s response to
Grice is perfunctory: “Brackets would have done!” 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 Jacks 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 Grices 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 Jacks imagination. In a manoeuver that
I interpret as purely intentionalist, and thus favouring by far Suppess over
Chomskys 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 and
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 formulation represents the internal reading (where
ji stands for Jill): W2ja4F1ji3ja4 and
W3ja4F2ji1ja4. Note
that in the second formulation, the individual constant for Jill, ji, is
introduced prior to want, – jis sub-script is 1, while Ws sub-script is the
higher numerical value 3. Grice notes: Given that Jill does not exist, only the
internal reading can be true, or alethically satisfactory. 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. He is willing to allow for existential phrases in cases of vacuous
designata, provided they occur within opaque psychological-state or attitude
verbs, and he thinks that by doing this, he is being faithful to the richness
and exuberance 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, Ǝx5W3ja4F1x2ja4. As Grice
notes, 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.
sous-entendu: used by, of
all people, Mill. An Examination of Sir William Hamilton's
Philosophybooks.google.com › books ... and speak with any approach to
precision, and adopting into [the necessary sufficient clauses of a piece of
philosophical conceptual analysis] a mere sous-entendu of common conversation
in its most unprecise form. If I say to any one, Cf. understatement, as opposed
to overstatement. The ‘statement’ thing complicates things,
‘underunderstanding’ seems better, or ‘sub-understanding,’ strictly. Trust
Grice to bring more Grice to the Mill and provide a full essay, indeed theory,
and base his own philosophy, on the sous-tentendu! Cf. Pears, Pears
Cyclopaedia. “The English love meiosis, litotes, and understatement. The French
don’t.” Note all the figures of rhetoric cited by Grice, and why they have
philosophical import. Many entries here: hyperbole, meiosis, litotes, etc. Grice
took ‘sous-entendu’ etymologically serious. It is UNDERSTOOD. Nobody taught
you, but it understood. It is understood is like It is known. So “The pillar
box seems red” is understood to mean, “It may not be.” Now a sous-entendu may
be cancellable, in which case it was MIS-understood, or the emissor has changed
his mind. Grice considers the paradoxes the understanding under ‘uptake,’ just
to make fun of Austin’s informalism. The ‘endendu’ is what the French
understand by ‘understand,’ the root being Latin intellectus, or intendo.
Stupid. Grice loved
Plato. They are considering ‘horseness.’ “I cannot see horeseness; I can see
horses.” “You are the epitome of stupidity.” “I cannot see stupidity. I see
stupid.”
suggestio falsi – suggest.
To suggest is like to ‘insinuate,’ only different. The root involves a
favourite with Grice, ‘a gesture.’ That gesture is very suggesture. Grice
explores hint versus suggest in Retrospective epilogue. Also cited by Strawson
and Wiggins. The emissor’s implication is exactly this suggestio, for which
suggestum. To suggest, advise, prompt, offer, bring to mind: “quoties aequitas restitutionem suggerit,” Dig. 4,
6, 26 fin.; cf.: “quae (res) suggerit, ut Italicarum rerum esse credantur eae res,” reminds, admonishes, ib. 28, 5, 35 fin.: “quaedam de republicā,” Aur. Vict. Vir. Ill. 66, 2. — Absol.: “suggerente conjuge,” at the instigation of, Aur. Vict. Epit. 41, 11; cf.: “suggerente irā,” id. ib. 12, 10 suggestio falsi. Pl. suggestiones
falsi. [mod.L., = suggestion of what is false.] A misrepresentation
of the truth whereby something incorrect is implied to be true; an indirect
lie. Often in contexts with suppressio veri. QUOTES: 1815 H.
Maddock Princ. & Pract. Chancery I. 208 Whenever Suppressio veri or
Suggestio falsi occur..they afford a sufficient ground for setting aside any
Release or Conveyance. 1855 Newspaper & Gen. Reader's Pocket
Compan. i.4 He was bound to say that the suppressio veri on that occasion
approached very nearly to a positive suggestio falsi. 1898 Kipling
Stalky & Co. (1899) 36 It seems..that they had held back material
facts; that they were guilty both of suppressio veri and suggestio falsi.
1907 W. de Morgan Alice-for-Short xxxvi. 389 That's suppressio veri
and suggestio falsi! Besides, it's fibs! 1962 J. Wilson Public
Schools & Private Practice i. 19 It is rare to find a positively
verifiable untruth in a school brochure: but it is equally rare not to find a
great many suggestiones falsi, particularly as regards the material comfort and
facilities available. 1980 D. Newsome On Edge of Paradise 7
There are undoubted cases of suppressio veri; on the other hand, he appears to
eschew suggestio falsi. --- Fibs indeed. Suppress, suggest.
Write: "Griceland, Inc." "Yes, I agree to
become a Doctor in Gricean Studies" EXAM QUESTION: 1.
Discuss suggestio falsi in terms of detachability. 2. Compare suppresio
veri and suggestion falsi in connection with "The king of France is
bald" uttered during Napoleon's time. 3. Invent things for
'suppressio falsi' and 'suggestio veri'. 4. No. You cannot go to the
bathroom.
suggestum: not
necesarilyy ‘falsi.’ The verb is ‘to suggest that…’ which is diaphanous. Note
that the ‘su-‘ stands for ‘sub-‘ which conveys the implicitness or covertness
of the impicatum. Indirectness. It’s ‘under,’ not ‘above’ board.’ To suggest,
advise, prompt, offer, bring to mind: “quoties aequitas restitutionem
suggerit,” Dig. 4, 6, 26 fin.; cf.: “quae (res) suggerit, ut Italicarum rerum
esse credantur eae res,” reminds, admonishes, ib. 28, 5, 35 fin.: “quaedam de
republicā,” Aur. Vict. Vir. Ill. 66, 2. — Absol.: “suggerente conjuge,” at the
instigation of, Aur. Vict. Epit. 41, 11; cf.: “suggerente irā,” id. ib. 12,
10.— The implicatum is a suggestum – ALWAYS cancellable. Or not? Sometimes not,
if ‘reasonable,’ but not ‘rational.’ Jill suggests that Jack is brave when she
says, “He is an Englishman, he is; therefore, brave.” The tommy suggests that
her povery contrasts with her honesty (“’Tis the same the whole world over.”)
So the ‘suggestum’ is like the implicatum. A particular suggesta are
‘conversational suggestum.’ For Grice this is philosophically important,
because many philosophical adages cover ‘suggesta’ which are not part of the
philosopher’s import! Vide Holdcroft, “Some forms of indirect communication.”
suppresum veri:
This is a bit like an act of omission – about which Urmson once asked, “Is that
‘to do,’ Grice?” – Strictly, it is implicatural. “Smith has a beautiful
handwriting.” Grice’s abductum: “He must be suppressing some ‘veri,’ but surely
the ‘suggestio falsi’ is cancellable. On the other hand, my abent-minded uncle,
who ‘suppresses,’ is not ‘implicating.’ The ‘suppressio’ has to be
‘intentional,’ as an ‘omission’ is. Since for the Romans, the ‘verum’ applied to
a unity (alethic/practical) this was good. No multiplication, but unity – cf.
untranslatable (think) – modality ‘the ‘must’, neutral – desideratum-doxa – think
– Yes, when Untranslatable discuss ‘vero’ they do say it applies to ‘factual’
and sincerity, I think. At Collections, the expectation is that Grice gives a
report on the philosopher’s ability – not on
his handwriting. It is different when Grice applied to St. John’s. “He
doesn’t return library books.” G. Richardson. Why did he use this on two occasions?
In “Prolegomena,” he uses it for his desideratum of conversational fortitude
(“make a strong conversational move”). To suppress. suggestio falsi. Pl.
suggestiones falsi. [mod.L., = suggestion of what is false.] A
misrepresentation of the truth whereby something incorrect is implied to be
true; an indirect lie. Often in contexts with suppressio veri.
QUOTES: 1815 H. Maddock Princ. & Pract. Chancery I. 208
Whenever Suppressio veri or Suggestio falsi occur..they afford a sufficient
ground for setting aside any Release or Conveyance. 1855 Newspaper
& Gen. Reader's Pocket Compan. i.4 He was bound to say that the
suppressio veri on that occasion approached very nearly to a positive suggestio
falsi. 1898 Kipling Stalky & Co. (1899) 36 It seems..that
they had held back material facts; that they were guilty both of suppressio
veri and suggestio falsi. 1907 W. de Morgan Alice-for-Short xxxvi.
389 That's suppressio veri and suggestio falsi! Besides, it's
fibs! 1962 J. Wilson Public Schools & Private Practice i.
19 It is rare to find a positively verifiable untruth in a school
brochure: but it is equally rare not to find a great many suggestiones falsi,
particularly as regards the material comfort and facilities available.
1980 D. Newsome On Edge of Paradise 7 There are undoubted cases of
suppressio veri; on the other hand, he appears to eschew suggestio falsi.
--- Fibs indeed. Suppress, suggest. Write: "Griceland,
Inc." "Yes, I agree to become a Doctor in Gricean
Studies" EXAM QUESTION: 1. Discuss suggestio falsi in
terms of detachability. 2. Compare suppresio veri and suggestion falsi in
connection with "The king of France is bald" uttered during
Napoleon's time. 3. Invent things for 'suppressio falsi' and 'suggestio
veri'. 4. No. You cannot go to the bathroom.
summum genus. What
adjective is the ‘sumum’ translating, Grice wondered. And he soon found out. We
know that the Romans were unoriginally enough with their ‘genus’ (cf. ‘gens’)
translating Grecian ‘genos.’ The highest category in the ‘arbor griceiana’ -- The
categories. There is infimum genus, or sub-summum. Talk of categories becomes
informal in Grice when he ‘echoes’ Kant in the mention of four ‘functions’ that
generate for Kant twelve categories. Grice however uses the functions
themselves, echoing Ariskant, rather, as ‘caegory’. We have then a category of
conversational quantity (involved in a principle of maximization of
conversational informativeness). We have a category of conversational quality
(or a desideratum of conversational candour). We have a category of
conversational relation (cf. Strawson’s principle of relevance along with
Strawson’s principles of the presumption of knowledge and the presumption of
ignorance). Lastly, we have a category of conversational mode. For some reason,
Grice uses ‘manner’ sometimes in lieu of Meiklejohn’s apt translation of Kant’s
modality into the shorter ‘mode.’ The four have Aristotelian pedigree, indeed
Grecian and Graeco-Roman: The quantity is Kant’s quantitat which is Aristotle’s
posotes (sic abstract) rendered in Roman as ‘quantitas.’ Of course, Aristotle
derives ‘posotes,’ from ‘poson,’ the quantum. No quantity without quantum. The
quality is Kant’s qualitat, which again has Grecian and Graeco-Roman pediegree.
It is Aristotel’s poiotes (sic in abstract), rendered in Roman as qualitas.
Again, derived from the more basic ‘poion,’ or ‘quale.’ Aristotle was unable to
find a ‘-tes’ ending form for what Kant has as ‘relation.’ ‘pros it’ is used,
and first translated into Roman as ‘relatio.’ We see here that we are talking
of a ‘summum genus.’ For who other but a philosopher is going to lecture on the
‘pros it’? What Aristotle means is that Socrates is to the right of Plato.
Finally, for Grice’s mode, there is Kant’s wrong ‘modalitat,’ since this refers
to Aristotle ‘te’ and translated in Roman as ‘modus,’ which Meiklejohn, being a
better classicist than Kant, renders as ‘mode,’ and not the pretentious
sounding ‘modality.’ Now for Kant, 12 categories are involved here. Why?
Because he subdivides each summum genus into three sub-summum or ‘inferiore’
genus. This is complex. Kant would DISAGREE with Grice’s idea that a subject
can JUDGE in generic terms, say, about the quantum. The subject has THREE
scenarios. It’s best to reverse the order, for surely unity comes before
totality. One scenario, he utters a SINGULAR or individual utterance (Grice on
‘the’). The CATEGORY is the first category, THE UNUM or UNITAS. The one. The
unity. Second scenario, he utters a PARTICULAR utterance (Grice’s “some (at
least one). Here we encounter the SECOND category, that of PLURALITAS, the
plurum, plurality. It’s a good thing Kant forgot that the Greeks had a dual
number, and that Urquhart has fourth number, a re-dual. A third scenario: the
nirvana. He utters a UNIVERSAL (totum) utterance (Grice on “all”). The category
is that of TOTUM, TOTALITAS, totality. Kant does not deign to specify if he
means substitutional or non-substitutional. For the quale, there are again
three scenarios for Kant, and he would deny that the subject is confronted with
the FUNCTION quale and be able to formulate a judgement. The first scenario
involves the subject uttering a PROPOSITIO DEDICATIVA (Grice elaborates on this
before introducing ‘not’ in “Indicative conditionals” – “Let’s start with some
unstructured amorophous proposition.” Here the category is NOT AFFIRMATION, but
the nirvana “REALITAS,” Reality, reale.Second scenario, subject utters a
PROPOSITIO ABDICATIVA (Grice on ‘not’). While Kant does not consider affirmatio
a category (why should he?), he does consider NEGATIO a category. Negation. See
abdicatum. Third scenario, subject utters an PROPOSITIO INFINITA. Here the
category is that of LIMITATION, which is quite like NEGATIO (cf. privatio,
stelesis, versus habitus or hexis), but not quite. Possibly LIMITATUM. Regarding
the ‘pros ti.’ The first scenario involves a categorema, PROPOSITIO CATEGORICA.
Here Kant seems to think that there is ONE category called “INHERENCE AND
SUBSTISTENCE or substance and accident. There seem rather two. He will go to
this ‘pair’ formulation in one more case in the relation, and for the three
under modus. If we count the ‘categorical pairs’ as being two categories. The
total would not be 12 categories but 17, which is a rather ugly number for a
list of categories, unles it is not. Kant is being VERY serious here, because
if he has SUBSTISTENCE or SUBSTANCE as a category, this is SECUNDA SUBSTANTIA
or ‘deutero-ousia.’ It is a no-no to count the prote ousia or PRIMA SUBSTANTIA
as a category. It is defined as THE THING which cannot be predicated of
anything! “SUMBEBEKOS” is a trick of Kant, for surely EVERYTHING BUT THE
SUBSTANCE can be seen as an ‘accidens’ (In fact, those who deny categories,
reduce them to ‘attribute’, or ‘property.’ The second scenario involves an ‘if’
Grice on ‘if’ – PROPOSITIO CONDITIONALIS – hypothetike protasis -- this
involves for the first time a MOLECULAR proposition. As in the previous case,
we have a ‘category pair’, which is formulated either as CAUSALITY (CAUSALITAS)
and DEPENDENCE (Dependentia), or “cause’ (CAUSA) and ‘effect’ (Effectum). Kant
is having in mind Strawson’s account of ‘if’ (The influence of P. F. Strawson
on Kant). For since this is the hypothetical, Kant is suggeseting that in ‘if
p, q’ q depends on p, or q is an effect of its cause, p. As in “If it rains, the
boots are in the closet.” (J). The third scenario also involves a molectural proposition, A
DISJUNCTUM. PROPOSITIO DISJUNCTIVA. Note that in Kant, ‘if’ before ‘or’! His
implicature: subordination before coordination, which makes sense. Grice on
‘or.’ FOR SOME REASON, the category here for Kant is that of COMMUNITAS
(community) or RECIPROCITAS, reciprocity. He seems to be suggesting that if you
turn to the right or to the left, you are reciprocally forbidden to keep on
going straight. For the modus, similar. Here Kant is into modality. Again, it
is best to re-order the scenarios in terms of priority. Here it’s the middle
which is basic. The first scenario, subject utters an ASSERTORIC. The category
is a pair: EXISTENCE (how is this different from REALITY) and NON-EXISTENCE
(how is this different from negation?). He has in mind: ‘the cat is in the
room,’ ‘the room is empty.’ Second scenario, the subject doubts. subject utters
a problematical. (“The pillar box may be red”). Here we have a category pair:
POSSIBILITIAS (possibility) and, yes, IMPOSSIBILITAS – IMPOSSIBILITY. This is
odd, because ‘impossibility’ goes rather with the negation of necessity. The
third and last scenario, subject utters an APODEICTIC. Here again there is a
category pair – yielding 17 as the final number --: NECESSITAS, necessity, and
guess what, CONTINGENTIA, or contingency. Surely, possibilitas and contingentia
are almost the same thing. It may be what Grice has in mind when he blames a philosopher
to state that ‘what is actual is not also possible.’ Or not.
Superknowing. In WoW
syntactics: Being
the gentleman he was, Grice takes a cavlier attitude to ‘syntax’ as something
that someone else must give to him, and right he is. The philosopher should
concern with more important issues. Usually Grice uses ‘unstructured’ to mean
‘syntactically unstructured,’ such as a
handwave. With a handwave, an emissor can rationally explicate and
implicate. vide compositum – Strictly, compositum translates Grecian synthesis,
rather than syntax – which is better phrased as Latin ‘contactum. Or better
combinatum – syntaxis , is, f., = σύνταξις, I.the connection of words, Prisc. 17, 1, 1. When Grice uses ‘unsructured’ he
sometimes expands this into ‘syntactically unstructured.’ Since syntax need not
be linguistic, this is an interesting semiotic perspective by Grice. He is
allowing for compositionality in a semotic system with a comibinatory other
than the first, second, and third articulation. The Latinate is ‘contactum.’ Morris
thought he was being bright when he proposed ‘syntactics,’ “long for syntax,”
he wrote. syntax, περὶ τῆς ς. τῶν λεγομένων, title of work by Chrysipp., Stoic.2.6, cf. Plu.2.731f (pl.);
“τὴν ς. τῶν ὀνομάτων” Gal.16.736, cf. 720; περὶ συντάξεως, title of work by A.D.; but also, compound forms, Id.Conj.214.7; ποιεῖσθαι μετά τινος τὴν ς. ib.221.19; also, rule
for combination of sounds or letters, τὸ χ (in δέγμενος）“ εἰς γ μετεβλήθη, τῆς ς. οὕτως ἀπαιτούσης” EM252.45, cf. Luc.Jud. Voc.3; also, connected speech, ἐν τῇ ς. ἐγκλιτέον Sch.Il.16.85.Grice’s presupposition is that a
‘syntactics’ is not enough for a system to be a ‘communication-system’. Nothing
is communicated. With the syntagma, there is no communicatum. Grice loved two
devices of the syntactic kind: subscripts and square brackets (for the
assignment of common-ground status). Grice is a conservative
(dissenting rationalist) when it comes to syntax and semantics. He hardly uses
pragmatics albeit in a loose way (pragmatic import, pragmatic inference), but
was aware of Morriss triangle. Syntax is presented along the lines of
Gentzen, i.e. a system of natural deduction in terms of inference rules of
introduction and elimination for each formal device. Semantics pertains
rather to Witterss truth-values, i.e. the assignment of a satisfactory-valuation:
the true and the good. A syntactic approach to Grice’s System does not require
value-assignment. The system is constructed alla Gentzen with introduction and
elimination rules which are regarded as syntactic in nature. One can easily
check that the rules statedabove adequately characterise the meaning of
classical conjunction which is true iff both conjuncts are true. Hence the
syntactic deducibility relation coincides with the semantic relation of /=
or logical consequence (or entailment).
Refs.: The most direct source is
“Vacuous names,” but the keyword ‘syntax’ is helpful. The H. P. Grice Papers,
BANC.
tautologum: The
difference between a truth and a tautological truth is part of the dogma Grice
defends. “A three-year old cannot understand Russell’s theory of types” is
possibly true. “It is not the case that a three-year old is an adult” is
TAUTOLOGICALLY true. As Strawson and Wiggins note, by coining implicature Grice
is mainly interested in having the MAN implying this or that, as opposed to
what the man implies implying this or that. So, in Strawson and Wiggins’s
rephrasing, the implicature is to be distinguished with the logical and
necessary implication, i. e., the ‘tautological’ implication. Grice uses
‘tautological’ variously. It is tautological that we smell smells, for example.
This is an extension of ‘paradigm-case,’ re: analyticity. Without ‘analytic’
there is no ‘tautologicum.’ tautŏlŏgĭa , ae, f., = ταυτολογία,I.a repetition of the same
meaning in different words, tautology, Mart. Cap. 5, § 535; Charis,
p. 242 P. ταὐτολογ-έω ,A.repeat what has been said, “περί τινος” Plb.1.1.3; “ὑπέρ τινος” Id.1.79.7; “τ. τὸν λόγον” Str.12.3.27:—abs., Plb.36.12.2, Phld. Po.Herc.994.30, Hermog.Inv.3.15.
Oddly why Witters restricts tautology to truth-table propositional logic,
Grice’s two examples are predicate calculus: Women are women and war is war.
4.46 GER [→OGD | →P/M] Unter den möglichen Gruppen von Wahrheitsbedingungen
gibt es zwei extreme Fälle. In dem einen Fall ist der Satz für sämtliche
Wahrheitsmöglichkeiten der Elementarsätze wahr. Wir sagen, die Wahrheitsbedingungen
sind t a u t o l o g i s c h. Im zweiten Fall ist der Satz für sämtliche
Wahrheitsmöglichkeiten falsch: Die Wahrheitsbedingungen sind k o n t r a d i k
t o r i s c h. Im ersten Fall nennen wir den Satz eine Tautologie, im zweiten
Fall eine Kontradiktion. 4.461 GER [→OGD | →P/M] Der Satz zeigt was er sagt,
die Tautologie und die Kontradiktion, dass sie nichts sagen. Die Tautologie hat
keine Wahrheitsbedingungen, denn sie ist bedingungslos wahr; und die
Kontradiktion ist unter keiner Bedingung wahr. Tautologie und Kontradiktion
sind sinnlos. (Wie der Punkt, von dem zwei Pfeile in entgegengesetzter Richtung
auseinandergehen.) (Ich weiß z. B. nichts über das Wetter, wenn ich weiß, dass
es regnet oder nicht regnet.) 4.4611 GER [→OGD | →P/M] Tautologie und
Kontradiktion sind aber nicht unsinnig; sie gehören zum Symbolismus, und zwar
ähnlich wie die „0“ zum Symbolismus der Arithmetik. 4.462 GER [→OGD | →P/M]
Tautologie und Kontradiktion sind nicht Bilder der Wirklichkeit. Sie stellen
keine mögliche Sachlage dar. Denn jene lässt j e d e mögliche Sachlage zu,
diese k e i n e. In der Tautologie heben die Bedingungen der Übereinstimmung
mit der Welt—die darstellenden Beziehungen—einander auf, so dass sie in keiner
darstellenden Beziehung zur Wirklichkeit steht. 4.463 GER [→OGD | →P/M] Die
Wahrheitsbedingungen bestimmen den Spielraum, der den Tatsachen durch den Satz
gelassen wird. (Der Satz, das Bild, das Modell, sind im negativen Sinne wie ein
fester Körper, der die Bewegungsfreiheit der anderen beschränkt; im positiven
Sinne, wie der von fester Substanz begrenzte Raum, worin ein Körper Platz hat.)
Die Tautologie lässt der Wirklichkeit den ganzen—unendlichen—logischen Raum;
die Kontradiktion erfüllt den ganzen logischen Raum und lässt der Wirklichkeit
keinen Punkt. Keine von beiden kann daher die Wirklichkeit irgendwie bestimmen.
4.464 GER [→OGD | →P/M] Die Wahrheit der Tautologie ist gewiss, des Satzes
möglich, der Kontradiktion unmöglich. (Gewiss, möglich, unmöglich: Hier haben
wir das Anzeichen jener Gradation, die wir in der Wahrscheinlichkeitslehre
brauchen.) 4.465 GER [→OGD | →P/M] Das logische Produkt einer Tautologie und
eines Satzes sagt dasselbe, wie der Satz. Also ist jenes Produkt identisch mit
dem Satz. Denn man kann das Wesentliche des Symbols nicht ändern, ohne seinen
Sinn zu ändern. 4.466 GER [→OGD | →P/M] Einer bestimmten logischen Verbindung
von Zeichen entspricht eine bestimmte logische Verbindung ihrer Bedeutungen; j
e d e b e l i e - b i g e Verbindung entspricht nur den unverbundenen Zeichen.
Das heißt, Sätze, die für jede Sachlage wahr sind, können überhaupt keine
Zeichenverbindungen sein, denn sonst könnten ihnen nur bestimmte Verbindungen
von Gegenständen entsprechen. (Und keiner logischen Verbindung entspricht k e i
n e Verbindung der Gegenstände.) Tautologie und Kontradiktion sind die
Grenzfälle der Zeichenverbindung, nämlich ihre Auflösung. 4.4661 GER [→OGD |
→P/M] Freilich sind auch in der Tautologie und Kontradiktion die Zeichen noch
mit einander verbunden, d. h. sie stehen in Beziehungen zu einander, aber diese
Beziehungen sind bedeu- tungslos, dem S y m b o l unwesentlich. 4.46 OGD [→GER
| →P/M] Among the possible groups of truthconditions there are two extreme
cases. In the one case the proposition is true for all the truth-possibilities
of the elementary propositions. We say that the truth-conditions are
tautological. In the second case the proposition is false for all the
truth-possibilities. The truth-conditions are self-contradictory. In the first
case we call the proposition a tautology, in the second case a contradiction.
4.461 OGD [→GER | →P/M] The proposition shows what it says, the tautology and
the contradiction that they say nothing. The tautology has no truth-conditions,
for it is unconditionally true; and the contradiction is on no condition true.
Tautology and contradiction are without sense. (Like the point from which two
arrows go out in opposite directions.) (I know, e.g. nothing about the weather,
when I know that it rains or does not rain.) 4.4611 OGD [→GER | →P/M] Tautology
and contradiction are, however, not nonsensical; they are part of the symbol-
ism, in the same way that “0” is part of the symbolism of Arithmetic. 4.462 OGD
[→GER | →P/M] Tautology and contradiction are not pictures of the reality. They
present no possible state of affairs. For the one allows every possible state
of affairs, the other none. In the tautology the conditions of agreement with
the world—the presenting relations— cancel one another, so that it stands in no
presenting relation to reality. 4.463 OGD [→GER | →P/M] The truth-conditions
determine the range, which is left to the facts by the proposition. (The
proposition, the picture, the model, are in a negative sense like a solid body,
which restricts the free movement of another: in a positive sense, like the
space limited by solid substance, in which a body may be placed.) Tautology
leaves to reality the whole infinite logical space; contradiction fills the
whole logi- cal space and leaves no point to reality. Neither of them,
therefore, can in any way determine reality. 4.464 OGD [→GER | →P/M] The truth
of tautology is certain, of propositions possible, of contradiction impossible.
(Certain, possible, impossible: here we have an indication of that gradation
which we need in the theory of probability.) 4.465 OGD [→GER | →P/M] The
logical product of a tautology and a proposition says the same as the
proposition. Therefore that product is identical with the proposition. For the
essence of the symbol cannot be altered without altering its sense. 4.466 OGD
[→GER | →P/M] To a definite logical combination of signs corresponds a definite
logical combination of their meanings; every arbitrary combination only
corresponds to the unconnected signs. That is, propositions which are true for
ev- ery state of affairs cannot be combinations of signs at all, for otherwise
there could only correspond to them definite combinations of objects. (And to
no logical combination corresponds no combination of the objects.) Tautology
and contradiction are the limiting cases of the combination of symbols, namely
their dissolution. 4.4661 OGD [→GER | →P/M] Of course the signs are also
combined with one another in the tautology and contradiction, i.e. they stand
in relations to one another, but these relations are meaningless, unessential
to the symbol. 4.46 P/M [→GER | →OGD] Among the possible groups of
truthconditions there are two extreme cases. In one of these cases the
proposition is true for all the truth-possibilities of the elementary
propositions. We say that the truth-conditions are tautological. In the second
case the proposition is false for all the truth-possibilities: the
truth-conditions are contradictory. In the first case we call the proposition a
tautology; in the second, a contradiction. 4.461 P/M [→GER | →OGD] Propositions
show what they say: tautolo- gies and contradictions show that they say
nothing. A tautology has no truth-conditions, since it is unconditionally true:
and a contradiction is true on no condition. Tautologies and contradictions
lack sense. (Like a point from which two arrows go out in opposite directions
to one another.) (For example, I know nothing about the weather when I know
that it is either raining or not raining.) 4.4611 P/M [→GER | →OGD] Tautologies
and contradictions are not, however, nonsensical. They are part of the
symbolism, much as ‘0’ is part of the symbolism of arithmetic. 4.462 P/M [→GER
| →OGD] Tautologies and contradictions are not pictures of reality. They do not
represent any possible situations. For the former admit all possible
situations, and latter none. In a tautology the conditions of agreement with
the world—the representational relations—cancel one another, so that it does
not stand in any representational relation to reality. 4.463 P/M [→GER | →OGD]
The truth-conditions of a proposition determine the range that it leaves open
to the facts. (A proposition, a picture, or a model is, in the negative sense,
like a solid body that restricts the freedom of movement of others, and, in the
positive sense, like a space bounded by solid substance in which there is room
for a body.) A tautology leaves open to reality the whole—the infinite whole—of
logical space: a contradiction fills the whole of logical space leaving no
point of it for reality. Thus neither of them can determine reality in any way.
4.464 P/M [→GER | →OGD] A tautology’s truth is certain, a proposition’s
possible, a contradiction’s impossible. (Certain, possible, impossible: here we
have the first indication of the scale that we need in the theory of probability.)
4.465 P/M [→GER | →OGD] The logical product of a tautology and a proposition
says the same thing as the proposition. This product, therefore, is identical
with the proposition. For it is impossible to alter what is essential to a
symbol without altering its sense. 4.466 P/M [→GER | →OGD] What corresponds to
a determinate logical combination of signs is a determinate logical combination
of their meanings. It is only to the uncombined signs that absolutely any
combination corresponds. In other words, propositions that are true for every
situation cannot be combinations of signs at all, since, if they were, only
determinate combinations of objects could correspond to them. (And what is not
a logical combination has no combination of objects corresponding to it.)
Tautology and contradiction are the limiting cases—indeed the disintegration—of
the combination of signs. 4.4661 P/M [→GER | →OGD] Admittedly the signs are
still combined with one another even in tautologies and contradictions—i.e.
they stand in certain relations to one another: but these relations have no
meaning, they are not essential to the symbol. Grice would often use
‘tautological,’ and ‘self-contradiction’ presupposes ‘analyticity,’ or rather
the analytic-synthetic distinction. Is it contradictory, or a
self-contradiction, to say that one’s neighbour’s three-year-old child is an
adult? Is there an implicatum for ‘War is not war’? Grice refers to Bayes in
WOW re Grices paradox, and to crazy Bayesy, as Peter Achinstein does (Newton
was crazy, but not Bayesy). We can now, in principle, characterize
the desirability of the action a 1 , relative to each end (E1 and E2), and to
each combination of ends (here just E1 and E2), as a function of the
desirability of the end and the probability that the action a 1 will realize
that end, or combination of ends. If we envisage a range of possible actions,
which includes a 1 together with other actions, we can imagine that each such
action has a certain degree of desirability relative to each end (E1 and (or) E2)
and to their combination. If we suppose that, for each possible action, these
desirabilities can be compounded (perhaps added), then we can suppose that one
particular possible action scored higher (in actiondesirability relative to
these ends) than any alternative possible action; and that this is the action
which wins out; that is, is the action which is, or at least should, end p.105
be performed. (The computation would in fact be more complex than I have
described, once account is taken of the fact that the ends involved are often
not definite (determinate) states of affairs (like becoming President),
but are variable in respect of the degree to which they might be realized (if
ones end is to make a profit from a deal, that profit might be of a varying
magnitude); so one would have to consider not merely the likelihood of a
particular actions realizing the end of making a profit, but also the
likelihood of its realizing that end to this or that degree; and this would
considerably complicate the computational problem.) No doubt most readers are
far too sensible ever to have entertained any picture even remotely resembling
the "Crazy-Bayesy" one I have just described. Grice was
fascinated by the fact that paradox translates the Grecian neuter paradoxon. Some
of the paradoxes of entailment, entailment and paradoxes. This is not the first
time Grice uses paradox. As a classicist, he was aware of the nuances between
paradox (or paradoxon, as he preferred, via Latin paradoxum, and aporia,
for example. He was interested in Strawsons treatment of this or that paradox
of entailment. He even called his own paradox involving if and probablility
Grices paradox.
telementationalism: see psi-transmission. The coinage is
interesting. Since Grice has an essay on ‘modest mentalism,’ and would often
use ‘mental’ for ‘psychological,’ it does make sense. ‘Ideationalism’ is
analogous. this is a special note, or rather, a very moving proem, on Grices
occasion of delivering his lectures on ‘Aspects of reason and reasoning’ at Oxford
as the Locke Lectures at Merton. Particularly apt in mentioning, with humility,
his having failed, *thrice* [sic] to obtain the Locke lectureship, Strawson
did, at once, but feeling safe under the ægis of that great English philosopher
(viz. Locke! always implicated, never explicited) now. Grice starts the proem
in a very moving, shall we say, emotional, way: I find it difficult to convey
to you just how happy I am, and how honoured I feel, in being invited to give
these lectures. Difficult, but not impossible. I think of this university and
this city, it has a cathedral, which were my home for thirty-six years, as my
spiritual and intellectual parents. The almost majestic plural is Grices implicature
to the town and gown! Whatever I am was originally fashioned here; I never left
Oxford, Oxford made me, and I find it a moving experience to be, within these
splendid and none too ancient walls, once more engaged in my old occupation of
rendering what is clear obscure, by flouting the desideratum of conversational
clarity and the conversational maxim, avoid obscurity of expression, under be
perspicuous [sic]!. Grices implicature on none too ancient seems to be
addressed to the truly ancient walls that saw Athenian dialectic! On the other
hand, Grices funny variant on the obscurum per obscurius ‒ what Baker found as
Grices skill in rendering an orthodoxy into a heterodoxy! Almost! By clear
Grice implicates Lewis and his clarity is not enough! I am, at the same time,
proud of my mid-Atlantic [two-world] status, and am, therefore, delighted that
the Old World should have called me in, or rather recalled me, to redress, for
once, the balance of my having left her for the New. His implicature seems to
be: Strictly, I never left? Grice concludes his proem: I am, finally, greatly
heartened by my consciousness of the fact that that great English philosopher,
under whose ægis I am now speaking, has in the late afternoon of my days
extended to me his Lectureship as a gracious consolation for a record threefold
denied to me, in my early morning, of his Prize. I pray that my present
offerings may find greater favour in his sight than did those of long ago. They
did! Even if Locke surely might have found favour to Grices former offerings,
too, Im sure. Refs.: The allusions to Locke are in “Aspects.” Good references
under ‘ideationalism,’ above, especially in connection with Myro’s ‘modest
mentalism,’ The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC.
‘that’: a demonstrative. Since Grice would make so many
references to the ‘that’-clause, he is aware that ‘that’ is etymologically a
demonstrative, that has lost its efficacy there. But the important etymological
lesson is that what follows a ‘that’-clause (cf. the classical languages Grice
learned at Clifton, Greek and Latin) is a ‘propositio’ just because the ‘that’
POINTS at the proposition. Sometimes he refers to ‘obliquus casus,’ and ‘oratio
obliqua,’ but he is more at home with things like ‘verba percipienda,’ verba
volendi, etc.
‘that’-clause: Grice’s priority for the ‘that’-clause is multiple. He
dislikes what he calls an ‘amorphous’ propositional complex. His idea is to
have at least ‘The S is P,’ one act involving a subjectum or denotatum, and one
involving the praedicatum. There is also what he calls sub-perceptual
utterances. They do look like structured (“That red pillar seems red”) but they
are not perceptual reports like “I perceive that the pillar box is red.” At
points he wanst to restrict utterer’s communucatum to a ‘that’-clause; but
ignoring Austin’s remark that to wonder about what a ‘word’ ‘means’ is
senseless, Grice sometimes allows for things like ‘The cat sat on the mat’ to
‘mean’ that the cat sat on the mat. Grice thinks that his account of ‘the
red-seeming pillar box’ succeeded, and that it was this success that prompted
him to apply the thing to other areas, notably Strawson, but one hopes, all the
theses he presents in “Causal” and “Prolegomena.” But he does not go back to
the is/seems example, other than perhaps the tie is/seems blue. The reason is
that the sense-datum theory is very complex. Note “seems.” “It seems to me
that…” but the ‘that’-clause not as a content of a state of the agent. If the
pillar box seems red to Grice because it is red, what ‘that’-clause are we
talking about to involve in the implicatum? And what generates the implicatum.
“By uttering “The pillar box seems red,” U conversationally implicates that
there is a denial or doubt, somewhere as to whether the pillar box IS red.” Grice
thought of Staal as particularly good at this type of formalistic philosophy,
which was still adequate to reflect the subtleties of ordinary
language. How do we define a Griceian action? How do we define a
Griceian event? This is Grices examination and criticism of Davidson, as a
scientific realist, followed by a Kantian approach to freedom and causation.
Grice is especially interested in the logical form, or explicitum, so that he
can play with the implicatum. One of his favourite examples: He fell on his
sword, having tripped as he crossed the Galliæ. Grice manages to quote from
many and varied authors (some of which you would not expect him to quote) such
as Reichenbach, but also Robinson, of Oriel, of You Names it fame (for any x,
if you can Names it, x exists). Robinson has a brilliant essay on parts of Cook
Wilsons Statement and inference, so he certainly knows what he is talking
about. Grice also quotes from von Wright and Eddington. Grice offers a
linguistic botanic survey of autonomy and free (sugar-free, free fall,
implicature-free) which some have found inspirational. His favourite is
Finnegans alcohol-free. Finnegans obvious implicature is that everything is
alcohol-laden. Grice kept a copy of Davidsons The logical form of action
sentences, since surely Davidson, Grice thought, is making a primary
philosophical point. Horses run fast; therefore, horses run. A Davidsonian
problem, and there are more to come! Smith went fishing. Grices category shift
allows us to take Smiths fishing as the grammatical Subjects of an action
sentence. Cf. indeed the way to cope with entailment in The horse runs fast;
therefore, the horse runs. Grices Actions and events is Davidsonian in
motivation, but Kantian in method, one of those actions by Grice to promote a
Griceian event! Davidson had published, Grice thought, some pretty influential
(and provocative, anti-Quineian) stuff on actions and events, or events and
actions, actually, and, worse, he was being discussed at Oxford, too, over
which Grice always keeps an eye! Davidsons point, tersely put, is that while
p.q (e.g. It is raining, and it is pouring) denotes a concatenation of events.
Smith is fishing denotes an action, which is a kind of event, if you are
following him (Davidson, not Smith). However, Davidson is fighting against the
intuition, if you are a follower of Whitehead and Russell, to symbolise the
Smith is fishing as Fs, where s stands for Smith and F for fishing. The logical
form of a report of an event or an action seems to be slightly more
complicated. Davidsons point specifically involves adverbs, or adverbial
modifiers, and how to play with them in terms of entailment. The horse runs
fast; therefore, the horse runs. Symbolise that! as Davidson told Benson Mates!
But Mates had gone to the restroom. Grice explores all these and other topics
and submits the thing for publication. Grice quotes, as isnt his wont, from
many and various philosophers, not just Davidson, whom he saw every Wednesday,
but others he didnt, like Reichenbach, Robinson, Kant, and, again even a
physicist like Eddington. Grice remarks that Davidson is into hypothesis,
suppositio, while he is, as he should, into hypostasis, substantia. Grice then
expands on the apparent otiosity of uttering, It is a fact that grass is green.
Grice goes on to summarise what he ironically dubs an ingenious argument.
Let σ abbreviate the operator
consists in the fact that , which, when prefixed to a sentence,
produces a predicate or epithet. Let S abbreviate Snow is white,
and let G abbreviate Grass is green. In that case, xσS is 1 just
in case xσ(y(y=y and S) = y(y=y) is 1, since the first part of the
sub-sentence which follows σ in the main sentence is logically equivalent
logically equivalent to the second part. And xσ(y(y=y and S) =
y(y=y) is 1 just in case xσ(y(if y=y, G) = y(y=y) is 1,
since y(if y=y, S) and y(if y=y, G) are each a singular term, which, if
S and G are both true, each refers to y(y=y), and are therefore
co-referential and inter-substitutable. And xσ(y(if y=y, G) =
y(y=y) is true just in case xσG is 1, since G is logically equivalent
to the sub-sentence which follows σ. So, this fallacy goes, provided that
S and G are both 1, regardless of what an utterer explicitly conveys by
uttering a token of it, any event which consists of the otiose fact that S also
consists of the otiose fact that G, and vice versa, i. e. this randomly
chosen event is identical to any other randomly chosen event. Grice hastens to
criticise this slingshot fallacy licensing the inter-substitution of this or
that co-referential singular term and this or that logically equivalent
sub-sentence as officially demanded because it is needed to license a
patently valid, if baffling, inference. But, if in addition to providing
this benefit, the fallacy saddles the philosopher with a commitment to a
hideous consequence, the rational course is to endeavour to find a way of
retaining the benefit while eliminating the disastrous accompaniment, much
as in set theory it seems rational to seek as generous a comprehension
axiom as the need to escape this or that paradox permits. Grice proposes to retain
the principle of co-reference, but prohibit is use after the
principle of logical equivalence has been used. Grice finds such a
measure to have some intuitive appeal. In the fallacy, the initial
deployment of the principle of logical equivalence seems tailored to
the production of a sentence which provides opportunity for
trouble-raising application of the principle of
co-referentiality. And if that is what the game is, why not stop
it? On the assumption that this or that problem which originally prompts
this or that analysis is at least on their way towards independent
solution, Grice turns his attention to the possibility of providing a
constructivist treatment of things which might perhaps have more intuitive
appeal than a naïve realist approach. Grice begins with a class of
happenstance attributions, which is divided into this or that basic
happenstance attribution, i.e. ascriptions to a Subjects-item of an
attribute which is metabolically expressible, and this or that non-basic
resultant happenstance attribution, in which the attribute ascribed,
though not itself metabolically expressible, is such that its possession
by a Subjects item is suitably related to the possession by that or by some
other Subjects item, of this or that attribute which is metabolically
expressible. Any member of the class of happenstance attributions may be
used to say what happens, or happens to be the case, without talking about
any special entity belonging to a class of a happening or a happenstance. A
next stage involves the introduction of the operator consists of the fact that This
operator, when prefixed to a sentence S that makes a happen-stance
attribution to a Subjects-item, yields a predicate which is satisfied by an
entity which is a happenstance, provided that sentence S is doxastically
satisfactory, i. e., 1, and that some further metaphysical condition obtains,
which ensures the metaphysical necessity of the introduction into reality of
the category of a happenstance, thereby ensuring that this new category is
not just a class of this or that fiction. As far as the slingshot fallacy,
and the hideous consequence that all facts become identical to one Great Big
Fact, in the light of a defence of Reichenbach against the realist attack,
Grice is reasonably confident that a metaphysical extension of reality will not
saddle him with an intolerable paradox, pace the caveat that, to some, the
slingshot is not contradictory in the way a paradox is, but merely an
unexpected consequence ‒ not seriously hideous, at that. What this metaphysical
condition would be which would justify the metaphysical extension remains,
alas, to be determined. It is tempting to think that the metaphysical
condition is connected with a theoretical need to have this or that
happenstance as this or that item in, say, a causal relation. Grice goes on to
provide a progression of linguistic botanising including free. Grice
distinguishes four elements or stages in the step-by-step development of
freedom. A first stage is the transeunt causation one finds in inanimate
objects, as when we experience a stone in free fall. This is Hume’s realm, the
atomistss realm. This is external or transeunt casuation, when an object is
affected by processes in other objects. A second stage is internal or immanent
causation, where a process in an object is the outcome of previous stages in
that process, as in a freely moving body. A third stage is the internal
causation of a living being, in which changes are generated in a creature by
internal features of the creature which are not earlier stages of the same
change, but independent items, the function or finality of which is to provide
for the good of the creature in question. A fourth stage is a culminating stage
at which the conception of a certain mode by a human of something as being for
that creatures good is sufficient to initiate the doing of that thing. Grice
expands on this interesting last stage. At this stage, it is the case that the
creature is liberated from every factive cause. There is also a discussion of
von Wrights table of adverbial modifiers, or Grices pentagram. Also an
exploration of specificity: Jack buttering a parsnip in the bathroom in the
presence of Jill. Grice revisits some of his earlier concerns, and these are
discussed in the appropriate places, such as his exploration on the Grecian
etymology of aition. “That”-clause should be preferred to ‘oratio obliqua,’
since the latter is a misnomer when you ascribe a psychological state rather
than an utterance. Refs.: The main sources are given under ‘oratio obliqua’
above, The BANC.
theory-theory, v. Grice’s theory-theory.
theseus’s
ship. Grice sails on Theseus’s ship. Theseus’ ship: Example used by Grice to relativise
‘identity.’ After the hero Theseus accomplished his mission to sail to Crete to
kill the Minotaur, his ship (Ship 1) was put on display in Athens. As the time
went by, its original planks and other parts were replaced one by one with new
materials until one day all of its parts were new, with none of its original
parts remaining. Do we want to say that the completely rebuilt ship (Ship 2) is
the same as the original or that it is
a different ship? The case is further complicated. If all the original
materials were kept and eventually used to construct a ship (Ship 3), would
this ship be the same as the original? This example has inspired much
discussion concerning the problems of identity and individuation. “To be
something later is to be its closest continuer. Let us apply this view to one
traditional puzzle about identity over time: the puzzle of the ship of
Theseus.” Nozick, Philosophical Explanation. Grice basically formalized this
with G. Myro. Refs.: Collingwood, translation of Benedetto Croce, “Il paradosso
della nave di Teseo,” H. P. Grice, “Relative identity,” The Grice Papers, BANC.
thomson: Grice did not collaborate with that many friends. He did
with his tutee Strawson. He later did it with G. J. Warnock only on the theory
of perception (notably the ‘visum’). He collaborated with two more Oxonian
philosophers, and with both on the philosophy of action: D. F. Pears and J. F.
Thomson. J. F. Scots London-born philosopher
who would often give seminars with H. P. Grice. They also explored ‘philosophy
of action.’ Thomson presented his views on public occasons on the topic,
usually under the guidance of D. F. Pears – on topics such as ‘freedom of the
will.’ Thomson has assocations with University, and is a Fellow of Corpus,
Grice’s alma.
thomsonianism: Grice explored philosophy of action with J. F. Thomson.
Thomson would socialize mainly with Grice and D. F. Pears. Oddly, Thomson was
also interested in ‘if’ and reached more or less the same Philonian
consequences that Grice does.
three-year-old’s
guide to Russell’s theory of types, the
– by H. P. Grice, with an appendix by P. F. Strawson, “Advice to parents,” v.
Grice’s three-year-old’s guide.
transcendental
club. “A club I created to discuss what
I call a ‘metaphysical argument,’ but Kant calls ‘transcendental.’ Strawson
objected to my calling it “The Metaphysical Club.” transcendentalism: Also called “New England transcendentalism,” an
early nineteenth-century spiritual and philosophical movement in the United
States, represented by Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. It was
centered in the so-called The Transcendental Club in Boston, and published a
quarterly journal The Dial. Influenced by German idealism and Romanticism, it
claimed that there is a spirit of the whole, the over-soul, which is beyond the
space and time of the everyday world but at the same time immanent in it, and which
forms a higher spiritual reality. It advocated an ascetic lifestyle, emphasized
selfreliance and communal living, and rejected contemporary civilization. The
eventual goal of life is to achieve a mystical unity with this spiritual
reality, that is, with nature. Transcendentalism is viewed as a mixture of
speculative philosophy and semi-religious faith. This philosophical movement
had a deep influence upon existentialism, James’s pragmatism, and contemporary
environmental philosophy. In a broad sense, transcendentalism is any doctrine
that emphasizes the transcendental, and is taken as a synonym of transcendental
philosophy. In this sense, all types of absolute philosophy, especially those
idealist systems that emphasize the transcendence of the Absolute over the
finite world, are considered examples of transcendentalism. Thus,
transcendentalists had aims differing from those of Kant’s transcendental
philosophy, which criticized those who wished to extend knowledge beyond
experience and instead sought to use a transcendental argument to establish the
conditions for the possibility of experience. “The transcendentalists believed
in man’s ability to apprehend absolute Truth, absolute Justice, absolute
Rectitude, absolute goodness. They spoke of the Right, the True, the Beautiful
as eternal realities which man can discover in the world and which he can
incorporate into his life. And they were convinced of the unlimited
perfectibility of man.” Werkmeister, A History of Philosophical Ideas in
America.
Grice’s triangle. He uses the word in “Meaning Revisited,”
(WoW: 286). It’s the semiotic triange between what he calls the ‘communication
device,’ the denotatum, and the soul. While often referred to as H.
P. Grice’s triangle, or H. P. Grice’s semiotic triangle, or "Ogden/Richards
triangle" the idea is also expressed in 1810, by Bernard Bolzano, in his
rather obscure, Grice grants, “Beiträge zu einer begründeteren Darstellung der
Mathematik.” However, the triangle can be traced back to the 4th century BC, in
Aristotle's Peri Hermeneias (often referred to in its Latin translation De
Interpretatione, second book of his Organon, on which Grice gave seminars as
University Lecturer at Oxford with J. L. Austin). H. P. Grice’s semiotic
Triangle relates to the problem of universals, a philosophical debate which
split ancient and medieval philosophers (mainly realists and
nominalists). The triangle describes a simplified form of relationship
between the emissor as subject, a concept as object or referent or denotatum,
and its designation (sign, signans, or as Grice prefers ‘communication
device’). For more elaborated research see Semiotics. Ogden semiotic
triangle.png Contents 1Interlocutory applications 1.1Other triangles
1.2The communicative stand 1.3Direction of fit 2See also 3References 4External
links Interlocutory applications Other triangles The relations between the
triangular corners may be phrased more precisely in causal terms as
follows[citation needed][original research?]. The matter evokes the emissor's
soul. The emissor refers the matter to the symbol. The symbol evokes the
emissee’s soul. The emissee refers the symbol back to the matter. The
communicative stand Such a triangle represents ONE agent, the emissor, whereas
communication takes place between TWO (objects, not necessarily agents). So
imagine another triangle and consider that for the two to understand each
other, the content that the "triangles" represent must fit or be
aligned. Clearly, this calls for synchronisation and an interface as well as
scale among other things. Notice also, that we perceive the world mostly
through our eyes and in alternative phases of seeing and not seeing with change
in the environment as the most important information to look for. Our eyes are
lenses and we see a surface (2D) in ONE direction (focusing) if we are
stationary and the object is not moving either. This is why you may position
yourself in one corner of the triangle and by replicating (mirroring) it, you
will be able to see the whole picture, your cognitive epistemological and the
ontological existential or physical model of life, the universe, existence,
etc. combined.[citation needed][original research?] Direction of fit Main
article: Direction of fit This section has multiple issues. Please help
improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to
remove these template messages) This section does not cite any sources.
(December 2012) This section is written like a personal reflection, personal
essay, or argumentative essay that states a Wikipedia editor's personal
feelings or presents an original argument about a topic. (December 2012) Grice
uses the notion of "direction of fit" (in “Intention and
Uncertainty”) to create a taxonomy of acts. [3] [4] This table
possibly contains original research. Please improve it by verifying the claims
made and adding inline citations. Statements consisting only of original
research should be removed. (December 2012) (Learn how and when to remove this
template message) World or Referentintended →Writer's Thought
decoded ↑ ↓ encoded Thought Emissee's← extendedSymbol or
Word Emissor's THOUGHT retrieves SYMBOL suited to REFERENT, Word
suited to World. Reader's THOUGHT retrieves REFERENT suited to
SYMBOL, World suited to Word. Actually the arrows indicate that there is
something exchanged between the two parties and it is a feedback cycle.
Especially, if you imagine that the world is represented in the soul of both
the emissor and the emissee and used for reality check. If you look at the
triangle above again, remember that reality check is not what is indicated
there between the sign and the referent and marked as "true', because a
term or a sign is allocated "arbitrarily'. What you check for is the
observance of the law of identity which requires you and your partner to sort
out that you are on the same page, that the emissor is communicating and the
emissee is understanding about the same thing. So the chunk of reality and the
term are replaceable/interchangeable within limits and your concepts in the soul
as presented in some appropriate way are all related and mean the same thing.
Usually the check does not stop there, your ideas must also be tested for
feasibility and doability to make sure that they are "real" and not
"phantasy". Reality check comes from consolidating your experience
with other people's experience to avoid solipsism and/or by putting your ideas
(projection) in practice (production) and see the reaction. Notice, however how
vague the verbs used and how the concept of a fit itself is left unexplained in
details.[editorializing] See also The Delta Factor De dicto De se De re
References Colin Cherry (1957) On Human Communication C. K. Ogden
and I. A. Richards (1923) The Meaning of Meaning John Searle (1975)
"A Taxonomy of Illocutionary Acts", in: Gunderson, K. (ed.),
Language, Mind, and Knowledge (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press) pp.
344-369. John Searle (1976) "A Classification of Illocutionary
Acts", Language in Society, Vol.5, pp. 1-24. External links Jessica
Erickstad (1998) Richards' Meaning of Meaning Theory. University of Colorado at
Boulder. Allie Cahill (1998) "Proper Meaning Superstition" (I. A.
Richards). University of Colorado at Boulder. Categories:
SemioticsSemanticsPragmaticsPhilosophy of languagePhilosophy of mind. Semiotisches Dreieck Zur Navigation springen. Zur Suche springen. Das semiotische Dreieck
stellt die Relation zwischen dem Symbol, dem dadurch hervorgerufenen Begriff
und dem damit gemeinten realen Ding dar. Das semiotische Dreieck ist ein in der Sprachwissenschaft
und Semiotik verwendetes Modell. Es soll veranschaulichen, dass ein Zeichenträger (Graphem,
Syntagma, Symbol) sich nicht direkt und unmittelbar auf einen außersprachlichen
Gegenstand bezieht, sondern dieser Bezug nur mittelbar durch eine Vorstellung/einen
Begriff erfolgt. Das semiotische Dreieck
publizierten erstmals Charles Kay Ogden und Ivor Armstrong Richards in dem Werk
The Meaning of Meaning. Das semiotische Dreieck in vereinfachter Beschreibung. Die Welt besteht aus Gegenständen, Sachverhalten,
Ereignissen und Ähnlichem. Diese sind wirklich und
bestimmen alles, was geschieht. Das Symbol für ein Einzelnes davon steht in den folgenden
Dreiecken rechts und bedeutet vereinfacht: Ding oder „was Sache ist“. Wenn der Mensch ein Ding bemerkt oder sich
vorstellt, macht er sich ein gedachtes Bild davon. Das Symbol dafür steht in
den folgenden Dreiecken oben und bedeutet: Begriff oder „was man meint“. Wenn Menschen mit
diesen Begriffen von Dingen reden, so verwenden sie Zeichen (meist hörbar,
gelegentlich auch sichtbar oder anders wahrnehmbar). Das sind Wörter (auch Bezeichnungen,
Benennungen, Symbole oder Ähnliches). Das Symbol dafür steht in den folgenden
DREIECKEN links und bedeutet: Wort oder „was man dazu sagt“. Ding, Begriff und Wort sollen eindeutig
zusammengehören. Das gelingt nicht immer,
vielmehr muss man immerzu aufpassen, ob der eben verwendete Begriff das
betrachtete Ding richtig erfasst, ob das eben verwendete Wort den gemeinten
Begriff trifft, und sogar ob das eben betrachtete Ding überhaupt eins ist und
nicht etwa einige oder gar keins. Passen die drei Ecken nicht zueinander, „So
entstehen leicht die fundamentalsten Verwechslungen (deren die ganze
Philosophie voll ist).“ Vitters: Tractatus 3.324. Das semiotische Dreieck als bildliche Darstellung
der Mehrdimensionalität der Zeichen Begriff /\ / \
/ \
/ \ / \ Zeichen ......
Gegenstand (Wort) (Ding). Das semiotische Dreieck ist zunächst nur ein
bildliches Hilfsmittel, um sich Beziehungen „im“ bzw. „des“ Zeichens zu
veranschaulichen. Seine Interpretation und nähere Ausgestaltung hängt daher von
der zugrunde gelegten Erkenntnistheorie ab. In entscheidender Weise wird
durch das semiotische Dreieck veranschaulicht, dass zwischen dem Wort (der
Zeichenform, d. h. dem Schriftbild oder dem Lautbild) und dem Bezeichneten
(Ding, Gegenstand) keine direkte Beziehung, sondern nur durch (mindestens) eine
hier so genannte Vermittlungsinstanz vermittelte Beziehung besteht. Graphisch
wird dies durch eine unterschiedliche Linie dargestellt. Gebräuchlich ist
ein Dreieck. Entscheidend ist die nicht-direkte Beziehung zwischen Zeichen
(Wort) und Gegenstand (Ding). Je nach Anzahl der zu veranschaulichenden (nicht auszublendenden)
Bezugspunkte und Vermittlungsinstanzen und der Art der betonten Beziehungen
kann man auch ein Quadrat, ein sonstiges Vieleck bzw. einen mehrdimensionalen
Körper benutzen. Darauf hinzuweisen ist,
dass die Vermittlungsinstanz – hier mit dem mehrdeutigen Ausdruck „Begriff“
bezeichnet – sehr unterschiedlich gesehen wird, was aus dem Terminologiebefund
unten deutlich wird. Das semiotische Dreieck ist Veranschaulichung eines
Zeichenverständnisses, das dem Zeichenbegriff von Ferdinand de Saussure, wonach
ein Zeichen eine „psychische Einheit“ zwischen einem „akustischen Bild“
(Signifikanten) und einem „Begriff“ (Signifikat) (bei ihm im Sinne einer
psychischen Vorstellung)[2] sein soll, widersprechen dürfte:[3] statt der
„Papierblattmetapher“ für das Verhältnis von Signifikant/Signifikat (von de
Saussure) wird im semiotischen Dreieck eine optische Trennung und Distanzierung
von Zeichenkörper und Begriff (Sinn) vorgenommen. Das semiotische Dreieck
blendet auch pragmatische Bedingungen und Bezüge aus bzw. reduziert sie auf die
semantische Dimension und wird daher von pragmatischen Bedeutungstheorien
kritisiert (vgl. Semiotik). Das Fehlen einer unmittelbaren Beziehung
zwischen Zeichen und Gegenstand wird zugleich als Ausdruck der (von de Saussure
betonten) Arbitrarität und Konventionalität von Zeichen interpretiert.
Geschichte Man muss unterscheiden zwischen dem semiotischen Dreieck als Bild
und einem dreiseitigen (triadischen) Zeichenbegriff, dessen Veranschaulichung
es dient. Verbreitet wird die sprachwissenschaftliche Entwicklung so
dargestellt, als gäbe es ein semiotisches Dreieck erst seit Ogden/Richards, die
damit einen nur zweigliedrigen Zeichenbegriff von de Saussure
modifiziert/überwunden hätten.[4] Es heißt, bis ins 19. Jahrhundert sei der
Zeichenbegriff im Wesentlichen hinsichtlich seines Sachbezugs als „zweistellige
Relation“ diskutiert worden.[5] Andere betonen den zugrunde liegenden
dreiseitigen („triadischen“) Zeichenbegriff, der meist bei Aristoteles,
mitunter auch schon bei Platon angesetzt wird. Schon bei Platon findet
sich ein gedankliches Wort-Gegenstand-Modell zwischen Namen (Zeichen) – Idee
(Begriff) und Ding. Bei Aristoteles ist ein
Zeichen (semeion, damit meint er ein Wort) ein Symptom für eine Seelenregung,
d. h. für etwas, das der Sprecher sich vorstellt. Diese Vorstellung des
Sprechers ist dann ein Ikon für ein Ding. Dies sind für ihn die primären
Zeichenrelationen (rot in der untenstehenden Figur). Davon abgeleitet ist die sekundäre
Zeichenrelation (schwarz in der Figur). Das Semiotische Dreieck bei
Aristoteles Seit Aristoteles wird vertreten, dass Zeichen Dinge der Welt nicht
unvermittelt, sondern vermittelt über einen „Begriff“, „Vorstellung“ etc.
bezeichnen. Dies bedeutet eine Differenzierung gegenüber der einfachen
aliquid-stat-pro-aliquo-Konzeption und ist „für die ganze Geschichte der Semiotik
entscheidend“. Bei Aristoteles stehen
„Zeichen […] für Sachen, welche von den Bewußtseinsinhalten abgebildet worden
sind“. „Die Sachen werden von
den Zeichen nicht präsentiert, sondern repräsentiert.“. Die Interpretation von De interpretatione ist
dabei seit Jahrtausenden kontrovers. Die oben wiedergegebene Interpretation
entspricht einer psychologischen Deutung, die einen Psychologismus nahelegt.
Dies erscheint fraglich, da Aristoteles eher einen erkenntnistheoretischen
Realismus vertreten haben dürfte. Scholastik In der Sprachphilosophie der
Scholastik finden sich Überlegungen zum Dreierschema res (Sache, Ding),
intellectus (Verstand, Gedanken, Begriff), vox (Wortzeichen). Logik von
Port-Royal. In der Grammatik von
Port-Royal (Mitte des 17. Jh.) soll das semiotische Dreieck eingeführt worden
sein.[10] In der Logik von Port-Royal sind die Gegenstände und die
Sprachzeichen nicht unmittelbar, sondern über Universalien miteinander
verknüpft. Nach KANT ist das zwischen Begrifflichkeit und Sinnlichkeit bzw. Gegenstand
vermittelnde Element das Schema als ein bildhaftes und anschauliches Zeichen.
Das Verfahren des Verstandes, mit Hilfe der ‚Einbildungskraft‘ die reinen
Verstandesbegriffe zu versinnlichen, heißt Schematismus. Auch Arthur
Schopenhauer, ein deutscher Philosoph des 19. Jahrhunderts, unterscheidet in
seinem Hauptwerk Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung strikt zwischen Wort,
Begriff und Anschauung. Ausblendung des
Referenzbezugs im Zeichenmodell von de Saussure Nach verbreiteter Auffassung
haben die moderne Sprachwissenschaft und der moderne Zeichenbegriff erst mit de
Saussure eingesetzt. Nach de Saussure ist ein Zeichen die Verbindung eines
Ausdrucks (signifiant) mit einem Inhalt (signifié), wobei das Zeichen als
„psychische Einheit mit zwei Seiten“[14] aufgefasst wurde. In diesem
zweigliedrigen (dyadischen) Zeichenmodell „hat die reale Welt keine
Bedeutung“:[15] „Hier Bezeichnetes als geistige Vorstellung, dort Bezeichnendes
als dessen Materialisation in der Sprache, aber kein Platz für das Objekt
selbst“. Triadisches Zeichenmodells bei Peirce. Charles S. Peirce entwickelte eine pragmatische
Semiotik[16] und die Pragmatik soll auf dem triadischen Zeichenmodell von
Peirce beruhen.[17] Statt eines dyadischen entwickelte Peirce ein
kommunikativ-pragmatisches, triadisches Zeichenmodell: das Zeichen ist eine
„triadische Relation (semiotisches Dreieck)“. Dies, indem er zu Zeichenmittel und Objekt den
„Interpretanten“ ergänzte, d. h. die Bedeutung, die durch Interpretation der
Zeichenbenutzer (Sprecher bzw. Hörer) in einem Handlungszusammenhang zustande
kommt. „Das, was als Bewusstseinsinhalt erscheint, der Interpretant, ist
der individuell erkannte Sinn, der seinerseits kulturell vor- oder mitgeprägt
sein kann. Daher wird in diesem Konzept die Zeichenbedeutung (…) auch als
„kulturelle Einheit“ (Eco, 1972) postuliert.“Peirce-Interpreten wie Floyd
Merrell oder Gerhard Schönrich wenden sich gegen die Dreiecksdarstellung
peircescher Zeichentriaden, da sie suggerieren könnte, dass sich die
irreduzible triadische Relation zerlegen lasse in einzelne zweistellige
Relationen. Stattdessen schlagen sie
eine Y-förmige Darstellung vor, bei der die drei Relate jeweils durch eine
Linie mit dem Mittelpunkt verbunden sind, aber entlang der Seiten des
„Dreiecks“ keine Linien verlaufen. Charles Kay Ogden / Ivor Armstrong
Richards Als „die“ Vertreter eines dreiseitigen Zeichenmodells bzw. eines
semiotischen Dreiecks (unter Ausblendung ihrer Vorläufer) werden verbreitet
Charles Kay Ogden und Ivor Armstrong Richards angeführt. Diese erkannten eine
Welt außerhalb des menschlichen Bewusstseins ausdrücklich an und wandten sich
gegen „idealistische Konzepte“. Nach Charles Kay Ogden und Ivor Armstrong Richards symbolisiert
das Zeichen (symbol) etwas und ruft einen entsprechenden Bewusstseinsinhalt
(reference) hervor, der sich auf das Objekt (referent) bezieht.[6] Das
semiotische Dreieck wird wie folgt erklärt: „Umweltsachverhalte werden im
Gedächtnis begrifflich bzw. konzeptuell repräsentiert und mit Sprachzeichen
assoziiert. So ist z. B. das Wort „Baum“ ein Sprachzeichen, das mit dem Begriff
bzw. Konzept von „BAUM“ assoziiert ist und über diesen auf reale Bäume (Buchen,
Birken, Eichen usw.) verweisen kann.“. Siehe auch Organon-Modell (von Karl Bühler)
Literatur Metamorphosen des semiotischen Dreieck. In: Zeitschrift für Semiotik.
Band 10, Nr. 3, 1988, S. 185–327 (darin 8 einzelne Artikel). Umberto Eco:
Semiotik – Entwurf einer Theorie der Zeichen. 2. Auflage. Wilhelm Fink Verlag,
München 1991, ISBN 3-7705-2323-7. Umberto Eco: Einführung in die Semiotik.
Wilhelm Fink Verlag, München 1994, ISBN 3-7705-0633-2. Einzelnachweise C.
K. Ogden, I. A. Richards: The Meaning of Meaning. 1923 Kassai: Sinn. In:
Martinet (Hrsg.): Linguistik. 1973, S. 251 Ohne Problematisierung trotz
der Nähe zu Saussure hingegen bei Kassai: Sinn. In: Martinet (Hrsg.):
Linguistik. 1973, S. 251 (S. 254 f.) referiert So wohl Fischer Kolleg
Abiturwissen, Deutsch (2002), S. 27 So z. B. Schülerduden, Philosophie
(2002), Semiotik Triadische Zeichenrelation. In: Homberger: Sachwörterbuch
zur Sprachwissenschaft. 2000 Trabant: Semiotik. 1996, S. 25
Trabant: Semiotik. 1996, S. 24 So auch Triadische Zeichenrelation. In:
Homberger: Sachwörterbuch zur Sprachwissenschaft. 2000, wonach Aristoteles das
Platonische Modell „psychologisiert“ haben soll So Schülerduden,
Philosophie (2002), Sprachphilosophie Schülerduden, Philosophie (2002),
Sprachphilosophie Baumgartner: Kants „Kritik der reinen Vernunft“,
Anleitung zur Lektüre. [1988], neu ersch. 5. Auflage. ALBER, Freiburg 2002,
ISBN 978-3-495-47638-3, S. 81 Hierzu vor allem das Kapitel: „Zur Lehre
von der abstrakten, oder Vernunft-Erkenntnis“ (Zweiter Band) Fischer
Kolleg Abiturwissen, Deutsch (2002), S. 26 Ernst: Pragmalinguistik. 2002,
S. 66 Schülerduden, Philosophie (2002), Peirce So Pelz: Linguistik.
1996, S. 242 Zeichenprozess. In: Homberger: Sachwörterbuch zur
Sprachwissenschaft. 2000 Bedeutung. In: Homberger: Sachwörterbuch zur
Sprachwissenschaft. 2000 Kategorien: SemiotikSemantik. For Grice, the triangle
represents the three correspondences. First, psychophysical, second
psychosemiotic, and third semio-physical.
type: v. Grice’s
three-year-old’s guide to Russell’s theory of types.
uncertainty, v. certum. It may be held that ‘uncertain’ is wrong. Grice
is certain that p. It is not the case that Grice is certain that p.
universale: Like ‘qualia,’ which is the plural for ‘quale,’
‘universalia’ is the plural for ‘universale.’ The totum for Grice on “all” -- This
is a Gricism. It all started with arbor porphyriana. It is supposed to
translate Aristotle’s “to kath’olou” (which happens to be one of the categories
in Kant, “alleheit,” and which Aristotle contrasts with “to kath’ekastou,”
(which Kant has as a category, SINGULARITAS. For a nominalist, any predicate is
a ‘name,’ hence ‘nominalism.’ Opposite ‘realism.’ “Nominalism” is actually a
misnomer. The opposite of realism is anti-realism. We need something like
‘universalism,’ (he who believes in the existence, not necessary ‘reality’ of a
universal) and a ‘particularist,’ or ‘singularist,’ who does not. Note that the
opposite of ‘particularism,’ is ‘totalism.’ (Totum et pars). Grice holds a
set-theoretical approach to the universalium. Grice is willing to provide
always a set-theoretical extensionalist (in terms of predicate) and an
intensionalist variant in terms of property and category. Grice explicitly uses
‘X’ for utterance-type (WOW:118), implying a distinction with the
utterance-token. Grice gets engaged in a metabolical debate concerning the
reductive analysis of what an utterance-type means in terms of a claim to
the effect that, by uttering x, an utterance-token of utterance-type X, the
utterer means that p. The implicature is x (utterance-token). Grice is not
enamoured with the type/token or token/type distinction. His thoughts on
logical form are provocative. f you cannot put it in logical form, it is not
worth saying. Strawson infamously reacted with a smile. Oh, no: if you CAN
put it in logical form, it is not worth saying. Grice refers to the type-token
distinction when he uses x for token and X for type. Since Bennett cares to
call Grice a meaning-nominalist we should not care about the type X anyway. He
expands on this in Retrospective Epilogue. Grice should have payed more
attention to the distinction seeing that it was Ogdenian. A common mode of
estimating the amount of matter in a printed book is to count the number of
words. There will ordinarily be about twenty thes on a page, and, of course,
they count as twenty words. In another use of the word word, however, there is
but one word the in the English language; and it is impossible that this word
should lie visibly on a page, or be heard in any voice. Such a Form, Peirce, as
cited by Ogden and Richards, proposes to term a type. A single object such as
this or that word on a single line of a single page of a single copy of a book,
Peirce ventures to call a token. In order that a type may be used, it has to be
embodied in a token which shall be a sign of the type, and thereby of the
object the type signifies, and Grice followed suit. Refs.: Some of the sources
are given under ‘abstractum.’ Also under ‘grecianism,’ since Grice was keen on
exploring what Aristotle has to say about this in Categoriae, due to his joint
research with Austin, Code, Friedman, and Strawson. Grice also has a specific Peirceian
essay on the type-token distinction. BANC.
universalisierung: While Gric uses ‘univesal,’ he means like
Russell, the unnecessary implication of ‘every.’ Oddly, Kant does not relate
this –ung with the first of his three categories under ‘quantitas,’ the
universal. But surely they are related. Problem is that Kant wasn’t aware
because he kept moving from the Graeco-Roman classical vocabulary to the Hun. Thus,
Kant has “Allheit,” which he renders in Latinate as “Universitas,” and
“Totalität,” gehört in der Kategorienlehre des Philosophen Immanuel Kant zu den
reinen Verstandesbegriffen, d. h. zu den Elementen des Verstandes, welche dem
Menschen bereits a priori, also unabhängig von der sinnlichen Erfahrung gegeben
sind. “Allheit” wird wie Einheit und Vielheit den Kategorien der “Quantität”
zugeordnet und entspricht den Einzelnen Urteilen (Urteil hier im Sinn von
'Aussage über die Wirklichkeit') in der Form „Ein S ist P“, also z. B.
„Immanuel Kant ist ein Philosoph“. Sie wird von Kant definiert als „die
Vielheit als Einheit betrachtet“ (KrV, B 497 f.)[3]. Siehe auch Transzendentale
Analytik Weblinks. Allheit – Bedeutungserklärungen, Wortherkunft, Synonyme,
Übersetzungen Einzelnachweise Immanuel
Kant: Kritik der reinen Vernunft. Reclam, Stuttgart 1966, ISBN
3-15-006461-9. Peter Kunzmann,
Franz-Peter Burkard, Franz Wiedmann: dtv-Atlas zur Philosophie. dtv, München
1991, ISBN 3-423-03229-4, S. 136 ff. Zitiert
nach Arnim Regenbogen, Uwe Meyer (Hrsg.): Wörterbuch der Philosophischen
Begriffe. Meiner, Hamburg 2005, ISBN 3-7873-1738-4: Allheit Kategorie:
Ontologie. Referred to by Grice in his “Method,” – “A requisite for a maxim to
enter my manual, which I call the Immanuel, is that it should be
universalizable. Die Untersuchung zur »Universalisierung in der Ethik« greift
eine Problematik auf, die für eine Reihe der prominentesten Ethikentwürfe der
Gegenwart sowohl des deutschsprachigen wie des angelsächsischen Raumes zentral
ist, nämlich ob der normative Rationalitätsanspruch, den ethische
Argumentationen erheben, auf eine dem wissenschaftlichen Anspruch der
deskriptiven Gesetzeswissenschaften vergleichbare Weise eingelöst werden kann,
nämlich durch Verallgemeinerungs- oder Universalisierungsprinzipien. universalizability Ethics The idea that
moral judgments should be universalizable can be traced to the Golden Rule and
Kant’s ethics. In the twentieth century it was elaborated by Hare and became a
major thesis of his prescriptivism. The principle states that all moral
judgments are universalizable in the sense that if it is right for a particular
person A to do an action X, then it must likewise be right to do X for any
person exactly like A, or like A in the relevant respects. Furthermore, if A is
right in doing X in this situation, then it must be right for A to do X in
other relevantly similar situations. Hare takes this feature to be an essential
feature of moral judgments. An ethical statement is the issuance of a universal
prescription. Universalizability is not the same as generality, for a moral
judgment can be highly specific and detailed and need not be general or simple.
The universalizability principle enables Hare to avoid the charge of
irrationality that is usually lodged against non-cognitivism, to which his
prescriptivism belongs, and his theory is thus a great improvement on
emotivism. “I have been maintaining that the meaning of the word ‘ought’ and
other moral words is such that a person who uses them commits himself thereby
to a universal rule. This is the thesis of universalizability.” Hare, Freedom
and Reason.
unstructured: one of those negativisms of
Grice. Surely Grice cared a hoot for French anthropological structuralism! So
he has the ‘unstructured’ followed by the structured. A handwave is
unstructured, meaning syntactically unstructured, and in it you have all the
enigma of reason resolved. By waving his hand, U means that SUBJECT: the
emissor, copula IS, predicate: A KNOWER OF THE ROUTE, or ABOUT TO LEAVE the
emissor.There is a lot of structure in the soul of the emissor. So apply this
to what Grice calls a ‘soul-to-soul transfer’ to which he rightly reduces
communication. Even if it is n unstructured communication device, and maybe a
‘one-off’ one, to use Blackburn’s vulgarism, we would have the three types of correspondence
of Grice’s Semantic Triangle obtaining. First, the psychophysical. The emissor
knows the route, and he shows it. And he wants the emissee to ‘catch’ or get
the emissor’s drift. It is THAT route which he knows. So the TWO psychophysical
correspondences obtain. Then there are the two psychosemiotic correspondences.
The emissor intends that the emissor will recognise the handwave as a signal
that he, the emissor, knows the route. As for the emissee’s psychosemiotic
correspondence: he better realise it is THAT route – to Banbury, surely, with
bells in his shoes, as Grice’s mother would sing to him. And then we have the
two semio-physical correspondences. If the emissor DOES know the route (and he
is not lying, or rather, he is not mistaken about it), then that’s okay. Many
people say or signal that they know because they feel ashamed to admit their
ignorance. So it is very expectable, outside Oxford, to have someone waving
meaning that he knows the route, when he doesn’t. This is surely non-natural, because
it’s Kiparsky-non-factive. Waving the hand thereby communicating that he knows
the route does not entail that he knows the route (as ‘spots’ do entail
measles). From the emissee’s point of view, provided the emissor knows the
route and shows it, the emissee will understand, hopefully, and feel assured
that the emissor will hopefully reach the destination, Banbury, surely, safely
enough.
Uptake. Used by Grice slightly different
from Austin. Austin: “The performance of an illocutionary act involves the
securing of uptake.” “I distinguish some senses of consequences and effects,
especially three senses in which effects can come in even with illocutionary
acts, viz. securing uptake, taking effect, and inviting a response.” “Comparing
stating to what we have said about the illocu- tionary act, it is an act
to which, just as much as to other illocutionary acts, it is essential to
‘secure uptake’ : the doubt about whether I stated something if it was
not heard or understood is just the same as the doubt about whether
I warned sotto voce or protested if someone did not take it as a protest,
&c. And statements do ‘take effect’ just as much as ‘namings’, say:
if I have stated something, then that commits me to other statements:
other statements made by me will be in order or out of order.”
urmsonianism. Who other than
Urmson would come up with a counter-example to the sufficiency of Grice’s
analysis of an act of communication. In a case of bribery, the response or
effect in the emittee is NOT meant to be recognised. So we need a further
restriction unless we want to say that the briber means that his emittee
recognise the ‘gift’ as a meta-bribe.
Urmson’s
bribe: Urmson’s use of the bribe is
‘accidental.’ What Urmson is getting at is that if the briber intends the bribe
acts as a cause to effect a response, even a cognitive one, in the bribe, the
propositional complexum, “This is a bribe,” should not necessarily be
communicated. It is amazing how Grice changed the example into one about
physical action. They seem different. On the other hand, Grice would not have
cared to credit Urmson had it not believed it worth knowing that the criticism
arose within the Play Group (Grice admired Urmson). In his earlier “Meaning,”
Grice presents his own self-criticisms to arrive at a more refined analysis.
But in “Utterer’s meaning and intention,” when it comes to the SUFFICIENCY,
it’s all about other people: notably Urmson and Strawson. Grice cites Stampe
before Strawson, but many ignore Stampe on the basis that Strawson does not
credit him, and there is no reason why he should have been aware of it. But
Stampe was at Oxford at the time so this is worth noting. It has to be
emphasised that the author list is under ‘sufficiency.’ Under necessity, Grice
does not credit the source of the objections, so we can assume it is Grice
himself, as he had presented criticisms to his own view within the same
‘Meaning.’ It is curious that Grice loved Stampe. Grice CHANGED Urmon’s
example, and was unable to provide a specific scenario to Strawson’s alleged
counterexample, because Strawson is vague himself. But Stampe’s, Grice left
unchanged. It seems few Oxonian philosohpers of Grice’s playgroup had his
analytic acumen. Consider his sophisticated account of ‘meaning.’ It’s
different if you are a graduate student from the New World, and you have to
prove yourself intelligent. But for Grice’s playgroup companion, only three or
four joined in the analysis. The first is Urmson. The second is Strawson. The
case by Urmson involved a tutee offering to buy Gardiner an expensive dinner,
hoping that Gardiner will give him permission for an over-night visit to
London. Gardiner knows that his tutee wants his permission. The
appropriate analysans for "By offering to buy Gardiner an expensive
dinner, the tuttee means that Gardiner should give him permission for an
overnight stay in London" are fulfilled: (1) The tutee offers to buy
Gardiner an expensive dinner with the intention of producing a certain response
on the part of Gardiner (2) The tutee intends that Gardiner should recognize
(know, think) that the tutee is offering to buy him an expensive dinner with
the intention of producing this response; (3) The tutee intends that Gardiners
recognition (thought) that the tutee has the intention mentioned in (2) should
be at least part of Gardiners reason for producing the response mentioned. If
in general to specify in (i) the nature of an intended response is to specify
what was meant, it should be correct not only to say that by offering to buy
Gardiner an expensive dinner, the tutee means that Gardiner is to give him
permission for an overnight stay in London, but also to say that he meas that
Gardiner should (is to) give him permission for an over-night visit to London.
But in fact one would not wish to say either of these things; only that the
tutee meant Gardiner to give him permission. A restriction seems to be
required, and one which might serve to eliminate this range of counterexamples
can be identified from a comparison of two scenarios. Grice goes into a
tobacconists shop, ask for a packet of my favorite cigarettes, and when the
unusually suspicious tobacconist shows that he wants to see the color of my
money before he hands over the goods, I put down the price of the cigarettes on
the counter. Here nothing has been meant. Alternatively, Grice goes to his
regular tobacconist (from whom I also purchase other goods) for a packet of my
regular brand of Players Navy Cuts, the price of which is distinctive, say 43p.
Grice says nothing, but puts down 43p. The tobacconist recognizes my need, and
hands over the packet. Here, I think, by putting down 43p I meant
something-Namesly, that I wanted a packet of Players Navy Cuts. I have at the
same time provided an inducement. The distinguishing feature of the second
example seems to be that here the tobacconist recognized, and was intended to
recognize, what he was intended to do from my "utterance" (my putting
down the money), whereas in the first example this was not the case. Nor is it
the case with respect to Urmson’s case of the tutees attempt to bribe Gardiner.
So one might propose that the analysis of meaning be amended accordingly. U
means something by uttering x is true if: (i) U intends, by uttering x, to
induce a certain response in A (2) U intends A to recognize, at least in part
from the utterance of x, that U intends to produce that response (3) U intends
the fulfillment of the intention mentioned in (2) to be at least in part As
reason for fulfilling the intention mentioned in (i). This copes with Urmsons
counterexample to Grices proposal in the Oxford Philosophical Society talk
involving the tutee attempting to bribe Gardiner.
Use. While Grice uses ‘use,’ as Ryle once
told him, ‘you should use ‘usage, too.’ Parkinson was nearby. When Warnock
commissioned Parkinson to compile a couple of Oxonian essays on meaning and
communication, Parkinson unearthed the old symposium by Ryle and Findlay on the
matter. Typically, when Ryle reprinted it, he left Findlay out!
utterer: cf. emissum,
emissor. Usually Homo sapiens sapiens – and usually Oxonian, the Homo sapiens
sapiens Grice interactes with. Sometimes tutees, sometimes tutor. There is
something dualistic about the ‘utterer.’ It is a vernacularism from English
‘out.’ So the French impressionists were into IM-pressing, out to in; the
German expressionists were into EX-pressing, in to out. Or ‘man’. The important
thing is for Grice to avoid ‘speaker.’ He notes that ‘utterance’ has a nice
fuzziness about it. He still notes that he is using ‘utter’ in a ‘perhaps
artificial’ way. He was already wedded to ‘utter’ in his talk for the Oxford Philosopical Society.
Grice does not elaborate much on general gestures or signals. His main example
is a sort of handwave by which the emissor communicates that either he knows
the route or that he is about to leave the addressee. Even this is complex.
Let’s try to apply his final version of communication to the hand-wave. The
question of “Homo sapiens sapiens” is an interesting one. Grice is all for
ascribing predicates regarding the soul to what he calls the ‘lower animals’.
He is not ready to ascribe emissor’s meaning to them. Why? Because of Schiffer!
I mean, when it comes to the conditions of necessity of the reductive analysis,
he seems okay. When it comes to the sufficiency, there are two types of
objection. One by Urmson, easily dismissed. The second, first by Stampe and
Strawson, not so easily. But Grice agrees to add a clause limiting intentions
to be ‘in the open.’ Those who do not have a philosophical background usually
wonder about this. So for their sake, it may be worth considering Grice’s
synthetic a posteriori argument to refuse an emissor other than a Homo sapiens
sapiens to be able to ‘mean,’ if not ‘communicate,’ or ‘signify.’ There is an objection which is not mentioned by his editors,
which seems to Grice to be one to which Grice must respond. The objection may
be stated thus. One of the leading strands in Grice’s reductive analysis of an
emissor communicating that p is that communication is not to be regarded
exclusively, or even primarily, as a ‘feature’ of emissors who use what
philosophers of language call ‘language’ (Sprache, Taal, Langage, Linguaggio –
to restrict to the philosophical lexicon, cf. Plato’s Cratylus), and a fortiori
of an emissor who emits this or that “linguistic” ‘utterance.’ There are many
instances of NOTABLY NON-“linguistic” vehicles or devices of communication, within
a communication-system, which fulfil this or that communication-function; these
vehicles or devices are mostly syntactically un-structured or amorphous.
Sometimes, a device may exhibit at least some rudimentary syntactic structure,
in that we may distinguish a totum from a pars and identify a ‘simplex’ within
a ‘complexum.’ Grice’s intention-based reductive analysis of a communicatum,
based on Aristotle, Locke, and Peirce, is designed to allow for the possibility
that a non-“linguistic,” and, further, indeed a non-“conventional” 'utterance'
token, perhaps even manifesting some degree of syntactic structure, and not
just a block of an amorphous signal, may be within the ‘repertoire’ of
‘procedures’ of this or that organism, or creature, or agent, which, even if
not relying on any apparatus for communication of the kind that that we may
label ‘linguistic’ or otherwise ‘conventional,’
‘do’ this or that ‘thing’ thereby ‘communicating’ that p, or q. To
provide for this possibility, it is plainly necessary that the key ingredient in
any representation of ‘communicating,’ viz. intending that p, should be a ‘state’
of the emissor’s soul the capacity for which does not require what we may label
the ‘possession’ of, shall we say, a ‘faculty,’ of what philosophers call ‘a’
‘language’ (Sprache, Taal, langue, lingua – note that in German we do not
distinguish between ‘die Deutsche Sprache’ and ‘Sprache’ as ‘ein Facultat.’).
Now a philosopher, relying on this or that neo-Prichardian reductive analysis
of ‘intending that p,’ may not be willing to allow the possibility of such,
shall we call it, pre-linguistic intending that p, or non-linguistic intending
that p. Surely if the emissor realizes that his addressee does not share what
the Germans call ‘die Deutsche Sprache,” the emissor may still communicate with
his addresse this or that by doing this or that. E. g. he may simulate that he
wants to smoke a cigarette and wonders if his addressee has one to spare.
Against that objection, Grice surely wins the day. But Grice grants that
winning the day on THAT front may not be enough. And that is because, as far as
Grice’s Oxonian explorations on communication go, in a succession of
increasingly elaborate moves – ending with a ‘closure’ clause which cut this
succession of increasingly elaborate moves -- designed to thwart this or that
scenario, later deemed illegitimate, involving two rational agents where the
emissor relies on an ‘inference-element’ that it is not the case that he
intends his addressee will recogise – Grice is led to restrict the ‘intending’
which is to constitute a case of an emissor communicating that p to
C-intending. Grice suspects that whatever may be the case in general with
regard to ‘intending,’ C-intending seems for some reason to Grice to be
unsophisticatedly, viz. plainly, too sophisticated a ‘state’ of a soul to be
found in an organism, ‘pirot,’ creature, that we may not want to deem ‘rational,’
or as the Germans would say, a creature that is destitute of “Die Deutsche
Sprache.” We need the pirot to be “very intelligent, indeed rational.”Grice
regrets that some may think that what he thought were unavoidable rear-guard
actions (ending with a complex reductive analysis of C-intending) seem to have
undermined the raison d'etre of the Griciean campaign.”Unfortunately, Grice
provides what he admittedly labels “a brief reply” which “will have to
suffice.” Why? Because “a full treatment would require delving deep into
crucial problems concerning the boundaries between vicious and virtuous
circularity.” Which is promising. It is not something totally UNATTAINABLE. It
reduces to the philosopher being virtuously circular, only! Why is the
‘virtuous circle’ so crucial – vide ‘circulus virtuosus.’ virtŭōsus , a, um, adj.
virtus, I.virtuous, good (late Lat.), Aug. c. Sec.
Man. 10. A circle is virtuous if it is not that bad. In this case, we need the
‘virtuous circle’ because we are dealing with ‘a loop.’ This is exactly
Schiffer’s way of putting it in his ‘Introduction’ to Meaning (second edition).
There is a ‘conceptual loop.’ Schiffer is not interested in ‘communicating;’
only ‘meaning.’ But his point can be transferred. He is saying that ‘U means
that p,’ may rely on ‘U intends that p,’ where ‘U intends that p’ relies on ‘U
means that p.’ There is a loop. In more generic terms:We have a creature, call
it a pirot P1 that, by doing thing T, communicates that p. Are we talking of
the OBSERVER? I hope so, because Grice’s favourite pirot is the parrot. So we
have Prince Maurice’s Parrot. Locke: Since
I think I may be confident, that, whoever should see a CREATURE of his own
shape or make, though it had no more reason all its life than a cat or a
PARROT, would call him still A MAN; or whoever should hear a cat or a parrot
discourse, reason, and philosophize, would call or think it nothing but a cat
or a PARROT; and say, the one was A DULL IRRATIONAL MAN, and the other A VERY
INTELLIGENT RATIONAL PARROT. A relation we have in an author of great note, is
sufficient to countenance the supposition of A RATIONAL PARROT. The author’s
words are: I had a mind to know, from Prince Maurice's own mouth, the account
of a common, but much credited story, that I had heard so often from many
others, of an old parrot he has, that speaks, and asks, and answers common
questions, like A REASONABLE CREATURE. So that those of his train there
generally conclude it to be witchery or possession; and one of his chaplains,
would never from that time endure A PARROT, but says all PARROTS have a devil
in them. I had heard many particulars of this story, and as severed by people
hard to be discredited, which made me ask Prince Maurice what there is of it.
Prince Maurice says, with his usual plainness and dryness in talk, there is
something true, but a great deal false of what is reported. I desired to know
of him what there was of the first. Prince Maurice tells me short and coldly,
that he had HEARD of such A PARROT; and though he believes nothing of it, and
it was a good way off, yet he had so much curiosity as to send for the parrot:
that it was a very great parrot; and when the parrot comes first into the room
where Prince Maurice is, with a great many men about him, the parrot says
presently, What a nice company is here. One of the men asks the parrot, ‘What
thinkest thou that man is?,’ ostending his finger, and pointing to Prince
Maurice. The parrot answers, ‘Some general -- or other.’ When the man brings
the parrot close to Prince Maurice, Prince Maurice asks the parrot., “D'ou
venez-vous?” The parrot answers, “De Marinnan.” Then Prince Maurice goes on,
and poses a second question to the parrot. “A qui estes-vous?” The Parrot
answers: “A un Portugais.” Prince Maurice asks a third question. “Que fais-tu
la?” The parrot answers: “Je garde les poulles.”Prince Maurice smiles, which
pleases the Parrot. Prince Maurice, violating a Griceian maxim, and being just
informed that p, asks whether p. This is his fourth question. “Vous gardez les
poulles?” The Parrot answers, “Oui, moi; et je scai bien faire.” The Parrott
appeals to Peirce’s iconic system and makes the chuck four or five times that a
man uses to make to chickens when a man calls them. I set down the words of
this worthy dialogue in French, just as Prince Maurice said them to me. I ask
Prince Maurice in what ‘language’ the parrot speaks. Prince Maurice says that
the parrot speaks in Brazilian. I ask Prince William whether he understands the
Brazilian language. Prince Maurice says: No, but he has taken care to have TWO
interpreters by him, the one a Dutchman that spoke Brazilian, and the other a
Brazilian that spoke Dutch; that Prince Maurice asked them separatelyand privately,
and both of them AGREED in telling Prince Maurice just the same thing that the
parrot had said. I could not but tell this ODD story, because it is so much out
of the way, and from the first hand, and what may pass for a good one; for I
dare say Prince Maurice at least believed himself in all he told me, having
ever passed for a very honest and pious man. I leave it to naturalists to
reason, and to other men to believe, as they please upon it. However, it is
not, perhaps, amiss to relieve or enliven a busy scene sometimes with such
digressions, whether to the purpose or no.Locke takes care that the reader
should have the story at large in the author's own words, because he seems to
me not to have thought it incredible.For it cannot be imagined that so able a
man as he, who had sufficiency enough to warrant all the testimonies he gives
of himself, should take so much pains, in a place where it had nothing to do,
to pin so close, not only on a man whom he mentions as his friend, but on a prince
in whom he acknowledges very great honesty and piety, a story which, if he
himself thought incredible, he could not but also think RIDICULOUS. Prince
Maurice, it is plain, who vouches this story, and our author, who relates it
from him, both of them call this talker A PARROT. And Locke asks any one else
who thinks such a story fit to be told, whether, if this PARROT, and all of its
kind, had always talked, as we have a prince's word for it this one did,-
whether, I say, they would not have passed for a race of RATIONAL ANIMALS; but
yet, whether, for all that, they would have been allowed to be MEN, and not
PARROTS? For I presume it is not the idea of A THINKING OR RATIONAL BEING alone
that makes the idea of A MAN in most people's sense: but of A BODY, so and so
shaped, joined to it: and if that be the idea of a MAN, the same successive
body not shifted all at once, must, as well as THE SAME IMMATERIAL SPIRIT, go to the
making of the same MAN. So back to
Grice’s pirotology.But first a precis of the conversation, or
languaging:PARROT: What a nice company is here.MAN (pointing to Prince
Maurice): What thinkest thou that man is?PARROT: Some general -- or other. (i.
e. the parrot displays what Grice calls ‘up-take.’ The parrot recognizes the
man’s c-intention. So far is ability to display uptake.PRINCE MAURICE: D'ou
venez-vous?PARROT: De Marinnan.PRINCE MAURICE: A qui estes-vous?PARROT: A un
Portugais.PRINCE MAURICE: Que fais-tu la?PARROT: Je garde les poulles.PRINCE
MAURICE SMILES and flouts a Griceian maxim: Vous gardez les poulles?PARROT
(losing patience, and grasping the Prince’s implicature that he doubts it):
Oui, moi. Et je scai bien faire.(The Parrott then appeals to Peirce’s iconic
system and makes the chuck five times that a man uses to make to chickens when
a man calls them.)So back to Grice:“According to my most recent speculations
about communication, one should distinguish between what I call the ‘factual’
or ‘de facto’ character of behind the state of affairs that one might describe
as ‘rational agent A communicates that p,’ for those communication-relevant
features which obtain or are present in the circumstances) the ‘titular’ or ‘de
jure’ character, viz. the nested C-intending which is only deemed to be
present. And the reason Grice calls it ‘nested’ is that it involves three
sub-intentions:(C) Emissor E communicates that (psi*) p iff Emissor E c-intends
that A recognises that E psi-s that p iffC1: Emissor E intends A to recognise
that A psi-s that p.C2: Emissor intends that A recognise C1 by A recognising C2C3:
There is no inference-element which is C-constitutive such that Emissor relies
on it and yet does not intend A to recognise.Grice:“The titular or de jure character
of the state of affairs that is described as “Emissor communicates that p,”
involves self-reference in the closure clause regarding the third intention,
C3, may be thought as being ‘regressive,’ or involving what mathematicians mean
when they use “, …;” and the translators of Aristotle, ‘eis apeiron,’
translated as ‘ad infinitum.’There may be ways of UNDEEMING this, i. e. of
stating that self-reference and closure are meant to BLOCK an infinite regress.
Hence the circle, if there is one – one feature of a virtuous circle is that it
doesn’t look like a circle simpliciter --
would be virtuous. The ‘de jure’ character stands for a situation which,
in Grice’s words, is “infinitely complex,” and so cannot be actually present in
toto – only DEEMED to be.”“In which case,” Grice concludes pointing to the
otiosity or rendering inoperative, “to point out that THE INCONCEIVABLE actual
presence of the ‘de jure’ character of ‘Emissor communicates that p’ WOULD,
still, be possible, or would be detectable, only via the ‘use’ of something
like ‘die Deutsche Sprache’ seem to serve little, if any, purpose.”“At its most
meagre, the factual or ‘de facto’ character consists merely in the pre-rational
‘counterpart’ of the state of affairs describable by “Emissor E communicates
that p,” which might amount to no more than making a certain sort of utterance
in order thereby to get some creature to think or want some particular
thing.This meagre condition does not involve a reference to any expertise
regarding anything like ‘die Deutsche Sprache.’Let’s reformulate the
condition.It’s just a pirot, at a ‘pre-rational’ level. The pirot does a thing
T IN ORDER THEREBY to get some other pirot to think or do some particular
thing. To echo Hare,Die Tur ist geschlossen, ja.Die Tur ist geschlossen, bitte.Grice
continues as a corollary: “Maybe in a less straightforward instance of “Emissor
E communicates that p” there is actually present the C-intention whose
feasibility as an ‘intention’ suggests some ability to use ‘die Deutsche
Sprache.’But vide “non-verbal communication,” pre-verbal communication,
languaging, pre-conventional communication, gestural communication – as in What
Grice has as “a gesture (a signal).” Not necessary ‘conventional,’ and MAYBE
‘established’ – is one-off sufficient for ‘established’? I think so. By waving
his hand in a particular way (“a particular sort of hand wave”), the emissor
communicates that he knows the route (or is about to leave the addressee). Grice concludes about the less straightforward
instances, that there can be no advance guarantee when this will be so, i. e.
that there is actually present the C-intention whose feasibility as an
intention points to some capacity to use ‘die Deutsche Sprache.’Grice adds: “It
is in any case arguable that the use of ‘die Deutsche Sprache’ would here be an
indispensable aid to philosophising about communication, rather than it being an
element in the PHILOSOPHISING about communication! Philosophers
of Grice’s generation use ‘man’ on purpose to mean ‘mankind’. What a man means.
What a man utters. The utterer is the man. In semiotics one can use something
more Latinate, like gesturer, or emitter – or profferer. The distinction is
between what an utterer means and what the logical and necessary implication.
He doesn’t need to say this since ‘imply’ in the logical usage does not take
utterer as subject. It’s what the utterer SAYS that implies this or that. (Strawson
and Wiggins, p. 519). The utterer is possibly the ‘expresser.’
vagum: Oddly, A. C.
Ewing has a very early thing on ‘vagueness.’ Grice liked Ewing. There is an
essay on “Clarity” which relates. Cf. Price, “Clarity is not enough” Which
implicates it IS a necessity, though. Cf. “Clarity – who cares?” Some days,
Grice did not feel ‘Grecian,’ and would use very vernacular expressions. He
thought that what Cicero calls ‘vagum’ is best rendered in Oxfordshire dialect
as ‘fuzzy.’ It is not clear which of Grice’s maxim controls this. The opposite
of ‘vague’ is ‘specific.’ Grice was more concerned about this in the earlier
lectures where he has under the desideratum of conversational candour and the
principle of conversational benevolence, and the desideratum of conversational
clarity that one should be explicit, and make one’s point explicit. But under
the submaxims of the conversational category of modus (‘be perspicuous [sic]),
none seem to prohibit ‘vagueness’ as such: Avoid obscurity of expression.Avoid
ambiguity.Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity).Be
orderly The one he later calls a ‘tailoring principle’ ‘frame your contribution
in way that facilitates a reply’, the ‘vagueness’ avoidance seems implicit. Cf.
fuzzy. The indeterminacy
of the field of application of an expression, in contrast to precision. For
instance, the expression “young man” is vague since the point at which its
appropriate application to a person begins and ends cannot be precisely
defined. Vagueness should be distinguished from ambiguity, by which a term has more than one
meaning. The vagueness of an expression is due to a semantic feature of the
term itself, rather than to the subjective condition of its user. Vagueness
gives rise to borderline cases, and propositions with vague terms lack a
definite truth-value. For this reason, Frege rejected the possibility of vague
concepts, although they are tolerated in recent work in vague or fuzzy logic.
Various paradoxes arise due to the vagueness of words, including the ancient
sorites paradox. It is because of its intrinsic vagueness that some
philosophers seek to replace ordinary language with an ideal language. But
ordinary language philosophers hold that this proposal creates a false promise
of eliminating vagueness. Wittgenstein’s notion of family resemblance in part
is a model of meaning that tolerates vagueness. As a property of expressions,
vagueness extends to all sorts of cognitive representations. Some philosophers
hold that there can be vagueness in things as well as in the representation of
things. “A representation is vague when the relation of the representing system
to the represented system is not one–one, but one–many.” Russell, Collected
Papers of Bertrand Russell, vol. IX. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Fuzzy
impicatures, and how to unfuzz them.”
valitum: Oddly Vitters has a couple of lectures on ‘value,’ that
Grice ‘ignored.’ Valitum should be contrasted from‘validum.’ ‘Valid,’ which is
cognate with ‘value,’ a noun Grice loved, is used by logicians. In Grice’s
generalised alethic-cum-deontic logic, ‘valid’ applies, too. ‘Valid’ is
contrasted to the ‘satisfactoriness’ value that attaches directly to the
utterance. ‘Valid’ applies to the reasoning, i.e. the sequence of psychological
states from the premise to the conclusion. How common and insidious was the
talk of a realm of ‘values’ at Oxford in the early 1930s to have Barnes attack
it, and Grice defend it? ‘The realm of values’ sounds like an ordinary man’s
expression, and surely Oxford never had a Wilson Chair of Metaphysical
Axiology. validum is the correct form
out of Roman ‘valeor.’ Grice finds the need for the English equivalent, and
plays with constructing the ‘concept’ “to be of value”! There’s also the
axiologicum. The root for ‘value’ as ‘axis’ is found in Grice’s favourite book
of the Republic, the First! Grice sometimes enjoys sounding pretentious and
uses the definite article ‘the’ indiscriminately, just to tease Flew, his
tutee, who said that talking of ‘the self’ is just ‘rubbish’. It is different
with Grice’s ‘the good’ (to agathon), ‘the rational,’ (to logikon), ‘the
valuable’ (valitum), and ‘the axiological’. Of course, whilesticking with
‘value,’ Grice plays with Grecian “τιμή.” Lewis and Short have ‘vălor,’ f.
‘valeo,’ which they render as ‘value,’ adding that it is supposed to translate
in Gloss. Lab, Grecian ‘τιμή.’ ‘valor, τιμή, Gloss. Lab.’ ‘Valere,’ which of course algo gives English
‘valid,’ that Grice overuses, is said by Lewis and Short to be cognate with
“vis,” “robur,” “fortissimus,” cf. debilis” and they render as “to be strong.”
So one has to be careful here. “Axiology” is a German thing, and not used at
Clifton or Oxford, where they stick with ‘virtus’ or ‘arete.’ This or that
Graeco-Roman philosopher may have explored a generic approach to ‘value.’ Grice
somewhat dismisses Hare who in Language of Morals very clearly distinguishes
between deontic ‘ought’ and teleological, value-judgemental ‘good.’ For ‘good’
may have an aesthetic use: ‘that painting is good,’ the food is good). The
sexist ‘virtus’ of the Romans perhaps did a disservice to Grecian ‘arete,’ but
Grice hardly uses ‘arete,’ himself. It is etymologically unrelated to
‘agathon,’ yet rumour has it that ‘arete,’ qua ‘excellence,’ is ‘aristos,’ the
superlative of ‘agathon.’ Since Aristotle is into the ‘mesotes,’ Grice worries
not. Liddell and Scott have “ἀρετή” and render it simpliciter as “goodness,
excellence, of any kind,” adding that “in Hom. esp. of manly qualities”: “ποδῶν
ἀρετὴν ἀναφαίνων;” “ἀμείνων παντοίας ἀρετὰς ἠμὲν πόδας ἠδὲ μάχεσθαι καὶ νόον;”
so of the gods, “τῶν περ καὶ μείζων ἀ. τιμή τε βίη τε;” also of women, “ἀ. εἵνεκα
for valour,” “ἀ. ἀπεδείκνυντο,” “displayed brave deeds.” But when Liddell and Scott give the
philosophical references (Plathegel and Ariskant), they do render “ἀρετή,” as
‘value,’ generally,
excellence, “ἡ ἀ. τελείωσίς τις” Arist. Met. 1021b20, cf. EN1106a15, etc.; of
persons, “ἄνδρα πὺξ ἀρετὰν εὑρόντα,” “τὸ φρονεῖν ἀ. μεγίστη,” “forms of
excellence, “μυρίαι ἀνδρῶν ἀ.;” “δικαστοῦ αὕτη ἀ.;” esp. moral virtue, opp.
“κακία,” good nature, kindness, etc. We should not be so concerned about this,
were not for the fact that Grice explored Foot, not just on meta-ethics as a
‘suppositional’ imperratives, but on
‘virtue’ and ‘vice,’ by Foot, who had edited a reader in meta-ethics for the
series of Grice’s friend, Warnock. Grice
knows that when he hears the phrases value system, or belief system, he is
conversing with a relativist. So he plays jocular here. If a value is not a
concept, a value system at least is not what Davidson calls a conceptual
scheme. However, in “The conception of value” (henceforth, “Conception”) Grice
does argue that value IS a concept, and thus part of the conceptual scheme by
Quine. Hilary Putnam congratulates Grice on this in “Fact and value,” crediting
Baker – i. e. Judy – into the bargain. While utilitarianism, as exemplified by
Bentham, denies that a moral intuition need be taken literally, Bentham assumes
the axiological conceptual scheme of hedonistic eudaemonism, with eudaemonia as
the maximal value (summum bonum) understood as hedone. The idea of a system of values (cf.
system of ends) is meant to unify the goals of the agent in terms of the
pursuit of eudæmonia. Grice wants to disgress from naturalism, and the distinction between a description and anything
else. Consider the use of ‘rational’ as applied to ‘value.’ A naturalist holds
that ‘rational’ can be legitimately apply to the ‘doxastic’ realm, not to the
‘buletic’ realm. A desire (or a ‘value’) a naturalist would say is not
something of which ‘rational’ is predicable. Suppose, Grice says, I meet a
philosopher who is in the habit of pushing pins into other philosophers. Grice
asks the philosopher why he does this. The philosopher says that it gives him
pleasure. Grice asks him whether it is the fact that he causes pain that gives
him pleasure. The philosopher replies that he does not mind whether he causes
pain. What gives him pleasure is the physical sensation of driving a pin into a
philosopher’s body. Grice asks him whether he is aware that his actions cause
pain. The philosopher says that he is. Grice asks him whether he would not feel
pain if others did this to him. The philosopher agrees that he would. I ask him
whether he would allow this to happen. He says that he guesses he would seek to
prevent it. Grice asks him whether he does not think that others must feel pain
when he drives pins into them, and whether he should not do to others what he would
try to prevent them from doing to him. The philosopher says that pins driven
into him cause him pain and he wishes to prevent this. Pins driven by him into
others do not cause him pain, but pleasure, and he therefore wishes to do it.
Grice asks him whether the fact that he causes pain to other philosophers does
not seem to him to be relevant to the issue of whether it is rationally
undesirable to drive pins into people. He says that he does not see what
possible difference can pain caused to others, or the absence of it, make to
the desirability of deriving pleasure in the way that he does. Grice asks him what
it is that gives him pleasure in this particular activity. The philosopher
replies that he likes driving pins into a philosopher’s resilient body. Grice
asks whether he would derive equal pleasure from driving pins into a tennis
ball. The philosopher says that he would derive equal pleasure, that into what
he drives his pins, a philosopher or a tennis ball, makes no difference to him
– the pleasure is similar, and he is quite prepared to have a tennis ball
substituted, but what possible difference can it make whether his pins
perforate living men or tennis balls? At this point, Grice begins to suspect
that the philosopher is evil. Grice does not feel like agreeing with a
naturalist, who reasons that the pin-pushing philosopher is a philosopher with
a very different scale of moral values from Grice, that a value not being
susceptible to argument, Grice may disagree but not reason with the pin-pushing
philosopher. Grice rather sees the pin-pushing philosopher beyond the reach of
communication from the world occupied by him. Communication is as unattainable
as it is with a philosopher who that he is a doorknob, as in the story by
Hoffman. A value enters into the essence of what constitutes a person. The
pursuit of a rational end is part of the essence of a person. Grice does not
claim any originality for his position (which much to Ariskant), only validity.
The implicatum by Grice is that rationalism and axiology are incompatible, and
he wants to cancel that. So the keyword here is rationalistic axiology, in the
neo-Kantian continental vein, with a vengeance. Grice arrives at value
(validitum, optimum, deeming) via Peirce on meaning. And then there is the truth
“value,” a German loan-translation (as value judgment, Werturteil). The sorry
story of deontic logic, Grice says, faces Jørgensens dilemma. The
dilemma by Jørgensens is best seen as a trilemma, Grice says; viz. Reasoning
requires that premise and conclusion have what Boole, Peirce, and Frege call a
“truth” value. An imperative dos not have a “truth” value. There may be a
reasoning with an imperative as premise or conclusion. A philosopher can reject
the first horn and provide an inference mechanism on elements – the input of
the premise and the output of the conclusion -- which are not presupposed to
have a “truth” value. A philosopher can reject the second horn and restrict
‘satisfactory’ value to a doxastic embedding a buletic (“He judges he wills…”).
A philosopher can reject the third horn, and refuse to explore the desideratum.
Grice generalizes over value as the mode-neutral ‘satisfactory.’ Both ‘p’ and
“!p” may be satisfactory. ‘.p’ has doxastic value (0/1); ‘!p’ has buletic
value (0/1). The mode marker of the
utterance guides the addresse you as to how to read ‘satisfactory.’ Grice’s
‘satisfactory’ is a variation on a theme by Hofstadter and McKinsey, who
elaborate a syntax for the imperative mode, using satisfaction. They refer to
what they call the ‘satisfaction-function’ of a fiat. A fiat is ‘satisfied’ (as
The door is closed may also be said to be satisfied iff the door is closed) iff
what is commanded is the case. The fiat ‘Let the door be closed’ is satisfied
if the door is closed. An unary or dyadic operator becomes a
satisfaction-functor. As Grice puts it,
an inferential rule, which flat rationality is the capacity to apply,
is not arbitrary. The inferential rule picks out a transition of
acceptance in which transmission of ‘satisfactory’ is guaranteed or
expected. As Grice notes, since mode marker indicate the species ‘satisfactory’
does. He imports into the object-language ‘It
is satisfactory-d/p that’ just in case psi-d/b-p is satisfactory. Alla
Tarski, Grice introduces ‘It is acceptable that’: It is acceptable that
psi-d/b-p is satisfactory-b/d just in case ‘psi-d/b-p is satisfactory-d/b’ is
satisfactory-b/d. Grice goes on to provide a generic
value-assignment for satisfactoriness-functors. For coordinators: “φ Λ ψ” is 1-b/d just in case φ is
1-b/d and ψ is 1-b/d. “φ ν ψ” is 1-b/d just in
case one of the pair, φ and ψ, is 1-b/d. For subordinator: “φ⊃ψ” is 1-b/d just in case either
φ is 0-b/d or ψ is 0-b/d. There are, however, a number of points to
be made. It is not fully clear to Grice just how strong the motivation is for
assigning a value to a mode-neutral, generic functor. Also he is assuming
symmetry, leaving room for a functor is introduced if a restriction is imposed.
Consider a bi-modal utterance. “The beast is filthy and do not touch it” and
“The beast is filthy and I shall not touch it” seem all right. The commutated
“Do not touch the beast and it is filthy” is dubious. “Touch the beast and it
will bite you,” while idiomatic is hardly an imperative, since ‘and’ is hardly
a conjunction. “Smith is taking a bath or leave the bath-room door open” is
intelligible. The commutated “Leave the bath-room door open or Smith is taking
a bath” is less so. In a bi-modal utterance, Grice makes a case for the buletic
to be dominant over the doxastic. The crunch comes, however, with one of the
four possible unary satisfactoriness-functors, especially with regard to the
equivalence of “~psi-b/d-p” and
“psi-b/d-~p). Consider “Let it be that I now put my hand on my head” or “Let it be that my bicycle faces north” in
which neither seems to be either satisfactory or unsatisfactory. And it is a
trick to assign a satisfactory value to “~psi-b/d-p” and “~psi-b/d~p.” Do we
proscribe this or that form altogether, for every cases? But that would seem to
be a pity, since ~!~p seems to be quite promising as a representation for you
may (permissive) do alpha that satisfies p; i.e., the utterer explicitly
conveys his refusal to prohibit his addressee A doing alpha. Do we disallow
embedding of (or iterating) this or that form? But that (again if we use ~!p
and ~!~p to represent may) seems too restrictive. Again, if !p is neither
buletically satisfactory nor buletically unsatisfactory (U could care less) do
we assign a value other than 1 or 0 to !p (desideratively neuter, 0.5). Or do
we say, echoing Quine, that we have a buletically satisfactoriness value gap?
These and other such problems would require careful consideration. Yet Grice
cannot see that those problems would prove insoluble, any more than this or
that analogous problem connected with Strawsons presupposition (Dont arrest the
intruder!) are insoluble. In Strawsons case, the difficulty is not so much to
find a solution as to select the best solution from those which present
themselves. Grice takes up the topic of a calculus in connection with the
introduction rule and the elimination rule of a modal such as must. We
might hope to find, for each member of a certain family of modalities, an
introduction rule and an elimination rule which would be analogous to the rules
available for classical logical constants. Suggestions are not hard to come by.
Let us suppose that we are seeking to provide such a pair of rules for the
particular modality of necessity □. For (□,+) Grice considers the following (Grice thinks equivalent)
forms: if φ is demonstrable, □φ is
demonstrable. Provided φ is dependent on no assumptions, derive φ from □φ. For (□,-), Grice considers From □φ derive φ. It is
to be understood, of course, that the values of the syntactical variable φ
would contain either a buletic or a doxastic mode markers. Both !p and .p would
be proper substitutes for φ but p would not. Grice wonders: [W]hat should be
said of Takeuti’s 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 P’s personalised system that φ, it is necessary, with
respect to P, that φ is doxastically satisfactory/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 P, that φ, 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 buletic expression such as Let it be that Smith eats his hat. And my
commitment to the idea that Smiths system requires him to eat his hat does not
ipso facto involve me in accepting volitively Let Smith 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
person-relativised version of the rule seems inoffensive, even for Takeuti, we
hope. Grice, following Mackie, uses absolutism, as opposed to relativism, which denies the
rational basis to attitude ascriptions (but cf. Hare on Subjectsivism). Grice
is concerned with the absence of a thorough discussion of value by English
philosophers, other than Hare (and he is only responding to Mackie!).
Continental philosophers, by comparison, have a special discipline, axiology,
for it! Similarly, a continental-oriented tradition Grice finds in The New
World in philosophers of a pragmatist bent, such as Carus. Grice wants to
say that rationality is a value, because it is a faculty that a creature
(human) displays to adapt and survive to his changing environments. The
implicature of the title is that values have been considered in the English
philosophical tradition, almost alla Nietzsche, to belong to the realm
irrational. Grice grants that axiological implicatum rests on a PRE-rational
propension. While Grice could play with “the
good” in the New World, as a Lit. Hum. he knew he had to be slightly more
serious. The good is one of the values, but what is valuing? Would the New
Worlders understand valuing unattached to the pragmatism that defines them?
Grice starts by invoking Hume on his bright side: the concept of value, versus
the conception of value. Or rather, how the concept of value derives from the
conception of value. A distinction that would even please Aquinas
(conceptum/conceptio), and the Humeian routine. Some background for his third
Carus lecture. He tries to find out what Mackie means when he says that a value
is ultimately Subjectsive. What about inter-Subjectsive, and constructively
objective? Grice constructs absolute value out of relative value. But once a
rational pirot P (henceforth, P – Grice liked how it sounded like Locke’s
parrot) constructs value, the P assigns absolute status to rationality qua
value. The P cannot then choose not to be rational at the risk of ceasing to
exist (qua person, or essentially rationally human agent). A human, as opposed
to a person, assigns relative value to his rationality. A human is accidentally
rational. A person is necessarily so. A distinction seldom made by Aristotle
and some of his dumbest followers obsessed with the modal-free adage, Homo
rationale animal. Short and Lewis have “hūmānus” (old form: hemona humana
et hemonem hominem dicebant, Paul. ex Fest. p. 100 Müll.; cf. homo I.init.),
adj., f. “homo,” and which they render as “of or belonging to man, human.”
Grice also considers the etymology of ‘person.’ Lewis and Short have
‘persōna,’ according to Gabius Bassus
ap. Gell. 5, 7, 1 sq., f. ‘persŏno,’ “to sound through, with the second
syllable lengthened.’ Falsa est (finitio), si dicas, Equus est animal rationale:
nam est equus animal, sed irrationale, Quint.7,3,24:homo est animal rationale;
“nec si mutis finis voluptas, rationalibus quoque: quin immo ex contrario, quia
mutis, ideo non rationalibus;” “a rationali ad rationale;” “τὸ λογικόν ζῷον,”
ChrysiStoic.3.95; ἀρεταὶ λ., = διανοητικαί, oἠθικαί, Arist. EN1108b9; “λογικός,
ή, όν, (λόγος), ζῶον λόγον ἔχον NE, 1098a3-5. λόγον δὲ μόνον ἄνθρωπος ἔχει τῶν
ζῴων, man alone of all animals possesses speech, from the Politics. Grice takes
the stratification of values by Hartmann much more seriously than Barnes. Grice
plays with rational motivation. He means it seriously. The motivation is the
psychological bite, but since it is qualified by rational, it corresponds to
the higher more powerful bit of the soul, the rational soul. There are, for
Grice, the Grecians, Kantotle and Plathegel, three souls: the vegetal, the
animal, and the rational. As a matter of history, Grice reaches value (in its
guises of optimum and deeming) via his analysis of meaning by Peirce. Many notions
are value-paradeigmatic. The most important of all philosophical notions
that of rationality, presupposes objective value as one of its
motivations. For Grice, ratio can be understood cognoscendi but also
essendi, indeed volendi and fiendi, too. Rational motivation involves a ratio
cognoscendi and a ratio volendi; objective, “objectum,” and “objectus,” ūs, m.
f. “obicio,” rendered as “a casting before, a putting against, in the way, or
opposite, an opposing; or, neutr., a lying before or opposite (mostly poet. and
in postAug. prose): dare objectum parmaï, the opposing of the shield” “vestis;”
“insula portum efficit objectu laterum,” “by the opposition,” “cum terga
flumine, latera objectu paludis tegerentur;” “molis;” “regiones, quæ Tauri
montis objectu separantur;” “solem interventu lunæ occultari, lunamque terræ
objectu, the interposition,” “eademque terra objectu suo umbram noctemque
efficiat;” “al. objecta soli: hi molium objectus (i. e. moles objectas)
scandere, the projection,” transf., that which presents itself to the sight, an
object, appearance, sight, spectacle;” al. objecto; and if not categoric. This is analogous to
the overuse by Grice of psychoLOGICAL when he just means souly. It is
perhaps his use of psychological for souly that leads to take any souly concept
as a theoretical concept within a folksy psychoLOGICAL theory. Grice
considered the stratification of values, alla Hartmann, unlike Barnes, who
dismissed him in five minutes. “Some like Philippa Foot, but Hare is MY man,”
Grice would say. “Virtue” ethics was becoming all the fashion, especially
around Somerville. Hare was getting irritated by the worse offender, his
Anglo-Welsh tutee, originally with a degree from the other place, Williams.
Enough for Grice to want to lecture on value, and using Carus as an excuse!
Mackie was what Oxonians called a colonial, and a clever one! In fact, Grice
quotes from Hares contribution to a volume on Mackie. Hares and Mackies
backgrounds could not be more different. Like Grice, Hare was a Lit. Hum., and
like Grice, Hare loves the Grundlegung. But unlike Grice and Barnes, Hare would
have nothing to say about Stevenson. Philosophers in the play group of Grice
never took the critique by Ayer of emotivism seriously. Stevenson is the thing.
V. Urmson on the emotive theory of ethics, tracing it to English philosphers
like Ogden, Barnes, and Duncan-Jones. Barnes was opposing both Prichard (who
was the Whites professor of moral philosophy – and more of an interest than
Moore is, seeing that Prichard is Barness tutor at Corpus) and Hartmann. Ryle
would have nothing to do with Hartmann, but these were the days before Ryle
took over Oxford, and forbade any reference to a continental philosopher, even
worse if a “Hun.” Grice reaches the notion of value through that of meaning. If
Peirce is simplistic, Grice is not. But his ultra-sophisticated analysis ends
up being deemed to hold in this or that utterer. And deeming is valuing, as is
optimum. While Grice rarely used axiology, he should! A set of three
lectures, which are individually identified below. I love Carus! Grice was
undecided as to what his Carus lectures were be on. Grice explores meaning
under its value optimality guise in Meaning revisited. Grice thinks that a
value-paradeigmatic notion allows him to respond in a more apt way to what some
critics were raising as a possible vicious circle in his approach to semantic
and psychological notions. The Carus lectures are then dedicated to the
construction, alla Hume, of a value-paradeigmatic notion in general, and value
itself. Grice starts by quoting Austin, Hare, and Mackie, of
Oxford. The lectures are intended to a general audience, provided it is a
philosophical general audience. Most of the second lecture is a subtle
exploration by Grice of the categorical imperative of Kant, with which he had
struggled in the last Locke lecture in “Aspects,” notably the reduction of the
categorical imperative to this or that counsel of prudence with an implicated
protasis to the effect that the agent is aiming at eudæmonia. The Carus
Lectures are three: on objectivity and value, on relative and absolute value,
and on metaphysics and value. The first lecture, on objectivity and value,
is a review Inventing right and wrong by Mackie, quoting Hare’s
antipathy for a value being ‘objective’. The second lecture, on relative and
absolute value, is an exploration on the categorical imperative, and its
connection with a prior hypothetical or suppositional imperative. The
third lecture, on metaphycis and value, is an eschatological defence of
absolute value. The collective citation should be identified by each lecture
separately. This is a metaphysical defence by Grice of absolute value. The
topic fascinates Grice, and he invents a few routines to cope with it.
Humeian projection rationally reconstructs the intuitive concept being of
value. Category shift allows to put a value such as the disinterestedness
by Smith in grammatical subject position, thus avoiding to answer that the
disinterestedness of Smith is in the next room, since it is not the
spatio-temporal continuan prote ousia that Smith is. But the
most important routine is that of trans-substantatio, or metousiosis. A
human reconstructs as a rational personal being, and alla Kantotle,
whatever he judges is therefore of absolute value. The issue involves for
Grice the introduction of a telos qua aition, causa finalis (final cause),
role, or métier. The final cause of a tiger is to tigerise, the
final cause of a reasoner is to reason, the final cause of a person is to
personise. And this entails absolute value, now metaphysically defended. The
justification involves the ideas of end-setting, unweighed rationality,
autonomy, and freedom. In something like a shopping list that Grice
provides for issues on free. Attention to freedom calls for formidably
difficult undertakings including the search for a justification for the
adoption or abandonment of an ultimate end. The point is to secure that freedom
does not dissolve into compulsion or chance. Grice proposes four items for this
shopping list. A first point is that full action calls for strong freedom. Here
one has to be careful that since Grice abides by what he calls the Modified
Occams Razor in the third James lecture on Some remarks about logic and
conversation, he would not like to think of this two (strong freedom and weak
freedom) as being different senses of free. Again, his calls for is best
understood as presupposes. It may connect with, say, Kanes full-blown examples
of decisions in practical settings that call for or presuppose libertarianism. A
second point is that the buletic-doxastic justification of action has to
accomodate for the fact that we need freedom which is strong. Strong or serious
autonomy or freedom ensures that this or that action is represented as directed
to this or that end E which are is not merely the agents, but which is also
freely or autonomously adopted or pursued by the agent. Grice discusses the
case of the gym instructor commanding, Raise your left arm! The serious point
then involves this free adoption or free pursuit. Note Grices use of this or
that personal-identity pronoun: not merely mine, i.e. not merely the agents,
but in privileged-access position. This connects with what Aristotle says of
action as being up to me, and Kant’s idea of the transcendental ego. An
end is the agents in that the agent adopts it with liberum arbitrium. This
or that ground-level desire may be circumstantial. A weak autonomy or freedom
satisfactorily accounts for this or that action as directed to an end which is
mine. However, a strong autonomy or freedom, and a strong autonomy or freedom
only, accounts for this or that action as directed to an end which is mine,
but, unlike, say, some ground-level circumstantial desire which may have sprung
out of some circumstantial adaptability to a given scenario, is, first,
autonomously or freely adopted by the agent, and, second, autonomously or
freely pursued by the agent. The use of the disjunctive particle or in the
above is of some interest. An agent may autonomously or freely adopt an end,
yet not care to pursue it autonomously or freely, even in this strong
connotation that autonomous or free sometimes has. A further point relates to
causal indeterminacy. Any attempt to remedy this situation by resorting to
causal indeterminacy or chance will only infuriate the scientist without aiding
the philosopher. This remark by Grice has to be understood casually. For, as it
can be shown, this or that scientist may well have resorted to precisely that
introduction and in any case have not self-infuriated. The professional tag
that is connoted by philosopher should also be seen as best implicated than
entailed. A scientist who does resort to the introduction of causal
indeterminacy may be eo ipso be putting forward a serious consideration regarding
ethics or meta-ethics. In other words, a cursory examination of the views of a
scientist like Eddington, beloved by Grice, or this or that moral philosopher
like Kane should be born in mind when considering this third point by Grice.
The reference by Grice to chance, random, and causal indeterminacy, should best
be understood vis-à-vis Aristotles emphasis on tykhe, fatum, to the effect that
this or that event may just happen just by accident, which may well open a can
of worms for the naive Griceian, but surely not the sophisticated one (cf. his
remarks on accidentally, in Prolegomena). A further item in Grices shopping
list involves the idea of autonomous or free as a value, or optimum. The
specific character of what Grice has as strong autonomy or freedom may
well turn out to consist, Grice hopes, in the idea of this or that action as
the outcome of a certain kind of strong valuation ‒ where this would
include the rational selection, as per e.g. rational-decision theory, of this
or that ultimate end. What Grice elsewhere calls out-weighed or extrinsically
weighed rationality, where rational includes the buletic, of the end and not
the means to it. This or that full human action calls for the presence of this
or that reason, which require that this or that full human action for which
this or that reason accounts should be the outcome of a strong rational
valuation. Like a more constructivist approach, this line suggests that this or
that action may require, besides strong autonomy or freedom, now also strong
valuation. Grice sets to consider how to adapt the buletic-doxastic soul
progression to reach these goals. In the case of this or that ultimate end E,
justification should be thought of as lying, directly, at least, in this or
that outcome, not on the actual phenomenal fulfilment of this or that end, but
rather of the, perhaps noumenal, presence qua end. Grice relates to Kants views
on the benevolentia or goodwill and malevolentia, or evil will, or illwill.
Considers Smiths action of giving Jones a job. Smith may be deemed to have
given Jones a job, whether or not Jones actually gets the job. It is Smiths
benevolentia, or goodwill, not his beneficentia, that matters. Hence in Short
and Lewis, we have “bĕnĕfĭcentĭa,” f. “beneficus,” like “magnificentia” f.
magnificus, and “munificentia” f. munificus; Cicero, Off. 1, 7, 20, and which
they thus render as “the quality of beneficus, kindness, beneficence, an
honorable and kind treatment of others” (omaleficentia, Lact. Ira Dei, 1, 1;
several times in the philos. writings of Cicero. Elsewhere rare: quid
praestantius bonitate et beneficentiā?” “beneficentia, quam eandem vel
benignitatem vel liberalitatem appellari licet,” “comitas ac beneficentia,”
“uti beneficentiā adversus supplices,”“beneficentia augebat ornabatque
subjectsos.” In a more general fashion then, it is the mere presence of an end
qua end of a given action that provides the justification of the end, and not
its phenomenal satisfaction or fulfilment. Furthermore, the agents having
such and such an end, E1, or such and such a combination of ends, E1 and E2,
would be justified by showing that the agents having this end exhibits some
desirable feature, such as this or that combo being harmonious. For how can one
combine ones desire to smoke with ones desire to lead a healthy life? Harmony
is one of the six requirements by Grice for an application of happy to the life
of Smith. The buletic-doxastic souly ascription is back in business at a higher
level. The suggestion would involve an appeal, in the justification of this or
that end, to this or that higher-order end which would be realised by having
this or that lower, or first-order end of a certain sort. Such valuation of
this or that lower-order end lies within reach of a buletic-doxastic souly
ascription. Grice has an important caveat at this point. This or that
higher-order end involved in the defense would itself stand in need of
justification, and the regress might well turn out to be vicious. One is
reminded of Watson’s requirement for a thing like freedom or personal identity
to overcome this or that alleged counterexample to freewill provided by H.
Frankfurt. It is after the laying of a shopping list, as it were, and
considerations such as those above that Grice concludes his reflection with a
defense of a noumenon, complete with the inner conflict that it brings.
Attention to the idea of autonomous and free leads the philosopher to the need
to resolve if not dissolve the most important unsolved problem of philosophy,
viz. how an agent can be, at the same time, a member of both the phenomenal
world and the noumenal world, or, to settle the internal conflict between one
part of our rational nature, the doxastic, even scientific, part which seems to
call for the universal reign of a deterministic law and the other buletic part
which insists that not merely moral responsibility but every variety of
rational belief demands exemption from just such a reign. In this lecture,
Grice explores freedom and value from a privileged-access incorrigible
perspective rather than the creature construction genitorial justification.
Axiology – v. axiological. Refs.: The main source is The construction of
value, the Carus lectures, Clarendon. But there are scattered essays on value
and valuing in the Grice Papers. H. P. Grice, “Objectivity and value,” s. V, c.
8-f. 18, “The rational motivation for objective value,” s. V, c. 8-f. 19,
“Value,” s. V, c. 9-f. 20; “Value, metaphysics, and teleology,” s. V, c. 9-f.
23, “Values, morals, absolutes, and the metaphysical,” s. V., c. 9-f. 24; “Value sub-systems and the Kantian
problem,” s. V. c. 9-ff. 25-27; “Values and rationalism,” s. V, c. 9-f. 28;
while the Carus are in the second series, in five folders, s. II, c-2, ff.
12-16, the H. P. Grice Papers, BANC.
verificationism: see ayerism. Grice would possibly NOT be
interested in verificationism had not been for Ayer ‘breaking tradition’ “and
other things” with it --. Oppoiste Christian virtuous –ism: falsificationism.
Verificationism is one of the twelve temptations Grice finds on his way to the
City of Eternal Truth. (Each one has its own entry). Oddly, Boethius was the
first verificationist. He use ‘verifico’ performatively. “When I say,
‘verifico’, I verify that what I say is true.” He didn’t mean it as a sophisma
(or Griceisma, but it was (mis-)understood as such! “When I was listing the
temptations, I thought of calling this ‘Ayerism,’ but then I changed my mind. verification
theory of meaning The theory of meaning advocated by the logical positivists
and associated with the criterion of verifiability. The latter provides a
criterion of meaningfulness for sentences, while the verification theory of
meaning specifies the nature of meaning. According to the criterion, a sentence
is cognitively meaningful if and only if it is logically possible for it to be
verified. The meaning of a sentence is its method of verification, that is, the
way in which it can be verified or falsified, particularly by experience. The
theory has been challenged because the best formulations still exclude
meaningful sentences and allow meaningless sentences. Critics also claim that
the theory is a test for meaningfulness rather than a theory of meaning proper.
Further, they claim that it fails to recognize that the interconnectedness of
language might allow a sentence that cannot itself be verified to be
meaningful. “The verification theory of meaning, which dominated the Vienna
Circle, was concerned with the meaning and meaningfulness of sentences rather
than words.” Quine, Theories and Things verificationism Philosophical method,
philosophy of science, philosophy of language A position fundamental to logical
positivism, claiming that the meaning of a statement is its method of
verification. Accordingly, apparent statements lacking a method of
verification, such as those of religion and metaphysics, are meaningless.
Theoretical expressions can be defined in terms of the experiences by means of
which assertions employing them can be verified. In the philosophy of mind,
behaviorism, which tries to reduce unobserved inner states to patterns of
behavior, turns out to be a version of verificationism. Some philosophers
require conclusive verification for a statement to be meaningful, while others
allow any positive evidence to confer meaning. There are disputes whether every
statement must be verified separately or theories can be verified as a whole
even if some of their statements cannot be individually verified. Attempts to
offer a rigorous account of verification have run into difficulties because
statements that should be excluded as meaningless nevertheless pass the test of verification and
statements that should be allowed as meaningful are excluded. “For over a
hundred years, one of the dominant tendencies in the philosophy of science has
been verificationism, that is, the doctrine that to know the meaning of a
scientific proposition . . . is to know what would be evidence for that
proposition.” Putnam, Mind, Language and Reality verisimilitude Philosophy of
science [from Latin verisimilar, like the truth] The degree of approximation or
closeness to truth of a statement or a theory. Popper defined it in terms of
the difference resulting from truth-content minus falsity-content. The
truthcontent of a statement is all of its true consequences, while the
falsity-content of a statement is all of its false consequences. The aim of
science is to find better verisimilitude. One theory has a better
verisimilitude than competing theories if it can explain the success of
competing theories and can also explain cases where the other theories fail.
Popper emphasized that verisimilitude is different from probability.
Probability is the degree of logical certainty abstracted from content, while
verisimilitude is degree of likeness to truth and combines truth and content.
“This suggests that we combine here the ideas of truth and content into one –
the idea of a degree of better (or worse) correspondence to truth or of greater
(or less) likeness or similarity to truth; or to use a term already mentioned
above (in contradistinction to probability) the idea of (degrees of )
verisimilitude.” Popper, Conjectures and Refutations.
verum: Grice’s concern with the ‘verum’ is serious. If Quine is
right, and logical truth should go, so truth should go. Grice needs ‘true’ to
correct a few philosophical mistakes. It is true that Grice sees a horse as a
horse, for example. The nuances of the implicatum are of a lesser concern for
Grice than the taming of the true. The
root of Latin ‘vero’ is cognate with an idea Grice loved: that of ‘sincerity.’
The point is more obviously realised lexically in the negative: the fallax
versus the mendax. But ‘verum’ had to do with candidum – and thus very much
cognate with the English that Grice avoided, ‘truth,’ cognate with ‘trust.’ quod non possit ab
honestate sejungi The true and simple Good which cannot be separated from
honesty, Cicero, Academica, I, 2, but also for the ontological which one can
find in Cicero’s tr. Topica, 35 of etumologia ἐτυμολογία by veriloquium. Most
contemporary hypotheses propose that verus —and the words signifying true,
vrai, vérité, G. wahr, G. Wahrheit — derive from an Indo-European root, *wer,
which would retain meanings of to please, pleasing, manifesting benevolence,
gifts, services rendered, fidelity, pact. Chantraine Dictionnaire étymologique
de la langue grecque links it to the Homeric expression êra pherein ἦϱα φέϱειν,
to please, as well as to ἐπίηϱα, ἐπίηϱος, and ἐπιήϱανος, agreeable Odyssey, 19,
343, just like the Roman verus cf. se-vere, without benevolence, the G. war, and the Russian vera, faith, or verit’
верить, to believe. Pokorny adds to this same theme the Grecian ἑοϱτή,
religious feast, cult. And from the same basis have come terms signifying guarantee,
protect: Fr. garir and later garant,
G. Gewähren, Eng. warrant, to grant.
According to Chantraine, this root *wer should be distinguished from another
root ver-, whence eirô εἴϱω in Grecian , verbum in Roman word in English, etc.,
and words from the family of vereor, revereor, to fear, to respect, verecundia
respectful fear. According to Chantraine, this root *wer should be
distinguished from another root ver-, whence eirô εἴϱω in Grecian , verbum in
Roman word in English, etc., and words from the family of vereor, revereor, to
fear, to respect, verecundia respectful fear. Alfred Ernout does not support
this separation. We should recall that plays on the words verum and verbum were
common, as Augustine mentions verbum = verum boare, proclaiming the truth,
Dialectics 1. P. Florensky, following G. Curtius, “Grundzüge der griechischen
Etymologie,” also claims a single root for the ensemble of these derivations,
including the Sanskrit vratum, sacred act, vow, promise, the Grecian bretas βϱέτας,
cult object, wooden idol Aeschylus, Eumenides, v. 258, and the Roman “ver-bum.”
The signification of verus must be considered as belonging first to the field
of religious ritual and subsequently of juridical formulas: strictly speaking,
verus means protected or grounded in the sense of that which is the object of a
taboo or consecration Pillar and Ground. Then there’s from the juridical to the
philosophical. “Verum” implies a rectification of an adversarial allegation
considered to be fraudulent, as is indicated by the original opposition
verax/fallax-mendax. It thus signifies the properly founded in fact or in the
rules of law: crimen verissimum a well-founded accusation Cicero, In Verrem, 5,
15. In texts of grammar and rhetoric, but also in juridical texts as well, verus
and veritas signify the veracity of the rule, inasmuch as it can be
distinguished from usage. “Quid verum sit intellego; sed alias ita loquor ut
concessum est I know what is correct, but sometimes I avail myself of the
variation in usage, Cicero, De oratore, Loeb Classical Library; Consule
veritatem: reprehendet; refer ad auris: probabunt If you consult the strict
rule of analogy, it will say this practice is wrong, but if you consult the
ear, it will approve 1586. The juridical connotation of the word verus and thus
of veritas is retained and subsequently reinforced. In the glosses of the
Middle Ages, verus signifies legitimate and the Roman sense of the word, legal
and authentic or conforming to existing law. One normally finds “verum est” in
legal texts to certify that a new rule conforms to preexisting ones Digest, 8,
4, 1. It is this juridical dimension that produces the meaning of verus as
authenticated, authentic in contrast to false, imitative, deceiving and thus
real as in real cream or a genuine Rolex watch.
The juridical here provides a foundation not only for the moral Verum et
simplex bonum. The paradigm of “verum” is not easy to separate from any
epistemological dimensions, as is evident in the varied fates of the
Indo-European root *wer, from which derives, in addition to vera in Russian,
belief, the old Fr. garir, in the sense
of certifying as true, designating as true, whence the participle garant. The
evolution of these derived words inscribes G. “wahr,” and “Wahrheit” in a
semantic network from which emerge two directions, belief and salvation.
Belief. “Wahr” is often linked back, in composite words, to the idea of belief,
in the sense of true belief, to take as true. “Wahrsagen,” to predict, “wahr
haben,” to admit, agree upon, “für wahr halten,” to hold as true, to believe.
This is the term that Kant employs in the Critique of Pure Reason,
Transcendental theory of method, ch.2, 3 On Opinion, Science, and Belief: “das
Fürwahrhalten” is a belief, as a modality of subjectivity, that can be divided
into conviction Überzeugung or persuasion Überredung and that is capable of
three degrees: opinion Meinung, belief Glaube, and science Wissenschaft.
Safeguarding, conservation. Similarly “wahren,” “bewahren” in the sense of to
guard, to conserve is linked to “Wahrung” in the sense of defending one’s
interests or safeguarding. One might refer to Heidegger’s use of this
etymological and semantic relation in reference to Nietzsche. It remains to be
said that many common or colloquial expressions, in Fr. as well as in English, play on the semantic
slippages of vrai and real, between the ontological sense and linguistic
meanings. Thus in Fr. , c’est pas vrai! does not mean it is false, but rather
that it is not reality. In English, the opposite is the case: get real! means
come back down to earth, accept the truth. Grice’s
main manoeuvre may be seen as intended to crack the crib of reality. For he
wants to say some philosophers engaged in conceptual analysis are misled if
they think an inappropriate usage reveals a truth-condition. By coining
‘implicature,’ his point is to give room for “Emissor E communicates that p,”
as opposed to ‘emissum x ‘means’ ‘p.’ Therefore, Grice can claim that an
utterance may very well totally baffling and misleading YET TRUE (or otherwise
‘good’), and that in no way that reveals anything about the emissum itself. This
is due to the fact that ‘Emissor E communicates that p’ is diaphanous. And one
can conjoin what the emissor E communicates to what he explicitly conveys and
NOT HAVE the emissor contradicting himself or uttering a falsehood. And that is
what in philosophy should count. H. P. Grice was always happy with a
‘correspondence’ theory of truth. It was what Aristotle thought. So why change?
The fact that Austin agreed helped. The fact that Strawson applied Austin’s
shining new tool of the performatory had him fashion a new shining skid, and
that helped, because, once Grice has identified a philosophical mistake, that
justifies his role as methodologist in trying to ‘correct’ the mistake. The Old
Romans did not have an article. For them it is the unum, the verum, the bonum,
and the pulchrum. They were trying to translate the very articled Grecian ‘to
alethes,’ ‘to agathon,’ and ‘to kallon.’ Grecian Grice is able to restore the
articles. He would use ‘the alethic’ for the ‘verum,’ after von Wright. But
occasionally uses the ‘verum’ root. E. g. when his account of ‘personal
identity’ was seen to fail to distinguish between a ‘veridical’ memory and a
non-veridical one. If it had not been for Strawson’s ‘ditto’ theory to the
‘verum,’ Grice would not have minded much. Like Austin, his inclination was for
a ‘correspondence’ theory of truth alla Aristotle and Tarski, applied to the
utterance, or ‘expressum.’ So, while we cannot say that an utterer is TRUE, we
can say that he is TRUTHFUL, and trustworthy (Anglo-Saxon ‘trust,’ being
cognate with ‘true,’ and covering both the credibility and desirability realms.
Grice approaches the ‘verum’ in terms of predicate calculus. So we need at least
an utterance of the form, ‘the dog is shaggy.’ An utterance of ‘The dog is
shaggy’ is true iff the denotatum of ‘the dog’ is a member of the class
‘shaggy.’ So, when it comes to ‘verum,’ Grice feels like ‘solving’ a problem
rather than looking for new ones. He thought that Strawson’s controversial
‘ditto’ was enough of a problem ‘to get rid of.’ Refs: Grice, “Rationality and
Trust,” Grice, “The alethic.” “P. F. Strawson and the performatory account of
‘true’”, The Grice Papers.
vis: When in a Latinate mood, Grice would refer to a ‘vis’ of
an expression. Apparently, ‘vis’ is cognate with ‘validum,’ transf.,
of abstr. things, force, notion, meaning, sense, import, nature, essence (cf.
significatio): “id, in quo est omnis vis amicitiae,” Cic. Lael. 4, 15: “eloquentiae vis et natura,” id. Or. 31, 112: “vis honesti (with natura),” id. Off. 1, 6, 18; cf. id. Fin. 1, 16, 50: “virtutis,” id. Fam. 9, 16, 5: “quae est alia vis legis?” id. Dom. 20, 53: “vis, natura, genera verborum et simplicium et copulatorum,” i.e. the sense, signification, id. Or. 32, 115: “vis verbi,” id. Inv. 1, 13, 17; id. Balb. 8, 21: “quae vis insit in his paucis verbis, si attendes, si attendes, intelleges,” id. Fam. 6, 2, 3: “quae vis subjecta sit vocibus,” id. Fin. 2, 2, 6: “nominis,” id. Top. 8, 35: μετωνυμία,
cujus vis est, pro eo, quod dicitur, causam, propter quam dicitur,
ponere, Quint. 8, 6, 23.
warnock:
“One of my most intelligent collaborators.” Unlike any other of the collaborators,
Warnock had what Grice calls “the gift for botanising.” They would spend hours
on the philosophy of perception. His other English collaborators were, in
alphabetic order: Pears, Strawson, and Thomson. And you can see the difference.
Thomson was pretty obscure. Pears was a closet Vittersian. And Strawson was ‘to
the point.’ With Warnock, Grice could ramble at ease. Warnock became the
custodian of Austin’s heritage which somehow annoyed Grice. But the Warnock
that Grice enjoyed most was the Warnock-while-the-SchoolMaster-Austin-was-around.
Because they could play. And NOT in the play group, which was “anything but.”
But Grice would philosophise on ‘perception,’ and especially ‘see’ – with
Warnock. Their idiolects differed. Warnock, being Irish, was more creative, and
less conservative. So it was good for Warnock to have Grice to harness him!
Through Warnock, Grice got to discuss a few things with Urmson, the
co-custodian of Austin’s legacy. But again, most of the discussions with Urmson
were before Austin’s demise. Urmson and Warnock are the co-editors of Austin’s
“Philosophical Papers.” Would Austin have accepted? Who knows. The essays were
more or less easily available. Still.
weapon: Grice’s shining new tool. The funny thing is that his
tutee Strawson didn’t allow him to play with it ONCE! Or weapon. Grice refers
to the implicatum as a philosopher’s tool, and that the fun comes in the
application. Strawson and Wiggins p. 522, reminds us of Austin. Austin used to
say that when a philosopher “forges a new weapon, he is also fshioning new
skids to put under his feet.” It is perhaps inappropriate that a memorial
should mention this, but here they were, the memorialists. They were suggesting
that Grice forged a shining new tool, the implicature, or implicatum – rather,
he proposed a rational explanation for the distinction between what an emissor
means (e. g., that p) and what anything else may be said, ‘metabolically,’ to
“mean.” Suggesting an analogy with J. L. Austin and his infelicitious notion of
infelicity, which found him fashioning a shining new skid, the memorialists
suggest the same for Grice – but of course the analogy does not apply.
what the eye no longer sees the
heart no longer grieves for. Grice.
Vide sytactics.
whistle. If you can’t say it you can’t whistle it either – But you
can implicate it. “To say” takes a ‘that’-clause. “To implicate” takes a
‘that’-clause. Grice: “ ‘To whisle’ takes a ‘that’-clause, “By whistling, E
communicates that he intends his emissee to be there.” “Whistle and I’ll be
there” – Houseman to a Shropshire farmer.
willkür,
v. Hobson’s choice.
Wilson – this is the way
to quote J. C. Wilson. Grice loved him, and thanked Farquarhson for editing his
papers.
winchism: After P. Winch, 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!” Winch translated Vitters’s “little essay on
value” which Grice “did not use for [his] essay on the conception of value.”
(“Kultur und Wert.”)
wisdom: see metaphysical wisdom.
witters. typically
referred to Wittgenstein in the style of English schoolboy slang of the time
as, “Witters,” pronounced “Vitters.”“I
heard Austin said once: ‘Some like Witters, but Moore’s MY man.’ Austin would
open the “Philosophical Investigations,” and say, “Let’s see what Witters has
to say about this.” Everybody ended up loving Witters at the playgroup.”
Witters’s oeuvre was translated first into English by C. K. Ogden. There are
interesting twists. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Vitters.” Grice was sadly discomforted
when one of his best friends at Oxford, D. F. Pears, dedicated so much effort
to the unveiling of the mysteries of ‘Vitters.’ ‘Vitters’ was all in the air in
Grice’s inner circle. Strawson had written a review of Philosophical
Investigations. Austin was always mocking ‘Vitters,’ and there are other
connections. For Grice, the most important is that remark in “Philosohpical
Investigations,” which he never cared to check ‘in the Hun,’ about a horse not
being seen ‘as a horse.’ But in “Prolegomena” he mentions Vitters in other
contexts, too, and in “Causal Theory,” almost anonymously – but usually with
regard to the ‘seeing as’ puzzle. Grice would also rely on Witters’s now
knowing how to use ‘know’ or vice versa. In “Method” Grice quotes verbatim: ‘No
psyche without the manifestation the ascription of psyche is meant to explain,”
and also to the effect that most ‘-etic’ talk of behaviour is already ‘-emic,’
via internal perspective, or just pervaded with intentionalism.
wollheim: R. A. London-born philosopher, BPhil Oxon, Balliol (under
D. Marcus) and All Souls. Examined by H.
P. Grice. “What’s two times two?” Wollheim treasured that examination. It was
in the context of a discussion of J. S. Mill and I. Kant, for whom addition and
multiplication are ‘synthetic’ – a priori for Kant, a posteriori for Mill.
Grice was trying to provide a counterexample to Mill’s thesis that all comes
via deduction or induction.
woodianism: Grice loved O. P. Wood, as anyone at Oxford did – even
those who disliked Ryle!
woozleyianism: R. M. Harnish discussed H. P. Grice’s implicatum with A.
D. Woozley. Woozley would know because he had been in contact with Grice since
for ever. Woozley had a closer contact with Austin, since, unlike Grice, ‘being
from the right side of the tracks,’ he socialized with Austin in what Berlin
pretentiously calls the ‘early beginnings of Oxford philosophy,’ as if the
Middle Ages never happened. Woozley edited Reid, that Grice read, or reed. Since
the first way to approach Grice’s philosophy is with his colleagues at his Play
Group, Woozley plays a crucial role.
x-question.
Grice borrowed the erotetic from Cook Wilson, who in fact was influenced by
Stout and will also influence Collingwood.
Yes/no
question. For Grice, tertium non datur.
yog and zog: “If” was a problem for Grice. According to Strawson and
Wiggins, this was Grice having forged his shining new tool – the distinction
between ‘By emitting x, An emissor coomunicates that p” and “The emissum x
‘means’ ‘p.’ Apply that to ‘if.’ In Strawson and Wiggins’s precis, for Grice,
‘p yields q’ is part of the conversational implicatum – for Strawson and
Wiggins it is part of the conventional implicatum. They agree on ‘p horseshoe q’ being the explicit emissum or
explicatum in “Emissor explicitly conveys and communicates that p horseshoe q.”
For Grice, the implicatum, which, being conversational is cancellable, is
calculated on the assumption that the addressee can work out that the emissor
has non-truth-functional grounds for the making of any stronger claim. For
Strawson, that non-truth-functional reason is precisely ‘p yields q,’ which
leads Strawson to think that the thing is not cancellable and conventionally
implicated. If Strawson were right that this is Grice forging a new shining
tool to crack the crib of reality and fashioning thereby a new shining skid
under his metaphysical feet, it would be almost the second use of the
tool! This is an expansion by Grice on
the implicatum of a ‘propositio conditionalis.’ Grice, feeling paradoxical,
invites us to suppose a scenario involving ‘if.’ He takes it as a proof
that his account of the conversational implicatum of ‘if’ is, as Strawson did
not agree, correct, and that what an utterer explicitly conveys by ‘if p, q’ is
‘p > q.’ that two chess players, Yog
and Zog, play 100 games under the following conditions. Yog is white nine of
ten times. There are no draws. And the results are: Yog, when
white, won 80 of 90 games. Yog, when black, won zero of ten games. This
implies that: 8/9 times, if Yog was white, Yog won. 1/2 of the time, if
Yog lost, Yog was black. 9/10 that
either Yog wasnt white or he won. From these statements, it might appear
one could make these deductions by contraposition and conditional
disjunction: If Yog was white, then 1/2 of the time Yog won. 9/10 times,
if Yog was white, then he won. But both propositions are untrue. They
contradict the assumption. In fact, they do not provide enough information to
use Bayesian reasoning to reach those conclusions. That might be clearer if the
propositions had instead been stated differently. When Yog was white, Yog won
8/9 times. No information is given about when Yog was black. When Yog lost, Yog
was black 1/2 the time. No information is given about when Yog won. (9/10
times, either Yog was black and won, Yog was black and lost, or Yog was white
and won. No information is provided on how the 9/10 is divided among those
three situations. The paradox by Grice shows that the exact meaning of
statements involving conditionals and probabilities is more complicated than
may be obvious on casual examination. Refs.: Grice’s interest with ‘if’ surely
started after he carefully read the section on ‘if’ and the horseshoe in
Strawson’s Introduction to Logical Theory. He was later to review his attack on
Strawson in view of Strawson’s defense in ‘If and the horseshoe.’ The polemic
was pretty much solved as a matter of different intuitions: what Grice sees as
a conversational implicatum, Strawson does see as an ‘implicatum,’ but a
non-defeasible one – what Grice would qualify as ‘conventional.’ Grice leaves
room for an implicatum to be nonconversational and yet nonconventional, but it
is not worth trying to fit Strawson’s suggestion in this slot, since Strawson,
unlike Grice, has nothing against a convention. Grice was motivated to
formulate his ‘paradox,’ seeing that Strawson was saying that the so-called
‘paradoxes’ of ‘entailment’ and ‘implication’ are a misnomer. “They are not
paradoxical; they are false!” Grice has specific essays on both the paradoxes
of entailment and the paradoxes of implication. The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC
MSS 90/135c, The University of California, Berkeley.
zettel: Grice entitled his further notes on logic and conversation,
“zettel” – “What’s good enough for Vitters is good enough for me.”
References
Austin,
J. L. Philosophical papers.
Austin,
J. L. Sense and sensibilia.
Austin,
J. L. How to do things with words.
Blackburn,
S. W. Spreading the word.
Bostock,
D. Logic.
Grice,
H. P. Studies in the Way of Words
Grice,
H. P. The conception of value.
Grice,
H. P. Aspects of reason.
Hampshire,
S. N. Thought and action
Hare,
R. M. The language of morals.
Hart,
H. L. A. Review of Holloway, The Philosophical Quarterly
Strawson,
P. F. Introduction to Logical Theory.
Strawson,
P. F. Logico-Linguistic Papers.
Urmson,
J. O. Philosophical Analysis: its development between the two wars.
Warnock,
G. J. Language and Morals
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