conjunctum: One has to be careful because the
scholastic vocabulary also misleadingly has ‘copulatum’ for this. The
‘copulatum’ should be restricted to other usages, which Grice elaborates on ‘izzing’
and hazing. traditional parlance, one ‘pars orationis.’ Aulus Gellius writes; “What the Greeks call
“sympleplegmenon” we call conjunctum or copulatum, copulative sentence. For
example. The Stoic copulative sentence — sumpleplegmenon axioma — is translated
by “conjunctum” or “copulatum,” for example: „P. Scipio, son of Paulus, was a
consul twice and was given the honour of triumph and also performed the
function of censor and was the colleague of L. Mummius during his censorship”.
Here, Aulus Gellius made a noteworthy remark, referring to the value of truth
of the composing propositions ■ (a Stoic problem). In keeping with the Stoics,
he wrote: “If one element of the copulative sentence is false, even if all the
other elements are true, the copulative sentence is false” (“in omni aiitem
conjuncto si unum est mendacium etiamsi, caetera vera sunt, totum esse
mendacium dicitur”). In the identification of ‘and’ with ‘Λ’ there
is already a considerable distortion of the facts. ‘And’ can perform many jobs
which ‘Λ’
cannot perform. It can, for instance, be used to couple nouns (“Tom and William
arrived”), or adjectives (“He was hungry and thirsty”), or adverbs (“He walked
slowly and painfully”); while ' . ' can be used only to couple expressions
which could appear as separate sentences. One might be tempted to say that
sentences in which “and” coupled words or phrases, were short for sentences in
which “and” couples clauses; e.g., that “He was hungry and thirsty” was short
for “He was hungry and he was thirsty.” But this is simply false. We do not
say, of anyone who uses sentences like “Tom and William arrived,” that he is
speaking elliptically, or using abbreviations. On the contrary, it is one of
the functions of “and,” to which there is no counterpart In the case of “.,” to
form plural subjects or compound predicates. Of course it is true of many
statements of the forms “x and y” are/* or ' x is /and g \ that they are
logically equivalent to corresponding statements of the" form * x Is /and
yisf'oT^x is /and x is g \ But, first, this is a fact about the use, in certain
contexts, of “and,” to which there
corresponds no rule for the use of * . '. And, second, there are countless
contexts for which such an equivalence does not hold; e.g. “Tom and Mary made
friends” is not equivalent to “Tom made friends and Mary made friends.” They
mean, usually, quite different things. But notice that one could say “Tom and
Mary made friends; but not with one another.” The implication of mutuality in
the first phrase is not so strong but that it can be rejected without
self-contradiction; but it is strong enough to make the rejection a slight
shock, a literary effect. Nor does such an equivalence hold if we replace “made
friends” by “met yesterday,” “were conversing,” “got married,” or “were playing
chess.” Even “Tom and William arrived” does not mean the same as “Tom arrived
and William arrived;” for the first suggests “together” and the second an order
of arrival. It might be conceded that “and” has functions which “ .” has not
(e.g., may carry in certain contexts an implication of mutuality which ‘.’ does not), and yet claimed that the rules
which hold for “and,” where it is used to couple clauses, are the same as the
rules which hold for “.” Even this is not true. By law (11), " p , q ' is
logically equivalent to * q . p ' ; but “They got married and had a child” or
“He set to work and found a job” are by no means logically equivalent to “They
had a child and got married” or “He found a job and set to work.” One might try
to avoid these difficulties by regarding ‘.’ as having the function, not of '
and ', but of what it looks like, namely a full stop. We should then have to
desist from talking of statements of the forms ' p .q\ * p . J . r * &CM
and talk of sets-of-statements of these forms instead. But this would not
avoid all, though it would avoid some, of the difficulties. Even in a passage
of prose consisting of several indicative sentences, the order of the sentences
may be in general vital to the sense, and in particular, relevant (in a way
ruled out by law (II)) to the truth-conditions of a set-of-statements made by
such a passage. The fact is that, in general, in ordinary speech and writing,
clauses and sentences do not contribute to the truthconditions of things said
by the use of sentences and paragraphs in which they occur, in any such simple
way as that pictured by the truth-tables for the binary connectives (' D ' * .
', 4 v ', 35 ') of the system, but in far more subtle, various, and complex
ways. But it is precisely the simplicity of the way in which, by the definition
of a truth-function, clauses joined by these connectives contribute to the
truth-conditions of sentences resulting from the junctions, which makes
possible the stylized, mechanical neatness of the logical system. It will not
do to reproach the logician for his divorce from linguistic realities, any more
than it will do to reproach the abstract painter for not being a
representational artist; but one may justly reproach him if he claims to be a representational
artist. An abstract painting may be, recognizably, a painting of something. And
the identification of “.” with ‘and,’ or with a full stop, is not a simple
mistake. There is a great deal of point in comparing them. The interpretation
of, and rules for, “.”define a minimal linguistic operation, which we might
call ‘simple conjunction’ and roughly describe as the joining together of two
(or more) statements in the process of asserting them both (or all). And this
is a part of what we often do with ' and ', and with the full stop. But we do
not string together at random any assertions we consider true; we bring them
together, in spoken or written sentences or paragraphs, only when there is some
further reason for the rapprochement, e.g., when they record successive
episodes in a single narrative. And that for the sake of which we conjoin may
confer upon the sentences embodying the conjunction logical features at
variance with the rules for “.” Thus we have seen that a statement of the form
“p and q” may carry an implication of temporal order incompatible with that
carried by the corresponding statement of the form “q and p.” This is not to
deny that statements corresponding to these, but of the forms ‘pΛq’
and ‘qΛp’would
be, if made, logically equivalent; for such statements would carry no
implications, and therefore no incompatible implications, of temporal order.
Nor is it to deny the point, and merit, of the comparison; the statement of the
form ‘pΛq’
means at least a part of what is meant by the corresponding statement of the
form ‘p and q.’ We might say: the form
‘p q’ is an abstraction from the different uses of the form ‘p and q.’ Simple conjunction is a minimal element in
colloquial conjunction. We may speak of ‘. ‘ as the conjunctive sign; and read
it, for simplicity's sake, as “and” or “both … and … “I have already remarked
that the divergence between the meanings given to the truth-functional
constants and the meanings of the ordinary conjunctions with which they are
commonly identified is at a minimum in the cases of ' ~ ' and ‘.’ We have seen,
as well, that the remaining constants of the system can be defined in terms of
these two. Other interdefinitions are equally possible. But since ^’ and ‘.’ are more nearly identifiable with ‘not’ and
‘and’ than any other constant with any other English word, I prefer to
emphasize the definability of the remaining constants in terms of ‘ .’ and ‘~.’
It is useful to remember that every rule or law of the system can be expressed
in terms of negation and simple conjunction. The system might, indeed, be
called the System of Negation and Conjunction. Grice lists ‘and’ as the first
binary functor in his response to Strawson. Grice’s conversationalist
hypothesis applies to this central ‘connective.’ Interestingly, in his essay on
Aristotle, and discussing, “French poet,” Grice distinguishes between
conjunction and adjunction. “French” is adjuncted to ‘poet,’ unlike ‘fat’ in
‘fat philosopher.’ And
Grice:substructural logics, metainference, implicaturum. Grice explores
some of the issues regarding pragmatic enrichment and substructural logics with
a special focus on the first dyadic truth-functor, ‘and.’ In particular,
attention is given to a sub-structural “rule” pertaining to the commutativeness
of conjunction, applying a framework that sees Grice as clarifying the extra
material that must be taken into account, and which will referred to as the ‘implicaturum.’
Grice is thus presented as defending a “classical-logical” rule that assigns
commutativeness to conjunction while accounting for Strawson-type alleged
counterexamples to the effect that some utterances of the schema “p and q”
hardly allow for a ‘commutative’ “inference” (“Therefore, q and p”). How to
proceed conservatively while allowing room for pluralism? Embracing the
“classical-logical” syntactic introduction-cum-elimination and semantic
interpretation of “and,” the approach by Cook Wilson in “Statement and
inference” to the inferential métier of “and” is assessed. If Grice grants that
there is some degree of artificiality in speaking of the meaning or sense of
“and,” the polemic brings us to the realm of ‘pragmatic inference,’ now
contrasted to a ‘logical inference.’ The endorsement by Grice of an
‘impoverished’ reading of conjunction appears conservative vis-à-vis not just
Strawson’s ‘informalist’ picture but indeed the formalist frameworks of
relevant, linear, and ordered logic. An external practical decision à la Carnap
is in order, that allows for an enriched, stronger, reading, if not in terms of
a conventional implicaturum, as Strawson suggests. A ‘classical-logic’ reading
in terms of a conversational implicaturum agrees with Grice’s ‘Bootstrap,’ a
methodological principle constraining the meta-language/object-language divide.
Keywords: conjunction, pragmatic
enrichment, H. Paul Grice, Bootstrap. “[I]n recent years, my disposition to
resort to formalism has markedly diminished. This retreat may well have been
accelerated when, of all people, Hilary Putnam remarked to me that I was too
formal!”H.P. Grice, ‘Prejudices and predilections; which become, the life and
opinions of Paul Grice,’ in Grandy & Warner, 1986:61 Keywords:
metainference, substructural logics, classical logic, conjunction, H. Paul
Grice, pragmatic inference; Rudolf Carnap, bootstrap, modernism, formalism,
neotraditionalism, informalism, pragmatics, inference, implicaturum,
extensional conjunction, intensional conjunction, multiplicative conjunction,
additive conjunction. Grice’s approach consistent with Rudolf Carnap’s logical
pluralism that allows room for the account put forward by H. Paul Grice in
connection with a specific meta-inference (or second-order “… yields …”) as it
may help us take an ‘external’ practical decision as to how to recapture a
structural ‘rule’ of classical logic. The attempt involves a reconsideration,
with a special focus on the sub-structural classical logic rules for
conjunction of Grice’s ultimately metaphilosophical motivation in the opening
paragraphs to “Logic and Conversation.” Grice explores stick the first dyadic truth-functor Grice lists. In
fact, it’s the first alleged divergence, between “p and q” and “p. . q” that
Grice had quotes in “Prolegomena” to motivate his audience, and the example he
brings up vis-à-vis an ‘alleged’ “linguistic offence” (a paradox?) that an
utterer may incur by uttering “He got into bed and took his clothes off, but I
don’t mean to suggest he did it in that order” (Grice 1981:186). Implicatura
are cancellable. In the present scheme, which justifies substructural logics,
this amounts to any ‘intensional’ reading of a connective (e. g. ‘and’) being
susceptible of being turned or ‘trans-formed’ into the correlative extensional one in
light of the cancelling clause, which brings new information to the addressee
A. This is hardly problematic if we consider that sub-structural logics do not aim to capture the
‘semantics’ of a logical constant, and that the sub-structural logical ‘enrichment’
is relevant, rather, for the constant’s ‘inferential role.’Neither is it
problematic that the fact that the ‘inferential role’ of a logical constant
(such as ‘and’) may change (allowing this ‘trans-formation’ from
classical-logical extensional to sub-structural logical intension, given new
information which will be used by the addressee A to ‘work out’ the utterer U’s
meaning. The obvious, but worthemphasizing,
entailment in Grice’s assertion about the “mistake” shared by Formalism and
Informalism is that FORMALISM (as per the standard presentations of ‘classical
logic’) does commit a mistake! Re-capturing the FORMALISM of classical logic is
hardly as direct in the Griceian programme as one would assume. Grice’s
ultimate meta-philosophical motivation, though, seems to be more in agreement
with FORMALISM. Formalism can repair the mistake, Grice thinks, not by allowing
a change in the assigning of an ‘interpretation’ rule of an empoverished “and”
(““p and q” is 1 iff both p and q are 1, 0 otherwise.” (Cfr. Pap: “Obviously, I cannot prove that “(p and q) ≡ (q and p)” is tautologous (and that therefore “He got into
bed and took off his clothes’ iff ‘he took of his clothes and got into bed,’)
unless I first construct an adequate
truth-table defining the use of “and.” But surely one of the points of
constructing such a table is to ‘reproduce’ or capture’ the meaning of ‘and’ in
a natural language! The proposal seems circular!) and a deductive ‘syntactics’ rule, involving the
Gentzen-type elimination of ‘and’ (“ “p and q” yields “p”; and its reciprocal,
“ “p and q” yields “q”.” To avoid commiting the mistake, formalism must
recognise the conversational implicaturum ceteris paribus derived from some
constraint of rational co-operation (in particular, the desideratum or
conversational maxim, “be orderly!”) and allow for some syntactical scope
device to make the implicaturum obvious, an ‘explicatum,’ almost (without the
need to reinforce “and” into “and then”). In Grice’s examples, it may not even
be a VIOLATION, but a FLOUT, of a conversational maxim or desideratum, within
the observance of an overarching co-operation principle (A violation goes
unnoticed; a flout is a rhetorical device. Cfr. Quintilian’s observation that
Homer would often use “p & q” with the implicaturum “but not in that order”
left to the bard’s audience to work out). Grice’s attempt is to recapture
“classical-logic” “and,” however pragmatically ‘enriched,’ shares some features
with other sub-structural logics, since we have allowed for a syntactical tweak
of the ‘inference’ rules; which we do via the pragmatist (rather than
pragmatic) ‘implicatural’ approach to logic, highlighting one pragmatic aspect
of a logic without CUT. Grice grants
that “p and q” should read “p . q” “when [“p . q” is] interpreted in the
classical two-valued way.” His wording is thus consistent with OTHER ways
(notably relevant logic, linear and ordered logic). Grice seems to have as one
of his ‘unspeakable truths’ things like “He got into bed and took his clothes
off,” “said of a man who proceeds otherwise.” After
mentioning “and” “interpreted in the classical two-valued way,” Grice dedicates
a full paragraph to explore the
classical logic’s manifesto. The idea is to provide a SYSTEM that will give us
an algorithm to decide which formulae are theorems. The ‘logical consequence’
(or “… yields …”) relation is given a precise definition.Grice
notes that “some logicians [whom he does not mention] may at some time have
wanted to claim that there are in fact no such divergences [between “p and q”
and “p . q”]; but such claims, if made at all, have been somewhat rashly made,
and those suspected of making them have been subjected to some pretty rough
handling.” “Those who concede that such
divergences [do] exist” are the formalists. “An outline of a not
uncharacteristic FORMALIST position may be given as follows,” Grice notes. We
proceed to number the thesis since it sheds light on what makes a
sub-structural logic sub-structural“Insofar as logicians are concerned with the
formulation of very general patterns of VALID INFERENCE (“… yields…”) the
formal device (“p . q”) possesses a decisive advantage over their natural
counterpart (“p and q.”) For it will be possible to construct in terms of the
formal device (“p . q”) a system of very general formulas, a considerable
number of which can be regarded as, or are closely related to, a pattern of
inferences the expression of which involves the device.”“Such a system may
consist of a certain set of simple formulas that MUST BE ACCEPTABLE if the
device has the MEANING (or sense) that has been ASSIGNED to it, and an
indefinite number of further formulas, many of them less obviously acceptable (“q
. p”), each of which can be shown to be acceptable if the members of the
original set are acceptable.”“We have, thus, a way of handling dubiously
acceptable patterns of inference (“q. p,” therefore, “p. q”) and if, as is
sometimes possible, we can apply A DECISION PROCEDURE, we have an even better
way.”“Furthermore, from a PHILOSOPHICAL point of view, the possession by the
natural counterpart (“p and q”) of that element in their meaning (or sense),
which they do NOT share with the corresponding formal device, is to be regarded
as an IMPERFECTION; the element in question is an undesirable excrescence. For
the presence of this element has the result that the CONCEPT within which it
appears cannot be precisely/clearly defined, and that at least SOME statements
involving it cannot, in some circumstances, be assigned a definite TRUTH VALUE;
and the indefiniteness of this concept is not only objectionable in itself but
leaves open the way to METAPHYSICS: we cannot be certain that the
natural-language expression (“p and q”) is METAPHYSICALLY ‘LOADED.’”“For these
reasons, the expression, as used in natural speech (“p and q”), CANNOT be
regarded as finally acceptable, and may tum out to be, finally, not fully
intelligible.” “The proper course is to conceive and begin to construct an
IDEAL language, incorporating the formal device (“p . q”), the sentences of
which will be clear, determinate in TRUTH-VALUE, and certifiably FREE FROM
METAPHYSICAL IMPLICATIONS.”“The foundations of SCIENCE will now be
PHILOSOPHICALLY SECURE, since the statements of the scientist will be
EXPRESSIBLE (though not necessarily actually expressed) within this ideal
language.”What kind of enrichment are we talking
about? It may be understood as a third conjunct ptn-l & qtn
& (tn > tn-l) FIRST
CONJUNCT + SECOND CONJUNCT + “TEMPORAL SUCCESSION” p AND THEN q To
buttress the buttressing of ‘and,’ Grice uses ‘weak’ and ‘strong’ for other
operators like ‘disjunction – and his rationale for the Modified Occam’s razor
would be: “A STRONGER SENSE for a truth-functional dyadic operator SHOULD NOT
BE POSTULATED when A WEAK (or minimal) SENSE does, provided we add the
CANCELLABLE IMPLICATURUM.” Grice SIMPLIFIES semantics, but there’s no free
lunch, since he now has to explain how the IMPLICATURUM arises. Let’s revise the way “and,” the
first ‘dyadic’ device in “Logic and Conversation,” is invoked by Grice in
“Prolegomena.” “He got into bed and took his clothes off,” “said of a someone
who took his clothes off and got into bed.”
Cfr. theorems ∧I
= ` ∀ φ ψ• [φ; ψ] |= φ ∧ ψ ∧E
= ` ∀ φ ψ• ([φ ∧ ψ] |= φ) ∧ ([φ ∧ ψ] |= ψ)We have: He got into bed and took his clothes
off (Grice, 1989:9). He took his clothes off and got into bed (Grice, 1989:9). He got into bed and took his clothes
off but I don’t want to suggest that he did those things in that order (Grice,
1981:186). He
first took his clothes off and then got into bed (Grice 1989:9). In invoking
Strawson’s Introduction to Logical Theory, is Grice being fair? Strawson had
noted, provocatively: “[The formula] “p . q’ is logically
equivalent to ‘q . p’; but [the English] ‘They got married and had a child’ or
‘He set to work and found a job’ are by no means logically equivalent to ‘They
had a child and got married’ or ‘He found a job and set to work.’”How easier
things would have gone should Strawson have used the adjective ‘pragmatic’ that
he mentions later in his treatise in connection with Grice. Strawson is
sticking with the truth-functionality and thinking of ‘equivalence’ in terms of
‘iff’ – but his remark may be rephrased as involving a notion of ‘inference.’ In
terms of LOGICAL INFERENCE, the premise “He got into bed and took his clothes
off” YIELDS “He took off his clothes and got into bed,” even if that does NOT
‘yield’ in terms of ceteris paribus PRAGMATIC inference. It would have pleased Grice to read the above as: “[The formula] “p
. q’ is equivalentL to ‘q . p’; but [the English] ‘They got married
and had a child’ or ‘He set to work and found a job’ are by no means equivalentP
to ‘They had a child and got married’ or ‘He found a job and set to work.’” By appealing to a desideratum of
rational co-operative discourse, “be orderly,” Grice thinks he can restore
“and” to its truth-functional sense, while granting that the re-inforced “then”
(or an alleged extra sense of “temporal succession,” as he has it in
“Prolegomena”) is merely and naturally (if cancellable on occasion)
conversationally implicated (even if under a generalised way) under the
assumption that the addressee A will recognise that the utterer U is observing
the desideratum, and is being orderly. But witness variants to the cancellation
(3) above. There is an indifferent, indeterminate form: He got into bed and
took off his clothes, though I don’t mean to imply that he did that in that
order.versus the less indeterminate He got into bed and took his clothes off,
but not in that order. +> i.e. in the reverse one.Postulating a pragmatic
desideratum allows Grice to keep any standard sub-structural classical rule for
“and” and “&” (as s he does when he goes more formalist in “Vacuous Names,”
his tribute to Quine).How are to interpret the Grice/Strawson ‘rivalry’ in
meta-inference? Using Frege’s assertion “⊦LK” as our operator to read “…
yields…” we have:p & q ⊦LK q & p
and q & p ⊦LK
p & q.
In “Prolegomena,” then, Grice
introduces:“B. Examples involve an area of special interest to me [since he was
appointed logic tutor at St. John’s], namely
that of expressions which are candidates for being natural analogues to logical
constants and which may, or may not, ‘diverge’ in meaning [not use] from the
related constants (considered as elements in a classical logic, standardly
interpreted). It has, for example, been suggested that because it would be
incorrect or inappropriate [or misleading, even false?] to say “He got into bed
and took off his clothes” of [someone] who first took off his clothes and then
got into bed, it is part of the meaning [or sense] or part of one meaning
[sub-sense] of “and” to convey temporal succession” (Grice 1989:8). The explanation
in terms of a reference to “be orderly” is mentioned in “Presupposition and
conversational implicaturum” (Grice 1981:186). Grice notes: “It
has been suggested by [an informalist like] Strawson, in [An] Introduction to
Logical Theory [by changing the title of Strawson’s essay, Grice seems to be
implicating that Strawson need not sound pretentious] that there is a
divergence between the ordinary use or meaning of ‘and’ and the conjunction
sign [“.”] of propositional or predicate calculus because “He took off his
clothes and got into to bed” does not seem to have the same meaning as “He got
into bed and took off his clothes.”” Grice goes on: “[Strawson’s] suggestion here is, of course, that, in order properly
to represent the ordinary use of [the word]
“and,” one would have to allow a special sense (or sub-sense) for [the word] “and” which contained some reference to
the idea that what was mentioned before
[the word] “and” was temporally prior to what was mentioned after it, and that,
on that supposition, one could deal with
this case.”Grice goes on: “[Contra Strawson,] I want to suggest in reply that
it is not necessary [call him an Occamist,
minimalist] if one operates on some general principle [such as M. O. R., or Modified
Occam’s Razor] of keeping down, as far as
possible, the number of special sense [sic] of words that one has to
invoke, to give countenance to the alleged divergence of meaning.” The constraint is not an arbitrary assignation
of sense, but a rational one derived from the nature of conversation:“It is
just that there is a general supposition [which would be sub-sidiary to the
general maxim of Manner or ‘Modus’ (‘be perspicuous! [sic]’) that one presents
one's material in an orderly manner and, if what
one is engaged upon is a narration (if one is talking about events), then the most orderly manner for a narration
of events is an order that corresponds to
the order in which they took place.”Grice concludes: “So, the meaning of the
expression ‘He took off his clothes and he got into bed” and the corresponding expression with a [classical] logician's
constant "&" [when given a standard two-valued interpretation]
(i.e. “He took his clothes off & he got into
bed") would be exactly the same.”Grice’s
indifference with what type of formalism to adopt is obvious: “And, indeed, if
anybody actually used in ordinary speech the "&" as a piece of vocabulary instead of as a formal(ist)
device, and used it to connect together sentences of this type, they would collect just the same
[generalised conversational] implicatura as the ordinary English sentences have without any extra explanation
of the meaning of the word ‘and’.” It is
then that Grice goes on to test the ‘cancellability,’ producing the
typical Gricean idiom, above:He took his
clothes off and got into bed but I don't mean to suggest that he did those
things in that order. Grice goes on: “I should say that I did suggest, in
[my essay] on implicaturum, two sorts of
tests by which one might hope to
identify a conversational implicaturum. [...] I did not mean to suggest that
these tests were final, only that they were useful. One test was the
possibility of cancellation; that is to say, could one without [classical]
logical absurdity [when we have a standard two-valued interpretation], attach a
cancellation clause. For instance, could I say (9)?” Grice: “If that is not a
linguistic offense [and ‘false’], or does not seem to be, then, so far as it
goes, it is an indication that what one has here is a conversational implicaturum,
and that the original [alleged meaning, sense, or] suggestion of temporal
succession [is] not part of the conventional meaning of the sentence.” Grice
(1981, p. 186). Formalising the temporal succession is
never enough but it may help, and (9) becomes (10):p & q and ptn-l &
qtn where “tn-l” is a temporal index
for a time prior to “tn”. It is interesting to note that Chomsky, of all
people, in 1966, a year before Grice’s William James lectures, in Aspects of
the theory of syntax refers to “A [sic] P. Grice” as propounding that temporal
succession be considered implicaturum (Since this pre-dates the William James
lectures by a year, it was via the seminars at Oxford that reached Chomsky at
MIT via some of Grice’s tutees).Let us revise Urmson’s wording in his treatment
of the ‘clothes’ example, to check if Grice is being influenced by Urmson’s
presentation of the problem to attack Strawson. Urmson notes: “In
formal[ist] logic, the connective[…] ‘and’ [is] always given a minimum
[empoverished] meaning, as [I] have done above, such that any complex
[molecular sentence] formed by the use of [it] alone is [always] a
truth-function of its constituents.”Urmson goes on to sound almost like
Strawson, whose Introduction to Logical Theory he credits. Urmson notes: “In
ordinary discourse the connective[… ‘and]] often [has] a *richer* meaning.”Urmson
must be credited, with this use of ‘richer’ as the father of pragmatic
enRICHment!Urmson goes on: “Thus ‘He took his clothes off and got into bed’
implies temporal succession and has a different meaning from [the impoverished,
unreinforced] ‘He got into bed and took off his clothes.’” Urmson does not play
with Grice’s reinforcement: “He first got into bed and then took his clothes
off.’ Urmson goes on, however, in his concluding remark, to side with Grice
versus Strawson, as he should! Urmson notes: “[Formal(ist) l]ogicians would
justify their use of the minimum [impoverished, unreinforced, weak] meaning by
pointing out that it is the common element in all our uses [or every use] of
‘and.’” (Urmson,
1956:9-10). The
commutativeness of ‘and’ in the examples he gives is rejected by Strawson. How does Strawson reflect this in his sub-structural rule
for ‘and’? As Humberstone puts it, “It
is possible to define a version of the calculus, which defines most of the
syntax of the logical operators by means of axioms, and which uses only one
inference rule.”Axioms: Let φ, χ and ψ stand for
well-formed formulae. The wff's themselves would not contain any Greek letters,
but only capital Roman letters, connective operators, and parentheses. The
axioms include:ANDFIRST-CONJUNCT: φ ∧ χ → φ and ANDSECOND-CONJUNCT:
φ ∧ χ → χ. Our (13) and (14)
correspond to Gentzen’s “conjunction elimination” (or (& -), as Grice has
it in “Vacuous Names.”). The relation
between (13) and (14) reflects the commutativity of the conjunction operator.
Cfr. Cohen 1971: “Another conversational maxim
of Grice's, “be orderly”, is intended to
govern such matters as the formalist can show that it was not appropriate to
postulate a special non-commutative temporal
conjunction.”“The locus classicus for complaints of this nature being Strawson (1952).” Note that
the commutative “and” is derived from Grice’s elimination of conjunction, “p
& q ⊦ p” and “p & q ⊦ q -- as used by Grice in
his system Q.Also note that the truth-evaluation would be for Grice ‘semantic,’
rather than ‘syntactic’ as the commutative (understood as part of elimination).
Grice has it as: If phi and psi are formulae, “φ and ” is 1 iff both φ and ψ
are true, 0 otherwise. Grice grants
that however “baffling” (or misleading) would be to utter or assert (7)
if no one has
doubts about the temporal order of the reported the events, due to the
expectation that the utterer is observing the conversational maxim “be orderly”
subsumed under the conversational category of ‘Modus’ (‘be perspicuous! [sic]”
– cfr. his earlier desideratum of conversational clarity). Relevant logic
(which was emerging by the time Grice was delivering his William James
lectures) introduces two different formal signs for ‘conjunction’: the
truth-functional conjunction relevant logicians call ‘extensional’ conjunction,
and they represent by (13). Non-truth-functional conjunction is represented by
‘X’ and termed fusion or ‘intensional’ conjunction: p ^ q versus p X q.
The truth-table for Strawson’s enriched uses of
“and” is not the standard one, since we require the additional condition that
“p predates q,” or that one conjunct predates the other. Playing with structural and
substructural logical rules is something Carnap would love perhaps more than
Grice, and why not, Strawson? They liked to play with ‘deviant’ logics. For
Carnap, the choice of a logic is a pragmatic ‘external’ decision – vide his
principle of tolerance and the rather extensive bibliography on Carnap as a
logic pluralist. For Grice, classical logic is a choice guided by his respect
for ordinary language, WHILE attempting to PROVOKE the Oxonian establishment by
rallying to the defense of an under-dogma and play the ‘skilful heretic’
(turning a heterodoxy into dogma). Strawson is usually more difficult to
classify! In his contribution to Grandy & Warner (1986), he grants that
Grice’s theory may be ‘more beautiful,’ and more importantly, seems to suggest
that his view be seen as endorsing Grice’s account of a CONVENTIONAL implicaturum
(For Strawson, ‘if’ (used for unasserted antecedent and consequence)
conventionally implicates the same inferrability condition that ‘so’ does for
asserted equivalents. The aim is to allow for a
logically pluralist thesis, almost alla Carnap about the ‘inferential role’ of
a logical constant such as ‘and’, which embraces ‘classical,’ (or ‘formalist,’
or ‘modernist’), relevant, linear and ordered logic. PLURALISM (versus MONISM)
has it that, for any logical constant c (such as “and”), “c” has more than one *correct*
inferential “role.” The pluralist thesis depends on a specific interpretation
of the vocabulary of sub-structural logics. According to this specific
interpretation, a classical logic captures the literal, or EXPLICIT,
explicatum, or truth-functional or truth-conditonal meaning, or what Grice
would have as ‘dictiveness’ of a logical constant. A sub-structural logic
(relevant logic, linear and ordered logic), on the other hand, encodes a
pragmatically,” i.e. not SEMANTICALLY, “-enriched sense” of a logical constant
such as “and.” Is this against the spirit of Grice’s overall thesis as
formulated in his “M. O. R.,” Modified Occam’s Razor, “Senses [of ‘and’] are
not to be multiplied beyond necessity”? But it’s precisely Grice’s Occamism (as
Neale calls it) that is being put into question. At Oxford, at the time, EVERYBODY (except
Grice!) was an informalist. He is coming to the defense of Russell, Oxford’s
underdog! (underdogma!). Plus, it’s important to understand the INFORMALISM
that Grice is attacking – Oxford’s ORTHO-doxy – seriously. Grice is being the
‘skilful HERETIC,’ in the words of his successor as Tutorial Fellow at Oxford,
G. P. Baker. We may proceed by four stages.
First, introduce the philosophical motivation for the pluralist thesis.
It sounds good to be a PLURALIST. Strawson was not. He was an informalist.
Grice was not, he was a post-modernist. But surely we not assuming that one
would want to eat the cake and have it! Second, introduce the calculus for the
different (or ‘deviant,’ as Haack prefers) logics endorsed in the pluralist
thesis – classical itself, relevant, linear and ordered logic. Third, shows how
the different “behaviours” of an item of logical vocabulary (such as “and”) of
each of these logics (and they all have variants for ‘conjunction.’ In the case
of ‘relevant’ logic, beyond Grice’s “&,” or classical conjunction, there is
“extensional conjunction,” FORMALISED as “p X q”, or fusion, and “INTENSIONAL
conjunction,” formalized by “p O q”. These can be, not semantically (truth-functionally,
or truth-conditional, or at the level of the EXPLICATUM), but pragmatically
interpreted (at the level of the IMPLICATURUM). Fourth, shows how the
*different* (or ‘deviant,’ or pluralist), or alternative inferential “roles”
(that justifies PLURALISM) that *two* sub-structural logics (say, Grice’s
classical “&” the Strawson’s informalist “and”) attribute to a logical
constant “c” can co-exist – hence pluralism. A particular version of logical
“pluralism” can be argued from the plurality of at least *two* alterative
equally legitimate formalisations of the logical vocabulary, such as the first
dyadic truth-functor, or connective, “and,” which is symbolized by Grice as
“&,” NOT formalized by Strawson (he sticks with “and”) and FORMALISED by
relevant logicians as ‘extensional’ truth-functional conjunction (fision, p X
a) and intentional non-truth-functional conjunction (p O q). In particular, it can be argued that the
apparent “rivalry” between classical logic (what Grice has as Modernism, but he
himself is a post-modernist) and relevant logic (but consider Grice on
Strawson’s “Neo-Traditionalism,” first called INFORMALISM by Grice) can be
resolved, given that both logics capture and formalise normative and legitimate
alternative senses of ‘logical consequence.’ A revision of
the second paragraph to “Logic and Conversation” should do here. We can
distinguish between two operators for “… yields …”: ├ and ├: “A1, A2, … An├MODERNISM/FORMALISM-PAUL B” and “A1, A2, … An├NEO-TRADITIONALISM/INFORMALISM-PETER
B. As Paoli has it: “[U]pholding weakening amounts to failing to
take at face value the [slightly Griceian] expression ‘assertable on the basis
of’.’”Paoli goes on:“If I am in a
position to assert [the conclusion q, “He took his clothes off and got into
bed”] on the basis of the information provided by [the premise p, “He got into
bed and took his clothes off”], I need NOT be in a position to assert the
conclusion P [“He took his clothes off and got into bed”] on the basis of both
p (“He got into bed and took off his clothes” and an extra premise C - where C
is just an idle assumption (“The events took place in the order reported”) ,
irrelevant to my conclusion.”Can we regard Strawson as holding that
UNFORMALISED “and” is an INTENSIONAL CONJUNCTION? Another option is to see
Strawson as holding that the UNFORMALISED “and” can be BOTH truth-functional
and NON-truth-functional (for which case, the use of a different expression,
“and THEN,” is preferred). The Gricean theory of implicaturum is capable of
explaining this mismatch (bewtween “and” and “&”).Grice argues that the
[truth-conditional, truth-functional] semantics [DICTUM or EXPLICATUM, not IMPLICATURUM
– cfr. his retrospective epilogue for his view on DICTIVENESS] of “and”
corresponds [or is identical, hence the name of ‘identity’ thesis versus
‘divergence’ thesis] to the classical “∧,”
& of Russell/Whitehead, and Quine, and Suppes, and that the
[truth-functional semantics of “if [p,] [q]” corresponds to the classical p ⊃ q.” There is scope for
any theory capable of resolving or [as Grice would have it] denying the
apparent disagreement [or ‘rivalry’] among two or more logics.” What Grice does
is DENY THE APPARENT DISAGREEMENT. It’s
best to keep ‘rivalry’ for the fight of two ‘warring camps’ like FORMALISM and
INFORMALISM, and stick with ‘disagreement’ or ‘divergence’ with reference to
specific constants. For Strawson, being a thorough-bred Oxonian, who perhaps
never read the Iliad in Greek – he was Grice’s PPE student – the RIVALRY is not
between TWO different formalisations, but between the ‘brusque’ formalisation
of the FORMALISTS (that murder his English!) and NO FORMALISATION at all. Grice
calls this ‘neo-traditionalist,’ perhaps implicating that the
‘neo-traditionalists’ WOULD accept some level of formalisation (Aristotle did!)
ONLY ONE FORMALISATION, the Modernism. INFORMALISM or Neo-Traditionalism aims
to do WITHOUT formalisation, if that means using anything, but, say, “and” and
“and then”. Talk of SENSES helps. Strawson may say that “and” has a SENSE which
differs from “&,” seeing that he would find “He drank the poison and died,
though I do not mean to imply in that order” is a CONTRADICTION. That is why
Strawson is an ‘ordinary-LANGUAGE philosopher,” and not a logician! (Or should
we say, an ‘ordinary-language logician’? His “Introduction to Logical Theory”
was the mandatory reading vademecum for GENERATIONS of Oxonians that had to
undergo a logic course to get their M. A. Lit. Hum.Then there’s what we can
call “the Gricean picture,” only it’s not too clear who painted it!We may agree
that there is an apparent “mismatch,” as opposed to a perfect “match” that
Grice would love! Grice thought with Russell that grammar is a pretty good
guide to logical form. If the utterer says “and” and NOT “and then,” there is
no need to postulate a further SENSE to ‘and.’Russell would criticize
Strawson’s attempt to reject modernist “&” as a surrogate for “and” as
Strawson’s attempt to regress to a stone-age metaphysics. Grice actually at
this point, defended Strawson: “stone-age PHYSICS!” And this relates to “…
yields…” and Frege’s assertion “/-“ as ‘Conclusion follows from Premise’ where
‘Premise yields Conclusion’ seems more natural in that we preserve the order
from premise to conclusion. We shouldn’t underestimate one crucial feature of
an implicaturum: its cancellability, on which Grice expands quite a bit in
1981: “He got into bed and took his clothes off, although I don’t intend to
suggest, in any shape or form, that he proceed to do those things in the order
I’ve just reported!”The lack of any [fixed, rigid, intolerant] structural rule
implies that AN INSTANCE I1 of the a logical constant (such as “and”) that
*violate* any of Grice’s conversational maxim (here “be orderly!”) associated
with the relevant structural rule [here we may think of ADDITION AND
SIMPLIFICATION as two axioms derived from the Gentzen-type elimination of
“and”, or the ‘interpretation’ of ‘p & q’ as 1 iff both p and q are 1, but
0 otherwise] and for which the derived conversational implicaturum is false
[“He went to bed and took his clothes off, but not in that order!”] should be
distinguished from ANY INSTANCE I2 that does NOT violate the relevant maxim (“be
orderly”) and for which the conversational IMPLICATURUM (“tn > tn-l”) is
true.” We may nitpick here.Grice would rather prefer, ‘when the IMPLICATURUM
applies.” An implicaturum is by definition cancellable (This is clear when
Grice expands in the excursus “A causal theory of perception.” “I would hardly
be said to have IMPLIED that Smith is hopeless in philosophy should I utter,
“He has beautiful handwriting; I don’t mean to imply he is hopeless in
philosophy,” “even if that is precisely what my addressee ends up thinking!”When
it comes to “and,” we are on clearer ground. The kinds of “and”-implicaturums
may be captured by a distinction of two ‘uses’ of conjunctions in a single substructural
system S that does WITHOUT a ‘structural rule’ such as exchange, contraction or
both. Read, relies, very UNLIKE Strawson, on wo FORMALISATIONS besides “and”
(for surely English “and” does have a ‘form,’ too, pace Strawson) in Relevant
Logic: “p ^ q” and “p X q.” “p ^ q” and
“p X q” have each a different inferential role. If the reason the UTTERER has
to assert it – via the DICTUM or EXPLICATUM [we avoid ‘assert’ seeing that we
want logical constants to trade on ‘imperative contexts,’ too – Grice, “touch
the beast and it will bite you!” -- is the utterer’s belief that Smith took his
clothes AND THEN got into bed, it would be illegitimate, unwarranted, stupid,
otiose, incorrect, inappropriate, to infer that Smith did not do these two
things in that order upon discovering that he in fact DID those things in the
order reported. The very discovery that
Smith did the things in the order reported would “just spoil” or unwarrant the
derivation that would justify our use of “… yields …” (¬A ¬(A u B) A ¬B”). As Read notes, we have ADJUNCTION ‘p and q’
follows from p and q – or p and q yields ‘p and q.’ And we have SIMPLIFICATION:
p and q follow from ‘p and q,’ or ‘p and q’ yields p, and ‘p and q’ yields q.”
Stephen Read: “From adjunction and simplification we can infer, by
transitivity, that q follows from p and q, and so by the Deduction Equivalence,
‘if p, q’ follows from q.’” “However, […] this has the unacceptable consequence
that ‘if’ is truth-functional.” “How can
this consequence be avoided?” “Many options are open.” “We can reject the
transitivity of entailment, the deduction equivalence, adjunction, or
simplification. Each has been tried; and each seems contrary to intuition.” “We
are again in the paradoxical situation that each of these conceptions seems
intuitively soundly based; yet their combination appears to lead to something
unacceptable.” “Are we nonetheless forced to reject one of these plausible
principles?” “Fortunately, there is a fifth option.” Read: “There is a familiar
truth-functional conjunction, expressed by ‘p and q’, which entails each of p
and q, and so for the falsity (Grice’s 0) of which the falsity of either
conjunct suffices, and the truth of both for the truth of the whole.” “But
there is also a NON-truth-functional conjunction, a SENSE of ‘p and q’ whose
falsity supports the inference from p to ‘~q’.” “These two SENSES of
‘conjunction’ cannot be the same, for, if the ground for asserting ‘not-(p and
q)’ (e.g. “It is not the case that he got into bed and took off his clothes”)
is simply that ‘p’ is false, to learn that p is true, far from enabling one to
proceed to ‘~q’, undercuts the warrant for asserting ‘~(p & q)’ in the
first place.” “In this sense, ‘~(p & q)’ is weaker than both ‘~p’ and ‘~q’,
and does not, even with the addition of p, entail ‘~q’, even though one
possible ground for asserting ‘~(p & q))’, viz ‘~q’, clearly does.” Stephen
Read: “The intensional sense of ‘and’ is often referred to as fusion; I will
use the symbol ‘×’ for it. Others write ‘◦.’”We add some relevant observations
by a palaeo-Griceian: Ryle. Ryle often felt
himself to be an outsider. His remarks on “and” are however illuminating in the
context of our discussion of meta-inference in substructural logic.Ryle writes:
“I have spoken as if our ordinary ‘and’ […] [is] identical with the logical
constant with which the formal logician operates.”“But this is not true.”“The
logician’s ‘and’ […] [is] not our familiar civilian term[…].”“It is [a]
conscript term, in uniform and under military discipline, with memories,
indeed, of [its] previous more free and easy civilian life, though it is not
leaving that life now.”“If you hear on good authority that she took arsenic and
fell ill you will reject the rumour that she fell ill and took arsenic.”“This
familiar use of ‘and’ carries with it the temporal notion expressed by ‘and
subsequently’ and even the causal notion expressed by ‘and in
consequence.’”“The logician’s conscript ‘and’ does only its appointed duty – a
duty in which ‘she took arsenic and fell ill’ is an absolute paraphrase of ‘she
fell ill and took arsenic.’ This might be call the minimal force of ‘and.’”
(Ryle,, 1954:118). When we speaks of PRAGMATIC enrichment, we obviously
don’t mean SEMANTIC enrichment. There is a distinction, obviously, between the
‘pragmatic enrichment’ dimension, as to whether the ‘enriched’ content is
IMPLICATED or, to use a neologism, ‘EX-plicated.’ Or cf. as Kent Bach would
prefer, “IMPLICITATED” (vide his “Implciture.”) Commutative
law: p & q iff q & p. “Axiom AND-1” and “Axiom AND-2” correspond
to "conjunction elimination". The relation between “AND-1” and
“AND-2” reflects the commutativity of the conjunction operator. A VERY IMPORTANT POINT to consider is Grice’s
distinction between ‘logical inference’ and ‘pragmatic inference.’ He does so
in “Retrospective Epilogue” in 1987. “A few years after the appearance of […]
Introduction to Logical Theory, I was devoting much attention to what might be
loosely called the distinction between logical and pragmatic inferences. … represented
as being a matter not of logical but of pragmatic import.” (Grice
1987:374).Could he be jocular? He is emphasizing the historical role of his
research. He mentions FORMALISM and INFORMALISM and notes that his own interest
in maxims or desiderata of rational discourse arose from his interest to
distinguish between matters of “logical inference” from those of “pragmatic
inference.” Is Grice multiplying ‘inference’ beyond necessity? It would seem
so. So it’s best to try to reformulate his proposal, in agreement with logical
pluralism.By ‘logical inference’ Grice must mean ‘practical/alethic
satisfactoriness-based inference,’ notably the syntactics and semantics
(‘interpretative’) modules of his own System Q. By ‘pragmatic inference’ he
must mean a third module, the pragmatic module, with his desiderata. We may say
that for Grice ‘logical inference’ is deductive (and inductive), while
‘pragmatic inference’ is abductive. Let us apply this to the ‘clothes off’
exampleThe Utterer said: “Smith got into bed and took his clothes off, but I’m
reporting the events in no particular order.” The ‘logical inference’ allows to
treat ‘and’ as “&.” The ‘pragmatic inference’ allows the addressee to
wonder what the utterer is meaning! Cf. Terres on “⊢k” for “logical inference” and “⊢r,” “⊢l,” and “⊢o,” for pragmatic inference, and where the
subscripts “k,” “r,” “l” and “o” stand for ‘classical,’ ‘relevant,’ ‘linear’
and ‘ordered’ logic respectively, with each of the three
sub-structural notions of “follows from” or “… yields …” require the pragmatic enrichment of a logical constant, that ‘classical logical’
inference may retain the ‘impoverished’ version (Terres, 2019, Inquiry, p. 13). Grice himself mentions
this normative dimension:
“I would like to be able to think of the standard type of conversational
practice not merely
as something that all or most do IN FACT follow but as something that it is REASONABLE for us to
follow, that we SHOULD NOT abandon.”Grice, 1989a, p.48]However, the fact that
we should observe the conversational maxims may not yet be a reason for endorsing the allegedly
‘deviant’ inferential role of a logical constant in the three sub-structural
logics under examination.The legitimacy of the ‘deviant’ ‘inferential role’ of
each constant in each sub-structural logic emerges, rather from at least two
sources.A first source is a requirement for logic (or reasoning) to be
normative: that its truth-bearers [or satisfactoriness-bearers, to allow for
‘imperative’-mode inferences) are related to what Grice calls ‘psychological
attitudes’ of ‘belief’ (indicative-mode inference) and ‘desire’
(imperative-mode inference) (Grice, 1975, cfr. Terres, Inquiry, 2019, p. 13).
As Steinberg puts it:“Presumably, if logic is normative for thinking or
reasoning, its normative force will stem, at least in part, from the fact that
truth bearers which act as the relata of our consequence relation and the
bearers of other logical properties are identical to (or at least are very
closely related in some other way) to the objects of thinking or reasoning: the
contents of one’s mental states or acts such as the content of one’s beliefs or
inferences, for example.”[Steinberger, 2017a – and cf. Loar’s similar approach
when construing Grice’s maxims as ‘empirical generalisations’ of ‘functional
states’ for a less committed view of the embedding of logical and pragmatic
inference within the scope of psychological-attitude ascriptions). A second
source for the legitimacy of the ‘deviant’ inferential role is the fact that
the pragmatic enrichment of the logical vocabulary (both a constant and ‘…
yields …) is part, or a ‘rational-construction,’ of our psychological
representation of certain utterances involving the natural counterparts of
those constants. This may NOT involve a new sense of ‘and’ which is with what Grice is
fighting. While the relevant literature emphasizes “reasons to assert”
(vide Table on p. 9, Terres, 2019), it is worth pointing out that the model
should be applicable to what we might broadly construe as ‘deontic’ reasoning
(e.g. Grice on “Arrest the intruder!” in Grice 1989, and more generally his
practical syllogisms in Grice 2001). We seem to associate “assert” with
‘indicative-mode’ versions only of premise and conclusion. “Reasons to express”
or “reasons to make it explicit” may serve as a generalization to cover both
“indicative-mode” and “imperative-mode” versions of the inferences to hand. When
Grice says that, contra Strawson, he wants to see things in terms of ‘pragmatic
inference,’ not ‘logical inference,’ is he pulling himself up by his own
bootstraps? Let us clarify.When
thinking of what META-language need be used to formulate both Grice’s final
account vis-à-vis Strawson’s, it is relevant to mention that Grice once invoked
what he called the “Bootstrap” principle. In the course of considering a ‘fine
distinction’ in various levels of conceptual priority, slightly out of the
blue, he adds – this is from “Prejudices and predilections, which become, the
life and opinions of Paul Grice,” so expect some informality, and willingness
to amuse: “It is perhaps reasonable to regard such fine distinctions as
indispensable if we are to succeed in the business of pulling ourselves up by
our own bootstraps,” Grice writes. And then trust him to add: “In this
connection, it will be relevant for me to say that I once invented (though I
did not establish its validity) a principle which I labelled as ‘Bootstrap.’”
Trust him to call with a good title. “The principle,” Grice goes on, “laid down
that, when one is introducing some primitive concept [such as conjunction] of a
theory [or calculus or system] formulated in an object-language [G1],
one has freedom to use any concept from a battery of concepts expressible in
the meta-language [System G2], subject to the condition that a *counterpart*
of such a concept [say, ‘conjunction’] is sub-sequently definable, or otherwise
derivable, in the object-language [System G1].”Grice concludes by
emphasizing the point of the manoeuvre:
“So, the more economically one introduces a primitive object-language
concept, the less of a task one leaves oneself for the morrow.” [Grice 1986]. With
uncharacteristic humbleness, Grice notes that while he was able to formulate
and label “Bootstrap,” he never cared to establish its ‘validity.’ We hope we
have! “Q. E. D.,” as they say! Cf. Terres, 2019, Inquiry, p. 17: In conclusion,
the pragmatic interpretation of substructural logics may be a new and
interesting research field for the logical pluralist who wishes to endorse
classical and/or substructural logics, but also for the logical monist who aims
to interpret their divergence with a pluralist logician. The possibility is
also open of an interesting dialogue between philosophical logicians and
philosophers of language as they explore the pragmatic contributions of a
logical constant to the meaning of a complete utterance, given that a
substructural logic encodes what has been discussed by philosophers of
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Principia Mathematica. Cambridge University Press.
Conjunctum -- conjunction, the logical operation on a pair of
propositions that is typically indicated by the coordinating conjunction ‘and’.
The truth table for conjunction is Besides ‘and’, other coordinating
conjunctions, including ‘but’, ‘however’, ‘moreover’, and ‘although’, can
indicate logical conjunction, as can the semicolon ‘;’ and the comma ‘,’. conjunction elimination. 1 The argument form
‘A and B; therefore, A or B’ and arguments of this form. 2 The rule of inference
that permits one to infer either conjunct from a conjunction. This is also
known as the rule of simplification or 8-elimination. conjunction introduction. 1 The argument form
‘A, B; therefore, A and B’ and arguments of this form. 2 The rule of inference
that permits one to infer a conjunction from its two conjuncts. This is also
known as the rule of conjunction introduction, 8-introduction, or adjunction. Conjunctum
-- Why Grice used inverse V as symbol for “and” Conjunctum -- De Morgan, A.
prolific British mathematician, logician, and philosopher of mathematics and
logic. He is remembered chiefly for several lasting contributions to logic and
philosophy of logic, including discovery and deployment of the concept of
universe of discourse, the cofounding of relational logic, adaptation of what are
now known as De Morgan’s laws, and several terminological innovations including
the expression ‘mathematical induction’. His main logical works, the monograph
Formal Logic 1847 and the series of articles “On the Syllogism” 184662,
demonstrate wide historical and philosophical learning, synoptic vision,
penetrating originality, and disarming objectivity. His relational logic
treated a wide variety of inferences involving propositions whose logical forms
were significantly more complex than those treated in the traditional framework
stemming from Aristotle, e.g. ‘If every doctor is a teacher, then every
ancestor of a doctor is an ancestor of a teacher’. De Morgan’s conception of
the infinite variety of logical forms of propositions vastly widens that of his
predecessors and even that of his able contemporaries such as Boole, Hamilton,
Mill, and Whately. De Morgan did as much as any of his contemporaries toward
the creation of modern mathematical logic.
-- De Morgan’s laws, the logical principles - A 8 B S - A 7 - B, - A 7 B
S - A 8 - B, - -A 8 - B S A 7 B, and - - A 7 - B S A 8 B, though the term is
occasionally used to cover only the first two. Refs.The main published source is “Studies in the Way of
Words” (henceforth, “WOW”), I (especially Essays 1 and 4), “Presupposition and
conversational implicaturum,” in P. Cole, and the two sets on ‘Logic and
conversation,’ in The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC.
connectum
-- connected, said of a relation R where, for any two distinct elements x and y
of the domain, either xRy or yRx. R is said to be strongly connected if, for
any two elements x and y, either xRy or yRx, even if x and y are identical.
Given the domain of positive integers, for instance, the relation ‹ is
connected, since for any two distinct numbers a and b, either a ‹ b or b ‹ a. ‹
is not strongly connected, however, since if a % b we do not have either a ‹ b
or b ‹ a. The relation o, however, is Confucius connected 174 174 strongly connected, since either a o b
or b o a for any two numbers, including the case where a % b. An example of a
relation that is not connected is the subset relation 0, since it is not true that
for any two sets A and B, either A 0 B or B 0 A. connectionism, an approach to modeling
cognitive systems which utilizes networks of simple processing units that are
inspired by the basic structure of the nervous system. Other names for this
approach are neural network modeling and parallel distributed processing.
Connectionism was pioneered in the period 065 by researchers such as Frank
Rosenblatt and Oliver Selfridge. Interest in using such networks diminished
during the 0s because of limitations encountered by existing networks and the growing
attractiveness of the computer model of the mind according to which the mind
stores symbols in memory and registers and performs computations upon them.
Connectionist models enjoyed a renaissance in the 0s, partly as the result of
the discovery of means of overcoming earlier limitations e.g., development of
the back-propagation learning algorithm by David Rumelhart, Geoffrey Hinton,
and Ronald Williams, and of the Boltzmann-machine learning algorithm by David
Ackley, Geoffrey Hinton, and Terrence Sejnowski, and partly as limitations
encountered with the computer model rekindled interest in alternatives.
Researchers employing connectionist-type nets are found in a variety of
disciplines including psychology, artificial intelligence, neuroscience, and physics.
There are often major differences in the endeavors of these researchers:
psychologists and artificial intelligence researchers are interested in using
these nets to model cognitive behavior, whereas neuroscientists often use them
to model processing in particular neural systems. A connectionist system
consists of a set of processing units that can take on activation values. These
units are connected so that particular units can excite or inhibit others. The
activation of any particular unit will be determined by one or more of the
following: inputs from outside the system, the excitations or inhibitions
supplied by other units, and the previous activation of the unit. There are a
variety of different architectures invoked in connectionist systems. In feedforward
nets units are clustered into layers and connections pass activations in a
unidirectional manner from a layer of input units to a layer of output units,
possibly passing through one or more layers of hidden units along the way. In
these systems processing requires one pass of processing through the network.
Interactive nets exhibit no directionality of processing: a given unit may
excite or inhibit another unit, and it, or another unit influenced by it, might
excite or inhibit the first unit. A number of processing cycles will ensue
after an input has been given to some or all of the units until eventually the
network settles into one state, or cycles through a small set of such states.
One of the most attractive features of connectionist networks is their ability
to learn. This is accomplished by adjusting the weights connecting the various
units of the system, thereby altering the manner in which the network responds
to inputs. To illustrate the basic process of connectionist learning, consider a
feedforward network with just two layers of units and one layer of connections.
One learning procedure commonly referred to as the delta rule first requires
the network to respond, using current weights, to an input. The activations on
the units of the second layer are then compared to a set of target activations,
and detected differences are used to adjust the weights coming from active
input units. Such a procedure gradually reduces the difference between the
actual response and the target response. In order to construe such networks as
cognitive models it is necessary to interpret the input and output units.
Localist interpretations treat individual input and output units as
representing concepts such as those found in natural language. Distributed interpretations
correlate only patterns of activation of a number of units with ordinary
language concepts. Sometimes but not always distributed models will interpret
individual units as corresponding to microfeatures. In one interesting
variation on distributed representation, known as coarse coding, each symbol
will be assigned to a different subset of the units of the system, and the
symbol will be viewed as active only if a predefined number of the assigned
units are active. A number of features of connectionist nets make them
particularly attractive for modeling cognitive phenomena in addition to their
ability to learn from experience. They are extremely efficient at
pattern-recognition tasks and often generalize very well from training inputs
to similar test inputs. They can often recover complete patterns from partial
inputs, making them good models for content-addressable memory. Interactive
networks are particularly useful in modeling cognitive tasks in which multiple
constraints must be satisfied simultaneously, or in which the goal is to
satisfy competing constraints as well as possible. In a natural manner they can
override some constraints on a problem when it is not possible to satisfy all,
thus treating the constraints as soft. While the cognitive connectionist models
are not intended to model actual neural processing, they suggest how cognitive
processes can be realized in neural hardware. They also exhibit a feature
demonstrated by the brain but difficult to achieve in symbolic systems: their
performance degrades gracefully as units or connections are disabled or the
capacity of the network is exceeded, rather than crashing. Serious challenges
have been raised to the usefulness of connectionism as a tool for modeling
cognition. Many of these challenges have come from theorists who have focused
on the complexities of language, especially the systematicity exhibited in
language. Jerry Fodor and Zenon Pylyshyn, for example, have emphasized the
manner in which the meaning of complex sentences is built up compositionally
from the meaning of components, and argue both that compositionality applies to
thought generally and that it requires a symbolic system. Therefore, they
maintain, while cognitive systems might be implemented in connectionist nets,
these nets do not characterize the architecture of the cognitive system itself,
which must have capacities for symbol storage and manipulation. Connectionists
have developed a variety of responses to these objections, including
emphasizing the importance of cognitive functions such as pattern recognition,
which have not been as successfully modeled by symbolic systems; challenging
the need for symbol processing in accounting for linguistic behavior; and
designing more complex connectionist architectures, such as recurrent networks,
capable of responding to or producing systematic structures.
connotatum –
intension -- connotation. 1 The ideas and associations brought to mind by an
expression used in contrast with ‘denotation’ and ‘meaning’. 2 In a technical
use, the properties jointly necessary and sufficient for the correct
application of the expression in question.
sequentia:
consequentia -- consequentialism, the doctrine that the moral rightness of an
act is determined solely by the goodness of the act’s consequences. Prominent
consequentialists include J. S. Mill, Moore, and Sidgwick. Maximizing versions
of consequentialism the most common
sort hold that an act is morally right
if and only if it produces the best consequences of those acts available to the
agent. Satisficing consequentialism holds that an act is morally right if and
only if it produces enough good consequences on balance. Consequentialist
theories are often contrasted with deontological ones, such as Kant’s, which
hold that the rightness of an act is determined at least in part by something
other than the goodness of the act’s consequences. A few versions of
consequentialism are agentrelative: that is, they give each agent different
aims, so that different agents’ aims may conflict. For instance, egoistic
consequentialism holds that the moral rightness of an act for an agent depends
solely on the goodness of its consequences for him or her. However, the vast
majority of consequentialist theories have been agent-neutral and
consequentialism is often defined in a more restrictive way so that
agentrelative versions do not count as consequentialist. A doctrine is
agent-neutral when it gives to each agent the same ultimate aims, so that
different agents’ aims cannot conflict. For instance, utilitarianism holds that
an act is morally right if and only if it produces more happiness for the
sentient beings it affects than any other act available to the agent. This
gives each agent the same ultimate aim, and so is agent-neutral.
Consequentialist theories differ over what features of acts they hold to
determine their goodness. Utilitarian versions hold that the only consequences
of an act relevant to its goodness are its effects on the happiness of sentient
beings. But some consequentialists hold that the promotion of other things
matters too achievement, autonomy,
knowledge, or fairness, for instance. Thus utilitarianism, as a maximizing,
agent-neutral, happiness-based view is only one of a broad range of consequentialist
theories. consequentia mirabilis, the
logical principle that if a statement follows from its own negation it must be
true. Strict consequentia mirabilis is the principle that if a statement
follows logically from its own negation it is logically true. The principle is
often connected with the paradoxes of strict implication, according to which
any statement follows from a contradiction. Since the negation of a tautology
is a contradiction, every tautology follows from its own negation. However, if
every expression of the form ‘if p then q’ implies ‘not-p or q’ they need not
be equivalent, then from ‘if not-p then p’ we can derive ‘not-not-p or p’ and
by the principles of double negation and repetition derive p. Since all of
these rules are unexceptionable the principle of consequentia mirabilis is also
unexceptionable. It is, however, somewhat counterintuitive, hence the name ‘the
astonishing implication’, which goes back to its medieval discoverers or
rediscoverers.
Consistentia:
consistency, in traditional Aristotelian logic, a semantic notion: two or more
statements are called consistent if they are simultaneously true under some
interpretation cf., e.g., W. S. Jevons, Elementary Lessons in Logic, 1870. In
modern logic there is a syntactic definition that also fits complex e.g.,
mathematical theories developed since Frege’s Begriffsschrift 1879: a set of
statements is called consistent with respect to a certain logical calculus, if
no formula ‘P & P’ is derivable from those statements by the rules of the
calculus; i.e., the theory is free from contradictions. If these definitions
are equivalent for a logic, we have a significant fact, as the equivalence
amounts to the completeness of its system of rules. The first such completeness
theorem was obtained for sentential or propositional logic by Paul Bernays in 8
in his Habilitationsschrift that was partially published as Axiomatische
Untersuchung des Aussagen-Kalküls der “Principia Mathematica,” 6 and,
independently, by Emil Post in Introduction to a General Theory of Elementary
Propositions, 1; the completeness of predicate logic was proved by Gödel in Die
Vollständigkeit der Axiome des logischen Funktionenkalküls, 0. The crucial step
in such proofs shows that syntactic consistency implies semantic consistency.
Cantor applied the notion of consistency to sets. In a well-known letter to
Dedekind 9 he distinguished between an inconsistent and a consistent
multiplicity; the former is such “that the assumption that all of its elements
‘are together’ leads to a contradiction,” whereas the elements of the latter
“can be thought of without contradiction as ‘being together.’ “ Cantor had
conveyed these distinctions and their motivation by letter to Hilbert in 7 see
W. Purkert and H. J. Ilgauds, Georg Cantor, 7. Hilbert pointed out explicitly
in 4 that Cantor had not given a rigorous criterion for distinguishing between
consistent and inconsistent multiplicities. Already in his Über den Zahlbegriff
9 Hilbert had suggested a remedy by giving consistency proofs for suitable
axiomatic systems; e.g., to give the proof of the “existence of the totality of
real numbers or in the terminology of G.
Cantor the proof of the fact that the
system of real numbers is a consistent complete set” by establishing the
consistency of an axiomatic characterization of the reals in modern terminology, of the theory of
complete, ordered fields. And he claimed, somewhat indeterminately, that this
could be done “by a suitable modification of familiar methods.” After 4, Hilbert
pursued a new way of giving consistency proofs. This novel way of proceeding,
still aiming for the same goal, was to make use of the formalization of the
theory at hand. However, in the formulation of Hilbert’s Program during the 0s
the point of consistency proofs was no longer to guarantee the existence of
suitable sets, but rather to establish the instrumental usefulness of strong
mathematical theories T, like axiomatic set theory, relative to finitist
mathematics. That focus rested on the observation that the statement
formulating the syntactic consistency of T is equivalent to the reflection
principle Pra, ‘s’ P s; here Pr is the finitist proof predicate for T, s is a
finitistically meaningful statement, and ‘s’ its translation into the language of
T. If one could establish finitistically the consistency of T, one could be
sure on finitist grounds that T is a reliable instrument for the proof
of finitist statements. There are many examples of significant relative
consistency proofs: i non-Euclidean geometry relative to Euclidean, Euclidean
geometry relative to analysis; ii set theory with the axiom of choice relative
to set theory without the axiom of choice, set theory with the negation of the
axiom of choice relative to set theory; iii classical arithmetic relative to
intuitionistic arithmetic, subsystems of classical analysis relative to
intuitionistic theories of constructive ordinals. The mathematical significance
of relative consistency proofs is often brought out by sharpening them to establish
conservative extension results; the latter may then ensure, e.g., that the
theories have the same class of provably total functions. The initial
motivation for such arguments is, however, frequently philosophical: one wants
to guarantee the coherence of the original theory on an epistemologically
distinguished basis.
The English constitution
– an example Grice gives of a ‘vacuous name’ -- constitution, a relation
between concrete particulars including objects and events and their parts,
according to which at some time t, a concrete particular is said to be
constituted by the sum of its parts without necessarily being identical with
that sum. For instance, at some specific time t, Mt. Everest is constituted by
the various chunks of rock and other matter that form Everest at t, though at t
Everest would still have been Everest even if, contrary to fact, some
particular rock that is part of the sum had been absent. Hence, although Mt.
Everest is not identical to the sum of its material parts at t, it is
constituted by them. The relation of constitution figures importantly in recent
attempts to articulate and defend metaphysical physicalism naturalism. To
capture the idea that all that exists is ultimately physical, we may say that
at the lowest level of reality, there are only microphysical phenomena,
governed by the laws of microphysics, and that all other objects and events are
ultimately constituted by objects and events at the microphysical level.
context:
while Grice jocularly echoes Firth with his ‘context of utterance,’ he thought
the theory of context was ‘totally lacking in context.’ H. P. Grice, “The
general theory of context,” -- contextualism, the view that inferential
justification always takes place against a background of beliefs that are
themselves in no way evidentially supported. The view has not often been
defended by name, but Dewey, Popper, Austin, and Vitters are arguably among its
notable exponents. As this list perhaps suggests, contextualism is closely
related to the “relevant alternatives” conception of justification, according
to which claims to knowledge are justified not by ruling out any and every
logically possible way in which what is asserted might be false or inadequately
grounded, but by excluding certain especially relevant alternatives or
epistemic shortcomings, these varying from one context of inquiry to another.
Formally, contextualism resembles foundationalism. But it differs from
traditional, or substantive, foundationalism in two crucial respects. First,
foundationalism insists that basic beliefs be self-justifying or intrinsically
credible. True, for contemporary foundationalists, this intrinsic credibility
need not amount to incorrigibility, as earlier theorists tended to suppose: but
some degree of intrinsic credibility is indispensable for basic beliefs.
Second, substantive foundational theories confine intrinsic credibility, hence
the status of being epistemologically basic, to beliefs of some fairly narrowly
specified kinds. By contrast, contextualists reject all forms of the doctrine
of intrinsic credibility, and in consequence place no restrictions on the kinds
of beliefs that can, in appropriate circumstances, function as contextually
basic. They regard this as a strength of their position, since explaining and
defending attributions of intrinsic credibility has always been the foundationalist’s
main problem. Contextualism is also distinct from the coherence theory of
justification, foundationalism’s traditional rival. Coherence theorists are as
suspicious as contextualists of the foundationalist’s specified kinds of basic
beliefs. But coherentists react by proposing a radically holistic model of
inferential justification, according to which a belief becomes justified
through incorporation into a suitably coherent overall system of beliefs or
“total view.” There are many well-known problems with this approach: the
criteria of coherence have never been very clearly articulated; it is not clear
what satisfying such criteria has to do with making our beliefs likely to be
true; and since it is doubtful whether anyone has a very clear picture of his
system of beliefs as a whole, to insist that justification involves comparing
the merits of competing total views seems to subject ordinary justificatory
practices to severe idealization. Contextualism, in virtue of its formal
affinity with foundationalism, claims to avoid all such problems.
Foundationalists and coherentists are apt to respond that contextualism reaps
these benefits by failing to show how genuinely epistemic justification is
possible. Contextualism, they charge, is finally indistinguishable from the
skeptical view that “justification” depends on unwarranted assumptions. Even
if, in context, these are pragmatically acceptable, epistemically speaking they
are still just assumptions. This objection raises the question whether contextualists
mean to answer the same questions as more traditional theorists, or answer them
in the same way. Traditional theories of justification are framed so as to
respond to highly general skeptical questions
e.g., are we justified in any of our beliefs about the external world?
It may be that contextualist theories are or should be advanced, not as direct
answers to skepticism, but in conjunction with attempts to diagnose or dissolve
traditional skeptical problems. Contextualists need to show how and why
traditional demands for “global” justification misfire, if they do. If
traditional skeptical problems are taken at face value, it is doubtful whether
contextualism can answer them.
continental
breakfast: Grice enjoyed a continental breakfast at Oxford, and
an English breakfast in Rome – As for ‘continental’ “philosophy,” Grice applied
it to the gradually changing spectrum of philosophical views that in the
twentieth century developed in Continental Europe and that are notably
different from the various forms of analytic philosophy that during the same
period flourished at Oxford. Immediately after World War II the expression “philosophie
continentale” was more or less synonymous with ‘phenomenology’. The latter
term, already used earlier in G. idealism, received a completely new meaning in
the work of Husserl. Later on “phainomenologie” was also applied, often with
substantial changes in meaning, to the thought of a great number of other
Continental philosophers such as Scheler, Alexander Pfander, Hedwig Conrad-Martius,
and Nicolai Hartmann. For Husserl the aim of philosophy is to prepare humankind
for a genuinely philosophical form of life, in and through which each human
being gives him- or herself a rule through reason. Since the Renaissance, many
philosophers have tried in vain to materialize this aim. In Husserl’s view, the
reason was that philosophers failed to use the proper philosophical method.
Husserl’s phenomenology was meant to provide philosophy with the method needed.
Among those deeply influenced by Husserl’s ideas the so-called existentialists
must be mentioned first. If ‘existentialism’ is construed strictly, it refers
mainly to the philosophy of Sartre and Beauvoir. In a very broad sense
‘existentialism’ refers to the ideas of an entire group of thinkers influenced
methodologically by Husserl and in content by Marcel, Heidegger, Sartre, or
Merleau-Ponty, and one may go and include S. N. Hampshire into the bargain. In
this case one often speaks of existential phenomenology. When Heidegger’s philosophy
became better known at Oxford, ‘continental philosophy’ received again a new
meaning. From Heidegger’s first publication, Being and Time 7, it was clear
that his conception of phenomenology differs from that of Husserl in several
important respects. That is why he qualified the term and spoke of hermeneutic
phenomenology and clarified the expression by examining the “original” meaning
of the Grecian words from which the term was formed. In his view phenomenology
must try “to let that which shows itself be seen from itself in the very way in
which it shows itself from itself.” Heidegger applied the method first to the
mode of being of man with the aim of approaching the question concerning the
meaning of being itself through this phenomenological interpretation. Of those
who took their point of departure from Heidegger, but also tried to go beyond
him, Gadamer and Ricoeur must be mentioned. The structuralist movement in
France added another connotation to ‘Continental philosophy’. The term structuralism
above all refers to an activity, a way of knowing, speaking, and acting that
extends over a number of distinguished domains of human activity: linguistics,
aesthetics, anthropology, psychology, psychoanalysis, mathematics, philosophy
of science, and philosophy itself. Structuralism, which became a fashion in
Paris and later in Western Europe generally, reached its high point on the
Continent between 0 and 0. It was inspired by ideas first formulated by Russian
formalism 626 and Czech structuralism 640, but also by ideas derived from the
works of Marx and Freud. In France Foucault, Barthes, Althusser, and Derrida
were the leading figures. Structuralism is not a new philosophical movement; it
must be characterized by structuralist activity, which is meant to evoke ever
new objects. This can be done in a constructive and a reconstructive manner,
but these two ways of evoking objects can never be separated. One finds the
constructive aspect primarily in structuralist aesthetics and linguistics,
whereas the reconstructive aspect is more apparent in philosophical reflections
upon the structuralist activity. Influenced by Nietzschean ideas, structuralism
later developed in a number of directions, including poststructuralism; in this
context the works of Gilles Deleuze, Lyotard, Irigaray, and Kristeva must be
mentioned. After 0 ‘Continental philosophy’ received again a new connotation:
deconstruction. At first deconstruction presented itself as a reaction against
philosophical hermeneutics, even though both deconstruction and hermeneutics
claim their origin in Heidegger’s reinterpretation of Husserl’s phenomenology.
The leading philosopher of the movement is Derrida, who at first tried to think
along phenomenological and structuralist lines. Derrida formulated his “final”
view in a linguistic form that is both complex and suggestive. It is not easy
in a few sentences to state what deconstruction is. Generally speaking one can
say that what is being deconstructed is texts; they are deconstructed to show
that there are conflicting conceptions of meaning and implication in every text
so that it is never possible definitively to show what a text really means.
Derrida’s own deconstructive work is concerned mainly with philosophical texts,
whereas others apply the “method” predominantly to literary texts. What
according to Derrida distinguished philosophy is its reluctance to face the
fact that it, too, is a product of linguistic and rhetorical figures.
Deconstruction is here that process of close reading that focuses on those
elements where philosophers in their work try to erase all knowledge of its own
linguistic and rhetorical dimensions. It has been said that if construction
typifies modern thinking, then deconstruction is the mode of thinking that
radically tries to overcome modernity. Yet this view is simplistic, since one
also deconstructs Plato and many other thinkers and philosophers of the
premodern age. People concerned with social and political philosophy who have
sought affiliation with Continental philosophy often appeal to the so-called
critical theory of the Frankfurt School in general, and to Habermas’s theory of
communicative action in particular. Habermas’s view, like the position of the
Frankfurt School in general, is philosophically eclectic. It tries to bring
into harmony ideas derived from Kant, G. idealism, and Marx, as well as ideas
from the sociology of knowledge and the social sciences. Habermas believes that
his theory makes it possible to develop a communication community without
alienation that is guided by reason in such a way that the community can stand
freely in regard to the objectively given reality. Critics have pointed out
that in order to make this theory work Habermas must substantiate a number of
assumptions that until now he has not been able to justify.
Grice’s
contingency planning -- “What is actual is not also possible”
“What is necessary is not also contingent” -- contingent, neither impossible
nor necessary; i.e., both possible and non-necessary. The modal property of
being contingent is attributable to a proposition, state of affairs, event,
or more debatably an object. Muddles about the relationship
between this and other modal properties have abounded ever since Aristotle, who
initially conflated contingency with possibility but later realized that
something that is possible may also be necessary, whereas something that is
contingent cannot be necessary. Even today many philosophers are not clear
about the “opposition” between contingency and necessity, mistakenly supposing
them to be contradictory notions probably because within the domain of true
propositions the contingent and the necessary are indeed both exclusive and
exhaustive of one another. But the contradictory of ‘necessary’ is
‘non-necessary’; that of ‘contingent’ is ‘non-contingent’, as the following
extended modal square of opposition shows: These logico-syntactical
relationships are preserved through various semantical interpretations, such as
those involving: a the logical modalities proposition P is logically contingent
just when P is neither a logical truth nor a logical falsehood; b the causal or
physical modalities state of affairs or event E is physically contingent just
when E is neither physically necessary nor physically impossible; and c the
deontic modalities act A is morally indeterminate just when A is neither
morally obligatory nor morally forbidden. In none of these cases does
‘contingent’ mean ‘dependent,’ as in the phrase ‘is contingent upon’. Yet just
such a notion of contingency seems to feature prominently in certain
formulations of the cosmological argument, all created objects being said to be
contingent beings and God alone to be a necessary or non-contingent being.
Conceptual clarity is not furthered by assimilating this sense of ‘contingent’
to the others.
contrapositum: the
immediate logical operation on any categorical proposition that is accomplished
by first forming the complements of both the subject term and the predicate
term of that proposition and then interchanging these complemented terms. Thus,
contraposition applied to the categorical proposition ‘All cats are felines’
yields ‘All non-felines are non-cats’, where ‘nonfeline’ and ‘non-cat’ are,
respectively, the complements or complementary terms of ‘feline’ and ‘cat’. The
result of applying contraposition to a categorical proposition is said to be
the contrapositive of that proposition.
contraries, any pair of propositions that cannot both be true but can
both be false; derivatively, any pair of properties that cannot both apply to a
thing but that can both fail to apply to a thing. Thus the propositions ‘This
object is red all over’ and ‘This object is green all over’ are contraries, as
are the properties of being red all over and being green all over.
Traditionally, it was considered that the categorical A-proposition ‘All S’s are
P’s’ and the categorical E-proposition ‘No S’s are P’s’ were contraries; but
according to De Morgan and most subsequent logicians, these two propositions
are both true when there are no S’s at all, so that modern logicians do not
usually regard the categorical A- and E-propositions as being true
contraries. contravalid, designating a
proposition P in a logical system such that every proposition in the system is
a consequence of P. In most of the typical and familiar logical systems,
contravalidity coincides with self-contradictoriness.
voluntary
and rational control – the power structure of the soul --
Grice’s intersubjective conversational control, -- for Grice only what is under
one’s control is communicated – spots mean measles only metaphorically, the
spots don’t communicate measles. An involuntary cry does not ‘mean.’ Only a
simulated cry of pain is a vehicle by which an emissor may mean that he is in
pain. an apparently causal phenomenon closely akin to power and important for
such topics as intentional action, freedom, and moral responsibility. Depending
upon the control you had over the event, your finding a friend’s stolen car may
or may not be an intentional action, a free action, or an action for which you
deserve moral credit. Control seems to be a causal phenomenon. Try to imagine
controlling a car, say, without causing anything. If you cause nothing, you
have no effect on the car, and one does not control a thing on which one has no
effect. But control need not be causally deterministic. Even if a genuine
randomizer in your car’s steering mechanism gives you only a 99 percent chance
of making turns you try to make, you still have considerable control in that
sphere. Some philosophers claim that we have no control over anything if causal
determinism is true. That claim is false. When you drive your car, you normally
are in control of its speed and direction, even if our world happens to be
deterministic.
conversational
avowal: The phrase is a Ryleism, but
Grice liked it. Grice’s point is with corrigibility or lack thereof. He recalls
his tutorials with Strawson. “I want you to bring me a paper on Friday.” “You
mean The Telegraph?” “You know what I mean.”
“But perhaps you don’t.” Grice’s favourite conversational avowal,
mentioned by Grice, is a declaration of an intention.. Grice starts using the
phrase ‘conversational avowal’ after exploring Ryle’s rather cursory
exploration of them in The Concept of Mind. This is interesting because in
general Grice is an anti-ryleist. The verb is of course ‘to avow,’ which
is ultimately a Latinate from ‘advocare.’ A processes or event of the soul is,
on the official view, supposed to be played out in a private theatre. Such an
event is known directly by the man who has them either through the faculty of
introspection or the ‘phosphorescence’ of consciousness. The subject is,
on this view, incorrigible—his avowals of the state of his soul cannot be
corrected by others—and he is infallible—he cannot be wrong about which states
he is in. The official doctrine mistakenly construes an avowals or a
report of such an episode as issuing from a special sort of observation or
perception of shadowy existents. We should consider some differences
between two sorts of 'conversational' avowals: (i) I feel a tickle and (ii) I
feel ill. If a man feels a tickle, he has a tickle, and if he has a tickle, he
feels it. But if he feels ill, he may not be ill, and if he is ill, he may
not feel ill. Doubtless a man’s feeling ill is some evidence for his being
ill. But feeling a tickle is not evidence for his having a tickle, any more
than striking a blow is evidence for the occurrence of a blow. In ‘feel a
tickle’ and ‘strike a blow’, ‘tickle’ and ‘blow’ are cognate accusatives to the
verbs ‘feel’ and ‘strike’. The verb and its accusative are two expressions
for the same thing, as are the verbs and their accusatives in ‘I dreamt a
dream’ and ‘I asked a question’. But ‘ill’ and ‘capable of climbing the tree’
are not cognate accusatives to the verb ‘to feel.' So they are not in grammar
bound to signify feelings, as ‘tickle’ is in grammar bound to signify a
feeling. Another purely grammatical point shows the same thing. It is
indifferent whether I say ‘I feel a tickle’ or ‘I have a tickle’; but ‘I have .
. .’ cannot be completed by ‘. . . ill’, (cf. ‘I have an illness’), ‘. . .
capable of climbing the tree’, (cf. I have a capability to climb that tree’) ‘.
. . happy’ (cf. ‘I have a feeling of happiness’ or ‘I have happiness in my
life’) or ‘. . . discontented’ (cf. ‘I have a feeling of strong discontent
towards behaviourism’). If we try to restore the verbal parallel by bringing in
the appropriate abstract nouns, we find a further incongruity; ‘I feel
happiness’(I feel as though I am experiencing happiness), ‘I feel illness’ (I
feel as though I do have an illness’) or ‘I feel ability to climb the tree’ (I
feel that I am endowed with the capability to climb that tree), if they mean
anything, they do not mean at all what a man means by uttering ‘I feel happy,’
or ‘I feel ill,’ or ‘I feel capable of climbing the tree’. On the other
hand, besides these differences between the different uses of ‘I feel . . .’
there are important CONVERSATIONAL analogies as well. If a man says that
he has a tickle, his co-conversationalist does not ask for his evidence, or
requires him to make quite sure. Announcing a tickle is not proclaiming the
results of an investigation. A tickle is not something established by
careful witnessing, or something inferred from a clue, nor do we praise for his
powers of observation or reasoning a man who let us know that he feels tickles,
tweaks and flutters. Just the same is true of avowals of moods. If a man
makes a conversational contribution, such as‘I feel bored’, or ‘I feel
depressed’, his co-conversationalist does not usually ask him for his evidence,
or request him to make sure. The co-conversationalist may accuse the man of
shamming to him or to himself, but the co-conversationalist does not accuse him
of having been careless in his observations or rash in his inferences, since a
co-conversationalist would not usually think that his conversational avowal is
a report of an observation or a conclusion. He has not been a good or a
bad detective; he has not been a detective at all. Nothing would surprise us
more than to hear him say ‘I feel depressed’ in the alert and judicious tone of
voice of a detective, a microscopist, or a diagnostician, though this tone of
voice is perfectly congruous with the NON-AVOWAL past-tense ‘I WAS feeling
depressed’ or the NON-AVOWAL third-person report, ‘HE feels depressed’. If the
avowal is to do its conversational job, it must be said in a depressed tone of
voice. The conversational avowal must be blurted out to a sympathizer, not reported
to an investigator. Avowing ‘I feel depressed’ is doing one of the things, viz.
one CONVERSATIONAL thing, that depression is the mood to do. It is not a piece
of scientific premiss-providing, but a piece of ‘conversational moping.’That is
why, if the co-conversationalist is suspicious, he does not ask ‘Fact or
fiction?’, ‘True or false?’, ‘Reliable or unreliable?’, but ‘Sincere or
shammed?’ The CONVERSATIONAL avowal of moods requires not acumen, but
openness. It comes from the heart, not from the head. It is not
discovery, but voluntary non-concealment. Of course people have to learn how to
use avowal expressions appropriately and they may not learn these lessons very
well. They learn them from ordinary discussions of the moods of others and from
such more fruitful sources as novels and the theatre. They learn from the same
sources how to cheat both other people and themselves by making a sham
conversational avowal in the proper tone of voice and with the other proper
histrionic accompaniments. If we now raise the question ‘How does a man find
out what mood he is in?’ one can answer that if, as may not be the case, he
finds it out at all, he finds it out very much as we find it out. As we have
seen, he does not groan ‘I feel bored’ because he has found out that he is
bored, any more than the sleepy man yawns because he has found out that he is
sleepy. Rather, somewhat as the sleepy man finds out that he is sleepy by
finding, among other things, that he keeps on yawning, so the bored man finds
out that he is bored, if he does find this out, by finding that among other
things he glumly says to others and to himself ‘I feel bored’ and ‘How bored I
feel’. Such a blurted avowal is not merely one fairly reliable index among
others. It is the first and the best index, since being worded and voluntarily
uttered, it is meant to be heard and it is meant to be understood. It calls for
no sleuth-work.In some respects a conversational avowal of a moods, like ‘I
feel cheerful,’ more closely resemble announcements of sensations like ‘I feel
a tickle’ than they resemble utterances like ‘I feel better’ or ‘I feel capable
of climbing the tree’. Just as it would be absurd to say ‘I feel a tickle but
maybe I haven’t one’, so, in ordinary cases, it would be absurd to say ‘I feel
cheerful but maybe I am not’. But there would be no absurdity in saying ‘I FEEL
better but, to judge by the doctor’s attitude, perhaps I am WORSE’, or ‘I do
FEEL as if I am capable of climbing the tree but maybe I cannot climb it.’This
difference can be brought out in another way. Sometimes it is natural to say ‘I
feel AS IF I could eat a horse’, or ‘I feel AS IF my temperature has returned
to normal’. But, more more immediate conversational avowals, it would seldom if
ever be natural to say ‘I feel AS IF I were in the dumps’, or ‘I feel AS IF I
were bored’, any more than it would be natural to say ‘I feel AS IF I had a
pain’. Not much would be gained by discussing at length why we use ‘feel’ in
these different ways. There are hosts of other ways in which it is also used. I
can say ‘I felt a lump in the mattress’, ‘I felt cold’, ‘I felt queer’, ‘I felt
my jaw-muscles stiffen’, ‘I felt my gorge rise’, ‘I felt my chin with my
thumb’, ‘I felt in vain for the lever’, ‘I felt as if something important was
about to happen’, ‘I felt that there was a flaw somewhere in the argument’, ‘I
felt quite at home’, ‘I felt that he was angry’. A feature common to most
of these uses of ‘feel’ is that the utterer does not want further questions to
be put. They would be either unanswerable questions, or unaskable questions.
That he felt it is enough to settle some debates.That he merely felt it is
enough to show that debates should not even begin. Names of moods, then, are
not the names of feelings. But to be in a particular mood is to be in the mood,
among other things, to feel certain sorts of feelings in certain sorts of
situations. To be in a lazy mood, is, among other things, to tend to have
sensations of lassitude in the limbs when jobs have to be done, to have cosy
feelings of relaxation when the deck-chair is resumed, not to have electricity
feelings when the game begins, and so forth. But we are not thinking
primarily of these feelings when we say that we feel lazy; in fact, we seldom
pay much heed to sensations of these kinds, save when they are abnormally
acute. Is a name of a mood a name
of an emotion? The only tolerable reply is that of course they are, in that
some people some of the time use ‘emotion’. But then we must add that in this
usage an emotion is not something that can be segregated from thinking,
daydreaming, voluntarily doing things, grimacing or feeling pangs and itches.
To have the emotion, in this usage, which we ordinarily refer to as ‘being
bored’, is to be in the mood to think certain sorts of thoughts, and not to
think other sorts, to yawn and not to chuckle, to converse with stilted
politeness, and not to talk with animation, to feel flaccid and not to feel
resilient. Boredom is not some unique distinguishable ingredient, scene or
feature of all that its victim is doing and undergoing. Rather it is the
temporary complexion of that totality. It is not like a gust, a sunbeam, a
shower or the temperature; it is like the morning’s weather. An unstudied
conversational utterance may embody an explicit interest phrase, or a
conversational avowal, such as ‘I want it’, ‘I hope so’, ‘That’s what I
intend’, ‘I quite dislike it’, ‘Surely I am depressed’, ‘I do wonder, too’, ‘I
guess so’ and ‘I am feeling hungry.’The surface grammar (if not logical form)
makes it tempting to misconstrue all the utterances as a description. But in
its primary employment such a conversational avowal as ‘I want it’ is not used
to convey information.‘I want it’ is used to make a request or demand. ‘I want
it’ is no more meant as a contribution to general knowledge than ‘please’. For
a co-conversationalist to respond with the tag ‘Do you?’ or worse, as Grice’s
tutee, with ‘*how* do you *know* that you want it?’ is glaringly inappropriate.
Nor, in their primary employment, are conversational avowals such as ‘I hate
it’ or ‘That’s what I I intend’ used for the purpose of telling one’s addressee
facts about the utterer; or else we should not be surprised to hear them
uttered in the cool, informative tones of voice in which one says ‘HE hates it’
and ‘That’s what he intends’. We expect a conversational avowal, on the
contrary, to be spoken in a revolted and a resolute tone of voice respectively.
It is an utterances of a man in a revolted and resolute frame of mind. A
conversational avowal is a thing said in detestation and resolution and not a
thing said in order to advance biographical knowledge about detestations and
resolutions. A man who notices the unstudied utterances of the utterer,
who may or may not be himself, is, if his interest in the utterer has the
appropriate direction, especially well situated to pass comments upon the
qualities and frames of mind of its author.‘avowal’ as a philosophical lexeme
may not invite an immediate correlate in the Graeco-Roman, ultimately Grecian,
tradition. ‘Confessio’ springs to mind, but this is not what Grice is thinking
about. He is more concerned with issues of privileged access and
incorrigibility, or corrigibility, rather, as per the alleged immediacy of a
first-person report of the form, “I feel that …” . Grice does use ‘avowal’
often especially in the early stages, when the logical scepticism about
incorrigibility comes under attack. Just to be different, Grice is interested
in the corrigibility of the avowal. The issue is of some importance in his
account of the act of communication, and how one can disimplicate what one
means. Grice loves to play with his tutee doubting as to whether he means that
p or q. Except at Oxford, the whole thing has a ridiculous ring to it. I want
you to bring me a paper by Friday. You mean the newspaper? You very well know
what I mean. But perhaps you do not. Are you sure you mean a philosophy paper
when you utter, ‘I want you to bring a paper by Friday’? As Grice notes, in
case of self-deception and egcrateia, it may well be that the utterer does not
know what he desires, if not what he intends, if anything. Freud and Foucault
run galore. The topic will interest a collaborator of Grice’s, Pears, with his
concept of ‘motivated irrationality.’ Grice likes to discuss a category
mistake. I may be categorically mistaken but I am not categorically
confused. Now when it comes to avowal-avowal, it is only natural that if he is
interested in Aristotle on ‘hedone,’ Grice would be interested in
Aristotle on ‘lupe.’ This is very philosophical, as Urmson agrees. Can one
‘fake’ pain? Why would one fake pain? Oddly, this is for Grice the origin of
language. Is pleasure just the absence of pain? Liddell and Soctt have “λύπη”
and render it as pain of body, oἡδον; also, sad plight or condition, but also
pain of mind, grief; “ά; δῆγμα δὲ λύπης οὐδὲν ἐφ᾽ ἧπαρ προσικνεῖται; τί γὰρ
καλὸν ζῆν βίοτον, ὃς λύπας φέρει; ἐρωτικὴ λ.’ λύπας προσβάλλειν;” “λ. φέρειν
τινί; oχαρά.” Oddly, Grice goes back to pain in Princeton, since it is explored
by Smart in his identity thesis. Take pain. Surely, Grice tells the
Princetonians, it sounds harsh, to echo Berkeley, to say that it is the brain
of Smith being in this or that a state which is justified by insufficient
evidence; whereas it surely sounds less harsh that it is the C-fibres that
constitute his ‘pain,’ which he can thereby fake. Grice distinguishes between a
complete unstructured utterance token – “Ouch” – versus a complete
syntactically structured erotetic utterance of the type, “Are you in pain?”. At
the Jowett, Corpus Barnes has read Ogden and says ‘Ouch’ (‘Oh’) bears an
‘emotional’ or ‘emotive’ communicatum provided there is an intention there
somewhere. Otherwise, no communicatum occurs. But if there is an intention, the
‘Oh’ can always be a fake. Grice distinguishes between a ‘fake’ and a ‘sneak.’
If U intends A to perceive ‘Oh’ as a fake, U means that he is in pain. If there
is a sneaky intention behind the utterance, which U does NOT intend his A to
recognise, there is no communicatum. Grice criticises emotivism as rushing
ahead to analyse a nuance before exploring what sort of a nuance it is. Surely
there is more to the allegedly ‘pseudo-descriptive’ ‘x is good,’ than U meaning
that U emotionally approves of x. In his ‘myth,’ Grice uses pain magisterially
as an excellent example for a privileged-access allegedly incorrigible avowal,
and stage 0 in his creature progression. By uttering ‘Oh!,’ under voluntary
control, Barnes means, iconically, that he is in pain. Pain fall under the
broader keyword: emotion, as anger does. Cf. Aristotle on the emotion in De
An., Rhet., and Eth. Nich. Knowing that at Oxford, if you are a classicist, you
are not a philosopher, Grice never explores the Stoic, say, approach to pain,
or lack thereof (“Which is good, since Walter Pater did it for me!”). Refs.:
“Can I have a pain in my tail?” The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC MSS 90/135c, The
Bancroft Library, The University of California, Berkeley.
conversational benevolence: In Grice it’s not benevolence per
se but as a force in a two-force model, with self-love on the other side. The
fact that he later subsumed everything under ONE concept: that of co-operation
(first helpfulness) testifies that he is placing more conceptual strength on
‘benevolence’ than ‘self love.’ But the self-love’ remains in all the caveats
and provisos that Grice keeps guarding his claims with: ‘ceteris paribus,’
‘provided there’s not much effort involved,’ ‘if no unnecessary trouble
arises,’ and so on. It’s never benevolence simpliciter or tout court. When it
comes to co-operation, the self-love remains: the mutual goal of that
co-operation is in the active and the passive voice – You expect me to be
helpful as much as I expect you to be helpful. We are in this together. The
active/passive voice formulation is emphatic in Grice: informing AND BEING
INFORMED; influencing AND BEING INFLUENCED. The self-love goes: I won’t inform
you unless you’ll inform me. I won’t influence you unless you influence me. The
‘influence’ bit does not seem to cooperative. But the ‘inform’ side does. By
‘inform,’ the idea is that the psi-transmission concerns a true belief. “I’ll
be truthful if you will.” This is the sort of thing that Nietzsche found
repugnant and identified with the golden rule was totally immoral. – It was felt
by Russell to be immoral enough that he cared to mention in a letter to The
Times about how abusive Nietzsche can be – yet what a gem “Beyond good and
evil” still is! In the hypocritical milieu that Grice expects his tuttees know
they are engaged in, Grice does not find Nietzsche pointing to a repugnant
fact, but a practical, even jocular way of taking meta-ethics in a light way. There
is nothing other-oriented about benevolence. What Grice needs is conversational
ALTRUISM, or helpfulness – ‘cooperation’ has the advantage, with the ‘co-’, of
avoiding the ‘mutuality’ aspect, which is crucial (“What’s the good of helping
you – I’m not your servant! – if thou art not going to help me!” It may be said
that when Butler uses ‘benevolentia’ he means others. “It is usually understood
that one is benevolent towards oneself, if that makes sense.” Grice writes.
Then there’s Smith promising Jones a job – and the problem that comes with it.
For Grice, if Smith promised a job to Jones, and Jones never gets it – “that’s
Jones’s problem.” So we need to distinguish beneficentia and benevolentia. The
opposite is malevolentia and maleficientia. Usually Grice states his maxims as
PROHIBITIONS: “Do not say what you believe to be false” being the wittiest! So,
he might just as well have appealed to or invoked a principle of absence of
conversational ill-will. Grice uses ‘conversational benevolence’ narrowly, to
refer to the assumption that conversationalists will agree to make a
contribution appropriate to the shared purposes of the exhcnage. It contrasts
with the limiting conversational self-love, which is again taken narrowly to
indicate that conversationalists are assumed to be conversationally
‘benevolent,’ in the interpretation above, provided doing that does not get
them into unnecessary trouble. The type of rationality that Grice sees in
conversational is one that sees conversation as ‘rational co-operation.’ So it
is obvious that he has to invoke some level of benevolence. When tutoring his
rather egoistic tutees he had to be careful, so he hastened to add a principle
of conversational self-love. It was different when lecturing outside a
tutorial! In fact ‘benevolence’ here is best understood as ‘altruism’. So, if
there is a principle of conversational egoism, there is a correlative principle
of conversational altruism. If Grice uses ‘self-love,’ there is nothing about
‘love,’ in ‘benevolence.’ Butler may have used ‘other-love’! Even if of course
we must start with the Grecians! We must not forget that Plato and Aristotle despised
"autophilia", the complacency and self-satisfaction making it into
the opposite of "epimeleia heautou” in Plato’s Alcibiades. Similarly, to
criticize Socratic ethics as a form of egoism in opposition to a selfless care
of others is inappropriate. Neither a self-interested seeker of wisdom nor a
dangerous teacher of self-love, Socrates, as the master of epimeleia heautou,
is the hinge between the care of self and others. One has to be careful here. A
folk-etymological connection between ‘foam’ may not be needed – when the Romans
had to deal with Grecian ‘aphrodite.’ This requires that we look for another
linguistic botany for Grecian ‘self-love’ that Grice opposes to ‘benevolentia.’
Hesiod derives Aphrodite from “ἀφρός,” ‘sea-foam,’ interpreting the name as
"risen from the foam", but most modern scholars regard this as a
spurious folk etymology. Early modern scholars of classical mythology attempted
to argue that Aphrodite's name was of Griceain or Indo-European origin, but
these efforts have now been mostly abandoned. Aphrodite's name is generally
accepted to be of non-Greek, probably Semitic, origin, but its exact derivation
cannot be determined. Scholars in the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries, accepting Hesiod's "foam" etymology as genuine, analyzed
the second part of Aphrodite's name as -odítē "wanderer" or -dítē
"bright". Janda, also accepting Hesiod's etymology, has argued in
favor of the latter of these interpretations and claims the story of a birth
from the foam as an Indo-European mytheme. Similarly, an Indo-European compound
abʰor-, very" and dʰei- "to shine" have been proposed, also
referring to Eos. Other have argued that these hypotheses are unlikely since
Aphrodite's attributes are entirely different from those of both Eos and the
Vedic deity Ushas.A number of improbable non-Greek etymologies have also been
suggested. One Semitic etymology compares Aphrodite to the Assyrian ‘barīrītu,’
the name of a female demon that appears in Middle Babylonian and Late
Babylonian texts. Hammarström looks to Etruscan, comparing eprϑni
"lord", an Etruscan honorific loaned into Greek as πρύτανις.This
would make the theonym in origin an honorific, "the lady".Most
scholars reject this etymology as implausible, especially since Aphrodite
actually appears in Etruscan in the borrowed form Apru (from Greek Aphrō, clipped
form of Aphrodite). The medieval Etymologicum Magnum offers a highly contrived
etymology, deriving Aphrodite from the compound habrodíaitos (ἁβροδίαιτος),
"she who lives delicately", from habrós and díaita. The alteration
from b to ph is explained as a "familiar" characteristic of Greek
"obvious from the Macedonians". It is much easier with the Romans. Lewis and Short have ‘ămor,’ old form “ămŏs,”
“like honos, labos, colos, etc.’ obviously from ‘amare,’ and which they render
as ‘love,’ as in Grice’s “conversational self-love.” Your tutor will reprimand
you if you spend too much linguistic botany on ‘eros.’ “Go straight to
‘philos.’” But no. There are philosophical usages of ‘eros,’ especially when it
comes to the Grecian philosophers Grice is interested in: Aristotle reading
Plato, which becomes Ariskant reading Plathegel. So, Liddell and Scott have
“ἔρως” which of course is from a verb, or two: “ἕραμαι,” “ἐράω,” and which they
render as “love, mostly of the sexual passion, ““θηλυκρατὴς ἔ.,” “ἐρῶσ᾽ ἔρωτ᾽
ἔκδημον,” “ἔ. τινός love for one, S.Tr.433, “παίδων” E. Ion67, and “generally,
love of a thing, desire for it,” ““πατρῴας γῆς” “δεινὸς εὐκλείας ἔ.” “ἔχειν
ἔμφυτον ἔρωτα περί τι” Plato, Lg. 782e ; “πρὸς τοὺς λόγους” (love of law),
“ἔρωτα σχὼν τῆς Ἑλλάδος τύραννος γενέσθαι” Hdt.5.32 ; ἔ. ἔχει με c. inf.,
A.Supp.521 ; “θανόντι κείνῳ συνθανεῖν ἔρως μ᾽ ἔχει” S.Fr.953 ; “αὐτοῖς ἦν ἔρως
θρόνους ἐᾶσθαι” Id.OC367 ; ἔ. ἐμπίπτει μοι c. inf., A.Ag.341, cf. Th.6.24 ; εἰς
ἔρωτά τινος ἀφικέσθαι, ἐλθεῖν, Antiph.212.3,Anaxil.21.5 : pl., loves, amours,
“ἀλλοτρίων” Pi.N.3.30 ; “οὐχ ὅσιοι ἔ.” E.Hipp.765 (lyr.) ; “ἔρωτες ἐμᾶς πόλεως”
Ar.Av.1316 (lyr.), etc. ; of dolphins, “πρὸς παῖδας” Arist.HA631a10 :
generally, desires, S.Ant.617 (lyr.). 2. object of love or desire, “ἀπρόσικτοι
ἔρωτες” Pi.N.11.48, cf. Luc.Tim.14. 3. passionate joy, S.Aj.693 (lyr.); the god
of love, Anacr.65, Parm.13, E.Hipp.525 (lyr.), etc.“Έ. ἀνίκατε μάχαν” S.Ant.781
(lyr.) : in pl., Simon.184.3, etc. III. at Nicaea, a funeral wreath, EM379.54.
IV. name of the κλῆρος Ἀφροδίτης, Cat.Cod.Astr.1.168 ; = third κλῆρος,
Paul.Al.K.3; one of the τόποι, Vett.Val.69.16. And they’ll point to you that
the Romans had ‘amor’ AND ‘cupidus’ (which they meant as a transliteration of
epithumia). If for Kant and Grice it is the intention that matters, ill-will
counts. If Smith does not want Jones have a job, Smith has ill-will towards
Jones. This is all Kant and Grice need to call Smith a bad person. It means it
is the ill-will that causes Joness not having a job. A conceptual elucidation.
Interesting from a historical point of view seeing that Grice had introduced a
principle of conversational benevolence (i.e. conversational goodwill) pretty
early. Malevolentia was over-used by Cicero, translating the Grecian. Grice
judges that if Jones fails to get the job that benevolent Smith promised, Smith
may still be deemed, for Kant, if not Aristotle, to have given him the job. A
similar elucidation was carried by Urmson with his idea of supererogation
(heroism and sainthood). For a hero or saint, someones goodwill but not be good
enough! Which does not mean it is ill, either! Conversational
benevolence -- Self-love Philosophical theology -- Edwards, J., philosopher and
theologian. He was educated at Yale, preached in New York City, and in 1729
assumed a Congregational pastorate in Northampton, Massachusetts, where he
became a leader in the Great Awakening. Because of a dispute with his
parishioners over qualifications for communion, he was forced to leave in 1750.
In 1751, he took charge of congregations in Stockbridge, a frontier town sixty
miles to the west. He was elected third president of Princeton in 1757 but died
shortly after inauguration. Edwards deeply influenced Congregational and
Presbyterian theology in America for over a century, but had little impact on
philosophy. Interest in him revived in the middle of the twentieth century,
first among literary scholars and theologians and later among philosophers.
While most of Edwards’s published work defends the Puritan version of Calvinist
orthodoxy, his notebooks reveal an interest in philosophical problems for their
own sake. Although he was indebted to Continental rationalists like
Malebranche, to the Cambridge Platonists, and especially to Locke, his own
contributions are sophisticated and original. The doctrine of God’s absolute
sovereignty is explicated by occasionalism, a subjective idealism similar to
Berkeley’s, and phenomenalism. According to Edwards, what are “vulgarly” called
causal relations are mere constant conjunctions. True causes necessitate their
effects. Since God’s will alone meets this condition, God is the only true
cause. He is also the only true substance. Physical objects are collections of
ideas of color, shape, and other “corporeal” qualities. Finite minds are series
of “thoughts” or “perceptions.” Any substance underlying perceptions, thoughts,
and “corporeal ideas” must be something that “subsists by itself, stands
underneath, and keeps up” physical and mental qualities. As the only thing that
does so, God is the only real substance. As the only true cause and the only
real substance, God is “in effect being in general.” God creates to communicate
his glory. Since God’s internal glory is constituted by his infinite knowledge
of, love of, and delight in himself as the highest good, his “communication ad
extra” consists in the knowledge of, love of, and joy in himself which he
bestows upon creatures. The essence of God’s internal and external glory is
“holiness” or “true benevolence,” a disinterested love of being in general
i.e., of God and the beings dependent on him. Holiness constitutes “true
beauty,” a divine splendor or radiance of which “secondary” ordinary beauty is
an imperfect image. God is thus supremely beautiful and the world is suffused
with his loveliness. Vindications of Calvinist conceptions of sin and grace are
found in Freedom of the Will 1754 and Original Sin 1758. The former includes
sophisticated defenses of theological determinism and compatibilism. The latter
contains arguments for occasionalism and interesting discussions of identity.
Edwards thinks that natural laws determine kinds or species, and kinds or
species determine criteria of identity. Since the laws of nature depend on
God’s “arbitrary” decision, God establishes criteria of identity. He can thus,
e.g., constitute Adam and his posterity as “one thing.” Edwards’s religious
epistemology is developed in A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections 1746
and On the Nature of True Virtue 1765. The conversion experience involves the
acquisition of a “new sense of the heart.” Its core is the mind’s apprehension
of a “new simple idea,” the idea of “true beauty.” This idea is needed to
properly understand theological truths. True Virtue also provides the fullest
account of Edwards’s ethics a moral
sense theory that identifies virtue with benevolence. Although indebted to
contemporaries like Hutcheson, Edwards criticizes their attempts to construct
ethics on secular foundations. True benevolence embraces being in general.
Since God is, in effect, being in general, its essence is the love of God. A
love restricted to family, nation, humanity, or other “private systems” is a
form of self-love. Refs.: The source is Grice’s seminar
in the first set on ‘Logic and conversation.’ The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC.
conversational category: used jocularly by Grice. But can it be used
non-jocularly? How can the concept of ‘category,’ literally, apply to what
Grice says it applies, so that we have, assuming Kant is using ‘quantity,’
‘quality,’ ‘relation’ and ‘mode,’ as SUPRA-categories (functions, strictly) for
his twelve categories? Let’s revise, the quantity applies to the quantification
(in Frege’s terms) or what Boethius applied to Aristotle’s posotes – and there
are three categories involved, but the three deal with the ‘quantum: ‘every,’
‘some,’ and ‘one.’ ‘some’ Russell would call an indefinite. Strictly, if Grice
wants to have a category of conversational quantity – it should relate to the
‘form’ of the ‘conversational move.’ “Every nice girl loves a sailor” would be
the one with most ‘quantity.’ Grice sees a problem there, and would have that
rather translated as ‘The altogether nice girl loves the one-at-a-time sailor.’
But that would be the most conversational move displaying ‘most quantity.’ (It
can be argued it isn’t). When it comes to the category of conversational
quality, the three categories by Kant under the ‘function’ of qualitas involves
the well known trio, the affirmative, the negative, and the infinite. In terms
of the ‘quality’ of a conversational move, it may be argued that a move in
negative form (as in Grice, “I’m not hearing any noise,” “That pillar box is
not blue” seem to provide ‘less’ quality than the affirmative counterparts. But
as in quantity, it is not sure Kant has some ordering in mind. It seems he
does. It seems he ascribes more value to the first category in each of the four
functions. When it comes to the category of conversational relation, the
connection with Kant could be done. Since this involves the categoric, the
hypothetic, and the disjunctive. So here we may think that a conversational
move will be either a categoric response – A: Mrs Smith is a wind bag. B: The
weather has been delightful. Or a hypothetical. A: Mrs Smith is a wind bag. B:
If that’s what you think. Or a dijunctive: Mrs. Smith is a wind bag. B: Or she
is not. When it comes, lastly, to the category of conversational mode, we have
just three strict categories under this ‘function’ in Kant, which relate to the
strength of the copula: ‘must be,’ must not be’ and ‘may.’ A conversational
move that states a necessity would be the expected move. “You must do it.”
Impossibility involves negation, so it is more problematic. And ‘may be’ is an
open conversational move. So there IS a way to justify the use of
‘conversational category’ to apply to the four functions that Kant decides the
Aristotelian categories may subsumed into. He knows that Kant has TWELVE
categories, but he keeps lecturing the Harvardites about Kant having FOUR
categories. On top, he finds ‘modus’ boring, and, turned a manierist, changes
the idiom. This is what Austin called a ‘philosophical hack’ searching for some
para-philosophy! One has to be careful here. Grice does speak of this or that
‘conversational category.’ Seeing that he is ‘echoing,’ as he puts it,
Ariskant, we migt just as well have an entry for each of the four. These would
be the category of conversational quantity, the category of conversational
quality, the category of conversational relation, and the category of
conversational modality. Note that in this rephrasing Grice applies
‘conversational’ directly to the category. As Boethius pointed out (and Grice
loved to read Minio-Paullelo’s edition of Boethus’s commentary on the
Categories), the motivation by Aristotle to posit this or that category was
expository. A mind cannot know a multitude of things, so we have to ‘reduce’
things. It is important to note that while ‘quantitas,’ ‘qualitas’ ‘relatio’
and ‘modus’ are used by Kant, he actually augments the number of categories.
These four would be supra-categories. The sub-categories, or categories
themselves turn out to be twelve. Kant proposed 12 categories: unity, plurality,
and totality for concept of quantity; reality, negation, and limitation, for
the concept of quality; inherence and subsistence, cause and effect, and
community for the concept of relation; and possibility-impossibility,
existence-nonexistence, and necessity and contingency. Kategorien sind
nach Kant apriorisch und unmittelbar gegeben. Sie sind Werkzeuge des Urteilens
und Werkzeuge des Denkens. Als solche dienen sie nur der Anwendung und haben
keine Existenz. Sie bestehen somit nur im menschlichen Verstand. Sie sind nicht
an Erfahrung gebunden.[5] Durch ihre Unmittelbarkeit sind sie auch nicht an
Zeichen gebunden.[6] Kants erkenntnistheoretisches Ziel ist es, über
die Bedingungen der Geltungskraft von Urteilen Auskunft zu geben. Ohne diese
Auskunft können zwar vielerlei Urteile gefällt werden, sie müssen dann
allerdings als „systematische Doktrin(en)“ bezeichnet werden.[7] Kant kritisiert damit das rein analytische Denken
der Wissenschaft als falsch und stellt ihm die Notwendigkeit des
synthetisierenden Denkens gegenüber.[8] Kant begründet die Geltungskraft mit dem Transzendentalen Subjekt.[9] Das Transzendentalsubjekt ist dabei ein reiner
Reflexionsbegriff, welcher das synthetisierende Dritte darstellt (wie in
späteren Philosophien Geist (Hegel), Wille, Macht, Sprache und Wert (Marx)),
das nicht durch die Sinne wahrnehmbar ist. Kant sucht hier die Antwort auf die
Frage, wie der Mensch als vernunftbegabtes Wesen konstituiert werden kann,
nicht in der Analyse, sondern in einer Synthesis.[10]Bei Immanuel Kant, der somit als bedeutender Erneuerer der bis dahin
„vorkritischen“ Kategorienlehre gilt, finden sich zwölf „Kategorien der reinen
Vernunft“. Für Kant sind diese Kategorien Verstandesbegriffe, nicht aber Ausdruck des tatsächlichen Seins
der Dinge an sich. Damit wandelt sich die ontologische Sichtweise der Tradition in eine erkenntnistheoretische Betrachtung, weshalb Kants „kritische“
Philosophie (seit der Kritik der
reinen Vernunft) oft
auch als „Kopernikanische
Wende in der
Philosophie“ bezeichnet wird.Quantität, Qualität, Relation und Modalität sind die vier grundlegenden Urteilsfunktionen des
Verstandes, nach denen die Kategorien gebildet werden. Demnach sind z. B.
der Urteilsfunktion „Quantität“ die Kategorien bzw. Urteile „Einheit“,
„Vielheit“ und „Allheit“ untergeordnet, und der Urteilsfunktion „Relation“ die
Urteile der „Ursache“ und der „Wirkung“.Siehe auch: Kritik der
reinen Vernunft und Transzendentale
AnalytikBereits
bei Friedrich
Adolf Trendelenburg findet
man den Hinweis auf die verbreitete Kritik, dass Kant die den Kategorien
zugrunde liegenden Urteilsformen nicht systematisch hergeleitet und damit als
notwendig begründet hat. Einer der Kritikpunkte ist dabei, dass die Kategorien
sich teilweise auf Anschauungen (Einzelheit, Realität, Dasein), teilweise auf
Abstraktionen wie Zusammenfassen, Begrenzen oder Begründen (Vielheit, Allheit,
Negation, Limitation, Möglichkeit, Notwendigkeit) beziehen.
conversational
compact: conversational pact in Grice’s conversational
quasi-contractualism, contractarianism, a family of moral and political
theories that make use of the idea of a social contract. Traditionally English
philosophers such as Hobbes and Locke used the social contract idea to justify
certain conceptions of the state. In the twentieth century philosophers such as
G. R. Grice, H. P. Grice, and John Rawls have used the social contract notion (‘quasi-contractualism’
in Grice’s sense) to define and defend moral conceptions both conceptions of
political justice and individual morality, often but not always doing so in
addition to developing social contract theories of the state. The term ‘contractarian’
most often applies to this second type of theory. There are two kinds of moral
argument that the contract image has spawned, the first rooted in Hobbes and
the second rooted in Kant. Hobbesians start by insisting that what is valuable
is what a person desires or prefers, not what he ought to desire or prefer for
no such prescriptively powerful object exists; and rational action is action
that achieves or maximizes the satisfaction of desires or preferences. They go
on to insist that moral action is rational for a person to perform if and only
if such action advances the satisfaction of his desires or preferences. And
they argue that because moral action leads to peaceful and harmonious living
conducive to the satisfaction of almost everyone’s desires or preferences,
moral actions are rational for almost everyone and thus “mutually agreeable.”
But Hobbesians believe that, to ensure that no cooperative person becomes the
prey of immoral aggressors, moral actions must be the conventional norms in a
community, so that each person can expect that if she behaves cooperatively,
others will do so too. These conventions constitute the institution of morality
in a society. So the Hobbesian moral theory is committed to the idea that
morality is a human-made institution, which is justified only to the extent
that it effectively furthers human interests. Hobbesians explain the existence
of morality in society by appealing to the convention-creating activities of
human beings, while arguing that the justification of morality in any human
society depends upon how well its moral conventions serve individuals’ desires
or preferences. By considering “what we could agree to” if we reappraised and
redid the cooperative conventions in our society, we can determine the extent
to which our present conventions are “mutually agreeable” and so rational for
us to accept and act on. Thus, Hobbesians invoke both actual agreements or
rather, conventions and hypothetical agreements which involve considering what
conventions would be “mutually agreeable” at different points in their theory;
the former are what they believe our moral life consists in; the latter are
what they believe our moral life should consist in i.e., what our actual moral life should
model. So the notion of the contract does not do justificational work by itself
in the Hobbesian moral theory: this term is used only metaphorically. What we
“could agree to” has moral force for the Hobbesians not because make-believe
promises in hypothetical worlds have any binding force but because this sort of
agreement is a device that merely reveals how the agreed-upon outcome is
rational for all of us. In particular, thinking about “what we could all agree
to” allows us to construct a deduction of practical reason to determine what policies
are mutually advantageous. The second kind of contractarian theory is derived
from the moral theorizing of Kant. In his later writings Kant proposed that the
“idea” of the “Original Contract” could be used to determine what policies for
a society would be just. When Kant asks “What could people agree to?,” he is
not trying to justify actions or policies by invoking, in any literal sense,
the consent of the people. Only the consent of real people can be legitimating,
and Kant talks about hypothetical agreements made by hypothetical people. But
he does believe these make-believe agreements have moral force for us because
the process by which these people reach agreement is morally revealing. Kant’s
contracting process has been further developed by subsequent philosophers, such
as Rawls, who concentrates on defining the hypothetical people who are supposed
to make this agreement so that their reasoning will not be tarnished by
immorality, injustice, or prejudice, thus ensuring that the outcome of their joint
deliberations will be morally sound. Those contractarians who disagree with
Rawls define the contracting parties in different ways, thereby getting
different results. The Kantians’ social contract is therefore a device used in
their theorizing to reveal what is just or what is moral. So like Hobbesians,
their contract talk is really just a way of reasoning that allows us to work
out conceptual answers to moral problems. But whereas the Hobbesians’ use of
contract language expresses the fact that, on their view, morality is a human
invention which if it is well invented ought to be mutually advantageous, the
Kantians’ use of the contract language is meant to show that moral principles
and conceptions are provable theorems derived from a morally revealing and
authoritative reasoning process or “moral proof procedure” that makes use of
the social contract idea. Both kinds of contractarian theory are
individualistic, in the sense that they assume that moral and political
policies must be justified with respect to, and answer the needs of,
individuals. Accordingly, these theories have been criticized by communitarian
philosophers, who argue that moral and political policies can and should be
decided on the basis of what is best for a community. They are also attacked by
utilitarian theorists, whose criterion of morality is the maximization of the
utility of the community, and not the mutual satisfaction of the needs or
preferences of individuals. Contractarians respond that whereas utilitarianism
fails to take seriously the distinction between persons, contractarian theories
make moral and political policies answerable to the legitimate interests and
needs of individuals, which, contra the communitarians, they take to be the
starting point of moral theorizing.
conversational co-öperation: Grice is perfectly right that ‘helpfulness’ does not
‘equate’ cooperation. His earlier principle of conversational helpfulness
becomes the principle of conversational co-operation.Tthere is a distinction
between mutual help and cooperation. First, the Romans never knew. Their
‘servants’ were ‘help’ – and this remains in the British usage of ‘civil
servant,’ one who helps. Some philosophical tutees by Hare were often reminded,
in the midst of their presenting their essays, “Excuse me for interrupting,
Smith, but have you considered a career in the civil service?” Then some Romans
found Christianism fashionable, and they were set to translate the Bible. So
when this Hebrew concept appeared, they turned it into ad-judicatum, which was
translated by Wycliff as ‘help.’ Now ‘operatio’ is quite a different animal.
It’s the ‘opus’ of the Romans, who also had ‘labor.’ Surely to ‘co-laborate’ is
to ‘co-operate.’ There is an idea that ‘operate,’ can be more otiose, in the
view of Rogers Albritton. “He is operating the violin,” was his favourite
utterance. “Possibly his opus 5.” The fact that English needs a hyphen and an
umlaut does not make it very ‘ordinary’ in Austin’s description. Grice is more
interested in the conceptualization of this, notably as it relates to
rationality. Can cooperation NOT be rational? For most libertarians,
cooperation IS “irrational,” rather. But Grice points is subtler. He is
concerned with an emissor communicating that p. The least thing he deserves is
a rational recipient. “Otherwise I might just as well scream to the walls!” Used
by Grice WOW:368 – previously, ‘rational cooperation’ – what cooperation is not
rational? Grice says that if Smith promised Jones a job; Jones doesn’t get it.
Smith must be DEEMED to have given the job to Jones. It’s the intention, as
Kant shows, the pure motive, that matters. Ditto for communication. If
Blackburn draws a skull, he communicates that there is danger. If his addressee
fails to recognise the emissor’s intention the emissor will still be deemed to
have communicated that there is danger. So communication does NOT require
co-operation. His analysis of “emissor communicates that p” is not one of
“emissor successfully communicates that p,” because “communicates” reduces to
“intends” not to ‘fulfilled intention.’ Cooperation enters when we go beyond
ONE act of communication. To communicate is to give information and to
influence another, and it is also to receive information and to be influenced
by another. When these communicative objectives are made explicit, helpfulness
or cooperation becomes essential. He uses ‘converational cooperation” and
“supreme principle of conversational cooperation” (369). He uses ‘supreme
conversational principle” of “cooperativeness” (369), to avoid seeing the
conversational imperatives as an unorganized heap of conversational
obligations. Another variant is Grice’s use of “principle of conversational
co-operation.” He also uses “principle of conversational rational
co-operation.” Note that irrational or non-rational co-operation is not an
oxymoron. Another expression is conversational cooperative rationality. So
Grice was amused that you can just as well refer to ‘cooperative rationality”
or “rational cooperation,” “a category shift if ever there was one.”
conversational explicitum: To be explicit is bad manners at Oxford if not in Paris or
MIT. The thing is to imply! Englishmen are best at implying – their love for
understatement is unequalled in the world. Grice needs the explicatio, or
explicit. Because the mistake the philosopher makes is at the level of the
implicatio, as Nowell-Smith, and C. K. Grant had noted. It is not OBVIOUSLY at
the explicit level. Grice was never interested in the explicit level, and takes
a very cavalier attitude to it. “This brief indication of my use of say leaves
it open whether a man who says (today) Harold Wilson is a great man and another
who says (also today) The British Prime Minister is a great man would, if each
knew that the two singular terms had the same reference, have said the same
thing. But whatever decision is made about this question, the apparatus that I
am about to provide will be capable of accounting for any implicaturums that
might depend on the presence of one rather than another of these singular terms
in the sentence uttered. Such implicaturums would merely be related to
different maxims.”Rephrase: “A brief indication of my use of ‘the explicit’
leaves it open whether a man who states (today), ‘Harold Wilson is a great man’
thereby stating that Wilson is a great man, and another who states (also
today),‘The British Prime Minister is a great man,’ viz. that the Prime
Minister is a great mand, would, if each singular term, ‘the Prime Minister’
and ‘Wilson’ has the same denotatum (co-relata) have put forward in an explicit
fashion the same propositional complex, and have stated the same thing. On the
face of it, it would seem they have not. But cf. ‘Wilson will be the prime
minister’ versus ‘Wilson shall be the prime minister.’ Again, a subtler
question arises as to whether the first emissor who has stated that Wilson will
be the next prime minster and the other one who has stated that Wilson *shall*
be the next prime minster, have both but forward the same proposition. If the
futurm indicatum is ENTAILED by the futurum intentionale, the question is easy
to settle. Whatever methodological decision or stipulation I end up making
about the ‘explicitum,’ the apparatus that I rely on is capable of accounting
for any implicaturum that might depend on the presence of this or that singular
term in the utterance. Such an implicaturum would merely be related to a
different conversational maxims. Urmson has elaborated on this, “Mrs. Smith’s
husband just passed by.” “You mean the postman! Why did you use such contrived
‘signular term’?” If the emissor draws a skull what he explicitly conveys is
that this is a skull. This is the EPLICITUM. If he communicates that there is
danger, that’s via some further reasoning. That associates a skull with death. Grice’s
example is Grice displaying his bandaged leg. Strictly, he communicates that he
has a bandaged leg. Second, that his leg is bandaged (the bandage may be fake).
And third, that he cannot play cricket. It all started in Oxford when they
started to use ‘imply’ in a sense other than the ‘logical’ one. This got Grice
immersed in a deep exploration of types of ‘implication.’ There is the implicaturum,
and the implicitum, both from ‘implico.’ As correlative there is the
explicatio, which yields both the explicatum and the explicitum. Grice has
under the desideratum of conversational clarity that a conversationalist is
assumed to make the point of his conversational contribution ‘explicit.’ So in
his polemic with G. A. Paul, Grice knows that the ‘doubt-or-denial’ condition
will be at the level NOT of the explicitum or explicatum. Surely an implicaturum
can be CANCELLED explicitly. Grice uses ‘contextual’ or ‘explicit,’ here but
grants that the ‘contextual’ may be subsumed under the ‘explicit.’ It is when the sub-perceptual utterance is
copulated with the formulation of the explicatum of the implicaturum that Grice
shows G. A. Paul that the statement is still ‘true,’ and which Grice sees as a
reivindication of the causal theory of perception. In the twenty or so examples
of philosophical mistakes, both in “Causal” and “Prolegomena,” all the mistakes
can be rendered back to the ‘explicatum’ versus ‘implicaturum’ distinction.
Unfortunately, each requires a philosophical background to draw all the
‘implications,’ and Grice has been read by people without a philosophical
background who go on to criticise him for ignoring things where he never had
focused his attention on. His priority is to deal with these philosophical
mistakes. He also expects the philosopher to come up with a general
methodological statement. Grice distinguishes between the conversational
explicitum and the conversational explicatum. Grice plays with ‘explicit’ and
‘implicit’ at various places. He often uses ‘explicit’and ‘implicit’
adverbially: the utterer explicitly conveys that p versus the utterer
implicitly conveys that p (hints that p, suggests that p, indicates that p,
implicates that p, implies that p). Grice regards that both dimensions form
part of the total act of signification, accepting as a neutral variant, that
the utterer has signified that p.
conversational game: In a conversational game, you don’t say “The pillar box
seems red” if you know it IS red. So, philosophers at Oxford (like Austin,
Strawson, Hare, Hampshire, and Hart) are all victims of ignoring the rules of
the game, and just not understanding that a game is being played. the expression is used by Grice
systematically. He speaks of players making the conversational move in the
conversational game following the conversational rule, v. rational choice
conversational
haggle -- bargaining theory, the branch of game theory that
treats agreements, e.g., wage agreements between labor and management. In the
simplest bargaining problems there are two bargainers. They can jointly realize
various outcomes, including the outcome that occurs if they fail to reach an agreement,
i.e. if they fail to help each other or co-operate. Each bargainer assigns a
certain amount of utility to each outcome. The question is, what outcome will
they realise if each conversationalist is rational? Methods of solving
bargaining problems are controversial. The best-known proposals are Grice’s and
Nash’s and Kalai and Smorodinsky’s. Grice proposes that if you want to get a
true answer to your question, you should give a true answer to you co-conversationalist’s
question (“ceteris paribus”). Nash proposes maximizing the product of utility
gains with respect to the disagreement point. Kalai and Smorodinsky propose
maximsiing utility gains with respect to the disagreement point, subject to the
constraint that the ratio of utility gains equals the ratio of greatest
possible gains. These three methods of selecting an outcome have been
axiomatically characterized. For each method, there are certain axioms of
outcome selection such that that method alone satisfies the axioms. The axioms
incorporate principles of rationality from cooperative game theory. They focus
on features of outcomes rather than bargaining strategies. For example, one
axiom requires that the outcome selected be Pareto-optimal, i.e., be an outcome
such that no alternative is better for one of the bargainers and not worse for
the other. A bargaining problem may become more complicated in several ways.
First, there may be more than two bargainers (“Suppose Austin joins in.”). If
unanimity is not required for beneficial agreements, splinter groups or co-alitions
may form. Second, the protocol for offers, counte-roffers (“Where does C live?”
“Why do you want to know?”) etc., may be relevant. Then principles of *non-cooperative*
but competitive game theory concerning war strategies (“l’art de la guerre”) are
needed to justify this or that solution. Third, the context of a bargaining
problem may be relevant. For instance, opportunities for side payments,
differences in bargaining power, and interpersonal comparisons of utility may
influence the solution. Fourth, simplifying assumptions, such as the assumption
that bargainers have complete information about their bargaining situation, may
be discarded. Bargaining theory is part of the philosophical study of
rationality. It is also important in ethics as a foundation for contractarian
theories of morality and for certain theories of distributive justice.
conversational helpfulness. It’s not clear if ‘helpfulness’ has a Graeco-Roman
counterpart! The Grecians and the Romans could be VERY individualistic! – adiuvare,
(adiuare, old for adiūverare), iūtus, āre,” which Lewis and Short render as “to
help, assist, aid, support, further, sustain. “fortīs fortuna adiuvat, T.:
maerorem orationis meae lacrimis suis: suā sponte eos, N.: pennis adiutus
amoris, O.: in his causis: alqm ad percipiendam virtutem: si quid te adiuero,
poet ap. C.: ut alqd consequamur, adiuvisti: multum eorum opinionem adiuvabat,
quod, etc., Cs.—With ellips. of obj, to be of assistance, help: ad verum
probandum: non multum, Cs.: quam ad rem humilitas adiuvat, is convenient,
Cs.—Supin. acc.: Nectanebin adiutum profectus, N.—P. pass.: adiutus a
Demosthene, N.—Fig.: clamore militem, cheer, L.: adiuvat hoc quoque, this too
is useful, H.: curā adiuvat illam (formam), sets off his beauty, O. Grice is right that ‘cooperation’ does NOT equate
‘helpfulness’ and he appropriately changes
his earlier principle of conversational helpfulness to a principle of
conversational co-operation. Was there a Graeco-Roman equivalent for
Anglo-Saxon ‘help’? helpmeet (n.) a ghost word from the 1611 translation of the
Bible, where it originally was a two-word noun-adjective phrase translating
Latin adjutorium simile sibi [Genesis ii.18] as "an help meet for him,"
and meaning literally "a helper like himself." See help (n.) + meet
(adj.). By 1670s it was hyphenated help-meet and mistaken as a modified noun.
Compare helpmate. The original Hebrew is 'ezer keneghdo. Related entries &
more aid (v.) "to assist, help,"
c. 1400, from Old French aidier "help, assist" (Modern French aider),
from Latin adiutare, frequentative of adiuvare (past participle adiutus)
"to give help to," from ad "to" (see ad-) + iuvare "to
help, assist, give strength, support, sustain," which is from a PIE source
perhaps related to the root of iuvenis "young person" (see young
(adj.)). Related: Aided; aiding. Related entries & more succor (n.) c. 1200, socour, earlier socours
"aid, help," from Anglo-French succors "help, aid," Old
French socors, sucurres "aid, help, assistance" (Modern French
secours), from Medieval Latin succursus "help, assistance," from past
participle of Latin succurrere "run to help, hasten to the aid of,"
from assimilated form of sub "up to" (see sub-) + currere "to
run" (from PIE root *kers- "to run"). Final -s mistaken in
English as a plural inflection and dropped late 13c. Meaning "one who aids
or helps" is from c. 1300. There is a fashion in which to help is to
cooperate, but co-operate, strictly, requires operation by A and operation by
B. We do use cooperate loosely. “She is very cooperative.” “Help” seems less
formal. One can help without ever engaging or honouring the other’s goal. I can
help you buy a house, say. So the principle of conversational cooperation is stricter
and narrower than the principle of conversational helpfulness. Cooperation
involves reciprocity and mutuality in a way that helpfulness does not. That’s
why Grice needs to emphasise that there is an expectation of MUTUAL
helpfulness. One is expected to be helpful, and one expects the other to be
helpful. Grice was doubtful about the implicaturum of ‘co-operative,’ – after
all, who at Oxford wants a ‘co-operative.’ It sounds anti-Oxonian. So Grice
elaborates on ‘helping others’ and ‘assuming others will help you’ in the event
that we ‘are doing something together.’ Does this equate cooperation, he
wonders. Just in case, he uses ‘helpfulness’ as a variant. There are other
concepts he plays with, notably ‘altruism,’ and ‘benevolence,’ or other-love.’Helpfulness
is Grice’s favourite virtue. Grice is clear that reciprocity is essential here.
One exhibits helpfulness and expects helpfulness from his conversational
partner. He dedicates a set of seven lectures to it, entitled as follows.
Lecture 1, Prolegomena; Lecture 2: Logic and Conversation; Lecture 3: Further
notes on logic and conversation; Lecture 4: Indicative conditionals; Lecture 5:
Us meaning and intentions; Lecture 6: Us meaning, sentence-meaning, and
word-meaning; and Lecture 7: Some models for implicaturum. I hope they dont
expect me to lecture on James! Grice admired James, but not vice
versa. Grice entitled the set as being Logic and Conversation. That is the
title, also, of the second lecture. Grice keeps those titles seeing that it was
way the whole set of lectures were frequently cited, and that the second
lecture had been published under that title in Davidson and Harman, The
Logic of Grammar. The content of each lecture is indicated below. In
the first, Grice manages to quote from Witters. In the last, he
didnt! The original set consisted of seven lectures. To wit:
Prolegomena, Logic and conversation, Further notes on logic and conversation,
Indicative Conditionals, Us meaning and intentions, Us meaning,
sentence-meaning, and word meaning, and Some models for implicaturum. They were
pretty successful at Oxford. While the notion of an implicaturum had been
introduced by Grice at Oxford, even in connection with a principle of
conversational helpfulness, he takes the occasion now to explore the type of
rationality involved. Observation of the principle of conversational
helpfulness is rational (reasonable) along the following lines: anyone who
cares about the two central goals to conversation (give/receive information,
influence/be influened) is expected to have an interest in participating in a
conversation that is only going to be profitable given that it is conducted
along the lines set by the principle of conversational helpfulness. In
Prolegomena he lists Austin, Strawson, Hare, Hart, and himself, as victims of a
disregard for the implicaturum. In the third lecture he introduces his razor,
Senses are not to be muliplied beyond necessity. In Indicative conditionals he
tackles Strawson on if as not representing the horse-shoe of Whitehead and Russell.
The next two lectures on the meaning by the utterer and intentions, and meaning
by the utterer, sentence-meaning, and word-meaning refine his earlier, more
austere, account of this particularly Peirceian phenomenon. He concludes the
lectures with an exploration on the relevance of the implicaturum to
philosophical psychology. Grice was well aware that many philosophers had
become enamoured with the s. and would love to give it a continuous perusal.
The set is indeed grandiose. It starts with a Prolegomena to set the scene: He
notably quotes himself in it, which helps, but also Strawson, which sort of justifies
the general title. In the second lecture, Logic and Conversation, he expands on
the principle of conversational helpfulness and the explicitum/implicaturum
distinction – all very rationalist! The third lecture is otiose in that he
makes fun of Ockham: Senses are not to be multiplied beyond necessity. The
fourth lecture, on Indicative conditionals, is indeed on MOST of the formal
devices he had mentioned on Lecture II, notably the functors (rather than the
quantifiers and the iota operator, with which he deals in Presupposition and
conversational implicaturum, since, as he notes, they refer to reference). This
lecture is the centrepiece of the set. In the fifth lecture, he plays with
mean, and discovers that it is attached to the implicaturum or the implicitum.
In the sixth lecture, he becomes a nominalist, to use Bennetts phrase, as he
deals with dog and shaggy in terms of this or that resultant procedure. Dont
ask me what they are! Finally, in “Some models for implicaturum,” he attacks
the charge of circularity, and refers to nineteenth-century explorations on the
idea of thought without language alla Wundt. I dont think a set of James
lectures had even been so comprehensive! Conversational helpfulness. This is
Grice at his methodological best. He was aware that the type of philosophying
he was about to criticise wass a bit dated, but whats wrong with being
old-fashioned? While this may be seen as a development of his views on implicaturum
at that seminal Oxford seminar, it may also be seen as Grice popularising the
views for a New-World, non-Oxonian audience. A discussion of Oxonian
philosophers of the play group of Grice, notably Austin, Hare, Hart, and
Strawson. He adds himself for good measure (“Causal theory”). Philosophers,
even at Oxford, have to be careful with the attention that is due to general
principles of discourse. Grice quotes philosophers of an earlier generation,
such as Ryle, and some interpreters or practitioners of Oxonian analysis, such
as Benjamin and Searle. He even manages to quote from Witterss Philosophical
investigations, on seeing a banana as a banana. There are further items in the
Grice collection that address Austins manoeuvre, Austin on ifs and cans, Ifs
and cans, : conditional, power. Two of Grices favourites. He opposed
Strawsons view on if. Grice thought that if was the horseshoe of Whitehead and
Russell, provided we add an implicaturum to an entailment. The can is
merely dispositional, if not alla Ryle, alla Grice! Ifs and cans, intention,
disposition. Austin had brought the topic to the fore as an exploration of
free will. Pears had noted that conversational implicaturum may account for the
conditional perfection (if yields iff). Cf. Ayers on Austin on if and can.
Recall that for Grice the most idiomatic way to express a disposition is with
the Subjectsive mode, the if, and the can ‒ The ice can break. Cf. the mistake:
It is not the case that what you must do, you can do. The can-may distinction
is one Grice played with too. As with will and shall, the attachment of one mode
to one of the lexemes is pretty arbitrary and not etymologically justified ‒
pace Fowler on it being a privilege of this or that Southern Englishman as
Fowler is. If he calls it Prolegomena, he is being jocular. Philosophers
Mistakes would have been too provocative. Benjamin, or rather Broad, erred, and
so did Ryle, and Ludwig Witters, and my friends, Austin (the mater that
wobbled), and in order of seniority, Hart (I heard him defend this about
carefully – stopping at every door in case a dog comes out at breakneck speed),
Hare (To say good is to approve), and Strawson (“Logical theory”: To utter if
p, q is to implicate some inferrability, To say true! is to endorse –
Analysis). If he ends with Searle, he is being jocular. He quotes Searle from
an essay in British philosophy in Lecture I, and from an essay in Philosophy in
America in Lecture V. He loved Searle, and expands on the Texas oilmens club
example! We may think of Grice as a linguistic botanizer or a meta-linguistic
botanizer: his hobby was to collect philosophers mistakes, and he catalogued
them. In Causal theory he produces his first list of seven. The pillar box
seems red to me. One cannot see a dagger as a dagger. Moore didnt know that the
objects before him were his own hands. What is actual is not also possible. For
someone to be called responsible, his action should be condemnable. A cause
must be given only of something abnormal or unusual (cf. ætiology). If you know
it, you dont believe it. In the Prolegomena, the taxonomy is more complicated.
Examples A (the use of an expression, by Austin, Benjamin, Grice, Hart, Ryle,
Wittgenstein), Examples B (Strawson on and, or, and especially if), and
Examples C (Strawson on true and Hare on good – the performative theories). But
even if his taxonomy is more complicated, he makes it more SO by giving other
examples as he goes on to discuss how to assess the philosophical mistake. Cf.
his elaboration on trying, I saw Mrs. Smith cashing a cheque, Trying to cash a
cheque, you mean. Or cf. his remarks on remember, and There is an analogy here
with a case by Wittgenstein. In summary, he wants to say. Its the philosopher
who makes his big mistake. He has detected, as Grice has it, some
conversational nuance. Now he wants to exploit it. But before rushing ahead to
exploit the conversational nuance he has detected, or identified, or collected
in his exercise of linguistic botanising, the philosopher should let us know
with clarity what type of a nuance it is. For Grice wants to know that the
nuance depends on a general principle (of goal-directed behaviour in general,
and most likely rational) governing discourse – that participants in a
conversation should be aware of, and not on some minutiæ that has been
identified by the philosopher making the mistake, unsystematically, and merely
descriptively, and taxonomically, but without ONE drop of explanatory adequacy.
The fact that he directs this to his junior Strawson is the sad thing. The rest
are all Grices seniors! The point is of philosophical interest, rather than
other. And he keeps citing philosophers, Tarski or Ramsey, in the third James
leture, to elaborate the point about true in Prolegomena. He never seems
interested in anything but an item being of philosophical interest, even if
that means HIS and MINE! On top, he is being Oxonian: Only at Oxford my
colleagues were so obsessed, as it has never been seen anywhere else, about the
nuances of conversation. Only they were all making a big mistake in having no
clue as to what the underlying theory of conversation as rational co-operation
would simplify things for them – and how! If I introduce the explicatum as a
concession, I shall hope I will be pardoned! Is Grices intention epagogic, or
diagogic in Prolegomena? Is he trying to educate Strawson, or just delighting
in proving Strawson wrong? We think the former. The fact that he quotes himself
shows that Grice is concerned with something he still sees, and for the rest of
his life will see, as a valid philosophical problem. If philosophy generated no
problems it would be dead. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Whence I took helpfulness,’; the
main sources are the two sets on ‘logic and conversation.’ There are good
paraphrases in other essays when he summarises his own views, as he did at
Urbana. The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC.
conversational imperative: Grice is loose in the use of ‘imperative.’ It obviously
has to do with the will in command mode! -- The problem with ‘command’ is that
for Habermas, it springs from ‘power,’ and we need to have it sprung from
‘auctoritas,’ rather – the voice of reason, that is – “Impero” gives also
pre-pare. “Imperare, prepare, etc. What was the Greek for ‘imperative mode’? προστακτική
prostaktike. προσ-τακτικός , ή, όν, A.of or for
commanding, imperative, imperious, τὸ π. [ἡ ψυχή], opp. τὸ ὑπηρετικόν (of the
body), Arist.Top.128b19; “π. τινῶν” Corn.ND16; “λόγος” Plu.2.1037f;
Προστακτικός (sc. λόγος), title of work by Protagoras, D.L.9.55; “βραχυλογία”
Plu.Phoc.5; also of persons, “ἄρχων” Max.Tyr.13.2 (Sup.). II. Gramm., ἡ -κὴ
ἔγκλισις the imperative mood, D.T.638.7, A.D.Synt.31.20; π. ἐκφορὰ τῶν ῥημάτων
ib.69.20; “τὸ π. σχῆμα” Anon.Fig.24; also “τὸ -κόν” D.L. 7.66,67,
Ps.-Plu.Vit.Hom.53. Adv. “-κῶς” in the imperative mood, D.H.4.18,
Sch.Ar.Av.1163.Grice became famous for his ‘maxims,’ which in Nowell-Smith’s
view they are more like rules of etiquette for sylish conversation. As such,
many had been proposed. But Grice proposes them AS A PHILOSOPHER would, and
ONLY TO REBUFF the mistake made by this or that philosopher who would rather
EXPLAIN the phenomenon in terms OTHER than involving as PART OF THE DATA, i. e.
as a datum (as he says) or assumption, that there are these ‘assumptions,’
which guide behaviour. Grice is having in mind Kant’s “Imperativ.” He also uses
‘conversational objective.” In most versions that Grice provides of the
‘general expectations’ of rational discourse, he chooses the obvious imperative
form. On occasion he does use ‘imperative.’ Grice is vague as to the term of
choice for this or that ‘expectation.’ According to Strawson, Grice even once
used ‘conversational rule,’ and he does use ‘conversational rule of the
conversational game of making this or that conversational move.’ Notably, he
also uses ‘conversational principle,’ and ‘conversational desideratum.’ And
‘maxim’! And ‘conversational directive (371), and ‘conversational obligation’
(369). By ‘conversational maxim,’ he means ‘conversational maxim.’ He uses
‘conversational sub-maxim’ very occasionally. He rather uses ‘conversational
super-maxim.’ He uses ‘immanuel,’ and he uses ‘conversational immanuel.’ It is
worth noting that the choice of word influences the exegesis. Loar takes these
things to be ‘empirical generalisations over functional states’! And Grice
agrees that there is a dull, empiricist way, in which these things can be seen
as things people conform to. There is a quasi-contractualist approach to:
things people convene on. And there is an Ariskantian approach: things people
SHOULD abide by. Surely Grice is not requiring that the conversationalists ARE
explicitly or consciously AWARE of these things. There is a principle of effort
of economical reason to cope with that!
conversational implicaturum. Grice plays with the ambiguity of ‘implication’ as a
logical term, and ‘implicitness’ as a rhetorical one. He wants to make a
distinction between ‘dicere,’ to convey explicitly that p, and to convey
implicitly, or ‘imply’ (always applied to the emissor) that q. A joke. Surely
if he is going to use ‘implicaturum’ in Roman, this would be ‘implicaturum
conversationale,’ if there were such thing. And there were! The Roman is formed
from cum- plus ‘verso.’ So there’s Roman ‘conversatio.’ And –alis, ale is a
productive suffix. Or implicitum. Grice
is being philosophical and sticking with ‘implicatio’ as used by logicians.
Implicitum does not have much of a philosophical pedigree. But even
‘implicatio’ was not THAT used, ‘consequentia’ was preferred, as in ‘non sequitur,
and seguitur, quod demonstrandumm erat. Strawson criticism of ‘the,’ only
tentative by Grice, unlike ‘if,’ so forgivable! See common-ground status. Grice
loved an implicaturum. The use of ‘conversational’ by Grice is NEVER emphatic.
In his detailed, even fastidious, taxonomy of ‘implication,’ he decisively does
not want to have a mere conventional implicaturum (as in “She was poor but she
was honest”) as conversational. Not even a “Thank you”, generated by the maxim
“be polite.” That would be an implicaturum which is nonconventional and yet NOT
conversational, because ‘be polite’ is NOT a conversational maxim (moral,
aesthetic, and social maxims are not). And an implicaturum. An elaboration of
his Oxonian seminar on Logic and conversation. Theres a principle of
conversational helpfulness, which includes a desideratum of conversational
candour and a desideratum of conversational clarity, and the sub-principle of
conversational self-interest clashing with the sub-principle of conversational
benevolence. The whole point of the manoeuvre is to provide a rational basis
for a conversational implicaturum, as his term of art goes. Observation of the
principle of conversational helpfulness is rational/reasonable along the
following lines: anyone who is interested in the two goals conversation is
supposed to serve ‒ give/receive information, influence/be influenced ‒ should
only care to enter a conversation that will be only profitable under the
assumption that it is conducted in accordance with the principle of
conversational helfpulness, and attending desiderata and sub-principles. Grice
takes special care in listing tests for the proof that an implicaturum is
conversational in this rather technical usage: a conversational implicaturum is
rationally calculable (it is the content of a psychological state, attitude or
stance that the addressee assigns to the utterer on condition that he is being
helpful), non-detachable, indeterminate, and very cancellable, thus never part
of the sense and never an entailment of this or that piece of philosophical
vocabulary, in Davidson and Harman, the logic of Grammar, also in Cole and
Morgan, repr. in a revised form in Grice, logic and conversation, the second
James lecture, : principle of conversational helpfulness, implicaturum,
cancellability. While the essay was also repr. by Cole and Morgan. Grice
always cites it from the two-column reprint in The Logic of Grammar, ed. by
Davidson and Harman. Most people without a philosophical background first encounter
Grice through this essay. A philosopher usually gets first acquainted with his
In defence of a dogma, or Meaning. In Logic and Conversation, Grice
re-utilises the notion of an implicaturum and the principle of conversational helpfulness
that he introduced at Oxford to a more select audience. The idea Grice is that
the observation of the principle of conversational helfpulness is rational
(reasonable) along the following lines: anyone who is concerned with the
two goals which are central to conversation (to give/receive information,
to influence/be influenced) should be interested in participating in a
conversation that is only going to be profitable on the assumption that it
is conducted along the lines of the principle of conversational
helfpulness. Grices point is methodological. He is not at all interested
in conversational exchanges as such. Unfortunately, the essay starts in
media res, and skips Grices careful list of Oxonian examples of disregard
for the key idea of what a conversant implicates by the conversational
move he makes. His concession is that there is an explicatum or explicitum
(roughly, the logical form) which is beyond pragmatic constraints. This
concession is easily explained in terms of his overarching irreverent,
conservative, dissenting rationalism. This lecture alone had been read by
a few philosophers leaving them confused. I do not know what Davidson and
Harman were thinking when they reprinted just this in The logic of grammar. I
mean: it is obviously in media res. Grice starts with the logical devices, and
never again takes the topic up. Then he explores metaphor, irony, and
hyperbole, and surely the philosopher who bought The logic of grammar must be
left puzzled. He has to wait sometime to see the thing in full completion.
Oxonian philosophers would, out of etiquette, hardly quote from unpublished
material! Cohen had to rely on memory, and thats why he got all his Grice
wrong! And so did Strawson in If and the horseshoe. Even Walker responding to
Cohen is relying on memory. Few philosophers quote from The logic of grammar.
At Oxford, everybody knew what Grice was up to. Hare was talking implicaturum
in Mind, and Pears was talking conversational implicaturum in Ifs and cans. And
Platts was dedicating a full chapter to “Causal Theory”. It seems the Oxonian
etiquette was to quote from Causal Theory. It was obvious that Grices
implication excursus had to read implicaturum! In a few dictionaries of
philosophy, such as Hamlyns, under implication, a reference to Grices locus
classicus Causal theory is made – Passmore quotes from Causal theory in Hundred
years of philosophy. Very few Oxonians would care to buy a volume published in
Encino. Not many Oxonian philosophers ever quoted The logic of grammar, though.
At Oxford, Grices implicatura remained part of the unwritten doctrines of a
few. And philosophers would not cite a cajoled essay in the references. The implicaturum
allows a display of truth-functional Grice. For substitutional-quantificational
Grice we have to wait for his treatment of the. In Prolegomena, Grice had
quoted verbatim from Strawsons infamous idea that there is a sense of
inferrability with if. While the lecture covers much more than if (He only said
if; Oh, no, he said a great deal more than that! the title was never meant to
be original. Grice in fact provides a rational justification for the three
connectives (and, or, and if) and before that, the unary functor not.
Embedding, Indicative conditionals: embedding, not and If, Sinton on Grice on
denials of indicative conditionals, not, if. Strawson had elaborated on
what he felt was a divergence between Whiteheads and Russells horseshoe, and
if. Grice thought Strawsons observations could be understood in terms of
entailment + implicaturum (Robbing Peter to Pay Paul). But problems, as first
noted to Grice, by Cohen, of Oxford, remain, when it comes to the scope of the implicaturum
within the operation of, say, negation. Analogous problems arise with implicatura
for the other earlier dyadic functors, and and or, and Grice looks for a single
explanation of the phenomenon. The qualification indicative is modal.
Ordinary language allows for if utterances to be in modes other than the
imperative. Counter-factual, if you need to be philosophical krypto-technical,
Subjectsive is you are more of a classicist! Grice took a cavalier to the
problem: Surely it wont do to say You couldnt have done that, since you were in
Seattle, to someone who figuratively tells you hes spend the full summer
cleaning the Aegean stables. This, to philosophers, is the centerpiece of the
lectures. Grice takes good care of not, and, or, and concludes with the if of
the title. For each, he finds a métier, alla Cook Wilson in Statement and Inference.
And they all connect with rationality. So he is using material from his Oxford
seminars on the principle of conversational helpfulness. Plus Cook Wilson makes
more sense at Oxford than at Harvard! The last bit, citing Kripke and Dummett,
is meant as jocular. What is important is the teleological approach to the
operators, where a note should be made about dyadicity. In Prolegomena, when he
introduces the topic, he omits not (about which he was almost obsessed!). He
just gives an example for and (He went to bed and took off his dirty boots),
one for or (the garden becomes Oxford and the kitchen becomes London, and the implicaturum
is in terms, oddly, of ignorance: My wife is either in town or country,making
fun of Town and Country), and if. His favourite illustration for if is Cock
Robin: If the Sparrow did not kill him, the Lark did! This is because Grice is
serious about the erotetic, i.e. question/answer, format Cook Wilson gives to
things, but he manages to bring Philonian and Megarian into the picture, just
to impress! Most importantly, he introduces the square brackets! Hell use them
again in Presupposition and Conversational Implicaturum and turns them into
subscripts in Vacuous Namess. This is central. For he wants to impoverish the
idea of the implicaturum. The explicitum is minimal, and any divergence is
syntactic-cum-pragmatic import. The scope devices are syntactic and eliminable,
and as he knows: what the eye no longer sees, the heart no longer grieves
for! The modal implicaturum. Since Grice uses indicative, for the
title of his third James lecture (Indicative Conditionals) surely he implicates
subjunctive ‒ i.e. that someone might be thinking that he should
give an account of indicative-cum-subjective. This relates to an example Grice
gives in Causal theory, that he does not reproduce in Prolegomena. Grice states
the philosophical mistake as follows. What is actual is not also
possible. Grice seems to be suggesting that a subjective conditional would
involve one or other of the modalities, he is not interested in exploring. On
the other hand, Mackie has noted that Grices conversationalist hypothesis
(Mackie quotes verbatim from Grices principle of conversational helpfulness)
allows for an explanation of the Subjectsive if that does not involve
Kripke-type paradoxes involving possible worlds, or other. In Causal Theory,
Grice notes that the issue with which he has been mainly concerned may be
thought rather a fine point, but it is certainly not an isolated one. There are
several philosophical theses or dicta which would he thinks need to be examined
in order to see whether or not they are sufficiently parallel to the thesis
which Grice has been discussing to be amenable to treatment of the same general
kind. An examples which occurs to me is the following. What is actual is not
also possible. I must emphasise that I am not saying that this example is
importantly similar to the thesis which I have been criticizing, only that, for
all I know, it may be. To put the matter more generally, the position adopted
by Grices objector seems to Grice to involve a type of manoeuvre which is
characteristic of more than one contemporary mode of philosophizing. He is not
condemning that kind of manoeuvre. He is merely suggesting that to embark on it
without due caution is to risk collision with the facts. Before we rush ahead
to exploit the linguistic nuances which we have detected, we should make sure
that we are reasonably clear what sort of nuances they are. If was also of
special interest to Grice for many other reasons. He defends a dispositional
account of intending that in terms of ifs and cans. He considers akrasia
conditionally. He explored the hypothetical-categorical distinction in the
buletic mode. He was concerned with therefore as involved with the associated
if of entailment. Refs.: “Implicaturum” is introduced in Essay 2 in WoW –
but there are scattered references elsewhere. He often uses the plural ‘implicatura’
too, as in “Retrospective Epilogue,” The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC. An implicaturum
requires a complexum. Frege was the topic of the explorations by Dummett. A
tutee of Grices once brought Dummetts Frege to a tutorial and told Grice that
he intended to explore this. Have you read it? No I havent, Grice
answered. And after a pause, he went on: And I hope I will not. Hardly
promising, the tutee thought. Some authors, including Grice, but alas, not
Frege, have noted some similarities between Grices notion of a conventional implicaturum
and Freges schematic and genial rambles on colouring. Aber Farbung, as Frege
would state! Grice was more interested in the idea of a Fregeian sense, but he
felt that if he had to play with Freges aber he should! One of Grices
metaphysical construction-routines, the Humeian projection, is aimed at the
generation of concepts, in most cases the rational reconstruction of an
intuitive concept displayed in ordinary discourse. We arrive at something
like a Fregeian sense. Grice exclaimed, with an intonation of Eureka, almost.
And then he went back to Frege. Grices German was good, so he could read
Frege, in the vernacular. For fun, he read Frege to his children (Grices, not
Freges): In einem obliquen Kontext, Frege says, Grice says, kann ja z. B. die
Ersetzung eines „aber durch ein „und, die in einem direkten Kontext keinen
Unterschied des Wahrheitswerts ergibt, einen solchen Unterschied bewirken. Ill
make that easy for you, darlings: und is and, and aber is but. But surely,
Papa, aber is not cognate with but! Its not. That is Anglo-Saxon, for you. But
is strictly Anglo-Saxon short for by-out; we lost aber when we sailed the North
Sea. Grice went on: Damit wird eine Abgrenzung von Sinn und Färbung (oder
Konnotationen) eines Satzes fragwürdig. I. e. he is saying that She was poor
but she was honest only conventionally implicates that there is a contrast
between her poverty and her honesty. I guess he heard the ditty during the War?
Grice ignored that remark, and went on: Appell und Kundgabe wären ferner von
Sinn und Färbung genauer zu unterscheiden. Ich weiß so auf interessante
Bedeutungs Komponenten hin, bemüht sich aber nicht, sie genauer zu
differenzieren, da er letztlich nur betonen will, daß sie in der Sprache der
Logik keine Rolle spielen. They play a role in the lingo, that is! What do?
Stuff like but. But surely they are not rational conversational implicatura!?
No, dear, just conventional tricks you can ignore on a nice summer day! Grice
however was never interested in what he dismissively labels the conventional implicaturum.
He identifies it because he felt he must! Surely, the way some Oxonian
philosophers learn to use stuff like, on the one hand, and on the other, (or
how Grice learned how to use men and de in Grecian), or so, or therefore, or
but versus and, is just to allow that he would still use imply in such cases.
But surely he wants conversational to stick with rationality: conversational
maxim and converational implicaturum only apply to things which can be
justified transcendentally, and not idiosyncrasies of usage! Grice follows Church
in noting that Russell misreads Frege as being guilty of ignoring the
use-mention distinction, when he doesnt. One thing that Grice minimises is that
Freges assertion sign is composite. Tha is why Baker prefers to use the dot “.”
as the doxastic correlative for the buletic sign ! which is NOT composite. The
sign „├‟ is composite. Frege explains his Urteilstrich, the vertical component
of his sign ├ as conveying assertoric force. The principal role of the
horizontal component as such is to prevent the appearance of assertoric force
belonging to a token of what does not express a thought (e.g. the expression
22). ─p expresses a thought even if p does not.) cf. Hares four sub-atomic
particles: phrastic (dictum), neustic (dictor), tropic, and clistic. Cf. Grice
on the radix controversy: We do not want the “.” in p to become a vanishing
sign. Grices Frege, Frege, Words, and Sentences, Frege, Farbung, aber. Frege
was one of Grices obsessions. A Fregeian sense is an explicatum, or implicitum,
a concession to get his principle of conversational helpfulness working in the
generation of conversational implicatura, that can only mean progress for
philosophy! Fregeian senses are not to be multiplied beyond necessity. The
employment of the routine of Humeian projection may be expected to deliver for
us, as its result, a concept – the concept(ion) of value, say, in
something like a Fregeian sense, rather than an object. There is also a
strong affinity between Freges treatment of colouring (of the German particle
aber, say) and Grices idea of a convetional implicaturum (She was poor, but she
was honest,/and her parents were the same,/till she met a city feller,/and she
lost her honest Names, as the vulgar Great War ditty went). Grice does not seem
interested in providing a philosophical exploration of conventional implicatura,
and there is a reason for this. Conventional implicatura are not essentially
connected, as conversational implicatura are, with rationality. Conventional implicatura
cannot be calculable. They have less of a philosophical interest, too, in that
they are not cancellable. Grice sees cancellability as a way to prove some
(contemporary to him, if dated) ordinary-language philosophers who analyse an
expression in terms of sense and entailment, where a cancellable conversational
implicaturum is all there is (to it). He mentions Benjamin in
Prolegomena, and is very careful in noting how Benjamin misuses a Fregeian
sense. In his Causal theory, Grice lists another mistake: What is known to be
the case is not believed to be the case. Grice gives pretty few example of
a conventional implicaturum: therefore, as in the utterance by Jill: Jack is an
Englishman; he is, therefore, brave. This is interesting because therefore
compares to so which Strawson, in PGRICE, claims is the asserted counterpart to
if. But Strawson is never associated with the type of linguistic botany
that Grice is. Grice also mentions the idiom, on the one hand/on the other
hand, in some detail in “Epilogue”: My aunt was a nurse in the Great War; my
sister, on the other hand, lives on a peak at Darien. Grice thinks that
Frege misuses the use-mention distinction but Russell corrects that. Grice
bases this on Church. And of course he is obsessed with the assertion sign by
Frege, which Grice thinks has one stroke tooo many. The main reference is give
above for ‘complexum.’ Those without a philosophical background tend to ignore
a joke by Grice. His echoing Kant in the James is a joke, in the sense that he
is using Katns well-known to be pretty artificial quartet of ontological
caegories to apply to a totally different phenomenon: the taxonomy of the
maxims! In his earlier non-jocular attempts, he applied more philosophical
concepts with a more serious rationale. His key concept, conversation as
rational co-operation, underlies all his attempts. A pretty worked-out model is
in terms then of this central, or overarching principle of conversational
helpfulness (where conversation as cooperation need not be qualified as
conversation as rational co-operation) and being structured by two contrasting
sub-principles: the principle of conversational benevolence (which almost
overlaps with the principle of conversational helpfulness) and the slightly
more jocular principle of conversational self-love. There is something
oxymoronic about self-love being conversational, and this is what leads to
replace the two subprinciples by a principle of conversational helfpulness (as
used in WoW:IV) simpliciter. His desideratum of conversational candour is key.
The clash between the desideratum of conversational candour and the desideratum
of conversational clarity (call them supermaxims) explains why I believe that p
(less clear than p) shows the primacy of candour over clarity. The idea remains
of an overarching principle and a set of more specific guidelines. Non-Oxonian
philosophers would see Grices appeal to this or that guideline as ad hoc, but
not his tutees! Grice finds inspiration in Joseph Butler’s sermon on benevolence
and self-love, in his sermon 9, upon the love of our neighbour, preached on
advent Sunday. And if there be any other commandment, it is briefly
comprehended in this saying, Namesly, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself,
Romans xiii. 9. It is commonly observed, that there is a disposition in
men to complain of the viciousness and corruption of the age in which they
live, as greater than that of former ones: which is usually followed with this
further observation, that mankind has been in that respect much the same in all
times. Now, to determine whether this last be not contradicted by the accounts
of history: thus much can scarce be doubted, that vice and folly takes
different turns, and some particular kinds of it are more open and avowed in
some ages than in others; and, I suppose, it may be spoken of as very much the
distinction of the present, to profess a contracted spirit, and greater regards
to self-interest, than appears to have been done formerly. Upon this account it
seems worth while to inquire, whether private interest is likely to be promoted
in proportion to the degree in which self-love engrosses us, and prevails over
all other principles; "or whether the contracted affection may not
possibly be so prevalent as to disappoint itself, and even contradict its own
end, private good?" Repr. in revised form as WOW, I. Grice felt
the need to go back to his explantion (cf. Fisher, Never contradict. Never
explain) of the nuances about seem and cause (“Causal theory”.). Grice uses ‘My
wife is in the kitchen or the bedroom,’ by Smith, as relying on a requirement
of discourse. But there must be more to it. Variations on a theme by Grice.
Make your contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by
the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged. Variations
on a theme by Grice. I wish to represent a certain subclass of
non-conventional implicaturcs, which I shall
call conversational implicaturcs, as being essentially connected with
certain general features of discourse; so my next step is to try to say what
these features are. The following may provide a first approximation to a
general principle. Our talk exchanges do not normally consist of a succession
of disconnected remarks, and would not be rational if they did. They are
characteristically, to some degree at least, cooperative efforts; and each
participant recognizes in them, to some extent, a common purpose or set of
purposes, or at least a mutually accepted direction. This purpose or direction
may be fixed from the start (e.g., by an initial proposal of a question for
discussion), or it may evolve during the exchange; it may be fairly definite,
or it may be so indefinite as to leave very considerable latitude to the
participants, as in a casual conversation. But at each stage, some possible
conversational moves would be excluded as conversationally unsuitable. We might
then formulate a rough general principle which participants will be expected
ceteris paribus to observe, viz.: Make your conversational contribution such as
is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or
direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged. One might label this
the co-operative principle. We might then formulate a rough general principle
which participants will be expected ceteris paribus to
observe, viz.: Make your contribution such as is required, at the
stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk
exchange in which you are engaged. One might label this the Cooperative
Principle. Strictly, the principle itself is not co-operative: conversants
are. Less literary variant: Make your move such as is required by the
accepted goal of the conversation in which you are engaged. But why logic and
conversation? Logica had been part of the trivium for ages ‒ Although they
called it dialectica, then. Grice on the seven liberal arts. Moved by
Strawsons treatment of the formal devices in “Introduction to logical theory”
(henceforth, “Logical theory”), Grice targets these, in their
ordinary-discourse counterparts. Strawson indeed characterizes Grice as his
logic tutor – Strawson was following a PPE., and his approach to logic is
practical. His philosophy tutor was Mabbott. For Grice, with a M. A. Lit.
Hum. the situation is different. Grice knows that the Categoriae and De Int. of
his beloved Aristotle are part of the Logical Organon which had been so
influential in the history of philosophy. Grice attempts to reconcile
Strawsons observations with the idea that the formal devices reproduce some
sort of explicatum, or explicitum, as identified by Whitehead and Russell in
Principia Mathematica. In the proceedings, Grice has to rely on some general
features of discourse, or conversation as a rational co-operation. The
alleged divergence between the ordinary-language operators and their formal
counterparts is explained in terms of the conversational implicatura,
then. I.e. the content of the psychological attitude that the addressee A has
to ascribe to the utterer U to account for any divergence between the formal
device and its alleged ordinary-language counterpart, while still assuming that
U is engaged in a co-operative transaction. The utterer and his
addressee are seen as caring for the mutual goals of conversation ‒
the exchange of information and the institution of decisions ‒ and
judging that conversation will only be profitable (and thus reasonable and
rational) if conducted under some form of principle of conversational
helpfulness. The observation of a principle of conversational
helpfulness is reasonable (rational) along the following lines: anyone
who cares about the goals that are central to conversation/communication
(such as giving and receiving information, influencing and being influenced by
others) must be expected to have an interest, given suitable circumstances, in
participating in a conversation that will be profitable ONLY on the assumption
that it is conducted in general accordance with a principle of conversational
helpfulness. In titling his seminar Logic and conversation, Grice is
thinking Strawson. After all, in the seminal “Logical theory,” that every
Oxonian student was reading, Strawson had the cheek to admit that he never
ceased to learn logic from his tutor, Grice. Yet he elaborates a totally anti
Griceian view of things. To be fair to Strawson, the only segment where he
acknwoledges Grices difference of opinion is a brief footnote, concerning the
strength or lack thereof, of this or that quantified utterance. Strawson uses
an adjective that Grice will seldom do, pragmatic. On top, Strawson attributes
the adjective to rule. For Grice, in Strawsons wording, there is this or that
pragmatic rule to the effect that one should make a stronger rather than a
weaker conversational move. Strawsons Introduction was published before Grice
aired his views for the Aristotelian Society. In this seminar then Grice takes
the opportunity to correct a few misunderstandings. Important in that it
is Grices occasion to introduce the principle of conversational helpfulness as
generating implicatura under the assumption of rationality. The lecture makes
it obvious that Grices interest is methodological, and not philological. He is
not interest in conversation per se, but only as the source for his principle
of conversational helpfulness and the notion of the conversational implicaturum,
which springs from the distinction between what an utterer implies and what his
expression does, a distinction apparently denied by Witters and all too
frequently ignored by Austin. Logic and conversation, an Oxford seminar, implicaturum,
principle of conversational helpfulness, eywords: conversational implicaturum,
conversational implicaturum. Conversational Implicaturum Grices main
invention, one which trades on the distinction between what an utterer implies
and what his expression does. A distinction apparently denied by Witters,
and all too frequently ignored by, of all people, Austin. Grice is
implicating that Austins sympathies were for the Subjectsification of
Linguistic Nature. Grice remains an obdurate individualist, and never loses
sight of the distinction that gives rise to the conversational implicaturum,
which can very well be hyper-contextualised, idiosyncratic, and perfectly
particularized. His gives an Oxonian example. I can very well mean that my
tutee is to bring me a philosophical essay next week by uttering It is
raining.Grice notes that since the object of the present exercise, is to
provide a bit of theory which will explain, for a certain family of
cases, why is it that a particular implicaturum is present, I
would suggest that the final test of the adequacy and utility of this
model should be: can it be used to construct an explanation of
the presence of such an implicaturum, and is it more comprehensive
and more economical than any rival? is the no
doubt pre-theoretical explanation which one would be prompted to give
of such an implicaturum consistent with, or better still a favourable pointer
towards the requirements involved in the model? cf. Sidonius: Far otherwise:
whoever disputes with you will find those protagonists of heresy, the Stoics,
Cynics, and Peripatetics, shattered with their own arms and their
own engines; for their heathen followers, if they resist the doctrine and
spirit of Christianity, will, under your teaching, be caught in their own
familiar entanglements, and fall headlong into their own toils; the barbed
syllogism of your arguments will hook the glib tongues of the
casuists, and it is you who will tie up their slippery
questions in categorical clews, after the manner of a clever
physician, who, when compelled by reasoned thought, prepares antidotes for
poison even from a serpent.qvin potivs experietvr qvisqve conflixerit stoicos
cynicos peripateticos hæresiarchas propriis armis propriis qvoqve concvti
machinamentis nam sectatores eorum Christiano dogmati ac sensvi si
repvgnaverint mox te magistro ligati vernaculis implicaturis in retia
sua præcipites implagabvntur syllogismis tuæ propositionis vncatis volvbilem
tergiversantvm lingvam inhamantibvs dum spiris categoricis lubricas qvæstiones
tv potivs innodas acrivm more medicorvm qui remedivm contra venena cum ratio
compellit et de serpente conficivnt. If he lectured on Logic and
Conversation on implicaturum, Grice must have thought that Strawsons area was
central. Yet, as he had done in Causal theory and as he will at Harvard, Grice
kept collecting philosophers mistakes. So its best to see Grice as a
methodologist, and as using logic and conversation as an illustration of his
favourite manoeuvre, indeed, central philosophical manoeuver that gave him a
place in the history of philosophy. Restricting this manoeuvre to just an area
minimises it. On the other hand, there has to be a balance: surely logic and
conversation is a topic of intrinsic interest, and we cannot expect all
philosophers – unless they are Griceians – to keep a broad unitarian view of
philosophy as a virtuous whole. Philosophy, like virtue, is entire.
Destructive implicaturum to it: Mr. Puddle is our man in æsthetics implicates
that he is not good at it. What is important to Grice is that the mistakes of
these philosophers (notably Strawson!) arise from some linguistic phenomena, or,
since we must use singular expressions this or that linguistic phenomenon. Or
as Grice puts it, it is this or that linguistic phenomenon which provides the
material for the philosopher to make his mistake! So, to solve it, his theory of
conversation as rational co-operation is posited – technically, as a way to
explain (never merely describe, which Grice found boring ‒ if English, cf.
never explain, never apologise ‒ Jacky Fisher: Never contradict. Never
explain.) these phenomena – his principle of conversational helpfulness and the
idea of a conversational implicaturum. The latter is based not so much on
rationality per se, but on the implicit-explicit distinction that he constantly
plays with, since his earlier semiotic-oriented explorations of Peirce. But
back to this or that linguistic phenomenon, while he would make fun of Searle
for providing this or that linguistic phenomenon that no philosopher would ever
feel excited about, Grice himself was a bit of a master in illustrating this a
philosophical point with this or that linguistic phenomenon that would not be
necessarily connected with philosophy. Grice rarely quotes authors, but surely
the section in “Causal theory,” where he lists seven philosophical theses
(which are ripe for an implicaturum treatment) would be familiar enough for
anybody to be able to drop a names to attach to each. At Harvard, almost every
example Grice gives of this or that linguistic phenomenon is UN-authored (and
sometimes he expands on his own view of them, just to amuse his audience – and
show how committed to this or that thesis he was), but some are not unauthored.
And they all belong to the linguistic turn: In his three groups of examples,
Grice quotes from Ryle (who thinks he knows about ordinary language), Witters,
Austin (he quotes him in great detail, from Pretending, Plea of excuses, and No
modification without aberration,), Strawson (in “Logical theory” and on Truth
for Analysis), Hart (as I have heard him expand on this), Grice, Searle, and
Benjamin. Grice implicates Hare on ‘good,’ etc. When we mention the
explicit/implicit distinction as source for the implicaturum, we are referring
to Grices own wording in Retrospective epilogue where he mentions an utterer as
conveying in some explicit fashion this or that, as opposed to a gentler, more
(midland or southern) English, way, via implicaturum, or implIciture, if you
mustnt. Cf. Fowler: As a southern Englishman, Ive stopped trying teaching a
northern Englishman the distinction between ought and shall. He seems to get it
always wrong. It may be worth exploring how this connects with rationality. His
point would be that that an assumption that the rational principle of
conversational helpfulness is in order allows P-1 not just to convey in a
direct explicit fashion that p, but in an implicit fashion that q, where q is
the implicaturum. The principle of conversational helpfulness as generator of
this or that implicatura, to use Grices word (generate). Surely, He took off
his boots and went to bed; I wont say in which order sounds hardly in the vein
of conversational helpfulness – but provided Grice does not see it as logically
incoherent, it is still a rational (if not reasonable) thing to say. The point
may be difficult to discern, but you never know. The utterer may be conveying,
Viva Boole. Grices point about rationality is mentioned in his later
Prolegomena, on at least two occasions. Rational behaviour is the phrase he
uses (as applied first to communication and then to discourse) and in stark
opposition with a convention-based approach he rightly associates with Austin.
Grice is here less interested here as he will be on rationality, but
coooperation as such. Helpfulness as a reasonable expecation (normative?), a
mutual one between decent chaps, as he puts it. His charming decent chap is so
Oxonian. His tutee would expect no less ‒ and indeed no more! A rather obscure
exploration on the connection of semiotics and philosophical psychology. Grice
is aware that there is an allegation in the air about a possible vicious circle
in trying to define category of expression in terms of a category of
representation. He does not provide a solution to the problem which hell take up
in his Method in philosophical psychology, in his role of President of the
APA. It is the implicaturum behind the lecture that matters, since Grice
will go back to it, notably in the Retrospective Epilogue. For Grice, its all
rational enough. Theres a P, in a situation, say of danger – a bull ‒. He
perceives the bull. The bulls attack causes this perception. Bull! the P1 G1
screams, and causes in P2 G2 a rearguard movement. So where is
the circularity? Some pedants would have it that Bull cannot be understood in a
belief about a bull which is about a bull. Not Grice. It is nice that he
brought back implicaturum, which had become obliterated in the lectures, back
to title position! But it is also noteworthy, that these are not explicitly
rationalist models for implicaturum. He had played with a model, and an
explanatory one at that, for implicaturum, in his Oxford seminar, in terms of a
principle of conversational helpfulness, a desideratum of conversational
clarity, a desideratum of conversational candour, and two sub-principles: a
principle of conversational benevolence, and a principle of conversational
self-interest! Surely Harvard could be spared of the details! Implicaturum.
Grice disliked a presupposition. BANC also contains a folder for Odd ends: Urbana
and non-Urbana. Grice continues with the elaboration of a formal calculus. He
originally baptised it System Q in honour of Quine. At a later stage, Myro
will re-Names it System G, in a special version, System GHP, a highly
powerful/hopefully plausible version of System G, in gratitude to Grice. Odd
Ends: Urbana and Not Urbana, Odds and ends: Urbana and not Urbana, or
not-Urbana, or Odds and ends: Urbana and non Urbana, or Oddents, urbane and not
urbane, semantics, Urbana lectures. The Urbana lectures are on language
and reality. Grice keeps revising them, as these items show. Language and
reality, The University of Illinois at Urbana, The Urbana Lectures, Language
and reference, language and reality, The Urbana lectures, University of
Illinois at Urbana, language, reference, reality. Grice favours a
transcendental approach to communication. A beliefs by a communicator
worth communicating has to be true. An order by a communicator worth
communicating has to be satisfactory. The fourth lecture is the one Grice dates
in WOW . Smith has not ceased from beating his wife, presupposition and
conversational implicaturum, in Radical pragmatics, ed. by R. Cole, repr. in a
revised form in Grice, WOW, II, Explorations in semantics and metaphysics,
essay, presupposition and implicaturum, presupposition, conversational implicaturum,
implicaturum, Strawson. Grice: The loyalty examiner will not summon you, do not
worry. The cancellation by Grice could be pretty subtle. Well, the loyalty examiner
will not be summoning you at any rate. Grice goes back to the issue of negation
and not. If, Grice notes, is is a matter of dispute whether the government has
a very undercover person who interrogates those whose loyalty is suspect and
who, if he existed, could be legitimately referred to as the loyalty examiner;
and if, further, I am known to be very sceptical about the existence of such a
person, I could perfectly well say to a plainly loyal person, Well, the loyalty
examiner will not be summoning you at any rate, without, Grice would
think, being taken to imply that such a person exists. Further, if the utterer
U is well known to disbelieve in the existence of such a person, though others
are inclined to believe in him, when U finds a man who is apprised of Us
position, but who is worried in case he is summoned, U may try to reassure him
by uttering, The loyalty examiner will not summon you, do not worry. Then it
would be clear that U uttered this because U is sure there is no such person.
The lecture was variously reprinted, but the Urbana should remain the preferred
citation. There are divergences in the various drafts, though. The
original source of this exploration was a seminar. Grice is interested in
re-conceptualising Strawsons manoeuvre regarding presupposition as involving
what Grice disregards as a metaphysical concoction: the truth-value gap. In
Grices view, based on a principle of conversational tailoring that falls under
his principle of conversational helpfulness ‒ indeed under the desideratum
of conversational clarity (be perspicuous [sic]). The king of France is bald
entails there is a king of France; while The king of France aint bald merely
implicates it. Grice much preferred Collingwoods to Strawsons
presuppositions! Grice thought, and rightly, too, that if his notion of the
conversational implicaturum was to gain Oxonian currency, it should supersede
Strawsons idea of the præ-suppositum. Strawson, in his attack to Russell,
had been playing with Quines idea of a truth-value gap. Grice shows that
neither the metaphysical concoction of a truth-value gap nor the philosophical
tool of the præ-suppositum is needed. The king of France is bald entails that there
is a king of France. It is part of what U is logically committed to by what he explicitly
conveys. By uttering, The king of France is not bald on the other hand, U
merely implicitly conveys or implicates that there is a king of France. A
perfectly adequate, or impeccable, as Grice prefers, cancellation, abiding with
the principle of conversational helpfulness is in the offing. The king of
France ain’t bald. What made you think he is? For starters, he ain’t real!
Grice credits Sluga for having pointed out to him the way to deal with the
definite descriptor or definite article or the iota quantifier the formally.
One thing Russell discovered is that the variable denoting function is to be
deduced from the variable propositional function, and is not to be taken as an
indefinable. Russell tries to do without the iota i as an indefinable, but
fails. The success by Russell later, in On denoting, is the source of all his
subsequent progress. The iota quantifier consists of an inverted iota to be
read the individuum x, as in (℩x).F(x). Grice opts for the
Whiteheadian-Russellian standard rendition, in terms of the iota operator.
Grices take on Strawson is a strong one. The king of France is bald; entails
there is a king of France, and what the utterer explicitly conveys is
doxastically unsatisfactory. The king of France aint bald does not. By uttering
The king of France aint bald U only implicates that there is a king of France,
and what he explicitly conveys is doxastically satisfactory. Grice knew he was
not exactly robbing Peter to pay Paul, or did he? It is worth placing the
lecture in context. Soon after delivering in the New World his exploration on
the implicaturum, Grice has no better idea than to promote Strawsons philosophy
in the New World. Strawson will later reflect on the colder shores of the Old
World, so we know what Grice had in mind! Strawsons main claim to fame in the
New World (and at least Oxford in the Old World) was his On referring, where he
had had the cheek to say that by uttering, The king of France is not bald, the
utterer implies that there is a king of France (if not that, as Grice has it,
that what U explicitly conveys is doxastically satisfactory. Strawson later
changed that to the utterer presupposes that there is a king of France. So
Grice knows what and who he was dealing with. Grice and Strawson had
entertained Quine at Oxford, and Strawson was particularly keen on that turn of
phrase he learned from Quine, the truth-value gap. Grice, rather, found it
pretty repulsive: Tertium exclusum! So, Grice goes on to argue that by uttering
The king of France is bald, one entailment of what U explicitly conveys is
indeed There is a king of France. However, in its negative co-relate, things
change. By uttering The king of France aint bald, the utterer merely implicitly
conveys or implicates (in a pretty cancellable format) that there is a king of
France. The king of France aint bald: theres no king of France! The loyalty
examiner is like the King of France, in ways! The piece is crucial for Grices
re-introduction of the square-bracket device: [The king of France] is bald;
[The king of France] aint bald. Whatever falls within the scope of the square
brackets is to be read as having attained common-ground status and therefore,
out of the question, to use Collingwoods jargon! Grice was very familiar with
Collingwood on presupposition, meant as an attack on Ayer. Collingwoods
reflections on presuppositions being either relative or absolute may well lie
behind Grices metaphysical construction of absolute value! The earliest
exploration by Grice on this is his infamous, Smith has not ceased from beating
his wife, discussed by Ewing in Meaninglessness for Mind. Grice goes back to
the example in the excursus on implying that in Causal Theory, and it is best
to revisit this source. Note that in the reprint in WOW Grice does NOT go, one
example of presupposition, which eventually is a type of conversational implicaturum.
Grices antipathy to Strawsons presupposition is metaphysical: he dislikes the
idea of a satisfactory-value-gap, as he notes in the second paragraph to Logic
and conversation. And his antipathy crossed the buletic-doxastic divide! Using φ to represent a sentence in either mode,
he stipulate that ~φ is satisfactory just in case ⌈φ⌉ is unsatisfactory. A crunch,
as he puts it, becomes obvious: ~ ⊢The king of France is bald may perhaps be
treated as equivalent to ⊢~(The king of
France is bald). But what about ~!Arrest the intruder? What do we say in cases
like, perhaps, Let it be that I now put my hand on my head or Let it be that my
bicycle faces north, in which (at least on occasion) it seems to be that
neither !p nor !~p is either satisfactory or unsatisfactory? If !p is neither
satisfactory nor unsatisfactory (if that make sense, which doesnt to me), does
the philosopher assign a third buletically satisfactory value (0.5) to !p
(buletically neuter, or indifferent). Or does the philosopher say that we have
a buletically satisfactory value gap, as Strawson, following Quine, might
prefer? This may require careful consideration; but I cannot see that the
problem proves insoluble, any more than the analogous problem connected with
Strawsons doxastic presupposition is insoluble. The difficulty is not so much
to find a solution as to select the best solution from those which present
themselves. The main reference is Essay 2 in WoW, but there are scattered
references elsewhere. Refs.: The main sources are the two
sets of ‘logic and conversation,’ in BANC, but there are scattered essays on ‘implicaturum’
simpliciter, too -- “Presupposition and
conversational implicaturum,” c. 2-f. 25; and “Convesational implicaturum,” c.
4-f. 9, “Happiness, discipline, and implicaturums,” c. 7-f. 6; “Presupposition
and implicaturum,” c. 9-f. 3, The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC.
conversational manual: -- Grice was fascinated by the etymology of ‘etiquette’ – from
Frankish *stikkan, cognate with Old English stician "to pierce," from
Proto-Germanic *stikken "to be stuck," stative form from PIE *steig-
"to stick; pointed" (It.
etichetta) -- of conversational rational etiquette -- conversational iimmanuel,
cnversational manual. Before playing with ‘immanuel,’ Grice does use ‘manual’
more technically. A know-how. “Surely, I can have a manual, but don’t know how
to play bridge.” “That’s not how I’m using ‘manual.’” It should be pointed out
that it’s the visual thing that influenced. When people (especially
non-philosophers) saw the list of maxims, they thought: “Washington!” “A
manual!”. In the Oxford seminrs, Grice was never so ‘additive.’ His desideratum
of conversational clarity, his desideratum of conversational candour, his
principle of conversational self-love and his principle of conversational
benevolence, plus his principle of conversational helpfulness, were meant as
‘philosophical’ leads to explain this or that philosophical mistake. The
seminars were given for philosophy tutees. And Grice is playing on the ‘manuals
of etiquette’ – conversational etiquette. If you do not BELONG to this targeted
audience, it is likely that you’ll misconstrue Grice’s point, and you will!
Especially R. T. L.!The Gentlemen's Book of Etiquette and Manual of Politeness
Being a Complete Guide for a Gentleman's Conduct in All His Relations Towards
Society by Cecil B. Hartley. Wit and vivacity are two highly important
ingredients in the conversation of a man in polite society, yet a straining for
effect, or forced wit, is in excessively bad taste. There is no one more
insupportable in society than the everlasting talkers who scatter puns,
witticisms, and jokes with so profuse a hand that they become as tiresome as a
comic newspaper, and whose loud laugh at their own wit drowns other voices
which might speak matter more interesting. The really witty man does not shower
forth his wit so indiscriminately; his charm consists in wielding his powerful
weapon delicately and easily, and making each highly polished witticism come in
the right place and moment to be effectual. While real wit is a most delightful
gift, and its use a most charming accomplishment, it is, like many other bright
weapons, dangerous to use too often. You may wound where you meant only to
amuse, and remarks which you mean only in for general applications, may be
construed into personal affronts, so, if you have the gift, use it wisely, and
not too freely. The most important requisite for a good conversational power is
education, and, by this is meant, not merely the matter you may store in your
memory from observation or books, though this is of vast importance, but it
also includes the developing of the mental powers, and, above all, the
comprehension. An English writer says, “A man should be able, in order to enter
into conversation, to catch rapidly the meaning of anything that is advanced;
for instance, though you know nothing of science, you should not be obliged to
stare and be silent, when a man who does understand it is explaining a new
discovery or a new theory; though you have not read a word of Blackstone, your
comprehensive powers should be sufficiently acute to enable you to take in the
statement that may be made of a recent cause; though you may not have read some
particular book, you should be capable of appreciating the criticism which you
hear of it. Without such power—simple enough, and easily attained by attention
and practice, yet too seldom met with in general society—a conversation which
departs from the most ordinary topics cannot be maintained without the risk of
lapsing into a lecture; with such power, society becomes instructive as well as
amusing, and you have no remorse at an evening’s end at having wasted three or
four hours in profitless banter, or simpering platitudes. This facility of
comprehension often startles us in some women, whose education we know to have
been poor, and whose reading is limited. If they did not rapidly receive your ideas,
they could not, therefore, be fit companions for intellectual men, and it is,
perhaps, their consciousness of a deficiency which leads them to pay the more
attention to what you say. It is this which makes married women so much more
agreeable to men of thought than young ladies, as a rule, can be, for they are
accustomed to the society of a husband, and the effort to be a companion to his
mind has engrafted the habit of attention and ready reply.”
conversational maxim. The idea of a maxim implies freewill and freedom in
general. A beautiful thing about Grice’s conversational maxims is that surely
they do not ‘need to be necessarily’ independent, as Strawson and Wiggins emphatically
put it (p.520). The important thing is other. A conversational maxim is
UNIVERSALISABLE (v. universalierung) into a ‘manual,’ the “Immanuel,” strictly,
the “Conversational Immanuel.” Grice is making fun of those ‘conversational
manuals’ for the learning of some European language in the Grand Tour (as in
“Learn Swiss in five easy lessons”). Grice is echoing Kant. Maximen (subjektive
Grundsätze): selbstgesetzte Handlungsregeln, die ein Wollen ausdrücken, vs.
Imperative (objektive Grundsätze): durch praktische Vernunft bestimmt;
Ratschläge, moralisch relevante Grundsätze. („das Gesetz aber ist das objektive
Prinzip, gültig für jedes vernünftige Wesen, und der Grundsatz, nach dem es
handeln soll, d. i. ein Imperativ.“) das Problem ist jedoch die Subjektivität
der Maxime. When considering Grice’s concept of a ‘conversational maxim,’ one
has to be careful. First, he hesitated as to the choice of the label. He used
‘objective’ and ‘desideratum’ before. And while few cite this, in WoW:PandCI he
adds one – leading the number of maxims to ten, what he called the
‘conversational catalogue.’ So when exploring the maxims, it is not necessary
to see their dependence on the four functions that Kant tabulated: quantitas,
qualitas, relatio, and modus, or quantity, quality, relation, and mode (Grice
follows Meiklejohn’s translation), but in terms of their own formulation, one
by one. Grice
formulates the overarching principle: “We might then formulate a rough general
principle which participants will be expected (ceteris paribus) to observe,
namely: Make your conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage
at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange
in which you are engaged. One might label this the COOPEHATIVE PIUNCIPLE.”He
then goes on to introduce the concept of a ‘conversational maxim.’“On the
assumption that some such general principle as this is acceptable, one may
perhaps distinguish four categories under one or another of which will fall
certain more specific MAXIMS maxims and
submaxims, the following of which will, in general, yield results in accordance
with the Cooperative Principle.” Note that in his
comparative “more specific maxims,” he is implicating that, in terms of the
force, the principle is a MAXIM. Had he not wanted this implicaturum, he could
have expressed it as: “On the assumption that some such general principle as
this is acceptable, one may perhaps distinguish four categories under one or
another of which will fall certain MAXIMS.”
He is
comparing the principle with the maxims in terms of ‘specificity.’ I.e. the
principle is the ‘summun genus,’ as it were, the category is the ‘inferior
genus,’ and the maxim is the ‘species infima.’He is having in mind something
like arbor porphyriana. For why otherwise care to distinguish in the introductory
passage, between ‘maxims and submaxims.’ This use of ‘submaxim’ is very
interesting. Because it is unique. He would rather call the four maxims as
SUPRA-maxims, supermaxim, or supramaxim. And leaving ‘maxim’ for what here he
is calling the submaxim.Note that if one challenges the ‘species infima,’ one
may proceed to distinguish this or that sub-sub-maxim falling under the maxim.
Take “Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.” Since this, as he
grants, applies mainly to informative cases, one may consider that it is
actually a subsubmaxim. The submaxim would be: “Do not say that for which you
are not entitled” (alla Nowell-Smith). And then provide one subsubmaxim for the
desideratum: “Do not give an order which you are not entitled to give” or “Do
not order that for you lack adequate authority,” and the other subsubmaxim for
the creditum: “Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.”Grice: “Echoing
Kant, I call these categories Quantity, Quality, Relation, and Manner.” Or
Mode. “Manner” may be Ross’s translation of Aristotle’s ‘mode.’ Consider the
exploration of Aristotle on ‘modus’ in Categoriae. It is such a mixed bag that
surely ‘manner’ is not inappropriate!“The category of QUANTITY” – i. e. either
the conversational category of quantity, or as one might prefer, the category
of conversational quantity – “relates to the quantity of information to be
provided,”So it’s not just ANY QUANTUM, as Aristotle or Kant, or Ariskant have
it – just QUANTITY OF INFORMATION, whatever ‘information’ is, and how the
quantity of information is to be assessed. E g. Grice surely shed doubts re:
the pillar box seems red and the pillar box is red. He had till now used
‘strength,’ even ‘logical strength,’ in terms of entailment – and here, neither
the phenomenalist nor the physicalist utterance entail the other.“and under it
fall the following maxims:”That is, he goes straight to the ‘conversational
maxim.’ He will provide supermaxim for the other three conversational
categories.Why is the category of conversational quantity lacking a
supermaxim?The reason is that it would seem redundant and verbose: ‘be
appropriately informative.’ By having TWO maxims, he is playing with a weighing
in, or balance between one maxim and the other. Cf.To say the truth, all the truth,
and nothing but the truth.No more no less.One maximm states the ‘at most,’ the
other maxim states the ‘at least.’One maxim states the ‘maxi,’ the other maxim
states the ‘min.’ Together they state the ‘maximin.’First, “Make your
contribution as informative as is required (for the current purposes of the exchange).”It’s
the contribution which is informative, not the utterer. Cf. “Be as informative
as is required.” Grice implicates that if you make your contribution as
informative as is required YOU are being as informative as is required. But
there is a category-shift here. Grice means, ‘required BY the goal of the
exchange). e.g.How are youFine thanks – the ‘and you’ depends on whether you
are willing to ‘keep the conversation going’ or your general mood. Second, “Do
not make your contribution more informative than is required.”“ (The second
maxim is disputable;”He goes on to give a different reason. But the primary
reason is that “Do not make your contribution more informative than is
required” is ENTAILED by “Make your contribution as informative as is required
(for the current purposes of the exchange)” – vide R. M. Hare on “Imperative
inferences” IN a diagram:Make your contribution as informative as is required
(for the current purposes of the exchange)Therefore, do not make your
contribution more informative than is required (by the current purposes of the
exchange).Grice gives another reason (he will give yet a further one) why the
maxim is ‘disputable.’“it might be said that to be overinformative is not a
transgression of the CP but merely a waste of time.”For both
conversationalists, who are thereby abiding by Ferraro’s law of the least
conversational effort.”“A waste of time” relates to Grice’s previous
elaborations on ‘undue effort’ and ‘unnecessary trouble.’He is proposing a
conversational maximin.When he formulates his principle of economy of rational
effort, it is a waste of ‘time and energy.’Here it is just ‘time.’ “Energy” is
a more generic concept.“However, it might be answered that such overinformativeness
may be confusing in that it is liable to raise side issues;”Methinks the lady
doth protest too much.His example, “He was in a blacked out city.”It does not seem
to relate to the pillar boxA: What color is the pillar boxB: It seems red.Such
a ‘confusion’ and ‘side issue,’ if so designed, is part of the implicaturum.“and
there may also be an indirect effect, in that the hearers (or addressee) may be
misled as a result of thinking that there is some particular POINT in the
provision of the excess of information.”Cf. Peter Winch on “H. P. Grice’s
Conversational Point.”More boringly, it is part of the utterer’s INTENTION to provide
an excess of information.”This may be counterproductive, or not.“Meet Mr.
Puddle”“Meet Mr. Puddle, our man in nineteenth-century continental philosophy.”The
introducer point: to keep the conversation going.Effect on Grice: Mr. Puddle is
hopeless at nineteenth-century continental philosophy (OR HE IS BEING
UNDERDESCRIBED). One has to think of philosophically relevant examples here,
which is all that Grice cares for. Malcolm says, “Moore knows it; because he’s
seen it!” – Malcolm implicates that Grice will not take Malcolm’s word. So
Malcom needs to provide the excess of information, and add, to his use of
‘know,’ which Malcolm claims Moore does not know how to use, the ‘reason’ – If
knowledge is justified true belief, Malcolm is conveying explicitly that Moore
knows and ONE OF THE CONDITIONS for it. Cf.I didn’t know you were pregnant.You
still do not. (Here the cancellation is to the third clause). Grice: “However
this may be, there is perhaps a different [second] reason for doubt about the
admission of this second maxim, viz., that its effect will be secured by a
later maxim, which concems relevance.)”He could be a lecturer. His use of
‘later’ entails he knows in advance what he is going to say. Cf. Foucault:“there
is another reason to doubt. The effect is secured by a maxim concerning
relevance.”No “later” about it!Grice:“Under the category of QUALITY falls a
supermaxim” – he forgets to add, as per obvious, “The category of quality
relates to the QUALITY of information.” In this way, there is some reference to
Aristotle’s summumm genus. PROPOSITIO DEDICATIVA, PROPOSITIO ABDICATIVA,
PROPOSITIO INFINITA. Cf. Apuleius and Boethius on QUALITAS of propositio.
Dedicatio takes priority over abdicatio. So one expects one’s
co-conversationalist to say that something IS the case. Note too, that, if he
used “more specific maxims and submaxims,” he means “more specific supermaxims
and maxims” – He is following Porophyry in being confusing! Cf. supramaxim.
Grice “-'Try to make your contribution one that is true' –“This surely requires
generality – and Grice spent the next two decades about it. He introduced the
predicate ‘acceptability.’ “Try to make your contribution one that is
acceptable”“True for your statements; good for your desiderative-mode
utterances.”“and two more specific maxims:”“1. Do not say what you believe to
be false.”There is logic here. It is easy to TRY to make your contribution one
that is true.” And it is easy NOT to say what you believe to be false. Grice is
forbidding Kant to have a maxim on us: “Be truthful!” “Say the true!” “MAKE –
don’t just TRY – to make your contribution one that is true.”“I was only
trying.”Cf. Moses, “Try not to kill” “Thou shalt trye not to kylle.”Grice:“2.
Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.”This is involved with
truth. In “Truth and other enigmas,” Dummett claims that truth is, er, an
enigma. For some philosophers, all you can guarantee is that you have evidence.
Lacking evidence for what?The qualification, “adequate,” turns the maxim
slightly otiose. Do not say that for you lack evidence which would make your
contribution not a true one.However, Grice is thinking Gettier. And Gettier
allows that one CAN have ADEQUATE EVIDENCE, and p NOT be true.If we are talking
‘acceptability’ it’s more ‘ground’ or ‘reason’, rather than ‘evidential
justification.’ Grice is especially obsessed with this, in his explorations on
‘intending,’ where ‘acceptance’ is deemed even in the lack of ‘evidential
justification,’ and leaving him wondering what he means by ‘non-evidential
justification.’“Under the category of RELATION I place a single maxim, viz.,
'Be relevant.'”The category comes from Aristotle, ‘pros it.’ And ‘re-‘ in
relation is cognate with ‘re-‘ in ‘relevant.’RELATION refers to ‘refer,’ Roman
‘referre.’ But in Anglo-Norman, you do have ‘relate’ qua verb. To ‘refer’ or
‘re-late,’ is to bring y back to x. As Russell well knows in his fight with
Bradley’s theory of ‘relation,’ a relation involves x and y. A relation is a two-place
predicate. What about X = xIs identity a relation, in the case of x = x?Can a
thing relate to itself?In cases where we introduce two variables. The maxim
states that one brings y back to x.“Mrs. Smith is an old windbag.”“The weather
has been delightful for this time of year, hasn’t it.”If INTENDED to mean, “You
ARE ignorant!,” then the conversationalist IS bring back “totally otiose remark
about the weather” to the previous insulting comment.To utter an utterly
irrelevant second move you have to be Andre Breton.“Though the maxim itself is
terse, its formulation conceals a number of problems that exercise me a good
deal: questions about what different kinds and focuses of relevance there may
be, how these shift in the course of a talk exchange, how to allow for the fact
that subjects of conversation are legitimately changed, and so on. I find the
treatment of such questions exceedingly difficult, and I hope to revert to them
in a later work.”He is having in mind Nowell-Smith, who had ‘be relevant’ as
the most important of the rules of conversational etiquette, or how etiquette
becomes logical. But Nowell-Smith felt overwhelmed by Grice and left for the
north, to settle in the very fashionable Kent. Grice is also having in mind
Urmson’s appositeness (Criteria of intensionality). “Why did you title your
painting “Maga’s Daughter”? She’s your wife!” – and Grice is also having in
mind P. F. Strawson and what Strawson has as the principle of relevance
vis-à-vis the principles of presumption of ignorance and knowledge.So it was in
the Oxonian air.“Finally, under the category of MODE, which I understand as
relating not (like the previous categories) to what is said [THE CONTENT, THE
EXPLICITUM, THE COMMUNICATUM, THE EXPLICATUM] but, rather, to HOW what is said
is to be said,”Grice says that ‘meaning’ is diaphanous. An utterer means that p
reduces to what an utterer means by x. This diaphanousness ‘meaning’ shares
with ‘seeing.’ “To expand on the experience of seeing is just to expand on what
is seen.’He is having the form-content distinction.If that is a distinction. This
multi-layered dialectic displays the true nature of the speculative
form/content distinction: all content is form and all form is content, not in a
uniform way, but through being always more or less relatively indifferent or
posited. The Role of the Form/Content
Distinction in Hegel's Science of ...deontologistics.files.wordpress.com ›
2012/01 › formc... PDF Feedback About Featured Snippets Web results The Form-Content Distinction in Moral
Development Researchwww.karger.com › Article › PDF The form-content distinction
is a potentially useful conceptual device for understanding certain
characteristics of moral development. In the most general sense it ... by CG
Levine - 1979 - Cited by 25 - Related articles The Form-Content Distinction in Moral
Development Research ...www.karger.com › Article › Abstract Dec 23, 2009 - The
Form-Content Distinction in Moral Development Research. Levine C.G.. Author
affiliations. University of Western Ontario, London, Ont. by CG Levine - 1979
- Cited by 25 - Related articles Preschool children's mastery of the
form/content distinction in ...www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov › pubmed Preschool
children's mastery of the form/content distinction in communicative tasks.
Hedelin L(1), Hjelmquist E. Author information: (1)Department of Psychology,
... by L Hedelin - 1998 - Cited by 10 - Related articles Form and Content: An Introduction to Formal
Logic - Digital ...digitalcommons.conncoll.edu › cgi › viewcontentPDF
terminology has to do with anything. In this context, 'material' means having
to do with content. This is our old friend, the form/content distinction again.
Consider. by DD Turner - 2020
Simmel's Dialectic of Form and Content in Recent Work in
...www.tandfonline.com › doi › full May 1, 2019 - This suggests that for
Simmel, the form/content distinction was not a dualism; instead, it was a
duality.11 Ronald L. Breiger, “The Duality of ... Are these distinctions between “form” and
“content” intentionally ...www.reddit.com › askphilosophy › comments ›
are_th... The form/content distinction also doesn't quite fit the distinction
between form and matter (say, in Aristotle), although Hegel develops the
distinction between form ... Preschool
Children's Mastery of the Form/Content Distinction ...link.springer.com ›
article Preschoolers' mastery of the form/content distinction in language and
communication, along its contingency on the characteristics of p. by L Hedelin
- 1998 - Cited by 10 - Related articles
Verbal Art: A Philosophy of Literature and Literary Experiencebooks.google.com
› books Even if form and content were in fact inseparable in the sense
indicated, that would not make the form/content distinction unjustified. Form
and matter are clearly ... Anders Pettersson - 2001 - Literary Criticism One Century of Karl Jaspers' General
Psychopathologybooks.google.com › books He then outlines the most important
implications of the form–content distinction in a statement which is identical
in the first three editions, with only minor ... Giovanni Stanghellini, Thomas
Fuchs - 2013 - Medical“I include the supermaxim-'Be perspicuous' –” Or
supramaxim. So the “more specific maxims and submaxims” becomes the clumsier
“supermaxims and maxims”Note that in under the first category it is about
making your contribution, etc. Now it is the utterer himself who has to be
‘perspicuous,’ as it is the utterer who has to be relevant. It’s not the
weaker, “Make your contribution a perspicuous one.” Or “Make your contribution
a relevant one (to the purposes of the exchange).”Knowing that most confound
‘perspicacity’ with ‘perspicuity,’ he added “sic,” but forgot to pronounce it,
in case it was felt as insulting. He has another ‘sic’ under the prolixity
maxim.“and various maxims such as: The “such as” is a colloquialism.Surely it
was added in the ‘lecture’ format. In written, it becomes viz. The fact that
the numbers them makes for ‘such as’ rather disimplicaturable. “1. Avoid
obscurity of expression.”Unless you are Heracleitus. THEY told me, Heraclitus,
they told me you were dead, /They
brought me bitter news to hear and bitter tears to shed./I wept as I remember'd
how often you and I/Had tired the sun with talking and sent him down the
sky./And now that thou art lying, my dear old Carian guest,/A handful of grey
ashes, long, long ago at rest,/Still are thy pleasant voices, thy nightingales,
awake;/For Death, he taketh all away, but them he cannot take. In a way this is
entailed by “Be perspicuous,” if that means ‘be clear,’ in obtuse English.Be
clearTherefore, or what is the same thing. Thou shalt not not be obscure.2.
Avoid ambiguity.”Except as a trope, or ‘figure, (schema, figura).
“Aequi-vocate, if that will please your clever addressee.” Cf. Parker’s zeugma:
“My apartment was so small, that I've barely enough room to lay a hat and a few
friends“3. Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity).”Here he added a ‘sic’ that
he failed to pronounce in case it may felt as insulting. But the idea of a
self-refuting conversational maxim is surely Griceian, in a quessertive way. Since
this concerns FORM rather than CONTENT, it is not meant to overlap with
‘informativeness.’So given that p and q are equally informative, if q is less
brief (longer – ars longa, vita brevis), utter p. This has nothing to do with
logical strength. It is just to be assessed in a SYNTACTICAL way.Vide
“Syntactics in Semiotics”“4. Be orderly.”This involves two moves in the
contribution or ‘turn.’ One cannot be ‘disorderly,’ if one just utters ‘p.’ So
this involves a molecular proposition. The ‘order’ can be of various types.
Indeed, one of Grice’s example is “Jones is between Smith and Williams” – order
of merit or size?‘Between’ is not ambiguous!There is LOGICAL order, which is
prior.But there is a more absolute use of ‘orderly.’ ‘keep your room tidy.’orderly
(adj.) 1570s, "arranged in order," from order (n.) + -ly (1). Meaning
"observant of rule or discipline, not unruly" is from 1590s. Related:
Orderliness.He does not in the lecture give a philosophical example, but later
will in revisiting the Urmson example and indeed Strawson, but mainly Urmson,
“He went to bed and took off his boots,” and indeed Ryle, “She felt frail and
took arsenic.”“And one might need others.”Regarding ‘mode,’ that is. “It is
obvious that the observance of some of these maxims is a matter of less urgency
than is the observance of others;”Not as per ‘moral’ demands, since he’ll say
these are not MORAL.“a man who has expressed himself with undue prolixity
would, in general, be open to milder comment than would a man who has said something
he believes to be false.”Except in Oscar Wilde’s circle, where they were
obsessed with commenting on prolixities! Cf. Hare against Kant, “Where is the
prisoner?” “He left [while he is hiding in the attic].”That’s why Grice has the
‘in general.’“Indeed, it might be felt that the importance of at least the
first maxim of Quality is such that it should not be included in a scheme of
the kind I am constructing;”But since ‘should’ is weak, I will. “other maxims
come into operation only on the assumption that this maxim of Quality is satisfied.”So
the keyword is co-ordination.“While this may be correct, so far as the
generation of implicaturums is concerned it seems to play a role not totally
different from the other maxims, and it will be convenient, for the present at
least, to treat it as a member of the list of maxims.”He is having weighing,
and clashing in mind. And he wants a conversationalist to honour truth over
informativeness, which begs the question that as he puts it, ‘false’ “information”
is no information.In the earlier lectures, tutoring, or as a university
lecturer, he was sure that his tutee will know that he was introducing maxims
ONLY WITH THE PURPOSE, NEVER TO MORALISE, but as GENERATORS of implicatura – in
philosophers’s mistakes.But this manoeuver is only NOW disclosed. Those without
a philosophical background may not realise about this. “There are, of course,
all sorts of other maxims (aesthetic, social, or moral in character), such as
'Be polite', that are also normally observed by participants in talk exchanges,
and these may also generate nonconventional implicaturums.”He is obviously
aware that Émile DurkheimWill Know that
‘conversational’ is subsumed under ‘social,’ if not Williamson (perhaps). – keyword: ‘norm.’ Grice excludes ‘moral’
because while a moral maxim makes a man ‘good,’ a conversational maxim makes a
man a ‘good’ conversationalist. Not because there is a distinction in
principle!“The conversational maxims, however, and the conversational implicaturums
connected with them, are specially connected (I hope) with”He had this way with
idioms.Cf. Einstein,“E =, I hope, mc2.”“the particular purposes that talk (and
so, talk exchange)”He is playing Dutch.The English lost the Anglo-Saxon for
‘talk.’ They have ‘language,’ and the Hun has ‘Sprache.’ But only the Dutch
have ‘taal.’So he is distinguishing between the TOOL and the USE of the TOOL.“is
adapted lo serve and is primlarily employed to serve.”The ‘adapted’ is
mechanistic talk. He mentions ‘evolutionarily’ elsewhere. He means ‘the
particular goal language evolved to serve, viz.’ groom.Grooming, Gossip and the
Evolution of Language is a 1996 book by the anthropologist Robin Dunbar, in
which the author argues that language evolved from social grooming. He further
suggests that a stage of this evolution was the telling of gossip, an argument
supported by the observation that language is adapted for storytelling.
The book has been criticised on the grounds that since words are so cheap,
Dunbar's "vocal grooming" would fall short in amounting to an honest
signal. Further, the book provides no compelling story[citation needed] for how
meaningless vocal grooming sounds might become syntactical speech. Thesis
Dunbar argues that gossip does for group-living humans what manual grooming
does for other primates—it allows individuals to service their relationships
and thus maintain their alliances on the basis of the principle: if you scratch
my back, I'll scratch yours. Dunbar argues that as humans began living in
increasingly larger social groups, the task of manually grooming all one's
friends and acquaintances became so time-consuming as to be unaffordable.[1] In
response to this problem, Dunbar argues that humans invented 'a cheap and
ultra-efficient form of grooming'—vocal grooming. To keep allies happy, one now
needs only to 'groom' them with low-cost vocal sounds, servicing multiple
allies simultaneously while keeping both hands free for other tasks. Vocal
grooming then evolved gradually into vocal language—initially in the form of
'gossip'.[1] Dunbar's hypothesis seems to be supported by the fact that the
structure of language shows adaptations to the function of narration in
general.[2] Criticism Critics of Dunbar's theory point out that the very
efficiency of "vocal grooming"—the fact that words are so cheap—would
have undermined its capacity to signal honest commitment of the kind conveyed
by time-consuming and costly manual grooming.[3] A further criticism is that
the theory does nothing to explain the crucial transition from vocal
grooming—the production of pleasing but meaningless sounds—to the cognitive
complexities of syntactical speech.[citation needed] References
Dunbar, R. I. M. (1996). Grooming, gossip and the evolution of language.
London: Faber and Faber. ISBN 9780571173969. OCLC 34546743. von Heiseler,
Till Nikolaus (2014) Language evolved for storytelling in a super-fast
evolution. In: R. L. C. Cartmill, Eds. Evolution of Language. London: World
Scientific, pp. 114-121.
https://www.academia.edu/9648129/LANGUAGE_EVOLVED_FOR_STORYTELLING_IN_A_SUPER-FAST_EVOLUTION
Power, C. 1998. Old wives' tales: the gossip hypothesis and the reliability of
cheap signals. In J. R. Hurford, M. Studdert Kennedy and C. Knight (eds),
Approaches to the Evolution of Language: Social and Cognitive Bases. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, pp. 111 29. Categories: 1996 non-fiction
booksAmerican non-fiction booksBooks by Robin DunbarEnglish-language
booksEvolution of languageHarvard University Press booksPopular science
booksGrice: “I have stated my maxims”the maxims“as if this purpose were a
maximally effective exchange of information;”“MAXIMALLY EFFECTIVE”“this
specification is, of course, too narrow,”But who cares?This is slightly sad in
that he is thinking Strawson and forgetting his (Grice’s) own controversy with
G. A. Paul on the sense-datum, for ‘the pillar box seems red’ and ‘the pillar
box is red,’ involving an intensional context, are less amenable to fall under
the maxims.“and the scheme needs to be generalized to allow for such general
purposes as influencing or directing the actions of others.”He has a more
obvious way below:Giving and receving informationInfluencing and being
influenced by others.He never sees the purpose as MAXIMAL INFORMATION, but
maximally effective EXCHANGE of information – does he mean merely ‘transmission.’
It may well be.If I say, “I rain,” I have ex-changed information.I don’t need
anything in return.If so, it makes sense that he is equating INFORMING With INFLUENCING or better DIRECTION your
addresse’s talk.Note that, for all he loved introspection and conversational
avowals, and self-commands, these do not count.It’s informing your addressee
about some state of affairs, and directing his action. Grice is always clear
that the ULTIMATE GOAL is the utterer’s ACTION.“As one of my avowed aims is to
see talking as a special case or variety of purposive, indeed rational,
behavior, it may be worth noting that the specific expectations or presumptions
connected with at least some of the foregoing maxims have their analogues in
the sphere of transactions that are not talk exchanges.”Transaction is a good
one.TRANS-ACTIO“I list briefly one such analog for each conversational category.”While
he uses ‘conversational category,’ he also applies it to the second bit:
‘category of conversational quantity,’ ‘category of conversational quality,’
‘category of conversational relation,’ and ‘category of conversational mode.’
But it is THIS application that justifies the sub-specifications.They are not
categories of thought or ontological or ‘expression’.His focus is on the
category as conversation.His focus is on the ‘conversational category.’“1.
Quantity. If you are assisting me to mend a car, I expect your contribution to
be neither more nor less than is required; if, e. g., at a particular stage I
need fourscrews, I expect you to hand me four, rather than two or six. He
always passed six, since two will drop.“Make your contribution neither more nor
less informative than is required (for the purposes of the exchange).”This
would have covered the maxi and the min.“NEITHER MORE NOR LESS” is the formula
of effectiveness, and economy, and minimization of expenditure.“2. Quality. I
expect your contributions to be genuine and not spurious.”Here again he gives
an expansion of the conversational category, which is more general than ‘try to
make your contribution one that is true,’ and the point about the ‘quality of
information,’ which he did not make.Perhaps because it would have led him to
realise that ‘false’ information, i.e. ‘information’ which is not genuine and spurious,
is not ‘information.’But “Make your contribution one that is genuine and not
spurious.”Be candid.Does not need a generalization as it covers both informational
and directive utterances.“If I need sugar as an ingredient in the cake you are
assisting me to make, I do not expect you to hand me salt;”Or you won’t eat the
cake.“if I need a spoon, I do not expect a trick spoon made of rubber.”Spurious
and genuine are different.In the ‘trick spoon,’ the conversationalist is just
not being SERIOUS.But surely a maxim, “Be serious” is too serious. –
Seriously!“3. Relation. I expect a partner's contribution to be appropriate to
immediate needs at each stage of the transaction;”Odd that he would use
‘appropriate,’ which was the topic of the “Prolegomena,” and what he was
supposed to EXPLAIN, not to use in the explanation.For each of the philosophers
making a mistake are giving a judgment of ‘appropriateness,’ conversational
appropriateness. Here it is good that he relativises the ‘appropriateness’ TO
the ‘need’.Grice is not quite sticking to the etymology of ‘relatio’ and
‘refer,’ bring y back to x. Or he is. Bring y (your contribution) back to the
need x.Odd that he thinks he’ll expand more on relation, when he did a good
bit!“if I am mixing ingredients for a cake, I do not expect to be handed a good
book, or even an oven cloth (though this might be an appropriate contribution
at a later stage).”“I just expect you to be silent.”“4. Manner. I expect a
partner to make it clear what contribution he is making, and to execute his
performance with reasonable dispatch.” For Lewis, clarity is not enough!The
‘Execute your performance with reasonable dispatch!’ seems quite different from
“Be perspicuous.”“Execute your performance with reasonable dispatch”Is more
like“Execute your performance”And not just STAND there!A: What time is it B
just stands there“These analogies are relevant to what I regard as a fundamental
question about the principle of conversational helpfulness and its attendant
conversational maxims,”For Boethius, it is a PRINCIPLE because it does not need
an answer!“viz., what the basis is for the assumption which we seem to make,
and on which (I hope) it will appear that a great range of implicaturums depend
[especially as we keep on EXPLOITING the rather otiose maxims], that talkers
will ingeneral (ceteris paribus and in the absence of indications to the
contrary) proceed in the manner that these principles prescribe.”Grice really
doesn’t care! He is into the EXPLOITING of the maxim, as in his response to the
Scots philosopher G. A. Paul:“Paul, I surely do not mean to imply that you may
end up believing that I have a doubt about the pillar box being red: it seems
red to me, as I have this sense-datum of ‘redness’ which attaches to me as I am
standing in front of the pillar box in clear daylight.”Grice is EXPLOITING the
desideratum, YET STILL SAYING SOMETHING TRUE, so at least he is not VIOLATING the
principle of conversational helpfulness, or the category of conversational
quality, or the desideratum of conversational candour.And that is what he is
concerned with. “A dull but, no doubt at
a certain level, adequate answer is that it is just a well-recognized empirical
fact that *people* (not pirots, although perhaps Oxonians, rather than from
Malagasy) DO behave in these ways;”Elinor Ochs was terrified Grice’s maxims are
violated – never exploited, she thought – in Madagascar.“they, i. e. people, or
Oxonians, have learned to do so in childhood and not lost the habit of doing
so; and, indeed, it would involve a good deal of effort to make a radical
departure from the habit. It is much easier, for example, to tell the truth
than to invent lies.”Effort again; least effort. And ease. Great Griceian
guidelines!“I am, however, enough of a rationalist to want to find a basis that
underlies these facts,”OR EXPLAIN.“undeniable though they may be;”BEIGIN OF A
THEORY FOR A THEORY – not the theory for the generation of implicate, but for
the theory of conversation.He is less interested in this than the other. “I
would like to be able to think of the standard type of conversational practice
not merely as something that all or most do IN FACT follow but as something
that it is REASONABLE for us to follow, that we SHOULD NOT abandon. For a time,
I was attracted by the idea that observance of the principle of conversational
helpfulness and the conversational maxims, in a talk exchange, could be thought
of as a quasi-contractual matter, with parallels outside the realm of
discourse. If you pass by when I am struggling with my stranded car, I no doubt
have some degree of expectation that you will offer help, but once you join me
in tinkering under the hood, my expectations become stronger and take more
specific forms (in the absence of indications that you are merely an
incompetent meddler); and talk exchanges seemed to me to exhibit,
characteristically, certain features that jointly distinguish cooperative
transactions:”So how is this not quasi-contractual? He is listing THIS OR THAT FEATURE that
jointly distinguishes a cooperative transaction – all grand great words.But he
wants to say that ‘quasi-contractual’ is NO RATIONAL!He is playing, as a philosopher,
with the very important point of what follows from what.A1. Conversasation is
purposiveA2. Conversation is rationalA3. Conversation is cooperativeA4. There
is such a thing as non-rational cooperation (is there?)So he is aiming at the
fact that the FEATURES that jointly distinguish cooperative transactions NEED
NOT BE PRESENT, and Grice surely does not wish THAT to demolish his model. If
he bases it in general constraints of rationality, the better.“1. The
participants have some common immediate aim, like getting a car mended; their
ultimate aims may, of course, be independent and even in conflict-each may want
to get the car mended in order to drive off, leaving the other stranded. In
characteristic talk exchanges, there is a common aim even if, as in an
over-the-wall chat, it is a second-order one,”Is he being logical?“second-order
predicate calculus”“meta-language”He means higher or supervenientOr
‘operative’“, that each party should, for the time being, identify himself with
the transitory conversational interests of the other.”By identify he means
assume.YOU HAVE TO DESIRE what your partner desires.The intersection between
your desirability and your addressee’s desirability is not NULL.And the way to
do this is conditionalIF: You perceive B has Goal G, you assume Goal G. “2. The
contributions of the participants .should be dovetailed, mutually dependent. Unless
it’s one of those seminars by Grice and J. F. Thomson!“3. There is some sort of
understanding (which may be explicit but which is often tacit)”i.e. implicated
rather than explicated – part of the implicaturum, or implicitum, rather than
the explicatum or explicitum.“that, other things being equal, the transaction
should continue in appropriate style unless both parties are agreeable that it should
terminate. You do not just shove off or start doing something else.”This is
especially tricky over the phone (“He never ends!” Or in psychiatric
interviews!)Note that ‘starting doing something else’ may work. E. g. watch
your watch!“But while some such quasi-contractual basis as this may apply to
some cases, there are too many types of exchange, like quarreling and letter
writing, that it fails to fit comfortably.”TWO OPPOSITE EXAMPLES.Fighting is
arguing is competition, adversarial, epagogue, not conversation,
cooperation, friendly, collaborative
venture, and diagoge.Letter writing is usually otiose – “what, with the
tellyphone!” And letter writing is no conversation.“In any case, one feels that
the talker who is irrelevant or obscure has primarily let down not his audience
but himself.”And the talker who is mendacious has primarily let Kant down!”“So
I would like t< be able to show that observance of the principle of
conversational helfpulness and maxims is reasonal de (rational) along the
following lines”That any Aristkantian rationalist would agree to.“: that any
one who cares about the goals that are central to conversation/communication
(e.g., giving and receiving information, influencing and being influenced by
others) must be expected to have an interest, given suitable circumstances, in
participation in talk exchanges that will be profitable only on the assumption
that they are conducted in general accordance with the principle of
conversational helpfulness and the maxims.”Where the keyword is: profit,
effort, least effort, no energy, no undue effort, no unnecessary trouble. That
conversation is reasonable unless it is unreasonable. That a conversational
exchange should be rational unless it shows features of irrationality.“Whether
any such conclusion can be reached, I am uncertain;”It’s not clear what the
premises are!Plus, he means DEDUCTIVELY reached? Transcendentally reached?
Empirically reached? Philosophically reached? Conclusively reached? Etc.It
seems the conclusion need not be reached, because we never departed from the
state of the affairs that the conclusion describes.“in any case, I am fairly
sure that I cannot reach it until I am a good deal clearer about the nature of
relevance and of the circumstances in which it is required.”For perhaps “I
don’t want to imply any doubt, but that pillar box seems red.”IS irrelevant,
yet true!“It is now time to show the connection between the principle of
conversational helfpulness and the conversational maxims, on the one hand, and
conversational implicaturum on the other.”This is clearer in the seminars. The
whole thing was a preamble “A participant in a talk exchange may fail to
fulfill a maxim in various ways, which include the following: 1. He may quietly
and unostentatiously VIOLATE (or fail to observe) a maxim; if so, in some cases
he will be liable to mislead.”And be blamed by Kant.Mislead should not worry
Grice, cf. “Misleading, but true.”The violate (or fail to observe) shows that
(1) covers two specifications. Tom may be unaware that there was such a maxim
as to ‘be brief, avoid unnecessary prolixity, unless you need to eschew
obfuscation!”This is Grice’s anti-Ryleism. He doesn’t want to say that there is
KNOWLEDGE of the maxims. For one may know what the maxims are and fail to
observe them “2. He may OPT OUT from the operation both of the maxim and of the
principle of conversational helpfulness; he may say, indicate, or allow it to
become plain that he is unwilling to cooperate in the way the maxim requires.
He may say, e. g., I cannot say more; my lips are sealed.” Where is the
criminal?I cannot say more; my lips are sealed.I shall unseal them. What do you
mean ‘cannot.’ You don’t mean ‘may not,’ do you?I think Grice means ‘may
not.’Is the universe finite? Einstein: I cannot say more; my lips are sealed. “3.
He may be faced by a CLASH of maxims [That’s why he needs more than one – or at
least two specifications of the same maxim]: He may be unable, e. g., to
fulfill the first maxim of Quantity (Be as informative as is required) without
violating the second maxim of Quality (Have adequate evidence for what you
say).” Odd that he doesn’t think this generates implicaturum: He has obviously
studied the sub-perceptualities here.For usually, a phenomenalist, like Sextus,
thinks that by utteringThe pillar box seems red to me – that is all I have
adequate evidence forHe is conveying that he is unable to answer the question
(“What colour is the pillar box?”) And being as ‘informative’ as is
requiredWithout saying something for which it is not the case that he has or will
ever have adequate evidence.Cf.Student at Koenigsberg to Kant: What’s the
noumenon?Kant: My lips are sealed.It may require some research to list ALL
CLASHES.Because each clash shows some EVALUATION qua reasoning, and it may be
all VERY CETERIS PARIBUS.Cf.Where is the criminal?My lips are sealed.The
utterer has NOT opted out. He has answered, via implicaturum, that he is not
telling. He is being relevant. He is not telling because he doesn’t want to
DISCLOSE the whereabouts of the alleged criminal, etc. For Kant, this is not a
conversation! Odd that Grice is ‘echoing Kant,’ where Kant would hardly allow a
clash with ‘Be truthful!’“4. He may FLOUT a maxim; that is, he may BLATANTLY
fail to fulfill (or observe) it.Mock? Taunt?The magic flute. Grice’s magic
flute.flout (v.) "treat with disdain or contempt" (transitive),
1550s, intransitive sense "mock, jeer, scoff" is from 1570s; of
uncertain origin; perhaps a special use of Middle English “flowten,”"to
play the flute" (compare Middle Dutch “fluyten,” "to play the
flute," also "to jeer"). Related: Flouted; flouting.Grice: “One
thing we do not know is if the flute came to England via Holland.”“Or he may,
as we may say, ‘play the flute’ with a maxim, expecting others to be agreeable.”“Or
he may, as we might say, ‘play the flute’ with the conversational maxim,
expecting others to join with some other musical instrument – or something –
occasionally the same.”“On the assumption that the speaker is able to fulfill
the maxim and to do so without violating another maxim (because oi a clash), is
not opting out, and is not, in view of the blatancy of his performance, trying
to mislead,”This is interesting. It’s the TRYING to mislead.Grice and G. A.
Paul:Grice cannot be claimed to have TRIED to mislead, and thus deemed to have
misled G. A. Paul, even if he had, when he said, “I hardly think there is any
doubt about it, but that pillar box seems red to me.”“the hearer is faced with
a minor problem:”Implicaturum: This reasoning is all abductive – to the ‘best’ explanation“How
can his saying what he did say be reconciled with the supposition that he is
observing the overall principle of conversational helfpulness?”This was one of
Grice’s conversations with G. A. Paul:Paul (to Grice): This is what I do not
understand, Grice. How can your saying what you did say be reconciled with the
supposition that you are not going to mislead me?”Unfortunately, on that
Saturday, Paul went to the Irish Sea. Grice “This situation is one that
characteristically”There are others – vide clash, above – but not marked by
Grice as one such situation – “gives rise to a conversational implicaturum; and
when a conversational implicaturum is generated”Chomskyan jargon borrowed from
Austin (“I don’t see why Austin admired Chomsky so!”)“in this way, I shall say
that a maxim is being EXPLOITED.”Why not ‘flouted’? Some liked the idea of
playing the flute.EXPLOIT is figurative.Grice exploits a Griceian maxim.exploit (v.) c. 1400, espleiten, esploiten "to
accomplish, achieve, fulfill," from Old French esploitier, espleiter
"carry out, perform, accomplish," from esploit (see exploit (n.)).
The sense of "use selfishly" first recorded 1838, from a sense
development in French perhaps from use of the word with reference to mines, etc.
(compare exploitation). Related: Exploited; exploiting.exploit (n.) late 14c.,
"outcome of an action," from Old French esploit "a carrying out;
achievement, result; gain, advantage" (12c., Modern French exploit), a
very common word, used in senses of "action, deed, profit, achievement,"
from Latin explicitum "a thing settled, ended, or displayed," noun
use of neuter of explicitus, past participle of explicare "unfold, unroll,
disentangle," from ex "out" (see ex-) + plicare "to fold"
(from PIE root *plek- "to plait"). Meaning "feat,
achievement" is c. 1400. Sense evolution is from "unfolding" to
"bringing out" to "having advantage" to
"achievement." Related: Exploits. exploitative (adj.)
"serving for or used in exploitation," 1882, from French exploitatif,
from exploit (see exploit (n.)). Alternative exploitive (by 1859) appears to be
a native formation from exploit + -ive.exploitation (n.) 1803, "productive
working" of something, a positive word among those who used it first,
though regarded as a Gallicism, from French exploitation, noun of action from
exploiter (see exploit (v.)). Bad sense developed 1830s-50s, in part from
influence of French socialist writings (especially Saint Simon), also perhaps
influenced by use of the word in U.S. anti-slavery writing; and exploitation was
hurled in insult at activities it once had crowned as praise. It follows
from this science [conceived by Saint Simon] that the tendency of the human
race is from a state of antagonism to that of an universal peaceful association
-- from the dominating influence of the military spirit to that of the
industriel one; from what they call l'exploitation de l'homme par l'homme to
the exploitation of the globe by industry. ["Quarterly Review," April
& July 1831]
Grice: “I am now in a position to characterize the notion of conversational implicaturum.”Not
to provide a reductive analysis. The concept is too dear for me to torture it
with one of my metaphysical routines.”“A man who, by (in, when) saying (or
making as if to say) that p”That seems good for the analysandumGrice loves the
“by (in, when)” “(or making as if to). Note the oratio obliqua.Or
‘that’-clause. So this is not ‘uttering’As in the analysans of ‘meaning that.’“By
uttering ‘x’ U means that p.’The “by” already involves a clause with a
‘that’-clause.So this is not a report of a physical event.It is a report embued
already with intentionality.The utterer is not just ‘uttering’The utterer is
EXPLICITLY conveying that p.We cannot say MEANING that p.Because Grice uses
“mean” as opposed to “explicitly convey”His borderline scenarios are such,“Keep
me company, dear”“If we are to say that when he uttererd that he means that his
wife was to keep him company or not is all that will count for me to change my
definition of ‘mean’ or not.”Also irony.But here it is more complicated. A man
utters, “Grice defeated Strawson”If he means it ironically, to mean that
Strawson defeated Grice, it is not the case that the utterer MEANT the opposite.
He explicitly conveyed that.Grice considers the Kantian ‘cause and effect,’“If
I am dead, I shall have no time for reading.”He is careful here that the
utterer does not explicitly conveys that he will have no time for reading –
because it’s conditioned on he being dead.“has implicated that q,” “may be said
to have conversationally implicated that q,”So this is a specification alla
arbor porphyrana of ‘By explicitly conveying that p, U implicitly conveys that
q.’Where he is adding the second-order adverb, ‘conversationally.’By explicitly
conveying that p, U has implicitly conveyed that q in a CONVERSATIONAL FASHION”
iff or if“PROVIDED THAT”“(1) he is to be presumed to be observing the
conversational maxims, or at least the principle of conversational
helfpulness;”Especially AT LEAST, because he just said that an implicaturum is
‘generated’ (Chomskyan jargon) when AT
LEAST A MAXIM IS played the flute.“(2) the supposition that he is aware that,
or thinks that, q is required in order to make his saying or making as if to
say p (or doing so in THOSE terms) consistent with this presumption;”THIS IS
THE CRUCIAL CLAUSE – and the one that not only requires ONE’S RATIONALITY, but
the expectation that one’s addressee, BEING RATIONAL, will expect the utterer
to BE RATIONAL.This is the ‘rationalisation’ he refers to in “Retrospective
Epilogue.”Note that ‘q’ is obviously now the content of a state in the
utterer’s soul – a desideratum or a creditum --, at least a CREDITUM, in view
of Grice’s view of everything at least exhibitive and perhaps protreptic --“and
(3) the speaker thinks (and would expect the hearer to think that the speaker
thinks) that it is within the competence of the hearer to work out, or grasp
intuitively, that the supposition mentioned in (2) IS required.”All that jargon
about mutuality is a result of Strawson tutoring Schiffer!“Apply this to my
initial example, to B's remark that C has not yet been to prison.”What made
Grice think of such a convoluted example?He was laughing at Searle for
providing non-philosophical examples, and there he is!“In a suitable setting A
might reason as follows:”“(1) B has APPARENTLY violated – indeed he has played
the flute with -- the maxim 'Be relevant' and so may be regarded as [ALSO]
having flouted one of the maxims conjoining perspicuity,”In previous versions,
under the desideratum of conversational clarity Grice had it that the
desideratum included the expectation of this ‘relatedness’ AND that of
‘perspicuity’ (sic). In the above, Grice is stating that if you are irrelevant
(or provide an unrelated contribution) you are not being perspicuous.But “He
hasn’t been to prison” is perspicuous enough.And so is the link to the question
--.Plus, wasn’t perspicuity only to apply to the ‘mode,’ to the ‘form,’ rather
than the content.Here it is surely the CONTENT – that it is not the case that C
is a criminal – that triggers it all.So, since there is a “not,” here this is
parallel to the example examined by Strawson in the footnote to “Logical
Theory.”The utterer is saying that it is not the case that C has been in prison
yet.The ‘yet’ makes all the difference, even if a Fregeian colouring
‘convention’!“It is not the case that C has been in prison” Is, admittedly, not
very perspicuous.“So what, neither has the utterer nor the addressee.”So there
is an equivocation here as to the utterance perhaps not being perspicuous,
while the utterer IS perspicuous.“yet I have no reason to suppose that he is
opting out from the operation of the CP;”Or playing the flute with my beloved
principle of conversational helpfulness.“(2) given the circumstances, I can
regard his irrelevance as only apparent – as when we say that a plastic flower
is not a flower, or to use Austin’s example, “That decoy duck is surely not a
duck! That trick rubber spoon is no spoon! -- if, and only if, I suppose him to
think that C is potentially dishonest;”As many are!The potentially is the
trick.Recall Aristotle: “Will I say that I am potentially dishonest?! Not me!
PLATO was! Theophrastus WILL! Or is it ‘shall’?”“(3) B knows that I am capable
of working out step (2). So B implicates that C is potentially dishonest.'”Unless
he goes on like I go with G. A. Paul, “I do not mean of course to mean that I
mean that he is potentially dishonest, because although he is, he shouldn’t, or
rather, I don’t think you are expecting me to convey explicitly that he shouln’t
or should for that matter.”“The presence of a conversational implicaturum must
be capable of being worked out; for even if it can in fact be intuitively
grasped, unless the intuition is replaceable by an argument, the implicaturum
(if present at all) will not count as a CONVERSATIONAL implicaturum.”This is
the Humpty Dumpty in Grice.Cf. Provide the sixteen derivational steps in Jane
Austen’s Novel remark, “I sense and sensibilia” – This is what happens
sometimes when people who are not philosophers engage with Grice!For a
philosopher, it is clear Grice is not being serious there. He is mocking an
‘ideal’-language philosopher (as Waissmann called them). Let’s revise the
word:By “counting” he means “DEEM.” He has said that “She is poor, but she is
honest,” is NOT CALCULABLE. So if an argument is not produced, this may not be
a matter of argument.Philosophers are OBSESSED, and this is Grice’s trick, with
ARGUMENT. Recall Grice on Hardie, “Unlike my father, who was rather blunt,
Hardie taught me to ARGUE for this or that reason.”His mention of “INTUITION”
is not perspicuous. He told J. M. Rountree that meaning is a matter of
INTUITION, not a theoretical concept within a theory.So it’s not like Grice
does not trust the intuition. So the point is TERMINOLOGICAL and
methodological. Terminological, in that this is a specfification of
‘conversationally,’ rather than for cases like “How rude!” (he just flouted the
maxim ‘be polite!’ but ‘be polite’ is not a CONVERSATIONAL maxim. Is Grice
implicating that nonconversational nonconventional implicate are not
calculable? We don’t think so.But he might.I think he will. Because in the case
of ‘aesthetic maxim,’ ‘moral maxim,’ and ‘social maxim’ – such as “be polite,”
– the calculation may involve such degree of gradation that you better not get
Grice started!“it will be a CONVENTIONAL implicaturum.”OK – So perhaps he does
allow that non-conventional non-conversational implicate ARE calculable.But he
may add:“Unless the intuition is replaceable by an argument, it will not be a
conversational implicaturum; it will be a conventional implicaturum.”Strawson:
“And what nonconventional nonconversational implicate?Grice: You are right,
Strawon. Let me modify and refine the point: “It will be a dull, boring,
undetachable, conventional implicaturum – OR any of those dull implicate that
follow from (or result – I won’t use ‘generate’) one of those maxims that I
have explicitly said they were NOT conversational maxims.“For surely, there is
something very ‘contradictory-sounding’ to me saying that the implicaturum is
involved with the flouting of a maxim which is NOT a conversational maxim, and
yet that the maxim is a CONVERSATIONAL implicaturum.”“Therefore, I restrict
calculability to CONVERSATIONAL IMPLICATURUM, because it involves the
conversational maxims that contributors are expected to be reciprocal; whereas
you’ll agree that Queen Victoria does not need to be abide with ‘be polite,’ as
she frequently did not – “We are not amused, you fools! Only Gilbert and
Sullivan amuse me!””“To work out that a particular CONVERSATIONAL [never mind
nonconversational nonconventional] implicaturum is present, the hearer will
reply on the following data:”As opposed to ‘sense-datum.’Perhaps assumption,
alla Gettier, is better:“ (1) the conventional meaning of the words used,
together with the identity of any references that may be involved;”WoW Quite a
Bit. This is the reason why Grice entitled WoW his first book.In he hasn’t been
to ‘prison’ we are not using ‘prison’ as Witters does (“My language is my
prison”).Strawson: But is that the CONVENTIONAL meaning? Even for King Alfred?He hasn't been to prisonprison (n.) early 12c., from Old
French prisoun "captivity, imprisonment; prison; prisoner, captive"
(11c., Modern French prison), altered (by influence of pris "taken;"
see prize (n.2)) from earlier preson, from Vulgar Latin *presionem, from Latin
prensionem (nominative prensio), shortening of prehensionem (nominative
*prehensio) "a taking," noun of action from past participle stem of
prehendere "to take" (from prae- "before," see pre-, +
-hendere, from PIE root *ghend- "to seize,
take"). "Captivity," hence by extension "a place for
captives," the MAIN modern sense.” (There are 34 other unmain ones). He
hasn't been to a place for captives yet.You mean he is one.Cf. He hasn't
been to asylum.You mean Foucault?(2) the principle of conversational
helpfulness and this and that conversational maxim;”This is more crucial seeing
that the utterer may utter something which has no conventional meaning?Cf.
Austin, “Don’t ask for the meaning of a word! Less so for the ‘conventional’
one!”What Grice needs is ‘the letter,’ so he can have the ‘spirit’ as the implicaturum.
Or he needs the lines, so he can have the implicaturum as a reading ‘between
the lines.’If the utterance is a gesture, like showing a bandaged leg, or a
Neapolitan rude gesture, it is difficult to distinguish or to identify what is
EXPLICITLY conveyed.By showing his bandaged leg, U EXPLICITLY conveys that he
has a bandaged leg. And IMPLICITLY conveys that he cannot really play cricket.The
requirement of ‘denotatum’ is even tricker, “Swans are beautiful.” Denotata? Quantificational?
Substitutional?In any case, Grice is not being circular in requiring that the
addressee should use as an assumption or datum that U thinks that the
expression E is generally uttered by utterers when they m-intend that p.But
there are tricks here.“(3) the context, linguistic or otherwise, of the utterance;”Cf.
Grice, “Is there a general context for a general theory of context?”“(4) other
items of background knowledge;”So you don’t get:How is C getting on at the
bank? My lips are sealed Why do you care Mind your own business. Note that “he
hasn’t been to prison yet” (meaning the tautologous ‘he is potentially
dishonest’) is the sort of tricky answer to a tricky question! In asking, the
asker KNOWS that he’ll get that sort of reply knowing the utterer as he does. “and
(5) the fact (or supposed fact) that all relevant items falling under the
previous headings are available to both participants and both participants know
or assume this to be the case.”This is Schiffer reported by Strawson.“A general
pattern for the working out of a conversational implicaturum might be given as
follows:”Again the abductive argument that any tutee worth of Hardie might
expect 'He has said that p;”Ie explicitly conveys that p.Note the essential
oratio obliqua, or that-clause.“there is no reason to suppose. that he is not
observing the maxims, or at least the principle of conversational
helpfulness”That is, he is not a prisoner of war, or anything.“He could not be
doing this unless he thought that q;”Or rather, even if more tautologically
still, he could not be doing so REASONABLY, as Austin would forbid, unless…’
For if the utterer is IRRATIONAL (or always playing the flute) surely he CAN do
it!“he knows (and knows that I know that he knows) that I can see that the
supposition that he thinks that q IS required;”Assumed MUTUAL RATIONALITY,
which Grice fails to have added as assumption or datum. Cf. paraconsistent
logics – “he is using ‘and’ and ‘or’ in a ‘deviant’ logical way, to echo
Quine,” – He is an intuitionist, his name is Dummett.“he has done nothing to
stop me thinking that q; he intends me to think, or is at least willing to
allow me to think, that q; and so he has implicated that q.'”The ‘or’ is
delightful, for m-intention requires ‘intention,’ but the intention figures in
previous positions, so ‘willingess to allow the addressee to think’ does
PERFECTLY FINE! Especially at Oxford where we are ever so subtle!
conversational
maxim of ambiguity avoidance, the: Grice thought that there
should be a way to characterise each maxim other than by its formulation. “It’s
a good exercise to grasp the concept behind the maxim.” Quality relates to
Strength or Fortitutde, the first to “at
least,” the second to “at most.” For Quality, he has a supra-maxim, “of trust”
– the two maxims are “maxim of candour” and “maxim of evidence”. Under
relation, “maxim of relevance.” Under manner, suprapaxim “maxim of perspicuity”
and four maxims, the first is exactly the same as the supramaxim, “maxim of
percpicuity” now becomes “maxim of obscurity avoidance” – or “maxim of clarity”
– obscure and clear are exact opposites – perspicuous [sic] is more of a trick.
The second maxin under mode is this one of ambiguity avoidance – perhaps there
should be a positive way to express this: be univocal. Do not be equivocal. Do
not equivocate, univocate! The next two, plus the extra one that makes this a
catalogue – the next is ‘maxim of brevity’ or “conversational maxim of
unnecessary prolixity avoidance,” here we see the ‘sic’: “Grice’s maxim of
conversational brevity, or of avoidance of conversationally unnecessary
prolixity.” The next is “maxim of order” – and the one that makes this a
decalogue: “maxim of conversational tailoring” --. a phonological or
orthographic form having multiple meanings senses, characters, semantic
representations assigned by the language system. A lexical ambiguity occurs
when a lexical item word is assigned multiple meanings by the language. It
includes a homonymy, i.e., distinct lexical items having the same sound or form
but different senses ‘knight’/’night’,
‘lead’ n./‘lead’ v., ‘bear’ n./‘bear’ v.; and b polysemy, i.e., a single lexical
item having multiple senses ‘lamb’ the
animal/‘lamb’ the flesh, ‘window’ glass/‘window’ opening. The distinction
between homonymy and polysemy is problematic. A structural ambiguity occurs
when a phrase or sentence is correlated by the grammar of the language with
distinct constituent structures phrase markers or sequences of phrase markers.
Example: ‘Competent women and men should apply’
‘[NP[NPCompetent women] and men] . . .’ vs. ‘[NPCompetent[NPwomen and men]]
. . .’, where ‘NP’ stands for ‘noun phrase’. A scope ambiguity is a structural
ambiguity deriving from alternative interpretations of scopes of operators see
below. Examples: ‘Walt will diet and exercise only if his doctor approves’ sentence operator scope: doctor’s approval is
a necessary condition for both diet and exercise wide scope ‘only if’ vs.
approval necessary for exercise but not for dieting wide scope ‘and’; ‘Bertie
has a theory about every occurrence’
quantifier scope: one grand theory explaining all occurrences ‘a theory’
having wide scope over ‘every occurrence’ vs. all occurrences explained by
several theories together ‘every occurrence’ having wide scope. The scope of an
operator is the shortest full subformula to which the operator is attached.
Thus, in `A & B C’, the scope of ‘&’ is ‘A & B’. For natural
languages, the scope of an operator is what it C-commands. X C-commands Y in a
tree diagram provided the first branching node that dominates X also dominates
Y. An occurrence of an operator has wide scope relative to that of another
operator provided the scope of the former properly includes scope of the
latter. Examples: in ‘~A & B’, ’-’ has wide scope over ‘&’; in ‘Dx Ey
Fxy’, the existential quantifier has wide scope over the universal quantifier.
A pragmatic ambiguity is duality of use resting on pragmatic principles such as
those which underlie reference and conversational implicaturum; e.g., depending
on contextual variables, ‘I don’t know that he’s right’ can express doubt or
merely the denial of genuine knowledge.
maxim of conversational
maximin informativeness
maxim of maximal
conversational informativeness
maxim of minimal
conversational informativeness
maxim of conversational
trust
maxim of conversational
veracity
maxim of conversational
evidential adequacy
Maxim of conversational
relevance
Maxim of conversational perspicuity
Maxim of conversational clarity,
or maxim of conversational obscurity avoidance
Maxim of conversational
ambiguity avoidance, maxim of conversational equivocation avoidance, maxim of conversational
univocity
Maxim of conversational
brevity – or maxim of conversationally unnecessary prolixity avoidance
Maxim of conversational order.
Maxim of conversational tailoring
conversational
point:
Grice distinguishes between ‘point’ and ‘conversational point.’ “What’s the
good of being quoted by another philosopher on the point of ‘point.’?” But that
is what Winch does. So, as a revenge, Grice elaborated on the point. P. London-born philosopher. He quotes Grice in a Royal Philosophy talk: “Grice’s
point is that we should distinguish the truth of one’s remark form the point of
one’s remarks – Grice’s example is: “Surely I have neither any doubt nor any
desire to deny that the pillar box in front of me is red, and yet I won’t
hesitate to say that it seems red to me” – Surely pointless, but an incredible
truth meant to refute G. A. Paul
conversational reason. With ‘reason,’ Grice is following Ariskant. There’s the
‘ratio’ and there’s the “Vernunft.” “To converse” can mean to have sex (cf.
know) so one has to be careful. Grice is using ‘conversational’ casually.
First, he was aware of the different qualifications for ‘implication’. There is
Nowell-Smith’s contextual implication and C. K. Grant’s ‘pragmatic
implication.’ So he chose ‘conversational implication’ himself. Later, when
narrowing down the notion, he distinguished between ‘conversational
implication’ and ‘non-conversational implication’: “Thank you. B: You’re
welcome.” If B is following the maxim, ‘be polite,’ the implication that he is
pleased he was able to assist his emissor is IMPLICATED but not
conversationally so. It is not a ‘conversational implication.’ Grice needs to
restrict the notion for philosophical purposes. Both for the framework of his
theory (it is easier to justify transcendentally conversational implication
than it is non-conversational implication). Note that ‘I am pleased I was able
to assist’ is CANCELLABLE or defeatible, so that’s not the issue. In any case,
both ‘conversational impication’ and these type of calculable
‘non-conversational’ implication still yielding from some ‘maxim’ (such as ‘be
polite’) Grice covers under the generic “non-conventional” precisely because
they can be defeated. When it comes to NON-DEFEASIBLE implicatura, Grice uses
‘conventional implication’ (as in “She was poor but she was honest.”). Grice
did not find these fun. And it shows. Strawson stuck with them, but his
philosophising about them ain’t precisely ‘fun.’ Used in Retrospective, p. 369.
Also: conversational rationality. Surely, “principle of conversational
rationality” sounds otiose. Expectation of mutual rationality sounds better.
Critique of conversational reason sounds best! Grice is careful here. When he
provides a reductive analysis of ‘reasoning,’ this goes as follows: the
reasoner reasons from premise to conclusion. That’s the analysandum. What’s the
analysans? At least it involves TWO clauses: If the reasoner reasons from
premise to conclusion, it is assumed that he BELIEVES that the premise obtains;
and he believes that the conclusion obtains. This has to be generalised to
cover the desiderative, using ‘accept.’ He accepts that the premise obtains,
and he accepts that the conclusion obtains. But there is obviously a SECOND
condition: that the conclusion follows from the premise! He uses ‘demonstrably’
for that, or the demonstratum.’ He is open as to what kind of yielding is
involved because he wants to allow for inductive reasoning and abductive
reasoning, not just deductive reasoning. AND THERE IS A TYPICALLY GRICEIAN
third condition, involving CAUSATION. He had used ‘cause’ in reductive analyses
before – if not so much in ‘meaning,’ due to Urmson’s counterexample involving
‘bribery,’ where ‘cause’ does not seem to do – but in his analysis of
‘intending’ for the British Academy. So at Oxford he promotes this THIRD causal
condition as involving that, naturally enough, it is the rasoner’s BELIEF that
demonstrably q follows from p, which CAUSES the reasoner TO BELIEVE (or more
generally, accept) that the conclusion obtains. Grice is happy with that belief
in the validity of the demonstration ‘populates’ the world of alethic beliefs,
and does not concern with generalising that into a generic ‘acceptance.’ The
word ‘rationalist’ is anathema at Oxford, because tutor after tutor has
brainwashed their tutees that the distinction is ‘empiricst-rationalist’ and
that at Oxford we are ‘empiricists.’ So Grice is really being ‘heretic’ here in
the words of G. P. Baker. demonstratum: The Eng. word “reason”
and the Fr. word “raison” are both
formed on the basis of Roman “reor,” to count or calculate, whence think,
believe. The Roman verb translates the Grecian “λέγειν,” two of whose principal
meanings it retains, but only two: count and think. The third principal meaning
of the Grecian term, speak, discourse, which designates a third type of putting
into relation and proportion, is rendered by other Roman series: “dicere”
(originally cognate with ‘deixis,’ and so not necessarily ‘verbal’), “loquor,” “orationem
habere” (the most ‘vocal’ one, as it relates to the ‘mouth,’ cf. ‘orality’) or
“sermonem habere,” so that ultimately the Grecian λόγος is approached by Roman
philosophers by means of a syntagm, “ratio et oratio,” reason and discourse.
Each vernacular fragments the meaning of logos into a greater or lesser. Cf.
‘principium reddendae rationis.’ Rationality functions as a principle of the
intelligibility of the world and history, particularly in Hegel. Then there’s
The Partitions of Reason and Semantic diffractions. Although there is no
language that retains under a single word all the meanings of logos except by
bringing logos into the language in question, the distribution of these
meanings is more or less close to Roman. For the classical Fr. word “raison,” which maintains almost all the
Roman meanings including the mathematical sense of proportion, as in “raison
d’une série,” or “raison inverse,” a contemporary Fr. -G. dictionary proposes the following terms:
Vernunft, Verstand rational faculty. This example shows that the whole of the
vocabulary is thus mobilized. Reason and faculties We can distinguish between
two interfering systems. The first designates reason, identified with thought
in general, in its relationship to a bodily and/or mental instance. The second
situates reason in a hierarchy of faculties whose organization it determines.
Regarding the first system, as it is expressed in various languages, where one
will find studies of the main distortions, especially around the expressions of
the Roman ‘anima.’ Philosophers especially emphasize the ways of designating
reason and mind that appear to be the most irreducible from one language to
another. Regarding the second system, and the partitions that do not coincide.
For Grice, ‘to understand’ presupposes ‘rationality – not for Kant, who sticks
with Verstand/Vernunft distinction. Ratio speculatum, praticatum. From
Aristotle to Kant, two great domains of rationality have been distinguished:
theory, or speculative reason, and practice. The lurality of meanings, each
represented by one or more specific words. The first question, from the point
of view of the difference of languages, is thus that of the breadth of the
meaning of “reason” or its equivalents, and of the systems diffracting the meanings
of logos and then of ratio. But another complex of problems immediately arises.
The Roman “ratio” absorbs the meanings of other Grecian terms, such as νοῦς and
διάνοια, which are also translated in other, more technical ways, such as
intellectus; so that reason, in the sense of rationality, is a comprehensive
term, whereas ‘reason’ in the sense of intellect or understanding is a singular
and differentiated faculty. However, none of the comprehensive terms or systems
of opposition coincides with those of another language, which are moreover
changing. Then there’s Reason and Rationality: man, animal, god. Since
Aristotle’s definition of man as an animal endowed with logos, which Roman
writers rendered by “animal rationale” — omitting the discursive dimension—reason,
or the logos, is a specific difference that defines man by his difference from
other living beings and/or his participation in a divine or cosmic nature.
Reason is opposed to madness understood as de-mentia. More broadly, reason is
conceived in terms of difference from what does not belong to its domain and
falls outside its immediate law, but which man may, in certain ways, share with
other animals, such as sensation, passion, imagination, and possibly memory.
Rationality and the principle of intelligibility. Rationality, defined by the
logos, is connected with logic as the art of speaking and thinking, and with
its founding principles. Les quodlibet cinq, six et sept. Ed. by M. de Wulf and J. Hoffmans. Louvain,
Belg.: Institut supérieur de Philosophie de l’Université, 191 Hegel, Georg
Wilhelm Friedrich. Elements of the Phil.
of Right. Tr. H. Nisbet and
ed. by Allen Wood. Cambridge: Cambridge
, . . Science of LogiTr. V. Miller.
London: Allen and Unwin, . . Werke. Ed.
by Eva Moldenhauer and Karl Markus Michel. 20 vols. FrankfuSuhrkamp, .
Heidegger, Martin. The Basic Problems of Phenomenology. Tr. Albert Hofstadter Bloomington: Indiana , . .
Phenomenological Interpretation of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. Tr. Parvis Emad and Kenneth Maly. Bloomington:
Indiana , . Hume, D. . A Treatise of Human Nature. Ed. by D.
Fate Norton and Mary J. Norton. Oxford: Oxford , . Kant, Immanuel.
Critique of Practical Reason. Translated and ed. by Mary Gregor. Cambridge: Cambridge , . .
Critique of Pure Reason. 2nd ed. Tr. N.
Kemp-Smith. : Macmillan, 193 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm. Opuscules et fragments
inédits de Leibniz. Extraits des manuscrits. Ed. by Louis Couturat. : Presses Universitaires
de France, 190 Reprint. Hildesheim, Ger.: Olms, . . Philosophical Essays.
Translated and ed. by Roger Ariew and
Dan Garber. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, . . Philosophical Papers and Letters.
2nd ed. Ed. and Tr. Leroy E. Loemker. Dordrecht, Neth.: D.
Reidel, . . Die philosophischen Schriften. Ed.
by I. Gerhardt. 7 vols. Berlin, 187590. Reprint. Hildesheim, Ger.: Olms,
. . Leibnizens mathematische Schriften. Ed. by I. Gerhardt. 7 vols. Berlin, 18496 .
Textes inédits d’après les manuscrits de la Bibliothèque provinciale de Hanovre.
Ed. by Gaston Gru2 vols. : Presses Universitaires
de France, 194 Locke, J.. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Ed. by P. H. Nidditch. Oxford: Clarendon, .
Micraelius, J. . Lexicon philosophicum terminorum philosophis usitatorum. 2nd
ed. Stettin, 166 Paulus, J.. Henri de Gand: Essai sur les tendances de sa
métaphysique. : Vrin, 193 Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph.
Historisch-Kritische Ausgabe. Ed. by
Jörg Jantzen, T. Buchheim, Jochem
Hennigfeld, Wilhelm G. Jacobs, and Siegbert Peetz. 40 vols.
StuttgaFrommann-Holzboog, . . Of the I as the Principle of Phil. , or On the
Unconditional in Human Knowledge. In The Unconditional in Human Knowledge: Four
Early Essays 17949 Translated with commentary by F. Marti. Lewisburg, PA:
Bucknell , . Spinoza, Baruch. Complete Works. With tr.s by Samuel Shirley.
Ed. by Michael L. Morgan. Indianapolis,
IN: Hackett, . . Oper2nd ed. Ed. by
Gebhardt. 5 vols. Heidelberg: Carl Winters.
conversational
trustworthiness – or just trust. Principle of Conversational trustworthiness --
Conversational desideratum of maximal evidence, information bearing on the
truth or falsity of a proposition. In philosophical discussions, a person’s
evidence is generally taken to be all the information a person has, positive or
negative, relevant to a proposition. The notion of evidence used in philosophy
thus differs from the ordinary notion according to which physical objects, such
as a strand of hair or a drop of blood, counts as evidence. One’s information
about such objects could be evidence in the philosophical sense. The concept of
evidence plays a central role in our understanding of knowledge and
rationality. According to a traditional and widely held view, one has knowledge
only when one has a true belief based on very strong evidence. Rational belief
is belief based on adequate evidence, even if that evidence falls short of what
is needed for knowledge. Many traditional philosophical debates, such as those
about our knowledge of the external world, the rationality of religious belief,
and the rational basis for moral judgments, are largely about whether the
evidence we have in these areas is sufficient to yield knowledge or rational
belief. The senses are a primary source of evidence. Thus, for most, if not
all, of our beliefs, ultimately our evidence traces back to sensory experience.
Other sources of evidence include memory and the testimony of others. Of
course, both of these sources rely on the senses in one way or another.
According to rationalist views, we can also get evidence for some propositions
through mere reason or reflection, and so reason is an additional source of
evidence. The evidence one has for a belief may be conclusive or inconclusive.
Conclusive evidence is so strong as to rule out all possibility of error. The
discussions of skepticism show clearly that we lack conclusive evidence for our
beliefs about the external world, about the past, about other minds, and about
nearly any other topic. Thus, an individual’s perceptual experiences provide
only inconclusive evidence for beliefs about the external world since such
experiences can be deceptive or hallucinatory. Inconclusive, or prima facie,
evidence can always be defeated or overridden by subsequently acquired
evidence, as, e.g., when testimonial evidence in favor of a proposition is
overridden by the evidence provided by subsequent experiences. evidentialism, in the philosophy of religion,
the view that religious beliefs can be rationally accepted only if they are
supported by one’s “total evidence,” understood to mean all the other
propositions one knows or justifiably believes to be true. Evidentialists
typically add that, in order to be rational, one’s degree of belief should be
proportioned to the strength of the evidential support. Evidentialism was
formulated by Locke as a weapon against the sectarians of his day and has since
been used by Clifford among many others to attack religious belief in general.
A milder form of evidentialism is found in Aquinas, who, unlike Clifford,
thinks religion can meet the evidentialist challenge. A contrasting view is
fideism, best understood as the claim that one’s fundamental religious
convictions are not subject to independent rational assessment. A reason often
given for this is that devotion to God should be one’s “ultimate concern,” and
to subject faith to the judgment of reason is to place reason above God and
make of it an idol. Proponents of fideism include Tertullian, Kierkegaard, Karl
Barth, and some Vittersians. A third view, which as yet lacks a generally
accepted label, may be termed experientialism; it asserts that some religious
beliefs are directly justified by religious experience. Experientialism differs
from evidentialism in holding that religious beliefs can be rational without
being supported by inferences from other beliefs one holds; thus theistic
arguments are superfluous, whether or not there are any sound ones available.
But experientialism is not fideism; it holds that religious beliefs may be
directly grounded in religious experience wtihout the mediation of other
beliefs, and may be rationally warranted on that account, just as perceptual
beliefs are directly grounded in perceptual experience. Recent examples of
experientialism are found in Plantinga’s “Reformed Epistemology,” which asserts
that religious beliefs grounded in experience can be “properly basic,” and in
the contention of Alston that in religious experience the subject may be
“perceiving God.”
converse. 1 Narrowly, the
result of the immediate logical operation called conversion on any categorical
proposition, accomplished by interchanging the subject term and the predicate
term of that proposition. Thus, the converse of the categorical proposition
‘All cats are felines’ is ‘All felines are cats’. 2 More broadly, the
proposition obtained from a given ‘if . . . then . . .’ conditional proposition
by interchanging the antecedent and the consequent clauses, i.e., the
propositions following the ‘if’ and the ‘then’, respectively; also, the
argument obtained from an argument of the form ‘P; therefore Q’ by
interchanging the premise and the conclusion.
converse, outer and inner, respectively, the result of “converting” the
two “terms” or the relation verb of a relational sentence. The outer converse
of ‘Abe helps Ben’ is ‘Ben helps Abe’ and the inner converse is ‘Abe is helped
by Ben’. In simple, or atomic, sentences the outer and inner converses express
logically equivalent propositions, and thus in these cases no informational
ambiguity arises from the adjunction of ‘and conversely’ or ‘but not
conversely’, despite the fact that such adjunction does not indicate which, if
either, of the two converses intended is meant. However, in complex, or
quantified, relational sentences such as ‘Every integer precedes some integer’
genuine informational ambiguity is produced. Under normal interpretations of
the respective sentences, the outer converse expresses the false proposition
that some integer precedes every integer, the inner converse expresses the true
proposition that every integer is preceded by some integer. More complicated
considerations apply in cases of quantified doubly relational sentences such as
‘Every integer precedes every integer exceeding it’. The concept of scope
explains such structural ambiguity: in the sentence ‘Every integer precedes
some integer and conversely’, ‘conversely’ taken in the outer sense has wide
scope, whereas taken in the inner sense it has narrow scope.
convey—used in index to WoW. Etymology is
funny. From con-via – cum-via, go on the road with.
Conway: a., english
philosopher whose Principia philosophiae antiquissimae et recentissimae 1690;
English translation, The Principles of the Most Ancient and Modern Philosophy,
1692 proposes a monistic ontology in which all created things are modes of one
spiritual substance emanating from God. This substance is made up of an
infinite number of hierarchically arranged spirits, which she calls monads.
Matter is congealed spirit. Motion is conceived not dynamically but vitally.
Lady Conway’s scheme entails a moral explanation of pain and the possibility of
universal salvation. She repudiates the dualism of both Descartes and her
teacher, Henry More, as well as the materialism of Hobbes and Spinoza. The work
shows the influence of cabalism and affinities with the thought of the mentor
of her last years, Francis Mercurius van Helmont, through whom her philosophy
became known to Leibniz.
co-operatum: Grice previously used ‘help’ – which has a Graeco-Roman
counterpart -- Grice is very right in noting that ‘helpfulness’ does not
‘equate’ cooperation. Correspondingly he changed the principle of
conversational helpfulness into the principle of conversational co-operation.
He also points that one has to distinguish between the general theisis that
conversation is rational from the thesis that the particular form of
rationality that conversation takes is cooperative rationality, which most
libertarians take as ‘irrationality’ personified, almost! Grice is obsessed
with this idea that ‘co-operation’ need not just be ‘conversational.’ Indeed,
his way to justify a ‘rationalist’ approach is through analogy. If he can find
‘co-operative’ traits in behaviour other than ‘conversational,’ the greater the
chance to generalise, and thus justify. The co-operation would be
self-justifying. co-operation. The hyphen in Strawson and Wiggins (p. 520). Grice
found ‘co-operative’ too Marxist, and would prefer ‘help,’ as in ‘mutual help.’
This element of ‘mutuality’ is necessary. And it is marked grammatical, with
the FIRST person and the SECOND person. The third need NOT be a person – can be
a dog (as in “Fido is shaggy”). The mututality is necessary in that the
emissor’s intention involves the belief that his recipient is rational. You
cannot co-operate with a rock. You cannot co-operate with a vegetal. You cannot
cooperate with a non-rational animal. You can ONLY cooperate with a co-rational
agent. Animal co-operation poses a nice side to the Griceian idea. Surely the
stereotype is a member of species S cooperating with another specimen of the
same species. But then there are great examples of ‘sym-biosis’: the crane that
gets rid off the hippopotamus’s ticks. Is this cooperation? Is this
intentional? If Grice thinks that there is a ‘mechanistically derivable’
explanation,, it isn’t. He did not necessarily buy ‘bio-sociological’
approaches. Which was a problem, because we don’t have much philosophical
seriouis discourse on ‘cooperation’ at the general level Grice is aiming at.
Except in ethics, which is biased. So it is no wonder that Grice had to rely on
‘meta-ethics’ to even conceptualise the field of cooperation: the maximin
becomes a balance between a principle of conversational egoism and a principle
of conversational altruism. He later found the egoism-tag as ‘understood.’ And
his ‘altruism’ became ‘helpfulness,’ became ‘benevolence,’ and became
‘co-operation.’
copulatum: It was an Oxonian exercise to trace the ‘copula.’ “I’ve
been working like a dog, should be sleeping like a log.” Where is the copula:
Lennon is a dog-like worker – Lennon is a potential log-like sleeper.” Grice
uses ‘copula’ in PPQ. The term is
sometimes used ambiguously, for ‘conjunctum.’ A conjunctive is called a
copulative. But Grice obviously narrows down the use of copulatum to izz and
hazz. He is having in mind Strawson.The formula does not allow for differences
in tense and grammatical number; nor for the enormous class of * all
'-sentences which do not contain, as their main verb, the verb * to be '. We
might try to recast the sentences so that they at least fitted into one of the
two patterns * All x is y ' or ' All x are y ' ; but the results would be, as
English, often clumsy andt sometimes absurd. for Aristotle, 'Socrates is a man'
is true "in virtue of his being that thing which constitutes existing for
him (being which constitutes his mode of existence)," Hermann Weidemann,
"In Defense of Aristotle's Theory of Predication," p. 84— only so
long as that "being" be taken as an assertion of being per se. But
Weidemann wants to take it merely copulatively. In "Prädikation," p.
1196, he says that when 'is' is used as tertium adiacens it has no meaning by
itself, but merely signifies the connection of subject and predicate. Cf. his
"Aristoteles über das isolierte Aussagenwort," p. 154. H. P. Grice,
"Aristotle on the Multiplicity of Being," also rejects an existential
reading of tertium adiacens and pushes for a copulative one. Cf. Alan Code,
"Aristotle: Essence and Accident," pp. 414-7. Aristotle has connected the semantic multiplicity in the copula not with variation
between predicates of one subject, but with variation between essential (per se)predications
upon different (indeed categorially different) subjects (such ...eads me to wonder whether
Aristotle may be maintaining not only that the copula exhibits semantic ...An extended
treatment of my views about izzing and hazzing can be found in
Alan. A crucial ... on occasion admit catégorial variation in the sense
of the copulative 'is',
evidently is ... Aristotle has connected the semantic multiplicity in the copula not with
variation ...with the copulative 'is';
so he rather strangely interprets the last remark. (1017a27-30) as alluding to
semantic multiplicity in
the copula as being. (supposedly)
a consequence of semantic multiplicity in the existential 'is'. This
interpretation seems difficult to defend. When Aristotle says that predicates sometimes
say what a thing is, sometimes what is it like (its quality), sometimes how
much it is (its quantity) and so on, he seems to be saying that if we consider
the range of predicates which can be applied to some item, for example to
a substance like Socrates or a cow, these predicates are categorically
various, and so the uses of the copula in the ascription of these predicates will undergo
corresponding variation"H. P. Grice brings the question he had
considered with J. L. Austin and P. F. Strawson at Oxford about Aristotle’s
categories.In “Categoriae,” Aristotle distinguishes two sorts of case of the
application of word or phrase to a range of situations. In one sort of case,
both the word and a single definition (account, “logos”) apply throughout that
range. In the other sort of case, the word but no single definition applies
through the range.These two sorts of case have a different nature. In the first
case, the word is applied synonymously (of better as “sunonuma” – literally
“sun-onuma”, cognomen). In the second case the word is applied homonymously (or
better “homonuma”, or aequi-vocally, literally “homo-numa.”)Grice notes that a
homonymous application has some sort of sub-division which Aristotle calls
"paronymy" (“paronuma”), literally ‘para onuma.’To put it roughly,
homonyms have multiple meanings – what Grice has as “semantic
multiplicity.”Synonyms have one meaning or ONE SENSE, but apply to different
kinds of thing.A paronym, such as ‘be,’ derives from other things of a
different kind. Paronyms display a ‘UNIFIED semantic multiplicity,’ if that’s
not too oxymoronic: how can the multiplicity be unified while remaining a
multiplicity? Aristotle states, confusingly, that "being is said in many
ways". As Grice notes, ‘good’ (agathon) also is a paronym that displays
unified semantic multiplicity.In Nichomachean Ethics, even more confusingly,
Aristotle says that "good is said in as many ways as being". He
doesn’t number the ways.So the main goal for Grice is to answer the question:
If, as Aristotle suggests, at least some expressions connected with the notion
of "being" exhibit semantic multiplicity, of which expressions is the
suggestion true? Grice faces the question of existential being and Semantic
Multiplicity. Grice stresses that Semantic Multiplicity of "be" is not only the case of it
interpretation. Other words he wants to know in what way of interpretation of
this word the philosophers can detect the SM. Generally speaking there are four
possible interpretations of "being": First, "be" is taken
to mean "exist.”Second, "be" is taken as a copula in a
predication statement.Third, "be" is taken for expressing the identity.Fourth,
"Being" is considered to be a noun (equivalent to ‘object' or
‘entity') – subjectification, category shift: “Smith’s being tall suggests he
is an athlete.” (cfr. A. G. N. Flew on the ‘rubbish’ that adding ‘the’ to
‘self’ results in – contra J. R. Jones). Philosophers have some problems for
this kind of theory with separating interpretations from each other. It is
natural for thinkers to unite the first and the fourth. The object or entity
should be the things which already exist. So the SM would attach to such a noun
as "entity" if, and only if, it also attaches to the word
"exist". Furthermore, it seems to be a good idea to unite the first
and the third. In some ways theorist can paraphrase the word "exist"
in the terms of self-identity. Grice gives an example: “Julius Caesar exists if
and only if Julius Caesar is identical for Julius Caesar.” Cf. Grice on
‘relative identity.’So the philosophers should investigate SM in two possible
interpretations – when "be" is understood as "exist" and
when "be" is understood as copula. From Aristotle's point of view
‘being’ is predicated of everything. From this statement, Grice draws the
conclusion that "exist" can apply to every thing, even a square
circle.This word should signify a plurality of universals and exhibits semantic
multiplicity. But Grice continue his analyses and tries to show, that
"exist" has not merely SM, but UNIFIED semantic multiplicity. God
forbid that he breaks M. O. R., Modifed Occam’s Razor – Semantic multiplicies
are not to be multiplied unificatory necessity.”In “Metaphysics,” Aristotle
says that whatever things are signified by the "forms of
predication". Philosophers understood the forms of predication
(praedicabilium, praedicamentum) as a category. So in this way
"being" has as many significations as there are forms of predication.
"Be" in this case indicates what a thing is, what is like or how much
it is and ctr. And no reasons to make a difference between two utterances like
"man walks (flourishes)" and "the man is walking
(flourishing)" – cfr. Strawson on no need to have ‘be’ explicitly in the
surface form, which render some utterances absurd. Grice says that it is not a
problem with interpretation of verb-forms like ‘walks' and ‘flourishes' while
we can replace them by expression in a canonical form like ‘is walking' and ‘is
flourishing'. Aristotle names them as canonical in form within the multiplicity
of use of "be" because ‘is’ is not existential, but copulative.Cf.
Descartes, I think therefore I am – I am a res cogitans, ergo I am a res.
"When Aristotle says that predicates sometimes say what a thing is,
sometimes what is it like (its quality), sometimes how much it is (its
quantity) and so on, he seems to be saying that, if we consider the range of
predicates which can be applied to some item, for example to a substance like
Socrates or a cow, these predicates are categorically various, and so the uses
of the copula in the ascription of these predicates will undergo corresponding
variation" It means that, from Aristotle's point of view, "Socrates
is F" is not an essential predication, where "F" shows the item
in the category C. So the logical form of the proposition “Socrates is F” is
understood as "Socrates has something which is (C) F" where is (C)
represent essential connection to category C. In conclusion it can be said that
the copula is a matter of the logical nature of constant connection expressed
by "has" and a categorical variant relation expressed by essential
"is". So we have both types of interpretation: as existence and as a
copula. (Our gratitude to P. A.
Sobolevsky). ases of ''Unified Semantic Multiplicity''
(USM). Prominent among examples of USM is the application of the word 'be';
according to. Aristotle, “being is said in ... Aristotle and the
alleged multiplicity of being (or something). Grice is all
for focal unity. Or, to echo Jones, if there is semantic multiplicity (homonymy), it is in the end UNIFIED semantic
multiplicity (paronymy). Or something. Copula – H. P.
Grice on Aristotle on the copula (“Aristotle on the multiplicity of being”) --
copula, in logic, a form of the verb ‘to be’ that joins subject and predicate
in singular and categorical propositions. In ‘George is wealthy’ and ‘Swans are
beautiful’, e.g., ‘is’ and ‘are’, respectively, are copulas. Not all
occurrences of forms of ‘be’ count as copulas. In sentences such as ‘There are
51 states’, ‘are’ is not a copula, since it does not join a subject and a
predicate, but occurs simply as a part of the quantifier term ‘there are’.
corpus: Grice would not
have gone to Oxford had his talent not been in the classics, Greek and Latin.
As a Midlander, he was sent to Corpus. At the time, most of Oxford was oriented
towards the classics, or Lit. Hum. (Philosophia). At some point, each college
attained some stereotypical fame, which Grice detested (“Corpus is for
classicists”). By this time, Grice, after a short stay at Merton, accepted the
fellowship at St. John’s, which was “a different animal.” In them days, there
were only two tutorial fellows in philosophy, Scots Mabbott, and English Grice.
But Grice also was “University Lecturer in Philosophy,” which meant he
delivered seminars for tutees all over Oxford. St. John’s keeps a record of all
the tutees by Grice. They include, alphabetically, a few good names. Why is
Corpus so special? Find out! History of “Corpus Christi.” Cf. St. John’s. Cf.
Merton. Each should have an entry. Corpus is Grice’s alma mater – so crucial. Hardieian: you only have one tutor
in your life, and Grice’s was Hardie. So an exploration on Hardie may be in
order. Grice hastens to add that he only learned ‘form,’ not matter, from
Hardie, but the ethical and Aristotelian approach he also admitted.
Corpus -- Grice, “Personal identity” – soul and body -- disembodiment, the
immaterial state of existence of a person who previously had a body.
Disembodiment is thus to be distinguished from nonembodiment or immateriality.
God and angels, if they exist, are non-embodied, or immaterial. By contrast, if
human beings continue to exist after their bodies die, then they are
disembodied. As this example suggests, disembodiment is typically discussed in
the context of immortality or survival of death. It presupposes a view
according to which persons are souls or some sort of immaterial entity that is
capable of existing apart from a body. Whether it is possible for a person to
become disembodied is a matter of controversy. Most philosophers who believe
that this is possible assume that a disembodied person is conscious, but it is
not obvious that this should be the case.
Corpus -- Grice’s body -- embodiment, the bodily aspects of human
subjectivity. Embodiment is the central theme in European phenomenology, with
its most extensive treatment in the works of Maurice MerleauPonty.
Merleau-Ponty’s account of embodiment distinguishes between “the objective
body,” which is the body regarded as a physiological entity, and “the
phenomenal body,” which is not just some body, some particular physiological
entity, but my or your body as I or you experience it. Of course, it is
possible to experience one’s own body as a physiological entity. But this is
not typically the case. Typically, I experience my body tacitly as a unified
potential or capacity for doing this and that
typing this sentence, scratching that itch, etc. Moreover, this sense
that I have of my own motor capacities expressed, say, as a kind of bodily
confidence does not depend on an understanding of the physiological processes
involved in performing the action in question. The distinction between the
objective and phenomenal body is central to understanding the phenomenological
treatment of embodiment. Embodiment is not a concept that pertains to the body
grasped as a physiological entity. Rather it pertains to the phenomenal body
and to the role it plays in our object-directed experiences.
cosmologicum. Grice systematized metaphysics
quite carefully. He distinguished between eschatology (or the theory of
categories) and ontology proper. Within ontology, there is ‘ontologia
generalis’ and ‘ontologia specialis.’ There are at least two branches of
‘ontologia specialis’: ‘cosmologia’ and ‘anthropologia.’ Grice would often
refer to the ‘world’ in toto. For example, in “Meaning revisited,” when he
speaks of the ‘triangle’: world-denotatum; signum-emissor, and soul. Grice was
never a solipsist, and most of his theories are ‘causal’ in nature, including
that of meaning and perception. As such, he was constantly fighting against
acosmism. While not one of his twelve labours, he took a liking for the
coinage. ‘Acosmism’ is formed in analogy to ‘atheism,’ meaning
the denial of the ultimate reality of the world. Ernst Platner used it in 1776
to describe Spinoza’s philosophy, arguing that Spinoza did not intend to deny
“the existence of the Godhead, but the existence of the world.” Maimon, Fichte,
Hegel, and others make the same claim. By the time of Feuerbach it was also
used to characterize a basic feature of Christianity: the denial of the world
or worldliness. Cosmologicum --
emanationism, a doctrine about the origin and ontological structure of the
world, most frequently associated with Plotinus and other Neoplatonists,
according to which everything else that exists is an emanation from a
primordial unity, called by Plotinus “the One.” The first product of emanation
from the One is Intelligence noûs, a realm resembling Plato’s world of Forms.
From Intelligence emanates Soul psuche, conceived as an active principle that
imposes, insofar as that is possible, the rational structure of Intelligence on
the matter that emanates from Soul. The process of emanation is typically
conceived to be necessary and timeless: although Soul, for instance, proceeds
from Intelligence, the notion of procession is one of logical dependence rather
than temporal sequence. The One remains unaffected and undiminished by
emanation: Plotinus likens the One to the sun, which necessarily emits light
from its naturally infinite abundance without suffering change or loss of its
own substance. Although emanationism influenced some Jewish, Christian, and
Islamic thinkers, it was incompatible with those theistic doctrines of divine
activity that maintained that God’s creative choice and the world thus created
were contingent, and that God can, if he chooses, interact directly with individual
creatures.
cotton onto the implicaturum:
this is not cognate with the plant. It’s Welsh, rather.Strawson’s and Wiggins’s
example of the ‘suggestio falsi’ – or alternative to Grice’s tutee example.
Since Strawson and Wiggins are presenting the thing to the ultra-prestigious
British Academy, they thought a ‘tutee’ example would not be prestigious
enough. So they have two philosophers, Strawson and Grice, talking about a
third party, another philosopher, well known by his mood outbursts. They are
assessing the third party’s philosophical abilities at their London club.
Strawson volunteers: “And Smith?”. Grice responds: “If he had a more angelic
temperament…” Strawson, “like a fool, I rushed in – Strawson Wiggins p. 520. The
angelic temperament. To like someone or something; to view someone or something
favorably. ... After we explained our plan again, the rest of the group
seemed to cotton onto it.
2. To begin to understand something. Has nothing to do with cotton 1560s,
"to prosper, succeed;" of things, "to agree, suit, fit," a
word of uncertain origin. Perhaps from Welsh cytuno "consent,
agree;" but perhaps rather a metaphor from cloth-finishing and thus
from cotton (n.).
Hensleigh Wedgwood compares cot "a fleece of wool matted together."
Meaning "become closely or intimately associated (with)," is from
1805 via the sense of "to get along together" (of persons), attested
from c. 1600. Related: Cottoned; cottoning.
cournot:
H. P. Grice draws from Cournot for his idea of a scientific law. --
Antoine-Augustin, a critical realist in scientific and philosophical matters,
he was a conservative in religion and politics. His Researches into the
Mathematical Principles of the Theory of Wealth 1838, though a fiasco at the
time, pioneered mathematical economics. Cournot upheld a position midway
between science and metaphysics. His philosophy rests on three basic
counteridenticals Cournot, Antoine-Augustin
concepts: order, chance, and probability. The Exposition of the Theory
of Chances and Probabilities 1843 focuses on the calculus of probability,
unfolds a theory of chance occurrences, and distinguishes among objective,
subjective, and philosophical probability. The Essay on the Foundations of
Knowledge 1861 defines science as logically organized knowledge. Cournot
developed a probabilist epistemology, showed the relevance of probabilism to
the scientific study of human acts, and further assumed the existence of a
providential and complex order undergirding the universe. Materialism,
Vitalism, Rationalism 1875 acknowledges transrationalism and makes room for
finality, purpose, and God.
craig:
Grice loved his interpolation theorem, a theorem for firstorder logic: if a
sentence y of first-order logic entails a sentence q there is an “interpolant,”
a sentence F in the vocabulary common to q and y that entails q and is entailed
by y. Originally, William Craig proved his theorem in 7 as a lemma, to give a
simpler proof of Beth’s definability theorem, but the result now stands on its
own. In abstract model theory, logics for which an interpolation theorem holds
are said to have the Craig interpolation property. Craig’s interpolation
theorem shows that first-order logic is closed under implicit definability, so
that the concepts embodied in first-order logic are all given explicitly. In
the philosophy of science literature ‘Craig’s theorem’ usually refers to
another result of Craig’s: that any recursively enumerable set of sentences of
first-order logic can be axiomatized. This has been used to argue that
theoretical terms are in principle eliminable from empirical theories. Assuming
that an empirical theory can be axiomatized in first-order logic, i.e., that
there is a recursive set of first-order sentences from which all theorems of
the theory can be proven, it follows that the set of consequences of the axioms
in an “observational” sublanguage is a recursively enumerable set. Thus, by
Craig’s theorem, there is a set of axioms for this subtheory, the Craig-reduct,
that contains only observation terms. Interestingly, the Craig-reduct theory
may be semantically weaker, in the sense that it may have models that cannot be
extended to a model of the full theory. The existence of such a model would
prove that the theoretical terms cannot all be defined on the basis of the
observational vocabulary only, a result related to Beth’s definability theorem.
crazy-bayesy: cited
by H. P. Grice, “Aspects of reason.” Bayesian rationality, minimally, a property
a system of beliefs or the believer has in virtue of the system’s “conforming
to the probability calculus.” “Bayesians” differ on what “rationality”
requires, but most agree that i beliefs come in degrees of firmness; ii these
“degrees of belief” are theoretically or ideally quantifiable; iii such
quantification can be understood in terms of person-relative, time-indexed
“credence functions” from appropriate sets of objects of belief propositions or
sentences each set closed under at least
finite truth-functional combinations
into the set of real numbers; iv at any given time t, a person’s
credence function at t ought to be usually: “on pain of a Dutch book argument”
a probability function; that is, a mapping from the given set into the real
numbers in such a way that the “probability” the value assigned to any given
object A in the set is greater than or equal to zero, and is equal to unity % 1
if A is a necessary truth, and, for any given objects A and B in the set, if A
and B are incompatible the negation of their conjunction is a necessary truth
then the probability assigned to their disjunction is equal to the sum of the
probabilities assigned to each; so that the usual propositional probability
axioms impose a sort of logic on degrees of belief. If a credence function is a
probability function, then it or the believer at the given time is “coherent.”
On these matters, on conditional degrees of belief, and on the further
constraint on rationality many Bayesians impose that change of belief ought to accord
with “conditionalization”, the reader should consult John Earman, Bayes or
Bust? A Critical Examination of Bayesian Confirmation Theory 2; Colin Howson
and Peter Urbach, Scientific Reasoning: The Bayesian Approach 9; and Richard
Jeffrey, The Logic of Decision 5. Bayes’s
theorem, any of several relationships between prior and posterior probabilities
or odds, especially 13 below. All of these depend upon the basic relationship 0
between contemporaneous conditional and unconditional probabilities. Non-Bayesians
think these useful only in narrow ranges of cases, generally because of
skepticism about accessibility or significance of priors. According to 1,
posterior probability is prior probability times the “relevance quotient”
Carnap’s term. According to 2, posterior odds are Bayesian Bayes’s theorem
74 74 prior odds times the “likelihood
ratio” R. A. Fisher’s term. Relationship 3 comes from 1 by expanding P data via
the law of total probability. Bayes’s rule 4 for updating probabilities has you
set your new unconditional probabilities equal to your old conditional ones
when fresh certainty about data leaves probabilities conditionally upon the
data unchanged. The corresponding rule 5 has you do the same for odds. In
decision theory the term is used differently, for the rule “Choose so as to
maximize expectation of utility.”
credibility: While Grice uses ‘probability’ as the correlatum of
desirability, he suggests ‘credibility’ is a better choice. It relates to the
‘creditum.’ Now, what is the generic for ‘trust’ when it comes to the creditum
and the desideratum? An indicative utterance expresses a belief. The utterer is
candid if he holds that belief. “Candid” applies to imperative utterances which
express genuine desires and notably the emissor’s intention that his recipient
will form a ‘desideratum.’ Following
Jeffrey and Davidson, respectively, Grice uses ‘desirability’ and
‘probability,’ but sometimes ‘credibibility,’ realizing that ‘credibility’ is
more symmetrical with ‘desirability’ than ‘probability’ is. Urmson had explored
this in “Parenthetical verbs.” Urmson co-relates, ‘certaintly’ with ‘know’ and
‘probably’ with ‘believe.’ But Urmson adds four further adverbs: “knowingly,”
“unknowingly,” “believably,” and “unbelievably.” Urmson also includes three
more: “uncredibly,” in variation with “incredibly,” and ‘credibly.” The keyword
should be ‘credibility.’
creditum: The Romans were good at this. Notably in negative
contexts. They distinguished between an emissor being fallax and being mendax.
It all has to do with ‘creditum.’ “Creditum’ is vero, more or less along
correspondence-theoretical lines. Used by Grice for the doxastic equivalent of
the buletic or desideratum. A creditum is an implicaturum, as Grice defines the
implicaturum of the content that an addresse has to assume the utterer BELIEVES
to deem him rational. The ‘creditum’-condition is essential for Grice in his
‘exhibitive’ account to the communication. By uttering “Smoke!”, U means that
there is some if the utterer intends that his addressee BELIEVE that he, the
utterer, is in a state of soul which has the propositional complex there is
smoke. It is worth noting that BELIEF is not needed for the immediate state of
the utterer’s soul: this can always be either a desire or a belief. But a
belief is REQUIRED as the immediate (if not ultimate) response intended by the
utterer that his addressee adapt. It is curious that given the primacy that
Grice held of the desirability over the credibility that many of his
conversational maxims are formulated as imperatives aimed at matters of belief,
conditions and value of credibility, probability and adequate evidence. In the
cases where Grice emphasizes ‘information,’ which one would associate with
‘belief,’ this association may be dropped provided the exhibitive account: you
can always influence or be influenced by others in the institution of a common
decision provided you give and receive the optimal information, or rather,
provided the conversationalists assume that they are engaged in a MAXIMAL
exchange of information. That ‘information’ does not necessarily apply to
‘belief’ is obvious in how complicated an order can get, “Get me a bottle”. “Is
that all?” “No, get me a bottle and make sure that it is of French wine, and
add something to drink the wine with, and drive careful, and give my love to
Rosie.” No belief is explicitly transmitted, yet the order seems informative
enough. Grice sometimes does use ‘informative’ in a strict context involving
credibility. He divides the mode of credibility into informational (when addressed
to others) and indicative (when addressed to self), for in a self-addressed
utterance such as, “I am being silly,” one cannot intend to inform oneself of
something one already knows! The English have ‘credibility’ and belief, which is
cognate with ‘love.’ H. P. Grice, “Disposition and belief,” H. P. Grice,
“Knowledge and belief.” a dispositional psychological state in virtue of which
a person will assent to a proposition under certain conditions. Propositional
knowledge, traditionally understood, entails belief. A behavioral view implies
that beliefs are just dispositions to behave in certain ways. Your believing
that the stove is hot is just your being disposed to act in a manner
appropriate to its being hot. The problem is that our beliefs, including their
propositional content indicated by a “that”-clause, typically explain why we do
what we do. You avoid touching the stove because you believe that it’s
dangerously hot. Explaining action via beliefs refers indispensably to
propositional content, but the behavioral view does not accommodate this. A
state-object view implies that belief consists of a special relation between a
psychological state and an object of belief, what is believed. The objects of
belief, traditionally understood, are abstract propositions existing
independently of anyone’s thinking of them. The state of believing is a
propositional attitude involving some degree of confidence toward a
propositional object of belief. Such a view allows that two persons, even
separated by a long period of time, can believe the same thing. A state-object
view allows that beliefs be dispositional rather than episodic, since they can
exist while no action is occurring. Such a view grants, however, that one can
have a disposition to act owing to believing something. Regarding mental
action, a belief typically generates a disposition to assent, at least under
appropriate circumstances, to the proposition believed. Given the central role
of propositional content, however, a state-object view denies that beliefs are
just dispositions to act. In addition, such a view should distinguish between
dispositional believing and a mere disposition to believe. One can be merely
disposed to believe many things that one does not actually believe, owing to
one’s lacking the appropriate psychological attitude to relevant propositional
content. Beliefs are either occurrent or non-occurrent. Occurrent belief,
unlike non-occurrent belief, requires current assent to the proposition
believed. If the assent is self-conscious, the belief is an explicit occurrent
belief; if the assent is not self-conscious, the belief is an implicit
occurrent behaviorism, supervenient belief 78
78 belief. Non-occurrent beliefs permit that we do not cease to believe
that 2 ! 2 % 4, for instance, merely because we now happen to be thinking of
something else or nothing at all. . --
belief revision, the process by which cognitive states change in light of new
information. This topic looms large in discussions of Bayes’s Theorem and other
approaches in decision theory. The reasons prompting belief revision are
characteristically epistemic; they concern such notions as quality of evidence
and the tendency to yield truths. Many different rules have been proposed for
updating one’s belief set. In general, belief revision typically balances risk
of error against information increase. Belief revision is widely thought to
proceed either by expansion or by conceptual revision. Expansion occurs in
virtue of new observations; a belief is changed, or a new belief established,
when a hypothesis or provisional belief is supported by evidence whose
probability is high enough to meet a favored criterion of epistemic warrant.
The hypothesis then becomes part of the existing belief corpus, or is
sufficient to prompt revision. Conceptual revision occurs when appropriate
changes are made in theoretical assumptions
in accordance with such principles as simplicity and explanatory or
predictive power by which the corpus is
organized. In actual cases, we tend to revise beliefs with an eye toward
advancing the best comprehensive explanation in the relevant cognitive
domain.
crescas:
h., philosopher, theologian, and statesman. He was a well-known representative
of the Jewish community in both Barcelona and Saragossa. Following the death of
his son in the anti-Jewish riots of 1391, he wrote a chronicle of the massacres
published as an appendix to Ibn Verga, Shevet Yehudah, ed. M. Wiener, 1855.
Crescas’s devotion to protecting Jewry
in a time when conversion was encouraged is documented in one extant work, the
Refutation of Christian Dogmas 139798, found in the 1451 Hebrew translation of
Joseph ibn Shem Tov Bittul ’Iqqarey ha-Nofrim. His major philosophical work, Or
Adonai The Light of the Lord, was intended as the first of a two-part project
that was to include his own more extensive systematization of halakha Jewish
law as well as a critique of Maimonides’ work. But this second part, “Lamp of
the Divine Commandment,” was never written. Or Adonai is a
philosophico-dogmatic response to and attack on the Aristotelian doctrines that
Crescas saw as a threat to the Jewish faith, doctrines concerning the nature of
God, space, time, place, free will, and infinity. For theological reasons he
attempts to refute basic tenets in Aristotelian physics. He offers, e.g., a
critique of Aristotle’s arguments against the existence of a vacuum. The
Aristotelian view of time is rejected as well. Time, like space, is thought by
Crescas to be infinite. Furthermore, it is not an accident of motion, but
rather exists only in the soul. In defending the fundamental doctrines of the
Torah, Crescas must address the question discussed by his predecessors
Maimonides and Gersonides, namely that of reconciling divine foreknowledge with
human freedom. Unlike these two thinkers, Crescas adopts a form of determinism,
arguing that God knows both the possible and what will necessarily take place.
An act is contingent with respect to itself, and necessary with respect to its
causes and God’s knowledge. To be willed freely, then, is not for an act to be
absolutely contingent, but rather for it to be “willed internally” as opposed
to “willed externally.” Reactions to Crescas’s doctrines were mixed. Isaac
Abrabanel, despite his respect for Crescas’s piety, rejected his views as
either “unintelligible” or “simple-minded.” On the other hand, Giovanni Pico
della Mirandola appeals to Crescas’s critique of Aristotelian physics; Judah
Abrabanel’s Dialogues of Love may be seen as accommodating Crescas’s
metaphysical views; and Spinoza’s notions of necessity, freedom, and extension
may well be influenced by the doctrines of Or Adonai.
Grice’s criterion for the
implicaturum, -- cf. G. P. Baker, “Grice and criterial semantics” -- broadly, a
sufficient condition for the presence of a certain property or for the truth of
a certain proposition. Generally, a criterion need be sufficient merely in
normal circumstances rather than absolutely sufficient. Typically, a criterion
is salient in some way, often by virtue of being a necessary condition as well
as a sufficient one. The plural form, ‘criteria’, is commonly used for a set of
singly necessary and jointly sufficient conditions. A set of truth conditions
is said to be criterial for the truth of propositions of a certain form. A
conceptual analysis of a philosophically important concept may take the form of
a proposed set of truth conditions for paradigmatic propositions containing the
concept in question. Philosophers have proposed criteria for such notions as
meaningfulness, intentionality, creationism, theological criterion knowledge, justification, justice,
rightness, and identity including personal identity and event identity, among
many others. There is a special use of the term in connection with Vitters’s
well-known remark that “an ‘inner process’ stands in need of outward criteria,”
e.g., moans and groans for aches and pains. The suggestion is that a
criteriological connection is needed to forge a conceptual link between items
of a sort that are intelligible and knowable to items of a sort that, but for
the connection, would not be intelligible or knowable. A mere symptom cannot
provide such a connection, for establishing a correlation between a symptom and
that for which it is a symptom presupposes that the latter is intelligible and
knowable. One objection to a criteriological view, whether about aches or
quarks, is that it clashes with realism about entities of the sort in question
and lapses into, as the case may be, behaviorism or instrumentalism. For it
seems that to posit a criteriological connection is to suppose that the nature
and existence of entities of a given sort can depend on the conditions for
their intelligibility or knowability, and that is to put the epistemological
cart before the ontological horse.
critical legal studies:
explored by Grice in his analysis of legal vs. moral right -- a loose assemblage of legal writings and
thinkers in the United States and Great Britain since the mid-0s that aspire to
a jurisprudence and a political ideology. Like the legal realists of the 0s and 0s, the
jurisprudential program is largely negative, consisting in the discovery of
supposed contradictions within both the law as a whole and areas of law such as
contracts and criminal law. The jurisprudential implication derived from such
supposed contradictions within the law is that any decision in any case can be
defended as following logically from some authoritative propositions of law,
making the law completely without guidance in particular cases. Also like
the legal realists, the political
ideology of critical legal studies is vaguely leftist, embracing the
communitarian critique of liberalism. Communitarians fault liberalism for its
alleged overemphasis on individual rights and individual welfare at the expense
of the intrinsic value of certain collective goods. Given the cognitive
relativism of many of its practitioners, critical legal studies tends not to
aspire to have anything that could be called a theory of either law or of
politics.
Grice’s
critique of conversational reason – “What does Kant mean
by ‘critique’? Should he?” – Grice. Critical Realism, a philosophy that at the
highest level of generality purports to integrate the positive insights of both
New Realism and idealism. New Realism was the first wave of realistic reaction
to the dominant idealism of the nineteenth century. It was a version of
immediate and direct realism. In its attempt to avoid any representationalism
that would lead to idealism, this tradition identified the immediate data of
consciousness with objects in the physical world. There is no intermediary
between the knower and the known. This heroic tour de force foundered on the
phenomena of error, illusion, and perceptual variation, and gave rise to a
successor realism Critical Realism that acknowledged the mediation of “the
mental” in our cognitive grasp of the physical world. ’Critical Realism’ was
the title of a work in epistemology by Roy Wood Sellars 6, but its more general
use to designate the broader movement derives from the 0 cooperative volume,
Essays in Critical Realism: A Cooperative Study of the Problem of Knowledge,
containing position papers by Durant Drake, A. O. Lovejoy, J. B. Pratt, A. K.
Rogers, C. A. Strong, George Santayana, and Roy Wood Sellars. With New Realism,
Critical Realism maintains that the primary object of knowledge is the independent
physical world, and that what is immediately present to consciousness is not
the physical object as such, but some corresponding mental state broadly
construed. Whereas both New Realism and idealism grew out of the conviction
that any such mediated account of knowledge is untenable, the Critical Realists
felt that only if knowledge of the external world is explained in terms of a
process of mental mediation, can error, illusion, and perceptual variation be
accommodated. One could fashion an account of mental mediation that did not
involve the pitfalls of Lockean representationalism by carefully distinguishing
between the object known and the mental state through which it is known. The
Critical Realists differed among themselves both epistemologically and
metaphysically. The mediating elements in cognition were variously construed as
essences, ideas, or sensedata, and the precise role of these items in
cognicriterion, problem of the Critical Realism tion was again variously construed.
Metaphysically, some were dualists who saw knowledge as unexplainable in terms
of physical processes, whereas others principally Santayana and Sellars were
materialists who saw cognition as simply a function of conscious biological
systems. The position of most lasting influence was probably that of Sellars
because that torch was taken up by his son, Wilfrid, whose very sophisticated
development of it was quite influential.
-- critical theory, any social theory that is at the same time
explanatory, normative, practical, and self-reflexive. The term was first
developed by Horkheimer as a self-description of the Frankfurt School and its
revision of Marxism. It now has a wider significance to include any critical,
theoretical approach, including feminism and liberation philosophy. When they
make claims to be scientific, such approaches attempt to give rigorous
explanations of the causes of oppression, such as ideological beliefs or
economic dependence; these explanations must in turn be verified by empirical
evidence and employ the best available social and economic theories. Such
explanations are also normative and critical, since they imply negative
evaluations of current social practices. The explanations are also practical,
in that they provide a better self-understanding for agents who may want to
improve the social conditions that the theory negatively evaluates. Such change
generally aims at “emancipation,” and theoretical insight empowers agents to
remove limits to human freedom and the causes of human suffering. Finally,
these theories must also be self-reflexive: they must account for their own
conditions of possibility and for their potentially transformative effects.
These requirements contradict the standard account of scientific theories and
explanations, particularly positivism and its separation of fact and value. For
this reason, the methodological writings of critical theorists often attack
positivism and empiricism and attempt to construct alternative epistemologies.
Critical theorists also reject relativism, since the cultural relativity of
norms would undermine the basis of critical evaluation of social practices and
emancipatory change. The difference between critical and non-critical theories
can be illustrated by contrasting the Marxian and Mannheimian theories of
ideology. Whereas Mannheim’s theory merely describes relations between ideas of
social conditions, Marx’s theory tries to show how certain social practices
require false beliefs about them by their participants. Marx’s theory not only
explains why this is so, it also negatively evaluates those practices; it is
practical in that by disillusioning participants, it makes them capable of
transformative action. It is also self-reflexive, since it shows why some
practices require illusions and others do not, and also why social crises and
conflicts will lead agents to change their circumstances. It is scientific, in
that it appeals to historical evidence and can be revised in light of better
theories of social action, language, and rationality. Marx also claimed that
his theory was superior for its special “dialectical method,” but this is now
disputed by most critical theorists, who incorporate many different theories
and methods. This broader definition of critical theory, however, leaves a gap
between theory and practice and places an extra burden on critics to justify
their critical theories without appeal to such notions as inevitable historical
progress. This problem has made critical theories more philosophical and
concerned with questions of justification.
Grice’s
critters: one is never sure if Grice uses ‘creature’
seriously! creation ex nihilo, the act of bringing something into existence
from nothing. According to traditional Christian theology, God created the
world ex nihilo. To say that the world was created from nothing does not mean
that there was a prior non-existent substance out of which it was fashioned,
but rather that there was not anything out of which God brought it into being.
However, some of the patristics influenced by Plotinus, such as Gregory of
Nyssa, apparently understood creation ex nihilo to be an emanation from God
according to which what is created comes, not from nothing, but from God
himself. Not everything that God makes need be created ex nihilo; or if, as in
Genesis 2: 7, 19, God made a human being and animals from the ground, a
previously existing material, God did not create them from nothing. Regardless
of how bodies are made, orthodox theology holds that human souls are created ex
nihilo; the opposing view, traducianism, holds that souls are propagated along
with bodies. creationism, acceptance of
the early chapters of Genesis taken literally. Genesis claims that the universe
and all of its living creatures including humans were created by God in the
space of six days. The need to find some way of reconciling this story with the
claims of science intensified in the nineteenth century, with the publication
of Darwin’s Origin of Species 1859. In the Southern states of the United
States, the indigenous form of evangelical Protestant Christianity declared
total opposition to evolutionism, refusing any attempt at reconciliation, and
affirming total commitment to a literal “creationist” reading of the Bible.
Because of this, certain states passed laws banning the teaching of
evolutionism. More recently, literalists have argued that the Bible can be
given full scientific backing, and they have therefore argued that “Creation
science” may properly be taught in state-supported schools in the United States
without violation of the constitutional separation of church and state. This
claim was challenged in the state of Arkansas in 1, and ultimately rejected by
the U.S. Supreme Court. The creationism dispute has raised some issues of
philosophical interest and importance. Most obviously, there is the question of
what constitutes a genuine science. Is there an adequate criterion of
demarcation between science and nonscience, and will it put evolutionism on the
one side and creationism on the other? Some philosophers, arguing in the spirit
of Karl Popper, think that such a criterion can be found. Others are not so
sure; and yet others think that some such criterion can be found, but shows
creationism to be genuine science, albeit already proven false. Philosophers of
education have also taken an interest in creationism and what it represents. If
one grants that even the most orthodox science may contain a value component,
reflecting and influencing its practitioners’ culture, then teaching a subject
like biology almost certainly is not a normatively neutral enterprise. In that
case, without necessarily conceding to the creationist anything about the true
nature of science or values, perhaps one must agree that science with its
teaching is not something that can and should be set apart from the rest of
society, as an entirely distinct phenomenon.
Grice
as Croceian: expression and intention -- Croce, B., philosopher.
He was born at Pescasseroli, in the Abruzzi, and after 6 lived in Naples. He
briefly attended the of Rome and was led
to study Herbart’s philosophy. In 4 he founded the influential journal La
critica. In 0 he was made life member of the
senate. Early in his career he befriended Giovanni Gentile, but this
friendship was breached by Gentile’s Fascism. During the Fascist period and
World War II Croce lived in isolation as the chief anti-fascist thinker in
Italy. He later became a leader of the Liberal party and at the age of eighty
founded the Institute for Historical Studies. Croce was a literary and
historical scholar who joined his great interest in these fields to philosophy.
His best-known work in the Englishspeaking world is Aesthetic as Science of
Expression and General Linguistic 2. This was the first part of his “Philosophy
of Spirit”; the second was his Logic 5, the third his theory of the Practical
9, and the fourth his Historiography 7. Croce was influenced by Hegel and the
Hegelian aesthetician Francesco De Sanctis 181783 and by Vico’s conceptions of
knowledge, history, and society. He wrote The Philosophy of Giambattista Vico 1
and a famous commentary on Hegel, What Is Living and What Is critical theory
Croce, Benedetto Dead in the
Philosophy of Hegel 7, in which he advanced his conception of the “dialectic of
distincts” as more fundamental than the Hegelian dialectic of opposites. Croce
held that philosophy always springs from the occasion, a view perhaps rooted in
his concrete studies of history. He accepted the general Hegelian
identification of philosophy with the history of philosophy. His philosophy
originates from his conception of aesthetics. Central to his aesthetics is his
view of intuition, which evolved through various stages during his career. He
regards aesthetic experience as a primitive type of cognition. Intuition
involves an awareness of a particular image, which constitutes a non-conceptual
form of knowledge. Art is the expression of emotion but not simply for its own
sake. The expression of emotion can produce cognitive awareness in the sense
that the particular intuited as an image can have a cosmic aspect, so that in
it the universal human spirit is perceived. Such perception is present
especially in the masterpieces of world literature. Croce’s conception of
aesthetic has connections with Kant’s “intuition” Anschauung and to an extent
with Vico’s conception of a primordial form of thought based in imagination
fantasia. Croce’s philosophical idealism includes fully developed conceptions
of logic, science, law, history, politics, and ethics. His influence to date
has been largely in the field of aesthetics and in historicist conceptions of
knowledge and culture. His revival of Vico has inspired a whole school of Vico
scholarship. Croce’s conception of a “Philosophy of Spirit” showed it was
possible to develop a post-Hegelian philosophy that, with Hegel, takes “the
true to be the whole” but which does not simply imitate Hegel. Croce -- expression theory of art, a theory
that defines art as the expression of feelings or emotion sometimes called
expressionism in art. Such theories first acquired major importance in the
nineteenth century in connection with the rise of Romanticism. Expression
theories are as various as the different views about what counts as expressing
emotion. There are four main variants. 1 Expression as communication. This
requires that the artist actually have the feelings that are expressed, when
they are initially expressed. They are “embodied” in some external form, and
thereby transmitted to the perceiver. Leo Tolstoy 18280 held a view of this
sort. 2 Expression as intuition. An intuition is the apprehension of the unity
and individuality of something. An intuition is “in the mind,” and hence the
artwork is also. Croce held this view, and in his later work argued that the
unity of an intuition is established by feeling. 3 Expression as clarification.
An artist starts out with vague, undefined feelings, and expression is a
process of coming to clarify, articulate, and understand them. This view
retains Croce’s idea that expression is in the artist’s mind, as well as
explanation, covering law expression theory of art 299 299 his view that we are all artists to the
degree that we articulate, clarify, and come to understand our own feelings.
Collingwood held this view. 4 Expression as a property of the object. For an
artwork to be an expression of emotion is for it to have a given structure or
form. Suzanne K. Langer 55 argued that music and the other arts “presented” or
exhibited structures or forms of feeling in general.
Grice’s
crucial experiment: a means of deciding between rival
theories (or arguments) for this or that impicatum, that, providing parallel
explanations of large classes of phenomena, come to be placed at issue by a
single fact. For example, the Newtonian emission theory predicts that light
travels faster in water than in air; according to the wave theory, light
travels slower in water than in air. Dominique François Arago proposed a
crucial experiment comparing the respective velocities. Léon Foucault then
devised an apparatus to measure the speed of light in various media and found a
lower velocity in water than in air. Arago and Foucault concluded for the wave
theory, believing that the experiment refuted the emission theory. Other
examples include Galileo’s discovery of the phases of Venus Ptolemaic versus
Copernican astronomy, Pascal’s Puy-de-Dôme experiment with the barometer
vacuists versus plenists, Fresnel’s prediction of a spot of light in circular
shadows particle versus wave optics, and Eddington’s measurement of the gravitational
bending of light rays during a solar eclipse Newtonian versus Einsteinian
gravitation. At issue in crucial experiments is usually a novel prediction. The
notion seems to derive from Francis Bacon, whose New Organon 1620 discusses the
“Instance of the Fingerpost Instantia
later experimentum crucis,” a
term borrowed from the post set up at crossroads to indicate several
directions. Crucial experiments were emphasized in early nineteenth-century
scientific methodology e.g., in John F.
Herschel’s A Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy 1830.
Duhem argued that crucial experiments resemble false dilemmas: hypotheses in
physics do not come in pairs, so that crucial experiments cannot transform one
of the two into a demonstrated truth. Discussing Foucault’s experiment, Duhem
asks whether we dare assert that no other hypothesis is imaginable and suggests
that instead of light being either a simple particle or wave, light might be
something else, perhaps a disturbance propagated within a dielectric medium, as
theorized by Maxwell. In the twentieth century, crucial experiments and novel
predictions figured prominently in the work of Imre Lakatos 274. Agreeing that
crucial experiments are unable to overthrow theories, Lakatos accepted them as
retroactive indications of the fertility or progress of research programs.
crusius:
As C. of E., Grice was pretty protestant -- Christian August, philosopher,
theologian, and a devout Lutheran pastor who believed that religion was
endangered by the rationalist views especially of Wolff. He devoted his
considerable philosophical powers to working out acute and often deep
criticisms of Wolff and developing a comprehensive alternative to the Wolffian
system. His main philosophical works were published in the 1740s. In his
understanding of epistemology and logic Crusius broke with many of the
assumptions that allowed Wolff to argue from how we think of things to how
things are. For instance, Crusius tried to show that the necessity in causal
connection is not the same as logical necessity. He rejected the Leibnizian
view that this world is probably the best possible world, and he criticrucial
experiment Crusius, Christian August
cized the Wolffian view of freedom of the will as merely a concealed
spiritual mechanism. His ethics stressed our dependence on God and his
commands, as did the natural law theory of Pufendorf, but he developed the view
in some strikingly original ways. Rejecting voluntarism, Crusius held that
God’s commands take the form of innate principles of the will not the
understanding. Everyone alike can know what they are, so contra Wolff there is
no need for moral experts. And they carry their own motivational force with
them, so there is no need for external sanctions. We have obligations of
prudence to do what will forward our own ends; but true obligation, the
obligation of virtue, arises only when we act simply to comply with God’s law,
regardless of any ends of our own. In this distinction between two kinds of
obligation, as in many of his other views, Crusius plainly anticipated much
that Kant came to think. Kant when young read and admired his work, and it is
mainly for this reason that Crusius is now remembered.
cudworth:
d. Lady Masham, English philosopher and author of two treatises on religion, A
Discourse Concerning the Love of God 1690 and Occasional Thoughts in Reference
to a Virtuous Christian Life 1705. The first argues against the views of the
English Malebranchian, John Norris; the second, ostensibly about the importance
of education for women, argues for the need to establish natural religion on
rational principles and explores the place of revealed religion within a
rational framework. Cudworth’s reputation is founded on her long friendship
with John Locke. Her correspondence with him is almost entirely personal; she
also entered into a brief but philosophically interesting exchange of letters
with Leibniz.
cumberland
-- Law – Grice was obsessed with laws that would introduce psychological
concepts -- Cumberland, R. English philosopher and bishop. He wrote a Latin
Treatise of the Laws of Nature 1672, tr. twice into English and once into .
Admiring Grotius, Cumberland hoped to refute Hobbes in the interests of
defending Christian morality and religion. He refused to appeal to innate ideas
and a priori arguments because he thought Hobbes must be attacked on his own
ground. Hence he offered a reductive and naturalistic account of natural law.
The one basic moral law of nature is that the pursuit of the good of all
rational beings is the best path to the agent’s own good. This is true because
God made nature so that actions aiding others are followed by beneficial
consequences to the agent, while those harmful to others harm the agent. Since
the natural consequences of actions provide sanctions that, once we know them,
will make us act for the good of others, we can conclude that there is a divine
law by which we are obligated to act for the common good. And all the other
laws of nature follow from the basic law. Cumberland refused to discuss free
will, thereby suggesting a view of human action as fully determined by natural
causes. If on his theory it is a blessing that God made nature including humans
to work as it does, the religious reader must wonder if there is any role left
for God concerning morality. Cumberland is generally viewed as a major
forerunner of utilitarianism.
inductum –
Grice knew a lot about induction theory via Kneale and Keynes -- curve-fitting
problem, the problem of making predictions from past observations by fitting
curves to the data. Curve fitting has two steps: first, select a family of
curves; then, find the bestfitting curve by some statistical criterion such as
the method of least squares e.g., choose the curve that has the least sum of
squared deviations between the curve and data. The method was first proposed by
Adrian Marie Legendre 17521833 and Carl Friedrich Gauss 1777 1855 in the early
nineteenth century as a way of inferring planetary trajectories from noisy
data. More generally, curve fitting may be used to construct low-level
empirical generalizations. For example, suppose that the ideal gas law, P %
nkT, is chosen as the form of the law governing the dependence of the pressure
P on the equilibrium temperature T of a fixed volume of gas, where n is the
molecular number per unit volume and k is Boltzmann’s constant a universal
constant equal to 1.3804 $ 10†16 erg°C†1. When the parameter nk is adjustable,
the law specifies a family of curves one
for each numerCudworth, Damaris curve-fitting problem ical value of the parameter. Curve fitting
may be used to determine the best-fitting member of the family, thereby
effecting a measurement of the theoretical parameter, nk. The philosophically
vexing problem is how to justify the initial choice of the form of the law. On
the one hand, one might choose a very large, complex family of curves, which
would ensure excellent fit with any data set. The problem with this option is
that the best-fitting curve may overfit the data. If too much attention is paid
to the random elements of the data, then the predictively useful trends and
regularities will be missed. If it looks too good to be true, it probably is.
On the other hand, simpler families run a greater risk of making grossly false
assumptions about the true form of the law. Intuitively, the solution is to
choose a simplefamily of curves that maintains a reasonable degree of fit. The
simplicity of a family of curves is measured by the paucity of parameters. The
problem is to say how and why such a trade-off between simplicity and goodness
of fit should be made. When a theory can accommodate recalcitrant data only by
the ad hoc i.e., improperly
motivated addition of new terms and
parameters, students of science have long felt that the subsequent increase in
the degree of fit should not count in the theory’s favor, and such additions
are sometimes called ad hoc hypotheses. The best-known example of this sort of
ad hoc hypothesizing is the addition of epicycles upon epicycles in the
planetary astronomies of Ptolemy and Copernicus. This is an example in which a
gain in fit need not compensate for the loss of simplicity. Contemporary
philosophers sometimes formulate the curve-fitting problem differently. They
often assume that there is no noise in the data, and speak of the problem of
choosing among different curves that fit the data exactly. Then the problem is to
choose the simplest curve from among all those curves that pass through every
data point. The problem is that there is no universally accepted way of
defining the simplicity of single curves. No matter how the problem is
formulated, it is widely agreed that simplicity should play some role in theory
choice. Rationalists have championed the curve-fitting problem as exemplifying
the underdetermination of theory from data and the need to make a priori
assumptions about the simplicity of nature. Those philosophers who think that
we have no such a priori knowledge still need to account for the relevance of
simplicity to science. Whewell described curve fitting as the colligation of
facts in the quantitative sciences, and the agreement in the measured parameters
coefficients obtained by different colligations of facts as the consilience of
inductions. Different colligations of facts say on the same gas at different
volume or for other gases may yield good agreement among independently measured
values of parameters like the molecular density of the gas and Boltzmann’s
constant. By identifying different parameters found to agree, we constrain the
form of the law without appealing to a priori knowledge good news for
empiricism. But the accompanying increase in unification also worsens the
overall degree of fit. Thus, there is also the problem of how and why we should
trade off unification with total degree of fit. Statisticians often refer to a
family of hypotheses as a model. A rapidly growing literature in statistics on
model selection has not yet produced any universally accepted formula for
trading off simplicity with degree of fit. However, there is wide agreement
among statisticians that the paucity of parameters is the appropriate way of
measuring simplicity.
Grice’s
defense of modernist logic -- cut-elimination theorem, a
theorem stating that a certain type of inference rule including a rule that
corresponds to modus ponens is not needed in classical logic. The idea was
anticipated by J. Herbrand; the theorem was proved by G. Gentzen and
generalized by S. Kleene. Gentzen formulated a sequent calculus i.e., a deductive system with rules for
statements about derivability. It includes a rule that we here express as ‘From
C Y D,M and M,C Y D, infer C Y D’ or ‘Given that C yields D or M, and that C
plus M yields D, we may infer that C yields D’. Cusa cut-elimination
theorem This is called the cut rule
because it cuts out the middle formula M. Gentzen showed that his sequent
calculus is an adequate formalization of the predicate logic, and that the cut
rule can be eliminated; anything provable with it can be proved without it. One
important consequence of this is that, if a formula F is provable, then there
is a proof of F that consists solely of subformulas of F. This fact simplifies
the study of provability. Gentzen’s methodology applies directly to classical
logic but can be adapted to many nonclassical logics, including some
intuitionistic logics. It has led to some important theorems about consistency,
and has illuminated the role of auxiliary assumptions in the derivation of
consequences from a theory.
cybernetic
implicaturum – What Grice disliked about the
cybernetic implicaturum is that it is ‘mechanisitically derivable” and thus not
really ‘rational’ in the way an implicaturum is meant to be rational. A machine
cannot implicate. Grice “Method in philosophical psychology” -- cybernetics
coined by N. Wiener in 7 from Grecian kubernetes, ‘helmsman’, the study of the
communication and manipulation of information in service of the control and
guidance of biological, physical, or chemical energy systems. Historically,
cybernetics has been intertwined with mathematical theories of information
communication and computation. To describe the cybernetic properties of systems
or processes requires ways to describe and measure information reduce
uncertainty about events within the system and its environment. Feedback and
feedforward, the basic ingredients of cybernetic processes, involve information as what is fed forward or backward and are basic to processes such as
homeostasis in biological systems, automation in industry, and guidance
systems. Of course, their most comprehensive application is to the purposive
behavior thought of cognitively goal-directed systems such as ourselves.
Feedback occurs in closed-loop, as opposed to open-loop, systems. Actually,
‘open-loop’ is a misnomer involving no loop, but it has become entrenched. The
standard example of an openloop system is that of placing a heater with
constant output in a closed room and leaving it switched on. Room temperature
may accidentally reach, but may also dramatically exceed, the temperature
desired by the occupants. Such a heating system has no means of controlling
itself to adapt to required conditions. In contrast, the standard closed-loop
system incorporates a feedback component. At the heart of cybernetics is the
concept of control. A controlled process is one in which an end state that is
reached depends essentially on the behavior of the controlling system and not
merely on its external environment. That is, control involves partial
independence for the system. A control system may be pictured as having both an
inner and outer environment. The inner environment consists of the internal
events that make up the system; the outer environment consists of events that
causally impinge on the system, threatening disruption and loss of system
integrity and stability. For a system to maintain its independence and identity
in the face of fluctuations in its external environment, it must be able to
detect information about those changes in the external environment. Information
must pass through the interface between inner and outer environments, and the
system must be able to compensate for fluctuations of the outer environment by
adjusting its own inner environmental variables. Otherwise, disturbances in the
outer environment will overcome the system
bringing its inner states into equilibrium with the outer states,
thereby losing its identity as a distinct, independent system. This is nowhere
more certain than with the homeostatic systems of the body for temperature or
blood sugar levels. Control in the attainment of goals is accomplished by
minimizing error. Negative feedback, or information about error, is the difference
between activity a system actually performs output and that activity which is
its goal to perform input. The standard example of control incorporating
negative feedback is the thermostatically controlled heating system. The actual
room temperature system output carries information to the thermostat that can
be compared via goal-state comparator to the desired temperature for the room
input as embodied in the set-point on the thermostat; a correction can then be
made to minimize the difference error
the furnace turns on or off. Positive feedback tends to amplify the
value of the output of a system or of a system disturbance by adding the value
of the output to the system input quantity. Thus, the system accentuates
disturbances and, if unchecked, will eventually pass the brink of instability.
Suppose that as room temperature rises it causes the thermostatic set-point to
rise in direct proportion to the rise in temperature. This would cause the
furnace to continue to output heat possibly with disastrous consequences. Many
biological maladies have just this characteristic. For example, severe loss of
blood causes inability of the heart to pump effectively, which causes loss of
arterial pressure, which, in turn, causes reduced flow of blood to the heart,
reducing pumping efficiency. cybernetics cybernetics Cognitively goal-directed systems are also
cybernetic systems. Purposive attainment of a goal by a goal-directed system
must have at least: 1 an internal representation of the goal state of the system
a detector for whether the desired state is actual; 2 a feedback loop by which
information about the present state of the system can be compared with the goal
state as internally represented and by means of which an error correction can
be made to minimize any difference; and 3 a causal dependency of system output
upon the error-correction process of condition 2 to distinguish goal success
from fortuitous goal satisfaction.
cynical
implicaturum, Cynic -- a classical Grecian
philosophical school characterized by asceticism and emphasis on the
sufficiency of virtue for happiness eudaimonia, boldness in speech, and
shamelessness in action. The Cynics were strongly influenced by Socrates and
were themselves an important influence on Stoic ethics. An ancient tradition
links the Cynics to Antisthenes c.445c.360 B.C., an Athenian. He fought bravely
in the battle of Tanagra and claimed that he would not have been so courageous
if he had been born of two Athenians instead of an Athenian and a Thracian
slave. He studied with Gorgias, but later became a close companion of Socrates
and was present at Socrates’ death. Antisthenes was proudest of his wealth,
although he had no money, because he was satisfied with what he had and he
could live in whatever circumstances he found himself. Here he follows Socrates
in three respects. First, Socrates himself lived with a disregard for pleasure
and pain e.g., walking barefoot in snow.
Second, Socrates thinks that in every circumstance a virtuous person is better
off than a nonvirtuous one; Antisthenes anticipates the Stoic development of
this to the view that virtue is sufficient for happiness, because the virtuous
person uses properly whatever is present. Third, both Socrates and Antisthenes
stress that the soul is more important than the body, and neglect the body for
the soul. Unlike the later Cynics, however, both Socrates and Antisthenes do
accept pleasure when it is available. Antisthenes also does not focus exclusively
on ethics; he wrote on other topics, including logic. He supposedly told Plato
that he could see a horse but not horseness, to which Plato replied that he had
not acquired the means to see horseness. Diogenes of Sinope c.400c.325 B.C.
continued the emphasis on self-sufficiency and on the soul, but took the
disregard for pleasure to asceticism. According to one story, Plato called
Diogenes “Socrates gone mad.” He came to Athens after being exiled from Sinope,
perhaps because the coinage was defaced, either by himself or by others, under
his father’s direction. He took ‘deface the coinage!’ as a motto, meaning that
the current standards were corrupt and should be marked as corrupt by being
defaced; his refusal to live by them was his defacing them. For example, he
lived in a wine cask, ate whatever scraps he came across, and wrote approvingly
of cannibalism and incest. One story reports that he carried a lighted lamp in
broad daylight looking for an honest human, probably intending to suggest that
the people he did see were so corrupted that they were no longer really people.
He apparently wanted to replace the debased standards of custom with the
genuine standards of nature but nature
in the sense of what was minimally required for human life, which an individual
human could achieve, without society. Because of this, he was called a Cynic,
from the Grecian word kuon dog, because he was as shameless as a dog. Diogenes’
most famous successor was Crates fl. c.328325 B.C.. He was a Boeotian, from
Thebes, and renounced his wealth to become a Cynic. He seems to have been more
pleasant than Diogenes; according to some reports, every Athenian house was
open to him, and he was even regarded by them as a household god. Perhaps the
most famous incident involving Crates is his marriage to Hipparchia, who took
up the Cynic way of life despite her family’s opposition and insisted that
educating herself was preferable to working a loom. Like Diogenes, Crates
emphasized that happiness is self-sufficiency, and claimed that asceticism is
required for self-sufficiency; e.g., he advises us not to prefer oysters to
lentils. He argues that no one is happy if happiness is measured by the balance
of pleasure and pain, since in each period of our lives there is more pain than
pleasure. Cynicism continued to be active through the third century B.C., and
returned to prominence in the second century A.D. after an apparent
decline.
cyrenaic implicaturum
-- Cyrenaics, a classical Grecian philosophical school that began shortly after
Socrates and lasted for several centuries, noted especially for hedonism.
Ancient writers trace the Cyrenaics back to ArisCynics Cyrenaics 200 200 tippus of Cyrene fifth-fourth century
B.C., an associate of Socrates. Aristippus came to Athens because of Socrates’
fame and later greatly enjoyed the luxury of court life in Sicily. Some people
ascribe the founding of the school to his grandchild Aristippus, because of an
ancient report that the elder Aristippus said nothing clear about the human
end. The Cyrenaics include Aristippus’s child Arete, her child Aristippus
taught by Arete, Hegesius, Anniceris, and Theodorus. The school seems to have
been superseded by the Epicureans. No Cyrenaic writings survive, and the
reports we do have are sketchy. The Cyrenaics avoid mathematics and natural
philosophy, preferring ethics because of its utility. According to them, not
only will studying nature not make us virtuous, it also won’t make us stronger
or richer. Some reports claim that they also avoid logic and epistemology. But
this is not true of all the Cyrenaics: according to other reports, they think
logic and epistemology are useful, consider arguments and also causes as topics
to be covered in ethics, and have an epistemology. Their epistemology is
skeptical. We can know only how we are affected; we can know, e.g., that we are
whitening, but not that whatever is causing this sensation is itself white.
This differs from Protagoras’s theory; unlike Protagoras the Cyrenaics draw no
inferences about the things that affect us, claiming only that external things
have a nature that we cannot know. But, like Protagoras, the Cyrenaics base
their theory on the problem of conflicting appearances. Given their
epistemology, if humans ought to aim at something that is not a way of being
affected i.e., something that is immediately perceived according to them, we
can never know anything about it. Unsurprisingly, then, they claim that the end
is a way of being affected; in particular, they are hedonists. The end of good
actions is particular pleasures smooth changes, and the end of bad actions is
particular pains rough changes. There is also an intermediate class, which aims
at neither pleasure nor pain. Mere absence of pain is in this intermediate
class, since the absence of pain may be merely a static state. Pleasure for
Aristippus seems to be the sensation of pleasure, not including related psychic
states. We should aim at pleasure although not everyone does, as is clear from
our naturally seeking it as children, before we consciously choose to.
Happiness, which is the sum of the particular pleasures someone experiences, is
choiceworthy only for the particular pleasures that constitute it, while
particular pleasures are choiceworthy for themselves. Cyrenaics, then, are not
concerned with maximizing total pleasure over a lifetime, but only with
particular pleasures, and so they should not choose to give up particular
pleasures on the chance of increasing the total. Later Cyrenaics diverge in
important respects from the original Cyrenaic hedonism, perhaps in response to
the development of Epicurus’s views. Hegesias claims that happiness is
impossible because of the pains associated with the body, and so thinks of
happiness as total pleasure minus total pain. He emphasizes that wise people
act for themselves, and denies that people actually act for someone else.
Anniceris, on the other hand, claims that wise people are happy even if they
have few pleasures, and so seems to think of happiness as the sum of pleasures,
and not as the excess of pleasures over pains. Anniceris also begins
considering psychic pleasures: he insists that friends should be valued not
only for their utility, but also for our feelings toward them. We should even
accept losing pleasure because of a friend, even though pleasure is the end.
Theodorus goes a step beyond Anniceris. He claims that the end of good actions
is joy and that of bad actions is grief. Surprisingly, he denies that
friendship is reasonable, since fools have friends only for utility and wise
people need no friends. He even regards pleasure as intermediate between
practical wisdom and its opposite. This seems to involve regarding happiness as
the end, not particular pleasures, and may involve losing particular pleasures
for long-term happiness.
empiricism
-- Czolbe, H., philosopher. He was born in Danzig and trained in theology and
medicine. His main works are Neue Darstellung des Sensualismus “New Exposition
of Sensualism,” 1855, Entstehung des Selbstbewusstseins “Origin of
Self-Consciousness,” 1856, Die Grenzen und der Ursprung der menschlichen
Erkenntnis “The Limits and Origin of Human Knowledge,” 1865, and a posthumously
published study, Grundzüge der extensionalen Erkenntnistheorie 1875. Czolbe
proposed a sensualistic theory of knowledge: knowledge is a copy of the actual,
and spatial extension is ascribed even to ideas. Space is the support of all
attributes. His later work defended a non-reductive materialism. Czolbe made
the rejection of the supersensuous a central principle and defended a radical
“senCzolbe, Heinrich Czolbe, Heinrich 201
201 sationalism.” Despite this, he did not present a dogmatic
materialism, but cast his philosophy in hypothetical form. In his study of the
origin of self-consciousness Czolbe held that dissatisfaction with the actual
world generates supersensuous ideas and branded this attitude as “immoral.” He
excluded supernatural phenomena on the basis not of physiological or scientific
studies but of a “moral feeling of duty towards the natural world-order and
contentment with it.” The same valuation led him to postulate the eternality of
terrestrial life. Nietzsche was familiar with Czolbe’s works and incorporated
some of his themes into his philosophy.
englishry:
Grice was first an Englishman, and then an Oxonian – and then a philosopher –
and then a genius! Englishness – Englishry, -- St. George for England. A
critique of racism, hostility, contempt, condescension, or prejudice, on the
basis of social practices of racial classification, and the wider phenomena of
social, economic, and political mistreatment that often accompany such
classification. The most salient instances of racism include the Nazi ideology
of the “Aryan master race,” chattel
slavery, South African apartheid in the late twentieth century, and the “Jim
Crow” laws and traditions of segregation that subjugated African descendants in
the Southern United States during the century after the Civil War. Social theorists dispute whether,
in its essence, racism is a belief or an ideology of racial inferiority, a
system of social oppression on the basis of race, a form of discourse,
discriminatory conduct, or an attitude of contempt or heartlessness and its
expression in individual or collective behavior. The case for any of these as
the essence of racism has its drawbacks, and a proponent must show how the
others can also come to be racist in virtue of that essence. Some deny that
racism has any nature or essence, insisting it is nothing more than changing
historical realities. However, these thinkers must explain what makes each
reality an instance of racism. Theorists differ over who and what can be racist
and under what circumstances, some restricting racism to the powerful, others
finding it also in some reactions by the oppressed. Here, the former owe an explanation
of why power is necessary for racism, what sort economic or political? general
or contextual?, and in whom or what racist individuals? their racial groups?.
Although virtually everyone thinks racism objectionable, people disagree over
whether its central defect is cognitive irrationality, prejudice,
economic/prudential inefficiency, or moral unnecessary suffering, unequal
treatment. Finally, racism’s connection with the ambiguous and controversial
concept of race itself is complex. Plainly, racism presupposes the legitimacy
of racial classifications, and perhaps the metaphysical reality of races.
Nevertheless, some hold that racism is also prior to race, with racial
classifications invented chiefly to explain and help justify the oppression of
some peoples by others. The term originated to designate the pseudoscientific
theories of racial essence and inferiority that arose in Europe in the
nineteenth century and were endorsed by G.y’s Third Reich. Since the civil
rights movement in the United States after World War II, the term has come to
cover a much broader range of beliefs, attitudes, institutions, and practices.
Today one hears charges of unconscious, covert, institutional, paternalistic,
benign, anti-racist, liberal, and even reverse racism. Racism is widely
regarded as involving ignorance, irrationality, unreasonableness, injustice,
and other intellectual and moral vices, to such an extent that today virtually
no one is willing to accept the classification of oneself, one’s beliefs, and
so on, as racist, except in contexts of self-reproach. As a result, classifying
anything as racist, beyond the most egregious cases, is a serious charge and is
often hotly disputed.
rational
Griceian deconstruction of communication -- a demonstration of
the incompleteness or incoherence of a philosophical position using concepts
and principles of argument whose meaning and use is legitimated only by that
philosophical position. A deconstruction is thus a kind of internal conceptual critique
in which the critic implicitly and provisionally adheres to the position
criticized. The early work of Derrida is the source of the term and provides
paradigm cases of its referent. That deconstruction remains within the position
being discussed follows from a fundamental deconstructive argument about the
nature of language and thought. Derrida’s earliest deconstructions argue
against the possibility of an interior “language” of thought and intention such
that the senses and referents of terms are determined by their very nature.
Such terms are “meanings” or logoi. Derrida calls accounts that presuppose such
magical thought-terms “logocentric.” He claims, following Heidegger, that the
conception of such logoi is basic to the concepts of Western metaphysics, and
that Western metaphysics is fundamental to our cultural practices and
languages. Thus there is no “ordinary language” uncontaminated by philosophy.
Logoi ground all our accounts of intention, meaning, truth, and logical
connection. Versions of logoi in the history of philosophy range from Plato’s
Forms through the self-interpreting ideas of the empiricists to Husserl’s
intentional entities. Thus Derrida’s fullest deconstructions are of texts that
give explicit accounts of logoi, especially his discussion of Husserl in Speech
and Phenomena. There, Derrida argues that meanings that are fully present to
consciousness are in decision tree deconstruction 209 209 principle impossible. The idea of a
meaning is the idea of a repeatable ideality. But “repeatability” is not a
feature that can be present. So meanings, as such, cannot be fully before the
mind. Selfinterpreting logoi are an incoherent supposition. Without logoi,
thought and intention are merely wordlike and have no intrinsic connection to a
sense or a referent. Thus “meaning” rests on connections of all kinds among
pieces of language and among our linguistic interactions with the world.
Without logoi, no special class of connections is specifically “logical.”
Roughly speaking, Derrida agrees with Quine both on the nature of meaning and
on the related view that “our theory” cannot be abandoned all at once. Thus a
philosopher must by and large think about a logocentric philosophical theory
that has shaped our language in the very logocentric terms that that theory has
shaped. Thus deconstruction is not an excision of criticized doctrines, but a
much more complicated, self-referential relationship. Deconstructive arguments
work out the consequences of there being nothing helpfully better than words,
i.e., of thoroughgoing nominalism. According to Derrida, without logoi
fundamental philosophical contrasts lose their principled foundations, since
such contrasts implicitly posit one term as a logos relative to which the other
side is defective. Without logos, many contrasts cannot be made to function as
principles of the sort of theory philosophy has sought. Thus the contrasts
between metaphorical and literal, rhetoric and logic, and other central notions
of philosophy are shown not to have the foundation that their use
presupposes.
deductum –
also demonstratum, argumentum -- deduction, a finite sequence of sentences
whose last sentence is a conclusion of the sequence the one said to be deduced
and which is such that each sentence in the sequence is an axiom or a premise
or follows from preceding sentences in the sequence by a rule of inference. A
synonym is ‘derivation’. Deduction is a system-relative concept. It makes sense
to say something is a deduction only relative to a particular system of axioms
and rules of inference. The very same sequence of sentences might be a
deduction relative to one such system but not relative to another. The concept
of deduction is a generalization of the concept of proof. A proof is a finite
sequence of sentences each of which is an axiom or follows from preceding
sentences in the sequence by a rule of inference. The last sentence in the
sequence is a theorem. Given that the system of axioms and rules of inference
are effectively specifiable, there is an effective procedure for determining,
whenever a finite sequence of sentences is given, whether it is a proof
relative to that system. The notion of theorem is not in general effective
decidable. For there may be no method by which we can always find a proof of a
given sentence or determine that none exists. The concepts of deduction and
consequence are distinct. The first is a syntactical; the second is semantical.
It was a discovery that, relative to the axioms and rules of inference of
classical logic, a sentence S is deducible from a set of sentences K provided
that S is a consequence of K. Compactness is an important consequence of this
discovery. It is trivial that sentence S is deducible from K just in case S is
deducible from Dedekind cut deductíon 211
211 some finite subset of K. It is not trivial that S is a consequence
of K just in case S is a consequence of some finite subset of K. This
compactness property had to be shown. A system of natural deduction is
axiomless. Proofs of theorems within a system are generally easier with natural
deduction. Proofs of theorems about a system, such as the results mentioned in
the previous paragraph, are generally easier if the system has axioms. In a
secondary sense, ‘deduction’ refers to an inference in which a speaker claims
the conclusion follows necessarily from the premises. -- deduction theorem, a
result about certain systems of formal logic relating derivability and the
conditional. It states that if a formula B is derivable from A and possibly
other assumptions, then the formula APB is derivable without the assumption of
A: in symbols, if G 4 {A} Y B then GYAPB. The thought is that, for example, if
Socrates is mortal is derivable from the assumptions All men are mortal and
Socrates is a man, then If Socrates is a man he is mortal is derivable from All
men are mortal. Likewise, If all men are mortal then Socrates is mortal is
derivable from Socrates is a man. In general, the deduction theorem is a
significant result only for axiomatic or Hilbert-style formulations of logic.
In most natural deduction formulations a rule of conditional proof explicitly
licenses derivations of APB from G4{A}, and so there is nothing to prove.
defeasibility. Strawson Wiggins ‘somehwere in the
kitchen,’ ‘in one of the dining-room cupboards’ unless some feature of the
context defeats the implication, there is an implicaturum to the effect that
the emissor cannot make a ‘stronger’ move by Grice’s principle of
conversational fortitude (“Be ‘a fortiori’”). Cf. G. P. Baker on H. L. A. Hart. All very
Oxonian. Cf. R. Hall, Oxonian, on ‘Excluders.’ For Strawson and Wiggins that a
principle holds ‘generally, ceteris paribus, is a condition for the existence
of conversation, or of a good conversation. Defeasibility is a sign of the
freedom of the will. The communicators can always opt out. Not a salivating
dog. Note that defeasibility does not apply just to the implicaturum. Since
probabilistic demonstrate are uncertain, there is an element of defeasibility
in the EXplicatum of a probabilistic utterance. Levinson’s quote, “Probability,
Defeasibility, and Mode Operators.” Defeasibility
-- Grice: “So far as generalizations of these kinds are concerned, it seems to
me that one needs to be able to mark five features: (1) conditionality; (2)
generality; (3) type of generality (absolute, ceteris paribus, etc., thereby,
ipso facto, discriminating with respect to defeasibility or indefeasibility).”
-- Baker, “Meaning and defeasibility” – defeater – in Aspects of reason -- defeasibility,
a property that rules, principles, arguments, or bits of reasoning have when
they might be defeated by some competitor. For example, the epistemic principle
‘Objects normally have the properties they appear to have’ or the normative
principle ‘One should not lie’ are defeated, respectively, when perception
occurs under unusual circumstances e.g., under colored lights or when there is
some overriding moral consideration e.g., to prevent murder. Apparently
declarative sentences such as ‘Birds typically fly’ can be taken in part as
expressing defeasible rules: take something’s being a bird as evidence that it
flies. Defeasible arguments and reasoning inherit their defeasibility from the
use of defeasible rules or principles. Recent analyses of defeasibility include
circumscription and default logic, which belong to the broader category of
non-monotonic logic. The rules in several of these formal systems contain
special antecedent conditions and are not truly defeasible since they apply
whenever their conditions are satisfied. Rules and arguments in other
non-monotonic systems justify their conclusions only when they are not defeated
by some other fact, rule, or argument. John Pollock distinguishes between
rebutting and undercutting defeaters. ‘Snow is not normally red’ rebuts in
appropriate circumstances the principle ‘Things that look red normally are
red’, while ‘If the available light is red, do not use the principle that
things that look red normally are red’ only undercuts the embedded rule. Pollock
has influenced most other work on formal systems for defeasible reasoning.
defensible
– H. P. Grice, “Conceptual analysis and the defensible province of philosophy.”
Grice uses the ‘territorial’ province, and the further implicaturum is that
conceptual analysis as the province of philosophy is a defensible one. Grice
thinks it is.
definitum: Grice lists ‘the’ in his list of communicative devices. He
was interested in the iota operator. After Sluga, he knew there were problems
here. He proposed a quantificational approach alla Whitehead and Russell,
indeed a Whitehead and Russellian expansion in three clauses, with identity,
involved. Why wasn’t Russell not involved with the ‘indefinite’. One would
think because that’s rendered already by (Ex), ‘some (at least one)’. Russell’s interest in definitum is not
philosophical. His background was mathematics, rather --. Grice was obsessed
with ‘aspects’ in verbs. There’s the ‘imperfect’ and the ‘perfect.’ These
translate Aristotle’s ‘teleos’ and ‘ateleos.’ But why the change from “factum”
to “fectum”? So it’s better to turn to ‘definitum,’ and ‘indefinitum, as better
paraphrases of Aristotle’s jargon – keeping in mind we are talking of his
‘teleos’ and ‘ateleos. Aristotle
and telos. In the Met. Y.1048b1835, Aristotle discusses the definition of an
action πϱᾶξις. He distinguishes two kinds of activities: kinêseis ϰινήσεις and
energeiai ἐνέϱγειαι: Only that movement in which the end is present is an
action. E.g., at the same time we are v.ing and have v.n ὁϱᾷ ἅμα, are
understanding and have understood φϱονεῖ, are thinking and have thought noei
kai nenoêken νοεῖ ϰαὶ νενόηϰεν when it is not true that at the same time we are
learning and have learnt ou manthanei kai memathêken οὐ μανθάνει ϰαὶ μεμάθηϰεν,
or are being cured and have been cured oud’ hugiazetai kai hugiastai οὐδ᾿ ὑγιάζεται
ϰαὶ ὑγίασται. At the same time we are living well and have lived well εὖ ζῇ ϰαὶ
εὖ ἔζηϰεν ἅμα, and are happy and have been happy εὐδαιμονεῖ ϰαὶ εὐδαιμόνηϰεν.
Of these processes, then, we must call the one set movements ϰινήσεις, and the
other actualities energeiai ἐνέϱγειαι. We v. that the distinctive properties of
these two categories of verbs are provided by relations of inference and
semantic compatibility between the form of the present and the form of the
perfect. In the case of energeiai, there is a relation of inference between the
present and the perfect, in the sense that when someone says I v. we can infer
I have v.n. There is also a relation of semantic compatibility since one can
very well say I have v.n and continue to v.. Thus the two forms—the present and
the perfect— are verifiable at the same time ἅμα, simultaneously. On the other
hand, in the case of kinêseis, the present and the perfect are not verifiable
at the same time. In fact, when someone says I am building a house, we cannot
infer I have built a house, at least in the sense in which the house is
finished. In addition, once the house is finished, one is no longer
constructing it, which means that there is a semantic incompatibility between
the present and the perfect. τέλος, which means both complete action, that is,
end, and limit in competition with πέϱας, plays a crucial role in this
opposition. In the category of energeiai, we have actions proper, that is,
activities that are complete τέλεια because they have an immanent finality ἐνυπάϱχει
τὸ τέλος. In the category of kinêseis, we have imperfect activities ἀτελείς
that do not carry their own end within themselves but are transitive and aim at
realizing something. Thus activities having an external goal that is at the
same time a limit peras do not carry their own goal telos within themselves;
they are directed toward a goal but this goal is not attained during the
activity, but is realized at the end of the activity. And history repeated itself, in the same
terms, regarding Slavic languages, with on the one hand the words perfective
and imperfective, modeled on the Roman opposition and imported to describe an
opposition in which lexicon and grammar are truly interwoven since it is a
question of categories of verbs, which determine the whole organization of
conjugation, and on the other hand the Russian words that are used to
characterize the same categories of verbs, and that signify the accomplished
and the unaccomplished. In the terminological imbroglio, we can once again v.
the effects of a confusion connected with the inability to acknowledge the
autonomy of lexical aspect, or, in the particular case of Slavic languages, the
difficulty of isoRomang the aspectual dimension in the general system of the
language. Nevertheless, the same questions, that of the telos and that of
accomplishment, are at the foundation of the two aspectual dimensions. They are
even so prominent that, alongside the heterogeneous inventory from which we
began, we also find, and almost simultaneously in the aspectual tradition, a
leveling of all differences in favor of two categories that are supposed to be
the categories par excellence of grammatical aspect: the perfective on the one
hand, and the imperfective on the other. However, there is also the continuing
competition of the perfect, another tr. of the same word, perfectum,
designating a category that is not exactly the same as that of the perfective,
and which is, for its part, always a grammatical category, never a lexical
category: one speaks of perfect to designate compound tenses in G. ic
languages, e. g. , of the type I have received
as opposed to I received, which corresponds to the idea that the telos
is not only achieved, but transcended in the constitution of a fixed state,
given as the result of the completion of the process. Two, or three,
grammatical categories that are the same and not the same as the two, three, or
four lexical categories. It is in the name of these categories, and literally
behind their name, that the aspectual descriptions succeeded in being
applicable to all languages, confRomang all the imperfects of all languages and
also the Eng. progressive and the Russian imperfective, all the aorists in all
languages, and aligning perfects, perfectives, the Eng. perfect, the G. Perfekt, the Roman perfectum and the Grecian
perfect. The facts are different, but the words, and the recurrence of a
problematics that v.ms invariable, are too strong. Although it is a matter of
conjugations, the lexicon and the relation to ontological questions are too
influential. The word imperfectum was invented, we
v. a hesitation that is precisely the one that causes a problem here, between
imperfectum and infectum a nonachieved finality, an absence of finality. The
important point is that the whole history of aspectual terminology is
constituted by such exchanges. The invention of the words perfectum and
imperfectum itself proceeds from an enterprise of tr., in which it is a
question of taking as a model, or rephrasing, the Grecian grammarians’
opposition between suntelikos συντελιϰός and non-suntelikos. However, the
difference between the two terminologies is noticeable. A supine past
participle, -fectum, has replaced telikos, and hence telos, thereby
reintroducing, if not tense was tense really involved in that past participle?,
at least the achievement of an act, and consequently merges with the question
of the accomplished. In this operation, the Stoics’ opposition between
suntelikos which would thus designate the choice of perfects or imperfects and
παϱατατιϰός the extensive, in which the question of the telos is not involved
was made symmetrical, introducing into aspectual terminology a binariness from
which we have never recovered. And this symmetricalization, which sought to
describe the organization of a conjugation, was then modeled on the distinction
introduced by Aristotle between tτέλειος and aἀτελής, which was not grammatical
but lexical. This resulted in a new confusion that is not without foundation
because it was already implicit in the montage constructed by the Grecian
philosophers, with on the one hand the telos used by Aristotle to differentiate
types of process, and on the other the same telos used by the Stoics to
structure conjugation. exist in G. , is said to be primarily a matter of
discursive construction with the imparfait forming the background of a
narration, and the past tenses forming the foreground of what develops and
occurs. More recently, this area has been dominated by theories that situate
aspect in a theory of discursive representations cf. Kamp’s discourse
representation theory, and try to reduce it to a matter of discursive
organization: thus the models currently most discussed make the imparfait an
anaphoric mark that repeats an element of the context instead of constructing
an independent referent. Once again the relations are inextricably confused:
the types of discourse clearly have particular aspectual properties we have
already v.n this in connection with aoristic utterances that structure both
aspect and tense differently, and yet all or almost all aspectual forms can
appear anywhere, in all or almost all types of discursive contexts. Thus we
have foregrounded imparfaits, which have been recorded and are sometimes called
narrative imparfaits— e. g. , in an utterance like Trois jours après, il
mourait Three days later, he was dying, where it is a question of narrating a
prominent event, and where the distinction between imparfait and passé simple
becomes more difficult to evaluate. We also find passé composés in narratives,
where they compete with the passé simple: that is why many analysts of the
language consider the passé simple an archaic form that is being abandoned in
favor of the passé composé. The difficulty is clear: it is hard to attach a
given formal procedure to a given enunciative structuration, not only because
enunciative structures are supposed to be compatible with several aspectual
values, but first of all because the formal procedures themselves are all, more
or less broadly, polysemous, their value depending precisely on the context and
thus on the enunciative structure in which they are situated. Here again, this
is commonplace: polysemy is everywhere in languages. But in this case it
affects aspect: it consists precisely in running through aspectual oppositions,
the very ones that are also supposed to be associated with some aspectual
marker. The case of narrative uses of the imparfait v.ms to indicate that the
imparfait can have different aspectual values, of which some are more or less
apparently perfective. The narrative passé composés for instance, Il s’est levé
et il est sorti He got up and went out describe the process in its advent and
thus do not have the same aspectual properties as those that appear in
utterances describing the state resulting from the process e.g., Désolé, en ce
moment il est sorti Sorry, he left just now. Not to mention the presents, which
are highly polysemous in many languages and which, depending on the language,
therefore occupy a more or less extensive aspectual terrain. We are obliged to
note that aspect is at least partially independent of formal procedures, that
it also plays a role elsewhere, in particular, in the enunciative configuration. teleology: the objectivum. Grice speaks of the objective as
a maxim. This is very Latinate. So if the maxim is an objective, the goal is
the objective, or objectivum. Meaning "goal, aim" (1881)
is from military term objective point (1852), reflecting a sense evolution
in French. This is an expansion on the
desideratum. Cf. ‘desirable,’ and ‘desirability,’ and ‘end.’ Grice feels like
introducing goal-oriented conceptual machinery. In a later stage of his career
he ensured that this machinery be seen as NOT mechanistically derivable. Which
is odd seeing that in the ‘progression’ of the ‘soul,’ he allows for talk of
adaptiveness and survival which suggest a mechanist explanation. If an agent
has a desideratum that means that, to echo Bennett, A displays a goal-oriented
behaviour, where the goal is the ‘telos.’ Smoke cannot ‘mean’ fire, because
smoke doesn’t really behave in a goal-oriented matter. Grice does play with the
idea of finality in nature, because that would allow him to justify the
objectivity of his system. how does soul originate from matter? Does the
vegetal soul have a telos. Purposive-behaviour is obvious in plants
(phototropism). If it is present in the vegetal soul, it is present in the
animal soul. If it is present in the animal soul, it is present in the rational
soul. With each stage, alla Hartmann, there are distinctions in the
specification of the telos. Grice could be more continental than Scheler!
Grices métier. Unity of science was a very New-World expression that Grice did
not quite buy. Grice was brought up in a world, the Old World, indeed, as he
calls it in his Proem to the Locke lectures, of Snows two cultures. At the time
of Grices philosophising, philosophers such as Winch (who indeed quotes fro
Grice) were contesting the idea that science is unitary, when it comes to the
explanation of rational behaviour. Since a philosophical approach to the
explanation of rational behaviour, including conversational behaviour (to
account for the conversational implicatura) is his priority, Grice needs to
distinguish himself from those who propose a unified science, which Grice
regards as eliminationist and reductionist. Grice is ambivalent about science
and also playful (philosophia regina scientiarum). Grice seems to presuppose,
or implicate, that, since there is the devil of scientism, science cannot get
at teleology. The devil is in the physiological details, which are irrelevant.
The language Grice uses to describe his Ps as goal-oriented, aimed at survival
and reproduction, seems teleological and somewhat scientific, though. But he
means that ironically! As the scholastics use it, teleology is a science, the
science of telos, or finality (cf. Aristotle on telos aitia, causa finalis. The
unity of science is threatened by teleology, and vice versa. Unified science
seeks for a mechanistically derivable teleology. But Grices sympathies lie for
detached finality. Grice is obsessed with the Greek idea of a telos, as
slightly overused by Aristotle. Grice thinks that some actions are for their
own sake. What is the telos of Oscar Wilde? Can we speak of Oscar Wilde’s
métier? If a tiger is to tigerise, a human is to humanise, and a person is to
personise. Grice thought that teleology is a key philosophical way to contest
mechanism, so popular in The New World. Strictly, and Grice knew this,
teleology is constituted as a discipline. One term that Cicero was unable to
translate! For the philosopher, teleology is that part of philosophy that
studies the realm of the telos. Informally, teleological is opposed to
mechanistic. Grice is interested in the mechanism/teleology debate, indeed
jumps into it, with a goal in mind! Grice finds some New-World philosophers too
mechanistic-oriented, in contrast with the more two-culture atmosphere he was
familiar with at Oxford! Code is the Aristotelian, and he and Grice are
especially concerned in the idea of causa finalis. For Grice only detached
finality poses a threat to Mechanism, as it should! Axiological objectivity is
possible only given finality or purpose in Nature, the admissibility of a final
cause. Grice’s
“Definition” of Meaning – and Communicatum – Oddly, in “Utterer’s meaning and
intentions,” Grice keeps calling his analyses ‘definition,’ and
‘re-definition.’ He is well aware of the trick introduced by Robinson on this.
definiendum plural: definienda, the expression that is defined in a definition.
The expression that gives the definition is the definiens plural: definientia.
In the definition father, male parent, ‘father’ is the definiendum and ‘male
parent’ is the definiens. In the definition ‘A human being is a rational
animal’, ‘human being’ is the definiendum and ‘rational animal’ is the
definiens. Similar terms are used in the case of conceptual analyses, whether
they are meant to provide synonyms or not; ‘definiendum’ for ‘analysandum’ and
‘definiens’ for ‘analysans’. In ‘x knows that p if and only if it is true that
p, x believes that p, and x’s belief that p is properly justified’, ‘x knows
that p’ is the analysandum and ‘it is true that p, x believes that p, and x’s
belief that p is properly justified’ is the analysans. definist, someone who holds that moral terms,
such as ‘right’, and evaluative terms, such as ‘good’ in short, normative terms are definable in non-moral, non-evaluative
i.e., non-normative terms. William Frankena offers a broader account of a
definist as one who holds that ethical terms are definable in non-ethical
terms. This would allow that they are definable in nonethical but evaluative
terms say, ‘right’ in terms of what is
non-morally intrinsically good. Definists who are also naturalists hold that
moral terms can be defined by terms that denote natural properties, i.e.,
properties whose presence or absence can be determined by observational means.
They might define ‘good’ as ‘what conduces to pleasure’. Definists who are not
naturalists will hold that the terms that do the defining do not denote natural
properties, e.g., that ‘right’ means ‘what is commanded by God’. definition, specification of the meaning or,
alternatively, conceptual content, of an expression. For example, ‘period of
fourteen days’ is a definition of ‘fortnight’. Definitions have traditionally
been judged by rules like the following: 1 A definition should not be too
narrow. ‘Unmarried adult male psychiatrist’ is too narrow a definition for
‘bachelor’, for some bachelors are not psychiatrists. ‘Having vertebrae and a
liver’ is too narrow for ‘vertebrate’, for, even though all actual vertebrate
things have vertebrae and a liver, it is possible for a vertebrate thing to
lack a liver. 2 A definition should not be too broad. ‘Unmarried adult’ is too
broad a definition for ‘bachelor’, for not all unmarried adults are bachelors.
‘Featherless biped’ is too broad for ‘human being’, for even though all actual
featherless bipeds are human beings, it is possible for a featherless biped to
be non-human. 3 The defining expression in a definition should ideally exactly
match the degree of vagueness of the expression being defined except in a
precising definition. ‘Adult female’ for ‘woman’ does not violate this rule,
but ‘female at least eighteen years old’ for ‘woman’ does. 4 A definition
should not be circular. If ‘desirable’ defines ‘good’ and ‘good’ defines
‘desirable’, these definitions are circular. Definitions fall into at least the
following kinds: analytical definition: definition whose corresponding
biconditional is analytic or gives an analysis of the definiendum: e.g.,
‘female fox’ for ‘vixen’, where the corresponding biconditional ‘For any x, x is
a vixen if and only if x is a female fox’ is analytic; ‘true in all possible
worlds’ for ‘necessarily true’, where the corresponding biconditional ‘For any
P, P is necessarily true if and only if P is true in all possible worlds’ gives
an analysis of the definiendum. contextual definition: definition of an
expression as it occurs in a larger expression: e.g., ‘If it is not the case
that Q, then P’ contextually defines ‘unless’ as it occurs in ‘P unless Q’;
‘There is at least one entity that is F and is identical with any entity that
is F’ contextually defines ‘exactly one’ as it occurs in ‘There is exactly one
F’. Recursive definitions see below are an important variety of contextual
definition. Another important application of contextual definition is Russell’s
theory of descriptions, which defines ‘the’ as it occurs in contexts of the
form ‘The so-and-so is such-and-such’. coordinative definition: definition of a
theoretical term by non-theoretical terms: e.g., ‘the forty-millionth part of
the circumference of the earth’ for ‘meter’. definition by genus and species:
When an expression is said to be applicable to some but not all entities of a
certain type and inapplicable to all entities not of that type, the type in
question is the genus, and the subtype of all and only those entities to which
the expression is applicable is the species: e.g., in the definition ‘rational
animal’ for ‘human’, the type animal is the genus and the subtype human is the
species. Each species is distinguished from any other of the same genus by a
property called the differentia. definition in use: specification of how an
expression is used or what it is used to express: e.g., ‘uttered to express
astonishment’ for ‘my goodness’. Vitters emphasized the importance of
definition in use in his use theory of meaning. definition per genus et
differentiam: definition by genus and difference; same as definition by genus
and species. explicit definition: definition that makes it clear that it is a
definition and identifies the expression being defined as such: e.g., ‘Father’
means ‘male parent’; ‘For any x, x is a father by definition if and only if x
is a male parent’. implicit definition: definition that is not an explicit
definition. lexical definition: definition of the kind commonly thought
appropriate for dictionary definitions of natural language terms, namely, a
specification of their conventional meaning. nominal definition: definition of
a noun usually a common noun, giving its linguistic meaning. Typically it is in
terms of macrosensible characteristics: e.g., ‘yellow malleable metal’ for
‘gold’. Locke spoke of nominal essence and contrasted it with real essence.
ostensive definition: definition by an example in which the referent is
specified by pointing or showing in some way: e.g., “ ‘Red’ is that color,”
where the word ‘that’ is accompanied with a gesture pointing to a patch of
colored cloth; “ ‘Pain’ means this,” where ‘this’ is accompanied with an
insertion of a pin through the hearer’s skin; “ ‘Kangaroo’ applies to all and only
animals like that,” where ‘that’ is accompanied by pointing to a particular
kangaroo. persuasive definition: definition designed to affect or appeal to the
psychological states of the party to whom the definition is given, so that a
claim will appear more plausible to the party than it is: e.g., ‘self-serving
manipulator’ for ‘politician’, where the claim in question is that all
politicians are immoral. precising definition: definition of a vague expression
intended to reduce its vagueness: e.g., ‘snake longer than half a meter and
shorter than two meters’ for ‘snake of average length’; ‘having assets ten
thousand times the median figure’ for ‘wealthy’. prescriptive definition:
stipulative definition that, in a recommendatory way, gives a new meaning to an
expression with a previously established meaning: e.g., ‘male whose primary
sexual preference is for other males’ for ‘gay’. real definition: specification
of the metaphysically necessary and sufficient condition for being the kind of
thing a noun usually a common noun designates: e.g., ‘element with atomic
number 79’ for ‘gold’. Locke spoke of real essence and contrasted it with
nominal essence. recursive definition also called inductive definition and
definition by recursion: definition in three clauses in which 1 the expression
defined is applied to certain particular items the base clause; 2 a rule is
given for reaching further items to which the expression applies the recursive,
or inductive, clause; and 3 it is stated that the expression applies to nothing
else the closure clause. E.g., ‘John’s parents are John’s ancestors; any parent
of John’s ancestor is John’s ancestor; nothing else is John’s ancestor’. By the
base clause, John’s mother and father are John’s ancestors. Then by the
recursive clause, John’s mother’s parents and John’s father’s parents are
John’s ancestors; so are their parents, and so on. Finally, by the last closure
clause, these people exhaust John’s ancestors. The following defines
multiplication in terms of definition definition 214 214 addition: ‘0 $ n % 0. m ! 1 $ n % m $ n
! n. Nothing else is the result of multiplying integers’. The base clause tells
us, e.g., that 0 $ 4 % 0. The recursive clause tells us, e.g., that 0 ! 1 $ 4 %
0 $ 4 ! 4. We then know that 1 $ 4 % 0 ! 4 % 4. Likewise, e.g., 2 $ 4 % 1 ! 1 $
4 % 1 $ 4 ! 4 % 4 ! 4 % 8. stipulative definition: definition regardless of the
ordinary or usual conceptual content of the expression defined. It postulates a
content, rather than aiming to capture the content already associated with the
expression. Any explicit definition that introduces a new expression into the
language is a stipulative definition: e.g., “For the purpose of our discussion
‘existent’ means ‘perceivable’ “; “By ‘zoobeedoobah’ we shall mean ‘vain
millionaire who is addicted to alcohol’.” synonymous definition: definition of
a word or other linguistic expression by another word synonymous with it: e.g.,
‘buy’ for ‘purchase’; ‘madness’ for ‘insanity’.
Refs.: There are specific essays on
‘teleology,’ ‘final cause,’ and ‘finality,’ the The Grice Papers. Some of the
material published in “Reply to Richards” (repr. in “Conception”) and “Actions
and events,” The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC.
degree –
Grice on the flat/variable distinction -- Grice loved a degree – he uses “d” in
aspects of reason -- degree, also called arity, adicity, in formal languages, a
property of predicate and function expressions that determines the number of
terms with which the expression is correctly combined to yield a well-formed
expression. If an expression combines with a single term to form a wellformed
expression, it is of degree one monadic, singulary. Expressions that combine
with two terms are of degree two dyadic, binary, and so on. Expressions of
degree greater than or equal to two are polyadic. The formation rules of a
formalized language must effectively specify the degrees of its primitive
expressions as part of the effective determination of the class of wellformed
formulas. Degree is commonly indicated by an attached superscript consisting of
an Arabic numeral. Formalized languages have been studied that contain
expressions having variable degree or variable adicity and that can thus
combine with any finite number of terms. An abstract relation that would be
appropriate as extension of a predicate expression is subject to the same
terminology, and likewise for function expressions and their associated
functions. -- degree of unsolvability, a
maximal set of equally complex sets of natural numbers, with comparative
complexity of sets of natural numbers construed as recursion-theoretic
reducibility ordering. Recursion theorists investigate various notions of
reducibility between sets of natural numbers, i.e., various ways of filling in
the following schematic definition. For sets A and B of natural numbers: A is
reducible to B iff if and only if there is an algorithm whereby each membership
question about A e.g., ‘17 1 A?’ could be answered allowing consultation of an
definition, contextual degree of unsolvability 215 215 “oracle” that would correctly answer
each membership question about B. This does not presuppose that there is a
“real” oracle for B; the motivating idea is counterfactual: A is reducible to B
iff: if membership questions about B were decidable then membership questions
about A would also be decidable. On the other hand, the mathematical
definitions of notions of reducibility involve no subjunctive conditionals or
other intensional constructions. The notion of reducibility is determined by
constraints on how the algorithm could use the oracle. Imposing no constraints
yields T-reducibility ‘T’ for Turing, the most important and most studied
notion of reducibility. Fixing a notion r of reducibility: A is r-equivalent to
B iff A is r-reducible to B and B is rreducible to A. If r-reducibility is
transitive, r-equivalence is an equivalence relation on the class of sets of
natural numbers, one reflecting a notion of equal complexity for sets of
natural numbers. A degree of unsolvability relative to r an r-degree is an
equivalence class under that equivalence relation, i.e., a maximal class of
sets of natural numbers any two members of which are r-equivalent, i.e., a
maximal class of equally complex in the sense of r-reducibility sets of natural
numbers. The r-reducibility-ordering of sets of natural numbers transfers to
the rdegrees: for d and dH r-degrees, let d m, dH iff for some A 1 d and B 1 dH
A is r-reducible to B. The study of r-degrees is the study of them under this
ordering. The degrees generated by T-reducibility are the Turing degrees.
Without qualification, ‘degree of unsolvability’ means ‘Turing degree’. The
least Tdegree is the set of all recursive i.e., using Church’s thesis, solvable
sets of natural numbers. So the phrase ‘degree of unsolvability’ is slightly misleading:
the least such degree is “solvability.” By effectively coding functions from
natural numbers to natural numbers as sets of natural numbers, we may think of
such a function as belonging to a degree: that of its coding set. Recursion
theorists have extended the notions of reducibility and degree of unsolvability
to other domains, e.g. transfinite ordinals and higher types taken over the
natural numbers.
demonstratum: Cf. illatum – In act of communication, Grice’s focus is on
the reasoning on the emissor’s part. This is end-means. The conversational
moves is the most effectively designed move. The potential uptake by the
emissee is also taken into the consideration by the emissor. And actual uptake
is not of philosophical importance. hen Grice tried to conceptualise what
‘communicating’ and ‘smoke means fire’ have in common he came with the idea of
‘consequentia,’ as a dyadic relation that, eventually, will become triadic,
with the missor and the missee brought into the bargain. “Look that smoke,
there must be fire somewhere’ – “By that handwave, he meant that he was about
to leave me.” In any case, Grice’s arriving at ‘consequentia’ is exactly
Hobbes’s idea in “Computatio.’ And ‘con-sequentia’ involves a bit of
‘demonstratio.’ One thing follows the other. One thing YIELDS the other. The
link may be causal (smoke means fire) or ‘communicative’). ‘Rationality’ is one
of those words Austin forbids to use. Grice would venture with ‘reason,’ and
better, ‘reasons’ to make it countable, and good for botanising. Only in the
New World, and when he started to get input from non-philosophers, did Grice
explore ‘rationality’ itself. Oxonians philosophers take it for granted, and do
not have to philosophise about it. Especially those who belong to Grice’s play
group of ‘ordinary-language’ philosophers! Oxonian philosophers will quote from
the Locke version! Obviously, while each of the four lectures credits their own
entry below, it may do to reflect on Grices overall aim. Grice structures the
lectures in the form of a philosophical dialogue with his audience. The
first lecture is intended to provide a bit of linguistic botanising for
reasonable, and rational. In later lectures, Grice tackles reason qua
noun. The remaining lectures are meant to explore what he calls the
Aequi-vocality thesis: must has only one Fregeian that crosses what he calls
the buletic-doxastic divide. He is especially concerned ‒ this being
the Kant lectures ‒ with Kants attempt to reduce the
categorical imperative to a counsel of prudence (Ratschlag der Klugheit), where
Kants prudence is Klugheit, versus skill, as in rule of skill, and even if Kant
defines Klugheit as a skill to attain what is good for oneself ‒
itself divided into privatKlugheit and Weltklugheit. Kant re-introduces the
Aristotelian idea of eudaimonia. While a further lecture on happiness as
the pursuit of a system of ends is NOT strictly part of the either the
Kant or the Locke lectures, it relates, since eudaemonia may be
regarded as the goal involved in the relevant
imperative. “Aspects”, Clarendon, Stanford, The Kant memorial
Lectures, “Aspects,” Clarendon, Some aspects of reason, Stanford; reason,
reasoning, reasons. The lectures were also delivered as the Locke
lectures. Grice is concerned with the reduction of the categorical
imperative to the hypothetical or suppositional imperative. His main
thesis he calls the æqui-vocality thesis: must has one unique or singular
sense, that crosses the buletic-boulomaic/doxastic divide. “Aspects,”
Clarendon, Grice, “Aspects, Clarendon, Locke lecture notes: reason. On
“Aspects”. Including extensive language botany on rational, reasonable, and
indeed reason (justificatory, explanatory, and mixed). At this point,
Grice notes that linguistic botany is indispensable towards the construction of
a more systematic explanatory theory. It is an exploration of a range of
uses of reason that leads him to his Aequi-vocality thesis that must has only
one sense; also ‘Aspects of reason and reasoning,’ in Grice, “Aspects,”
Clarendon, the Locke lectures, the Kant lectures, Stanford, reason,
happiness. While Locke hardly mentions reason, his friend Burthogge does,
and profusely! It was slightly ironic that Grice had delivered these
lectures as the Rationalist Kant lectures at Stanford. He was honoured to
be invited to Oxford. Officially, to be a Locke lecture you have to be
*visiting* Oxford. While Grice was a fellow of St. Johns, he was still
most welcome to give his set of lectures on reasoning at the Sub-Faculty of
Philosophy. He quotes very many authors, including Locke! In his proemium,
Grice notes that while he was rejected the Locke scholarship back in the day,
he was extremely happy to be under Lockes ægis now! When preparing for his
second lecture, he had occasion to revise some earlier drafts dated pretty
early, on reasons, Grice, “Aspects,” Clarendon, reason,
reasons. Linguistic analysis on justificatory, explanatory and mixed uses
of reason. While Grice knows that the basic use of reason is qua verb
(reasoner reasons from premise p to conclusion c), he spends some time in
exploring reason as noun. Grice found it a bit of a roundabout way to
approach rationality. However, his distinction between justificatory and
explanatory reason is built upon his linguistic botany on the use of reason qua
noun. Explanatory reason seems more basic for Grice than justificatory
reason. Explanatory reason explains the behaviour of a rational
agent. Grice is aware of Freud and his rationalizations. An agent may
invoke some reason for his acting which is not legitimate. An agent may
convince himself that he wants to move to Bournemouth because of the weather;
when in fact, his reason to move to Bournemouth is to be closer to Cowes and
join the yacht club there. Grice loved an enthymeme. Grices enthymeme. Grice,
the implicit reasoner! As the title of the lecture implies, Grice takes the
verb, to reason, as conceptually prior. A reasoner reasons, briefly, from a
premise to a conclusion. There are types of reason: flat reason and gradual
reason. He famously reports Shropshire, another tutee with Hardie, and his
proof on the immortality of the human soul. Grice makes some remarks on akrasia
as key, too. The first lecture is then dedicated to an elucidation, and indeed
attempt at a conceptual analysis in terms of intentions and doxastic conditions
reasoner R intends that premise P yields conclusion C and believes his
intention will cause his entertaining of the conclusion from his entertaining
the premise. One example of particular interest for a study of the use of
conversational reason in Grice is that of the connection between implicaturum
and reasoning. Grice entitles the sub-section of the lecture as Too good to be
reasoning, which is of course a joke. Cf. too much love will kill you, and
Theres no such thing as too much of a good thing (Shakespeare, As you like it).
Grice notes: I have so far been considering difficulties which may arise from
the attempt to find, for all cases of actual reasoning, reconstructions of
sequences of utterances or explicit thoughts which the reasoner might plausibly
be supposed to think of as conforming to some set of canonical patterns of
inference. Grice then turns to a different class of examples, with regard to
which the problem is not that it is difficult to know how to connect them with
canonical patterns, but rather that it is only too easy (or shall I say
trivial) to make the connection. Like some children (not many), some cases of
reasoning are too well behaved for their own good. Suppose someone says to
Grice, and It is very interesting that Grice gives conversational examples.
Jack has arrived, Grice replies, I conclude from that that Jack has arrived. Or
he says Jack has arrived AND Jill has *also* arrived, And Grice replies, I
conclude that Jill has arrived.(via Gentzens conjunction-elimination). Or he
says, My wife is at home. And Grice replies, I reason from that that someone
(viz. your wife) is at home. Is there not something very strange about the
presence in my three replies of the verb conclude (in example I and II) and the
verb reason (in the third example)? misleading, but doxastically fine,
professor! It is true, of course, that if instead of my first reply I had said
(vii) vii. So Jack has arrived, has he? the strangeness would have been
removed. But here so serves not to indicate that an inference is being made,
but rather as part of a not that otiose way of expressing surprise. One might
just as well have said (viii). viii. Well, fancy that! Now, having spent a
sizeable part of his life exploiting it, Grice is not unaware of the truly fine
distinction between a statements being false (or axiologically satisfactory),
and its being true (or axiologically satisfactory) but otherwise
conversationally or pragmatically misleading or inappropriate or pointless,
and, on that account and by such a fine distinction, a statement, or an
utterance, or conversational move which it would be improper (in terms of the
reasonable/rational principle of conversational helfpulness) in one way or
another, to make. It is worth considering Grices reaction to his own
distinction. Entailment is in sight! But Grice does not find himself lured by
the idea of using that distinction here! Because Moores entailment, rather than
Grices implicaturum is entailed. Or because explicatu, rather than implicaturum
is involved. Suppose, again, that I were to break off the chapter at this
point, and switch suddenly to this argument. ix. I have two hands (here is one
hand and here is another). If had three more hands, I would have five. If I
were to have double that number I would have ten, and if four of them were
removed six would remain. So I would have four more hands than I have now. Is
one happy to describe this performance as reasoning? Depends whos one and whats
happy!? There is, however, little doubt that I have produced a canonically
acceptable chain of statements. So surely that is reasoning, if only
conversationally misleadingly called so. Or suppose that, instead of writing in
my customary free and easy style, I had framed my remarks (or at least the
argumentative portions of my remarks) as a verbal realization, so to speak, of
sequences of steps in strict conformity with the rules of a natural-deduction
system of first-order predicate logic. I give, that is to say, an updated
analogue of a medieval disputation. Implicaturum. Gentzen is Ockham. Would
those brave souls who continued to read be likely to think of my performance as
the production of reasoning, or would they rather think of it as a crazy
formalisation of reasoning conducted at some previous time? Depends on crazy or
formalisation. One is reminded of Grice telling Strawson, If you cannot
formalise, dont say it; Strawson: Oh, no! If I can formalise it, I shant say
it! The points suggested by this stream of rhetorical questions may be
summarized as follows. Whether the samples presented FAIL to achieve the title
of reasoning, and thus be deemed reasoning, or whether the samples achieve the
title, as we may figuratively put it, by the skin of their teeth, perhaps does
not very greatly matter. For whichever way it is, the samples seem to offend
against something (different things in different cases, Im sure) very central
to our conception of reasoning. So central that Moore would call it entailment!
A mechanical application of a ground rule of inference, or a concatenation
thereof, is reluctantly (if at all) called reasoning. Such a mechanical
application may perhaps legitimately enter into (i.e. form individual steps in)
authentic reasonings, but they are not themselves reasonings, nor is a string
of them. There is a demand that a reasoner should be, to a greater or lesser
degree, the author of his reasonings. Parroted sequences are not reasonings
when parroted, though the very same sequences might be reasoning if not
parroted. Ped sequences are another matter. Some of the examples Grice gives
are deficient because they are aimless or pointless. Reasoning is
characteristically addressed to this or that problem: a small problem, a large
problem, a problem within a problem, a clear problem, a hazy problem, a
practical problem, an intellectual problem; but a problem! A mere flow of ideas
minimally qualifies (or can be deemed) as reasoning, even if it happens to be
logically respectable. But if it is directed, or even monitored (with
intervention should it go astray, not only into fallacy or mistake, but also
into such things as conversational irrelevance or otiosity!), that is another
matter! Finicky over-elaboration of intervening steps is frowned upon, and in
extreme cases runs the risk of forfeiting the title of reasoning. In
conversation, such over-elaboration will offend against this or that
conversational maxim, against (presumably) some suitably formulated maxim
conjoining informativeness. As Grice noted with regard to ‘That pillar box
seems red to me.’ That would be baffling if the addressee fails to detect the
communication-point. An utterance is supposed to inform, and what is the above
meant to inform its addressee? In thought, it will be branded as pedantry or
neurotic caution. If a distinction between brooding and conversing is to be
made! At first sight, perhaps, one would have been inclined to say that greater
rather than lesser explicitnessness is a merit. Not that inexplicitness, or implicaturum-status,
as it were ‒ is bad, but that, other things being equal, the more explicitness
the better. But now it looks as if proper explicitness (or explicatum-status)
is an Aristotelian mean, or mesotes, and it would be good some time to enquire what
determines where that mean lies. The burden of the foregoing observations seems
to me to be that the provisional account of reasoning, which has been before
us, leaves out something which is crucially important. What it leaves out is
the conception of reasoning, as I like to see conversation, as a purposive
activity, as something with goals and purposes. The account or picture leaves
out, in short, the connection of reasoning with the will! Moreover, once we
avail ourselves of the great family of additional ideas which the importation
of this conception would give us, we shall be able to deal with the quandary
which I laid before you a few minutes ago. For we could say e.g. that R reasons
(informally) from p to c just in case R thinks that p and intends that, in
thinking c, he should be thinking something which would be the conclusion of a
formally valid argument the premisses of which are a supplementation of p. This
will differ from merely thinking that there exists some formally valid
supplementation of a transition from p to c, which I felt inclined NOT to count
as (or deem) reasoning. I have some hopes that this appeal to the purposiveness
or goal-oriented character of authentic reasoning or good reasoning might be
sufficient to dispose of the quandary on which I have directed it. But I am by
no means entirely confident that this is the case, and so I offer a second
possible method of handling the quandary, one to which I shall return later
when I shall attempt to place it in a larger context. We have available to us
(let us suppose) what I might call a hard way of making inferential moves. We
in fact employ this laborious, step-by-step procedure at least when we are in
difficulties, when the course is not clear, when we have an awkward (or
philosophical) audience, and so forth. An inferential judgement, however, is a
normally desirable undertaking for us only because of its actual or hoped for
destinations, and is therefore not desirable for its own sake (a respect in
which, possibly, it may differ from an inferential capacity). Following the
hard way consumes time and energy. These are in limited supply and it would,
therefore, be desirable if occasions for employing the hard way were minimized.
A substitute for the hard way, the quick way, which is made possible by
habituation and intention, is available to us, and the capacity for it (which
is sometimes called intelligence, and is known to be variable in degree) is a
desirable quality. The possibility of making a good inferential step (there
being one to be made), together with such items as a particular inferers
reputation for inferential ability, may determine whether on a particular
occasion we suppose a particular transition to be inferential (and so to be a
case of reasoning) or not. On this account, it is not essential that there
should be a single supplementation of an informal reasoning which is supposed
to be what is overtly in the inferers mind, though quite often there may be
special reasons for supposing this to be the case. So Botvinnik is properly
credited with a case of reasoning, while Shropshire is not. Drawing from his
recollections of an earlier linguistic botany on reason. Grice distinguishes
between justificatory reason and explanatory reason. There is a special case of
mixed reason, explanatory-cum-justificatory. The lecture can be seen as the way
an exercise that Austin took as taxonomic can lead to explanatory adequacy,
too! Bennett is an excellent correspondent. He holds a very interesting
philosophical correspondence with Hare. This is just one f. with Grices
correspondence with Bennett. Oxford don, Christchurh, NZ-born Bennett, of
Magdalen, B. Phil. Oxon. Bennett has an essay on the interpretation of a formal
system under Austin. It is interesting that Bennett was led to consider the
interpretation of a formal system under Austins Play Group. Bennett attends
Grices seminars. He is my favourite philosopher. Bennett quotes Grice in his
Linguistic behaviour. In return, Grice quotes Bennett in the Preface
toWOW. Bennett has an earlier essay on rationality, which evidences that
the topic is key at Grices Oxford. Bennett has studied better than anyone the
way Locke is Griceian. A word or expression does not just stand for idea, but
for the intention of the utterer to stand for it! Grice also enjoyed construal
by Bennett of Grice as a nominalist. Bennett makes a narrow use of the epithet.
Since Grice does distinguish between an utterance-token (x) and an
utterance-type, and considers that the attribution of meaning from token to
type is metabolic, this makes Grice a nominalist. Bennett is one of the few to
follow Kantotle and make him popular on the pages of the Times Literary
Supplement, of all places. Refs.: The locus classicus is “Aspects,” Clarendon.
But there are allusions on ‘reason’ and ‘rationality, in The H. P. Grice
Papers, BANC.
Griceian
Dennett – Dennett knew Grice from the Oxford days – and
quotes him extensively – He is what Grice called “a New-World Griceian.” D.
C., philosopher, author of books on
topics in the philosophy of mind, free will, and evolutionary biology, and
tireless advocate of the importance of philosophy for empirical work on
evolution and on the nature of the mind. Dennett is perhaps best known for
arguing that a creature or, more generally, a system, S, possesses states of
mind if and only if the ascription of such states to S facilitates explanation
and prediction of S’s behavior The Intentional Stance, 7. S might be a human
being, a chimpanzee, a desktop computer, or a thermostat. In ascribing beliefs
and desires to S we take up an attitude toward S, the intentional stance. We
could just as well although for different purposes take up other stances: the
design stance we understand S as a kind of engineered system or the physical
stance we regard S as a purely physical system. It might seem that, although we
often enough ascribe beliefs and desires to desktop computers and thermostats,
we do not mean to do so literally as
with people. Dennett’s contention, however, is that there is nothing more nor
less to having beliefs, desires, and other states of mind than being explicable
by reference to such things. This, he holds, is not to demean beliefs, but only
to affirm that to have a belief is to be describable in this particular way. If
you are so describable, then it is true, literally true, that you have beliefs.
Dennett extends this approach to consciousness, which he views not as an
inwardly observable performance taking place in a “Cartesian Theater,” but as a
story we tell about ourselves, the compilation of “multiple drafts” concocted
by neural subsystems see Conciousness Explained, 1. Elsewhere Darwin’s
Dangerous Idea, 5 Dennett has argued that principles of Darwinian selection
apply to diverse domains including cosmology and human culture, and offered a
compatibilist account of free will with an emphasis on agents’ control over
their actions Elbow Room, 4.
denotatum
-- denotation, the thing or things that an expression applies to; extension.
The term is used in contrast with ‘meaning’ and ‘connotation’. A pair of
expressions may apply to the same things, i.e., have the same denotation, yet
differ in meaning: ‘triangle’, ‘trilateral’; ‘creature with a heart’, ‘creature
with a kidney’; ‘bird’, ‘feathered earthling’; ‘present capital of France’,
‘City of Light’. If a term does not apply to anything, some will call it denotationless,
while others would say that it denotes the empty set. Such terms may differ in
meaning: ‘unicorn’, ‘centaur’, ‘square root of pi’. Expressions may apply to
the same things, yet bring to mind different associations, i.e., have different
connotations: ‘persistent’, ‘stubborn’, ‘pigheaded’; ‘white-collar employee’,
‘office worker’, ‘professional paper-pusher’; ‘Lewis Carroll’, ‘Reverend
Dodgson’. There can be confusion about the denotation-connotation terminology,
because this pair is used to make other contrasts. Sometimes the term
‘connotation’ is used more broadly, so that any difference of either meaning or
association is considered a difference of connotation. Then ‘creature with a
heart’ and ‘creature with a liver’ might be said to denote the same individuals
or sets but to connote different properties. In a second use, denotation is the
semantic value of an expression. Sometimes the denotation of a general term is
said to be a property, rather than the things having the property. This occurs
when the denotation-connotation terminology is used to contrast the property
expressed with the connotation. Thus ‘persistent’ and ‘pig-headed’ might be
said to denote the same property but differ in connotation.
Grice’s
deontic operator – Grice was aware of Bentham’s play on
words with deontology -- as a Kantian, Griceian is a deontologist. However, he
refers to the ‘sorry story of deontic logic,’ because of von Wright (from whom
he borrowed but to whom he never returned ‘alethic’) deontic logic, the logic of
obligation and permission. There are three principal types of formal deontic
systems. 1 Standard deontic logic, or SDL, results from adding a pair of
monadic deontic operators O and P, read as “it ought to be that” and “it is
permissible that,” respectively, to the classical propositional calculus. SDL
contains the following axioms: tautologies of propositional logic, OA S - P -
A, OA / - O - A, OA / B / OA / OB, and OT, where T stands for any tautology.
Rules of inference are modus ponens and substitution. See the survey of SDL by
Dagfinn Follesdal and Risto Hilpinin in R. Hilpinin, ed., Deontic Logic, 1. 2
Dyadic deontic logic is obtained by adding a pair of dyadic deontic operators O
/ and P / , to be read as “it ought to
be that . . . , given that . . .” and “it is permissible that . . . , given
that . . . ,” respectively. The SDL monadic operator O is defined as OA S OA/T;
i.e., a statement of absolute obligation OA becomes an obligation conditional
on tautologous conditions. A statement of conditional obligation OA/B is true
provided that some value realized at some B-world where A holds is better than
any value realized at any B-world where A does not hold. This axiological
construal of obligation is typically accompanied by these axioms and rules of
inference: tautologies of propositional logic, modus ponens, and substitution,
PA/C S - O-A/C, OA & B/C S [OA/C & OB/C], OA/C / PA/C, OT/C / OC/C,
OT/C / OT/B 7 C, [OA/B & OA/C] / OA/B 7 C, [PB/B 7 C & OA/B 7 C] /
OA/B, and [P< is the negation of any tautology. See the comparison of
alternative dyadic systems in Lennart Aqvist, Introduction to Deontic Logic and
the Theory of Normative Systems, 7. 3 Two-sorted deontic logic, due to
Castañeda Thinking and Doing, 5, pivotally distinguishes between propositions,
the bearers of truth-values, and practitions, the contents of commands,
imperatives, requests, and such. Deontic operators apply to practitions,
yielding propositions. The deontic operators Oi, Pi, Wi, and li are read as “it
is obligatory i that,” “it is permissible i that,” “it is wrong i that,” and
“it is optional i denotation deontic logic 219
219 that,” respectively, where i stands for any of the various types of
obligation, permission, and so on. Let p stand for indicatives, where these
express propositions; let A and B stand for practitives, understood to express
practitions; and allow p* to stand for both indicatives and practitives. For
deontic definition there are PiA S - Oi - A, WiA S Oi - A, and LiA S - OiA
& - Oi - A. Axioms and rules of inference include p*, if p* has the form of
a truth-table tautology, OiA / - Oi - A, O1A / A, where O1 represents
overriding obligation, modus ponens for both indicatives and practitives, and
the rule that if p & A1 & . . . & An / B is a theorem, so too is p &
OiA1 & . . . & OiAn / OiB. --
deontic paradoxes, the paradoxes of deontic logic, which typically arise as
follows: a certain set of English sentences about obligation or permission
appears logically consistent, but when these same sentences are represented in
a proposed system of deontic logic the result is a formally inconsistent set.
To illustrate, a formulation is provided below of how two of these paradoxes
beset standard deontic logic. The contrary-to-duty imperative paradox, made
famous by Chisholm Analysis, 3, arises from juxtaposing two apparent truths:
first, some of us sometimes do what we should not do; and second, when such
wrongful doings occur it is obligatory that the best or a better be made of an
unfortunate situation. Consider this scenario. Art and Bill share an apartment.
For no good reason Art develops a strong animosity toward Bill. One evening
Art’s animosity takes over, and he steals Bill’s valuable lithographs. Art is
later found out, apprehended, and brought before Sue, the duly elected local
punishment-and-awards official. An inquiry reveals that Art is a habitual thief
with a history of unremitting parole violation. In this situation, it seems
that 14 are all true and hence mutually consistent: 1 Art steals from Bill. 2
If Art steals from Bill, Sue ought to punish Art for stealing from Bill. 3 It
is obligatory that if Art does not steal from Bill, Sue does not punish him for
stealing from Bill. 4 Art ought not to steal from Bill. Turning to standard
deontic logic, or SDL, let sstand for ‘Art steals from Bill’ and let p stand
for ‘Sue punishes Art for stealing from Bill’. Then 14 are most naturally
represented in SDL as follows: 1a s. 2a s / Op. 3a O- s / - p. 4a O - s. Of
these, 1a and 2a entail Op by propositional logic; next, given the SDL axiom OA
/ B / OA / OB, 3a implies O - s / O - p; but the latter, taken in conjunction
with 4a, entails O - p by propositional logic. In the combination of Op, O - p,
and the axiom OA / - O - A, of course, we have a formally inconsistent set. The
paradox of the knower, first presented by Lennart Bqvist Noûs, 7, is generated
by these apparent truths: first, some of us sometimes do what we should not do;
and second, there are those who are obligated to know that such wrongful doings
occur. Consider the following scenario. Jones works as a security guard at a
local store. One evening, while Jones is on duty, Smith, a disgruntled former
employee out for revenge, sets the store on fire just a few yards away from
Jones’s work station. Here it seems that 13 are all true and thus jointly
consistent: 1 Smith set the store on fire while Jones was on duty. 2 If Smith
set the store on fire while Jones was on duty, it is obligatory that Jones
knows that Smith set the store on fire. 3 Smith ought not set the store on
fire. Independently, as a consequence of the concept of knowledge, there is the
epistemic theorem that 4 The statement that Jones knows that Smith set the
store on fire entails the statement that Smith set the store on fire. Next,
within SDL 1 and 2 surely appear to imply: 5 It is obligatory that Jones knows
that Smith set the store on fire. But 4 and 5 together yield 6 Smith ought to
set the store on fire, given the SDL theorem that if A / B is a theorem, so is
OA / OB. And therein resides the paradox: not only does 6 appear false, the
conjunction of 6 and 3 is formally inconsistent with the SDL axiom OA / - O -
A. The overwhelming verdict among deontic logicians is that SDL genuinely
succumbs to the deontic operator deontic paradoxes 220 220 deontic paradoxes. But it is
controversial what other approach is best followed to resolve these puzzles.
Two of the most attractive proposals are Castañeda’s two-sorted system Thinking
and Doing, 5, and the agent-and-time relativized approach of Fred Feldman Philosophical
Perspectives, 0.
Grice
on types of priority -- Grice often uses ‘depend’ – but not
clearly in what sense – there’s ontological dependence, the basic one.
dependence, in philosophy, a relation of one of three main types: epistemic
dependence, or dependence in the order of knowing; conceptual dependence, or
dependence in the order of understanding; and ontological dependence, or
dependence in the order of being. When a relation of dependence runs in one
direction only, we have a relation of priority. For example, if wholes are
ontologically dependent on their parts, but the latter in turn are not
ontologically dependent on the former, one may say that parts are ontologically
prior to wholes. The phrase ‘logical priority’ usually refers to priority of
one of the three varieties to be discussed here. Epistemic dependence. To say
that the facts in some class B are epistemically dependent on the facts in some
other class A is to say this: one cannot know any fact in B unless one knows
some fact in A that serves as one’s evidence for the fact in B. For example, it
might be held that to know any fact about one’s physical environment e.g., that
there is a fire in the stove, one must know as evidence some facts about the
character of one’s own sensory experience e.g., that one is feeling warm and
seeing flames. This would be to maintain that facts about the physical world
are epistemically dependent on facts about sensory experience. If one held in
addition that the dependence is not reciprocal
that one can know facts about one’s sensory experience without knowing
as evidence any facts about the physical world
one would be maintaining that the former facts are epistemically prior
to the latter facts. Other plausible though sometimes disputed examples of epistemic
priority are the following: facts about the behavior of others are
epistemically prior to facts about their mental states; facts about observable
objects are epistemically prior to facts about the invisible particles
postulated by physics; and singular facts e.g., this crow is black are
epistemically prior to general facts e.g., all crows are black. Is there a
class of facts on which all others epistemically depend and that depend on no
further facts in turn a bottom story in
the edifice of knowledge? Some foundationalists say yes, positing a level of
basic or foundational facts that are epistemically prior to all others.
Empiricists are usually foundationalists who maintain that the basic level
consists of facts about immediate sensory experience. Coherentists deny the
need for a privileged stratum of facts to ground the knowledge of all others;
in effect, they deny that any facts are epistemically prior to any others.
Instead, all facts are on a par, and each is known in virtue of the way in which
it fits in with all the rest. Sometimes it appears that two propositions or
classes of them each epistemically depend on the other in a vicious way to know A, you must first know B, and to know
B, you must first know A. Whenever this is genuinely the case, we are in a
skeptical predicament and cannot know either proposition. For example,
Descartes believed that he could not be assured of the reliability of his own
cognitions until he knew that God exists and is not a deceiver; yet how could
he ever come to know anything about God except by relying on his own
cognitions? This is the famous problem of the Cartesian circle. Another example
is the problem of induction as set forth by Hume: to know that induction is a
legitimate mode of inference, one would first have to know that the future will
resemble the past; but since the latter fact is establishable only by
induction, one could know it only if one already knew that induction is
legitimate. Solutions to these problems must show that contrary to first appearances,
there is a way of knowing one of the problematic propositions independently of
the other. Conceptual dependence. To say that B’s are conceptually dependent on
A’s means that to understand what a B is, you must understand what an A is, or
that the concept of a B can be explained or understood only through the concept
of an A. For example, it could plausibly be claimed that the concept uncle can
be understood only in terms of the concept male. Empiricists typically maintain
that we understand what an external thing like a tree or a table is only by
knowing what experiences it would induce in us, so that the concepts we apply
to physical things depend on the concepts we apply to our experideontological
ethics dependence 221 221 ences. They
typically also maintain that this dependence is not reciprocal, so that
experiential concepts are conceptually prior to physical concepts. Some
empiricists argue from the thesis of conceptual priority just cited to the
corresponding thesis of epistemic priority
that facts about experiences are epistemically prior to facts about
external objects. Turning the tables, some foes of empiricism maintain that the
conceptual priority is the other way about: that we can describe and understand
what kind of experience we are undergoing only by specifying what kind of
object typically causes it “it’s a smell like that of pine mulch”. Sometimes
they offer this as a reason for denying that facts about experiences are
epistemically prior to facts about physical objects. Both sides in this dispute
assume that a relation of conceptual priority in one direction excludes a
relation of epistemic priority in the opposite direction. But why couldn’t it
be the case both that facts about experiences are epistemically prior to facts
about physical objects and that concepts of physical objects are conceptually
prior to concepts of experiences? How the various kinds of priority and
dependence are connected e.g., whether conceptual priority implies epistemic
priority is a matter in need of further study. Ontological dependence. To say
that entities of one sort the B’s are ontologically dependent on entities of
another sort the A’s means this: no B can exist unless some A exists; i.e., it
is logically or metaphysically necessary that if any B exists, some A also
exists. Ontological dependence may be either specific the existence of any B
depending on the existence of a particular A or generic the existence of any B
depending merely on the existence of some A or other. If B’s are ontologically
dependent on A’s, but not conversely, we may say that A’s are ontologically
prior to B’s. The traditional notion of substance is often defined in terms of
ontological priority substances can
exist without other things, as Aristotle said, but the others cannot exist
without them. Leibniz believed that composite entities are ontologically
dependent on simple i.e., partless entities
that any composite object exists only because it has certain simple
elements that are arranged in a certain way. Berkeley, J. S. Mill, and other
phenomenalists have believed that physical objects are ontologically dependent
on sensory experiences that the
existence of a table or a tree consists in the occurrence of sensory
experiences in certain orderly patterns. Spinoza believed that all finite
beings are ontologically dependent on God and that God is ontologically
dependent on nothing further; thus God, being ontologically prior to everything
else, is in Spinoza’s view the only substance. Sometimes there are disputes
about the direction in which a relationship of ontological priority runs. Some
philosophers hold that extensionless points are prior to extended solids,
others that solids are prior to points; some say that things are prior to
events, others that events are prior to things. In the face of such
disagreement, still other philosophers such as Goodman have suggested that
nothing is inherently or absolutely prior to anything else: A’s may be prior to
B’s in one conceptual scheme, B’s to A’s in another, and there may be no saying
which scheme is correct. Whether relationships of priority hold absolutely or
only relative to conceptual schemes is one issue dividing realists and
anti-realists.
de re: as opposed to de
dicto, of what is said or of the proposition, as opposed to de re, of the
thing. Many philosophers believe the following ambiguous, depending on whether
they are interpreted de dicto or de re: 1 It is possible that the number of
U.S. states is even. 2 Galileo believes that the earth moves. Assume for
illustrative purposes that there are propositions and properties. If 1 is
interpreted as de dicto, it asserts that the proposition that the number of
U.S. states is even is a possible truth
something true, since there are in fact fifty states. If 1 is
interpreted as de re, it asserts that the actual number of states fifty has the
property of being possibly even
something essentialism takes to be true. Similarly for 2; it may mean
that Galileo’s belief has a certain content
that the earth moves or that
Galileo believes, of the earth, that it moves. More recently, largely due to
Castañeda and John Perry, many philosophers have come to believe in de se “of
oneself” ascriptions, distinct from de dicto and de re. Suppose, while drinking
with others, I notice that someone is spilling beer. Later I come to realize
that it is I. I believed at the outset that someone was spilling beer, but
didn’t believe that I was. Once I did, I straightened my glass. The distinction
between de se and de dicto attributions is supposed to be supported by the fact
that while de dicto propositions must be either true or false, there is no true
proposition embeddable within ‘I believe that . . .’ that correctly ascribes to
me the belief that I myself am spilling beer. The sentence ‘I am spilling beer’
will not do, because it employs an “essential” indexical, ‘I’. Were I, e.g., to
designate myself other than by using ‘I’ in attributing the relevant belief to
myself, there would be no explanation of my straightening my glass. Even if I
believed de re that LePore is spilling beer, this still does not account for
why I lift my glass. For I might not know I am LePore. On the basis of such
data, some philosophers infer that de se attributions are irreducible to de re
or de dicto attributions. Internal-external
distinction – de re -- externalism, the view that there are objective reasons
for action that are not dependent on the agent’s desires, and in that sense
external to the agent. Internalism about reasons is the view that reasons for
action must be internal in the sense that they are grounded in motivational
facts about the agent, e.g. her desires and goals. Classic internalists such as
Hume deny that there are objective reasons for action. For instance, whether
the fact that an action would promote health is a reason to do it depends on
whether one has a desire to be healthy. It may be a reason for some and not for
others. The doctrine is hence a version of relativism; a fact is a reason only
insofar as it is so connected to an agent’s psychological states that it can
motivate the agent. By contrast, externalists hold that not all reasons depend
on the internal states of particular agents. Thus an externalist could hold
that promoting health is objectively good and that the fact that an action
would promote one’s health is a reason to perform it regardless of whether one
desires health. This dispute is closely tied to the debate over motivational
internalism, which may be conceived as the view that moral beliefs for instance
are, by virtue of entailing motivation, internal reasons for action. Those who
reject motivational internalism must either deny that expressive completeness
externalism 300 300 sound moral beliefs
always provide reasons for action or hold that they provide external reasons.
Derridaian
implicaturum -- J., philosopher, author of
deconstructionism, and leading figure in the postmodern movement. Postmodern
thought seeks to move beyond modernism by revealing inconsistencies or aporias
within the Western European tradition from Descartes to the present. These
aporias are largely associated with onto-theology, a term coined by Heidegger
to characterize a manner of thinking about being and truth that ultimately
grounds itself in a conception of divinity. Deconstruction is the methodology
of revelation: it typically involves seeking out binary oppositions defined
interdependently by mutual exclusion, such as good and evil or true and false,
which function as founding terms for modern thought. The ontotheological
metaphysics underlying modernism is a metaphysics of presence: to be is to be
present, finally to be absolutely present to the absolute, that is, to the
divinity whose own being is conceived as presence to itself, as the coincidence
of being and knowing in the Being that knows all things and knows itself as the
reason for the being of all that is. Divinity thus functions as the measure of
truth. The aporia here, revealed by deconstruction, is that this modernist
measure of truth cannot meet its own measure: the coincidence of what is and
what is known is an impossibility for finite intellects. Major influences on
Derrida include Hegel, Freud, Heidegger, Sartre, Saussure, and structuralist
thinkers such as Lévi-Strauss, but it was his early critique of Husserl, in
Introduction à “L’Origine de la géometrie” de Husserl 2, that gained him
recognition as a critic of the phenomenological tradition and set the
conceptual framework for his later work. Derrida sought to demonstrate that the
origin of geometry, conceived by Husserl as the guiding paradigm for Western
thought, was a supratemporal ideal of perfect knowing that serves as the goal
of human knowledge. Thus the origin of geometry is inseparable from its end or
telos, a thought that Derrida later generalizes in his deconstruction of the
notion of origin as such. He argues that this ideal cannot be realized in time,
hence cannot be grounded in lived experience, hence cannot meet the “principle
of principles” Husserl designated as the prime criterion for phenomenology, the
principle that all knowing must ground itself in consciousness of an object
that is coincidentally conscious of itself. This revelation of the aporia at
the core of phenomenology in particular and Western thought in general was not
yet labeled as a deconstruction, but it established the formal structure that
guided Derrida’s later deconstructive revelations of the metaphysics of
presence underlying the modernism in which Western thought culminates.
descriptum:
descriptivism, the thesis that the meaning of any evaluative statement is
purely descriptive or factual, i.e., determined, apart from its syntactical
features, entirely by its truth conditions. Nondescriptivism of which emotivism
and prescriptivism are the main varieties is the view that the meaning of
full-blooded evaluative statements is such that they necessarily express the
speaker’s sentiments or commitments. Nonnaturalism, naturalism, and
supernaturalism are descriptivist views about the nature of the properties to
which the meaning rules refer. Descriptivism is related to cognitivism and
moral realism.
de sensu implicaturum: vide casus obliquus. The casus
rectus/casus obliquus distinction. Peter Abelard, Kneale, Grice, Aristotle.
Aquinas. de sensu implicaturum. Ariskantian quessertions on de sensu implicate.
“My sometimes mischievous friend Richard Grandy once said, in
connection with some other occasion on which I was talking, that to represent
my remarks, it would be necessary to introduce a new form of speech act,
or a new operator, which was to be called the operator of
quessertion. It is to be read as “It is perhaps possible that someone might
assert that . . .” and is to be symbolized “?├”; possibly it might even be iterable […].
Everything I shall suggest here is highly quessertable.” Grice 1989:297. If Grice had one thing, he had
linguistic creativity. Witness his ‘implicaturum,’ and his ‘implicaturum,’ not
to mention his ‘pirotologia.’Sometime, somewhere, in the history of philosophy,
a need was felt by some Griceian philosopher, surely, for numbering intentions.
The verb, denoting the activity, out of which this ‘intention’ sprang was Latin
‘intendere,’ and somewhere, sometime, the need was felt to keep the Latinate
/t/ sound, and sometimes to make it sibilate, /s/. The source of it all seems to be Aristotle in
Soph.
Elen., 166a24–166a30, which was rendered twice om Grecian to Latin. In the
second Latinisation, ‘de sensu’ comes into view. Abelard proposes to use ‘de
rebus,’ or ‘de re,’ for what the previous translation had as ‘per divisionem.’
To make the distinction, he also proposes to use ‘de sensu’ for what the
previous translation has as ‘per compositionem,’ and ‘per conjunctionem.’ But
what did either mean? It was a subtle question, indeed. And trust Nicolai
Hartmann, in his mediaevalist revival, to add numbers and a further
distinction, now the ‘recte/’oblique’ distinction, and ‘intentio’ being
‘prima,’ ‘seconda,’ ‘tertia,’ and so on, ad infinitum. The proposal is clear.
We need a way to conceptualise first-order propositions. But we also need to
conceptualise ‘that’-clauses. The ‘that’-clause subordination is indeed
open-ended. ‘mean.’ Grice’s motivation in the presentation at the Oxford
Philosophical Society is to offer, as he calls it, a ‘proposal.’ In his words,
notice the emphasis on the Latinate ‘intend,’ – where it occurs, as applied to
an emissor, and as having as content, following that ‘that’-clause, an
‘intensional’ verb like ‘believe,’ which again, involves an ‘intentio tertia,’
now referring to a state back in the emissor expressed by yet another
intensional verb – all long for, ‘you communicate that p if you want your
addressee to realise that you hold this or that propositional attitude with
content p.’ "A
meantNN something by x" is (roughly) equivalent to "A intended the
utterance of x to produce some effect in an audience by means of the
recognition of this intention"; and we may add that to ask what A meant is
to ask for a specification of the intended effect (though, of course, it may
not always be possible to get a straight answer involving a "that"
clause, for example, "a belief that . . ."). (Grice 1989: 220). Grice’s motivation is to
‘reduce’ “mean” to what has come to be known in the Griceian [sic] literature
as a ‘Griceian’ [sic] ‘reflexive’ intention – he prefers M-intention -- which
we will read as involving an intentio seconda, and indeed intentio tertia, and
beyond, which makes its appearance explicitly in the second clause -- or
‘prong,’ as he’d prefer -- of his ‘reductive’ analysis. Prong 1 then
corresponds to the intention prima or intention recta: Utterer U intends1
that Addressee A believes that Utterer U holds psychological state or attitude
ψ with content “p.”
Prong 2 corresponds to the intentio
seconda or intentio obliqua: Utterer U intends2 that
Addressee A believes (i) on the ‘rational,’ and not just ‘causal,’ basis of
(ii), i.e. of the addressee A’s recognition of the utterer U’s intentio seconda
or intentio obliqua i2, that Addressee A comes to believe that
Utterer U holds psychological state or attitude ψ with content “p.” In Grice’s
wording, “i2” acts as a ‘reason,’ and not merely a ‘cause’ for
Addressee A’s coming to believe that U holds psychological state or attitude ψ
with content “p”. Kemmerling has used “↝”
to represent this ‘reason’ (i1 ↝ i2,
Kemmerling in Grandy/Warner, 1986, cf. Petrus in Petrus 2010). Prong 3 is a
closure prong, now involving a self-reflective third-order intention, there is
no ‘covert’ higher-order intention involved in (i)-(iii). Meaning-constitutive
intentions in utterer u’s meaning that p should be out there ‘in the open,’ or
‘above board,’ to count as having been ‘communicated.Grice quotes only one
author in ‘Meaning’: C. L. Stevenson, who started his career with a degree in
English from Yale. Willing to allow a ‘metabolical’ use of ‘mean’ he
recognises, he scare quotes it: “There is a
sense, to be sure, in which a groan “means“ something, just a reduced
temperature may at times ”mean” convalescence.” Stevenson 1944:38). This
remark will have Grice later attempting an ‘evolutionary’ model of how an ‘x’
causing ‘y’ may proceed from ‘natural’ to less natural ones. Consider ‘is in
pain.’ A creature is physically hurt, and the expression of pain comes up
naturally as an effect. But if the creature attains rational control over his
expressive behaviour, and the creature is in pain (or expects his addressee A
to think that he is in pain), U can now imitate or replicate, in a something
like a Peirceian iconic mode, the natural behaviour manifested by a spontaneous
response to a hurtful stimulus. The ‘simulated’ pain will be an ‘icon’ of the
natural pain. Grice is getting Peirceian by the day, and he is not telling us!
There are, Grice says, as if to simplify Peirce the most he can, two modes of
representation. The primary one is now the explicitly Peirceian iconic one. The
‘risus naturaliter significat interiorem laetitiam’ of Occam. And then, there’s
the derivative *non*-iconic representation, in that order. The first is, shall
we say, ‘natural,’ and beyond the utterer U’s voluntary control (cf. Darwin on
the expression of emotions in man and animals); the second is not. Grice is
allowing for smoke representing fire, or if one must, alla Stevenson,
‘representing’ it. In Grice’s motivation to along the right lines, his
psychologist austere views of his 1948 ‘Meaning,’ when he rather artificially
disjoins a ‘natural’ “mean” and an ‘artificial’ “mean,” when merely different
‘uses’ stand for what he then thought were senses, he wants now to re-introduce
into philosophical discourse the iconic natural representation or meaning that
he had left aside.If this is part of what he calls a ‘myth,’ even if an
evolutionary one, to account for the emergence of ‘systems of communication,’
it does starts with an utterer U expressing (very much alla Croce or Marty) a
psychological state or attitude ψ by displaying some behavioural pattern in an
unintentional way. Grice is being Wittgensteinian here, and quotes almost
verbatim from Anscombe’s rendition, “No psychological concept except when
backed in behaviour that manifests it.”
If Ockham notes that “Risus naturaliter significat interiorem laetitiam,”
Grice shows this will allow to avoid, also alla Ockham, a polysemy to ‘mean.’In
Grice’s three clauses in his 1948 conceptual analysis of ‘meaning’ – the first
clause of exhibitiveness, the second clause of intentio seconda or reflexivity,
and the third clause of communicative overtness, voluntary control on the part
of the utterer U is already in order. Since the utterer’s addressee A is
intended to recognise this, no longer is it required any prior ‘iconic’
association between a simulated behaviour and the behaviour naturally displayed
as a response to a stimulus. This amounts, for Grice to deeming the system of
expression as having become a full system now of intention-based
‘communication.’‘know’’ Intentio seconda or intentio obliqua comes up nicely
when Grice delivers the third William James Lecture, later reprinted as
“Further notes on logic and conversation.” There, Grice targets one type of
anti-Gettier scenario for the use of a factive psychological state or attitude
expressed by a verb like “know,” again followed by a “that”-clause. Grice is
criticisign Austin’s hasty attempt to analyse ‘know’ in terms of the
‘performatory’ ‘guarantee.’ As Grice puts it in “Prolegomena,” “to say ‘I know’
is to give a guarantee.” (Grice 1989:9) which can be traced back to Austin,
although since, as Grice witnessed it, Austin ‘all too frequently ignored’ the
real of emissor’s communicatum, one is never sure. In any case, Grice wants to overcome this
‘performatory’ fallacy, and he expands on the ‘suspect’ example of the
Prolegomena in the Third lecture. Grice’s troubles with ‘know’ were long-dated.
In Causal Theory he lists as the third philosophical mistake, “What is known by
me to be the case is not also believed by me to be the case.” (1989: 237).
Uncredited, but he may be having in mind Ryle’s odd characterisations with
terms such as ‘occurrence,’ ‘episode,’ and so on. In the section on ‘stress,’ Grice asks us to
assume that Grice knows that p. The question is whether this claim commits the
philosopher to the further clause, ‘Grice knows that Grice knows that p, and so
on, … to use the scholastic term we started this with, ad infinitum. It is not
that Grice is adverse to a regressive analysis per se. This is, in effect, with
what the third clause or prong in his analysis of ‘meaning’ does – ‘let all
meaning-constitutive intentions be overt, including this one. Indeed, when it comes to meaning or knowing,
we are talking optimal, we are talking ‘virtue.’ Both ‘meaning,’ ‘communicating,
‘and ‘knowing,’ represent an ‘ideal,’ value-paradeigmatic concept – where
value, a favourite with Hartmann, appears under the guise of a noumenon in the
topos ouranos that only realises imperfectly in the sub-lunary world. In the
third William James lecture Grice cursorily dismisses these demanding or
restrictive anti-Gettier scenarios as too stipulatory for the colloquial,
ordinary, use – and thus ‘sense’ -- of ‘know.’ The approach Gettier is
cricising ends up being too convoluted, seeing that conversationalists tend to
make a rather loose use of the verb. Grice’s example illustrates linguistic
botanising. So we have Grice bringing the examinee who does know that the
battle of Waterloo was fought in 1815, with hardly conclusive evidence, or any
‘de sensu’ knowledge that the evidence (which he does not have) is conclusive.
Grice grants that, in a specially emphatic utterance of ‘know,’ there might be
a cancellable implicaturum to the effect that the knower does have conclusive
evidence for what he alleges to know. Grice’s explicit reference to this
‘regressive nature’ (p. 59) touches on the topic of intention de sensu. Grice
is contesting the strong view, as represented, according to Gettier, by
philosophers ranging from Plato’s Thaetetus to Ayer’s Problem of Empirical
Knowledge (indeed the only two loci Gettier cares to cite in his short essay)
that a claim, “Grice knows that p” entails a claim to the effect that there is
conclusive evidence for p, and which gives Grice a feeling of subjective
certainty, and that Grice knows that there is such conclusive evidence, and so
on, ad infinitum. Grice casts doubts on the intentio de sensu as applied to the
colloquial or ‘ordinary’ uses of ‘know’. If I know that p, must I know that I
know that p? Having just introduced his
“Modified Occam’s Razor” – ‘Senses are not to be multiplied beyond necessity’
--, Grice doesn’t think so. At this point, however, he adds a characteristic
bracket: “(cf. causal theory).” With that bracket, Grice is allowing that the
denotatum of “p,” qua content of U’s psychological state or attitude of
‘knowing,’ the state-of-affairs itself, as we may put it, should play something
like a causal role in U’s knowing that p. Grice is open-minded as to what type
of link or connection that is. It need not be strictly causal. He is merely
suggesting the open-endness of ‘know in terms of these “further conditions” as
to how Grice ‘comes’ to know that p, and refers to the ‘causal theory,’ as
later developed by philosophers like E. F. Dretske and others. As a linguistic
botanist, Grice is well aware that ‘know,’ like ‘see,’ is what the Kiparskys
(whom Grice refers to) call a ‘factive.’An ascription of “Grice knows that p,”
or, indeed, “Grice sees that p,” (unless Grice hallucinates) entails “p.” The
defeating ‘hallucination’ scenario is key. It involves what Grice calls a dis-implicaturum.
The utterer is using ‘know’ or‘see’ in a loose way (and meaning less, rather
than more than he explicitly conveys. Note incidentally, as Grice later noted
in later seminars, how his analysis proves the philosopher’s adage wrong.
Surely what is known by me to be the case is believed by me to be the case. Any
divergence to the contrary is a matter of ‘implicatural’ stress – by which he
means supra-segmentation.‘want’Soon after his delivering the William James
lectures, Grice got involved in a project concerning an evaluation of Quine’s
programme, where again he touches on issues of intentio seconda or intentio
obliqua, and brings us back to Russell and ‘the author of Waverley.’ Grice’s
presentation comes out in Words and Objections, edited by Davidson and
Hintikka, a pun on Quine’s Word and Object. Grice’s contribution, ‘Vacuous
Names,’ (later reprinted in part in Ostertag’s volume on Definite descriptions)
concludes with an exploration of “the” phrases, and further on, with some
intriguing remarks on the subtle issues surrounding the scope of an ascription
of a predicate standing for a psychological state or attitude. Grice’s choice
of an ascription now notably involves an ‘opaque’ (rather than ‘factive,’ like
‘know’) psychological state or attitude: ‘wanting,’ which he symbolizes as “W.”
Grice considers a quartet of utterances: Jack wants someone to marry him; Jack
wants someone or other to marry him; Jack wants a particular person to marry
him, and There is someone whom Jack wants to marry him. Grice notes that “there
are clearly at least *two* possible readings” of an utterance like our (i): a
first reading “in which,” as Grice puts it, (i) might be paraphrased by (ii).”
A second reading is one “in which it might be paraphrased by (iii) or by (iv).”
Grice goes on to symbolize the phenomenon in his own version of a first-order
predicate calculus. ‘Ja wants that p’ becomes ‘Wjap,’ where ‘ja’
stands for the individual constant “Jack” as a super-script attached to the
predicate standing for Jack’s psychological state or attitude. Grice writes:
“Using the apparatus of classical predicate logic, we might hope to represent,”
respectively, the external reading and the internal reading (involving an
intentio secunda or intentio obliqua) as ‘(Ǝx)WjaFxja’
and ‘Wja(Ǝx)Fxja.’ Grice then
goes on to discuss a slightly more complex, or oblique, scenario involving this
second internal reading, which is the one that interests us, as it involves an
‘intentio seconda.’ Grice notes: “But suppose that Jack wants a specific
individual, Jill, to marry him, and this because Jack has been “*deceived* into
thinking that his friend Joe has a highly delectable sister called Jill, though
in fact Joe is an only child.” (The Jill Jack eventually goes up the hill with
is, coincidentally, another Jill, possibly existent). Let us recall that
Grice’s main focus of the whole essay is, as the title goes, ‘emptiness’! In
these circumstances, one is inclined to say that (i) is true only on reading (vii),”
where the existential quantifier occurs within the scope of the
psychological-state or -attitude verb, “but we cannot now represent (ii) or
(iii), with ‘Jill’ being vacuous, by (vi), where the existential quantifier (Ǝx) occurs outside the scope of the
psychological-attitude verb, want, “since [well,] Jill does not really exist,”
except as a figment of Jack’s imagination. In a manoeuver that I interpret as
‘purely intentionalist,’ and thus favouring by far Suppes’s over Chomsky’s
characterisation of Grice as a mere ‘behaviourist,’ Grice hopes that “we should
be provided with distinct representations for two familiar readings” of, now:
Jack wants Jill to marry him; Jack wants ‘Jill’ to marry him. It is at this
point that Grice applies a syntactic scope notation involving sub-scripted
numerals, (ix) and (x), where the numeric values merely indicate the order of
introduction of the symbol to which it is attached in a deductive schema for
the predicate calculus in question. Only the first notation yields the internal
de sensu reading (where ‘ji’ stands for ‘Jill’): ‘W2ja4F1ji3ja4’
and ‘W3ja4F2ji1ja4.’
Note that in the alternative external notation, the individual constant for
“Jill,” ‘ji,’ is introduced prior to ‘want,’ – ‘ji’’s sub-script is 1, while
‘W’’s sub-script is the higher numerical value 3. If Russell could have avowed
of this he would have had that the Prince Regents, by issuing the invitation,
wants to confirm that ‘the author of Waverley’ isN Scott, already having
confirmed that the author of Waverley =M the author of Waverley. Grice warns
Quine. Given that Jill does not exist, only the internal reading “can be true,”
or alethically satisfactory. Similarly, we might imagine an alternative
scenario where the butler informs the Prince: ‘We are sorry to inform Your
Majesty that your invitation was returned: apparently the author of Waverley
does not SEEM to exist.’ Grice sums up his reflections on the representation of
the opaqueness of a verb standing for a psychological state or attitude like
that expressed by ‘wanting’ with one observation that further marks him as an
intentionalist, almost of a Meinongian type. If he justified a loose use of
‘know,’ he is now is ready to allow for ‘existential’ phrases in cases of
‘vacuous’ designata, which however baffling, should not lead a philosopher to
the wrong characterisation of the linguistic phenomena (as it led Austin with
‘know’). Provided such a descriptors occur within an opaque, intensional, de
sensu, psychological-state or attitude verbs, Grice captures the nuances of
‘ordinary’ discourse, while keeping Quine happy. As Grice puts it, we should
also have available to us also three neutral, yet distinct, (Ǝx)-quantificational forms (together with their
isomorphs),” as a philosopher who thinks that Wittgenstein denies a
distinction, craves for a generality! “Jill” now becomes “x”: ‘W4ja5Ǝx3F1x2ja5,’
‘Ǝx5W2ja5F1x4ja3’,
and ‘Ǝx5W3ja4F1x2ja4
.’ Since in (xii) the individual variable ‘x’ (ranging over ‘Jill’) “does not
dominate the segment following the ‘(Ǝx)’
quantifier, the formulation does not display any ‘existential’ or de re,
‘force,’ and is suitable therefore for representing the internal readings (ii)
or (iii), “if we have to allow, as we do have, if we want to faithfully
represent ‘ordinary’ discourse, for the possibility of expressing the fact that
a particular person, Jill, does not actually exist.” At least Grice does not
write, “really,” for he knew that Austin detested a ‘trouser word.’ Grice
concludes that (xi) and (xiii) are derivable from each of (ix) and (x), while
(xii) will be “derivable only” from (ix).‘intend’By this time, Grice had been
made a Fellow of the British Academy and it was about time for the delivery of
the philosophical lecture that goes with it. It only took him six five years.
Grice choses “Intention and uncertainty” as its topic. He was provoked by two
members of his ‘playgroup’ at Oxford, Hart and Hampshire, who in an essay
published in Mind, what Grice finds, again, as he did with the anti-Gettier
cases of ‘know,’ as rather a too strong analysis of ‘intending.’ In his
British-Academy lecture, Grice plays now with the psychological state or
attitude, realised by the verbal form, ‘intend,’ when specifically followed by
a ‘that’-clause, “intends that…,” as an echo of his dealing with “meaning to”
as merely ‘natural.’ He calls himself a neo-Prichardian, reviving this ‘willing
that’ which Urmson had popularised at Oxford, bringing to publication
Prichard’s exploration of William James and his “I will that the distant chair
slides over the floor towards me. It does not.”Grice’s ‘intending that…’ is
notably a practical, boulemaic, or buletic, or desiderative, rather than
alethic or doxastic, psychological state or attitude. It involves not just an
itentum, but an intentum that involves both a desideratum AND a factum – for
the ‘future indicative’ is conceptually involved. Grice claims that, if the
conceptual analysis of “intending that…” is to represent ‘ordinary’ discourse,
shows that it contains, as one of its prongs, in the final ‘neo-Prichardian’
version that Grice gives, also a ‘doxastic’ (rather than ‘factive’ and
‘epistemic’) psychological state or attitude, notably a belief on the part of
the ‘intender’ that his willing that p has a probability greater than 0.5 to
the effect that p be realised. Contra Hart and Hampshire, Grice acknowledges
the investigations by the playgroup member Pears on this topic. Interestingly,
a polemic arose elsewhere with Davidson, who trying to be more Griceian thatn
Grice, sees this doxastic constraint as a mere cancellable implicaturum. Grice
grants it may be a dis-implicaturum at most, as in loose cases of ‘know,’ or
‘see.’ Grice is adamant in regarding the doxastic component as a conceptual
‘entailment’ in the ‘ordinary’ use of ‘intend,’ unless the verb is used in a
merely ‘disimplicatural,’ loose fashion. Grice’s example, ‘Jill intends to
climb Everest next week,’ when the prohibitive conditions are all to evident to
anyone concerned with such an utterance of (xv), perhaps Jill included, and
‘intends’ has to be read only ‘internally’ and hyperbolically. At this point,
if in “Vacuous Names, he fights with Meinong while enjoying engaging in
emptiness, it should be stressed that Grice gives as an illustration of a ‘disimplicaturum,’
along with a use of ‘see’ in a Shakespeareian context. ‘See,’ like ‘know,’ or ‘mean,’ exhibit what
Grice calls diaphaneity. So it’s only natural Grice turns his attention to
‘see.’ Grice’s examples are ‘Macbeth saw Banquo’ and ‘Hamlet saw his father on
the ramparts of Elsinore,’ and both involve hallucination! It is worth
comparing the fortune of ‘disimplicaturum’ with that of ‘implicaturum.’ Grice
coins ‘to dis-implicate’ as an active verb, for a case where the utterer does
NOT, as in the case of implicaturum, mean MORE than he says, but LESS. Grice’s
point is a subtle one. It involves his concession on something like an
explicatum, but alsoo on something like Moore’s entailment. If the ‘doxastic
condition’ is entailed by “intending that…,’ an utterer U may STILL use, in an
‘ordinary’ fashion, a strong ‘intending that…’ in a scenario where it is common
ground between the utterer U and his addressee A that the probability of ‘p’
being realised is lower than 0.5. The expression of the psychological state or
attitude is loose, since the utterer is, as it were, dropping an ‘entailment’
that applies in a use of ‘intending that’ where that ‘common-ground’ assumption
is absent. One reason may be echoic. Jill may think that she can succeed in
climbing Mt. Everest; she herself has used ‘intend.’ When that information is
transmitted, the strong psychological verb is kept when the doxastic constraint
is no longer shared by the utterer U and his addressee A (Like an implicaturum,
a disimplicaturum has to be recognised as such to count as one. No such thing as an ‘unwanted’ disimplicaturum.‘motivate’Sometimes,
it would seem that, for Grice, the English philosopher of English
‘ordinary-language’ philosophy, English is not enough! Grice would amuse at
Berkeley seminars, with things like, ‘A pirot potches o as fang, or potches o
and o’ as F-id,’ just to attract his addressee’s attention. The full passage,
in what Grice calls, after Carnap, pirotese, reads: “A pirot can be said to
potch of some obble x as fang or feng; also to cotch of x, or some obble o, as
fang or feng; or to cotch of one obble o and another obble o’ as being fid to
one another.” Grice’s deciphering, with ‘pirot,” a tribute to Carnap – and
Locke -- as any agent, and an ‘obble’ as an object. Grice borrows, but does not
return, the ‘pirot’ from Carnap (for whom pirots karulise elatically – Carnap’s
example of a syntactically well-formed formula in Introduction to Semantics).
Grice uses ‘pirotese’ ‘to potch’ as a correlate for ‘perceive,’ such as the
factive ‘see’ and ‘to cotch’ as a correlate for the similarly factive
‘know.’While ‘perceive’ strictly allows for a ‘that’-clause (as in Grice
analysis of “I perceive that the pillar box is red” in “The causal theory of
perception”), for simplificatory purposes, Grice is using ‘to potch’ as
applying directly to an object, which Grice rephrases as an ‘obble.’ Since some
perceptual feature or other is required in a predication of ‘perceiving’ and
‘potching,’ ‘feng’ is introduced as a perceptual predicate. And since pirots
should also be allowed to perceive an ‘obble’ o in some relation with another
‘obble’ o2, Grice introduces the dyadic ‘relational’ feature ‘fid.’ Grice’s exegesis reads: “‘To potch’ is something
like ‘to perceive,’ whereas ‘to cotch’ is something like ‘to think.’ ‘Feng’ and
‘fang’ are possible descriptions, much like our adjectives; ‘fid’ is a possible
relation between ‘obbles.’”). At this
point, Grice has been made, trans-territorially, the President of the American
Philosophical Association, and is ready to give his Presidential Address (now
reprinted in his Conception of Value, for Clarendon. He chooses ‘philosophical
psychology’ It’s when Grice goes on to play now with the neo-Wittgensteinian
issues of incorrigibility and privileged access, that issues of intentio
seconda become prominent. For any
psychological attitude ψ1, if U holds it, U holds, as a matter of
what Grice calls ‘genitorial construction,’ a meta-psychological attitude, ψ2,
a seconda intentio if ever there was one, -- Grice even uses the numeral ‘2’ --
that has, as its content followed the second ‘that’-clause, the very first
psychological attitude ψ1. The general schema being given below,
with an instance of specification: ‘ψup ⊃ ψuψup,’ and ‘if U
wills that p, U wills that U wills that p.’ The interesting bit, from the
perspective of our exploration of ‘intentio seconda,’ is that, if, alla Peano,
we apply this to itself, as in the anti-Gettier cases Grice discussed earlier,
we end with an ad-infinitum clause. It was Judith Baker, who earned her
doctorate under Grice at Berkeley who sees this clearlier than everyone (She
was a regular contributor to the Kant Society in Germany). Baker’s publications
are, like those of her tutor, scarce. But in a delightful contribution to the
Grice festschrift, “Do one’s motives have to be pure?” (in Grandy/Warner 1986),
Baker explores the crucial importance of that ad-infinitum chain of intentiones
secondæ as it applies to questions of not alethic but practical value or
satisfactoriness. Consider ‘ought’. Grice would say that ‘must’ is aequi-vocal,
i.e. it is not that ‘must’ has an alethic ‘sense’ and a practical ‘sense.’ Only
“one” must, if one must! (As Grice jokes, “Who needs ichthyological
necessity?”). Baker notes that the ad-infinitum
chain may explain how ‘duty’ ‘cashes out’ in ‘interest.’ Both Grice and Baker
are avowed Kantotelians. By allowing ‘duty’ to cash out in interest they are
merging Aristotle’s utilitarian teleology with Kant’s deontology, and
succeeding! It is possible to symbolize Grice’s and Baker’s proposal. If there
is a “p” SUCH AS, at some point in the iteration of willing and intentiones
secondæ, the agent is not willing to accept it, this blocks the potential
Kantian universalizability of the content of a teleological attitude “p,”
stripping “p” of any absolute value status that it may otherwise attain.In
Grice’s reductive analysis of ‘mean,’ ‘know,’ ‘want,’ ‘intend,’ and ‘motivate,’
we witness the subtlety of his approach that is only made possible from the
recognition of Aristotle’s insight back in “De Sophisticis Elenchis” to Kant’s
explorations on the purity of motives. It should not surprise us. It’s Grice’s
nod, no doubt, to an unjustly neglected philosopher, who should be neglected no
more.ReferencesBlackburn, S. W. 1984. Spreading the words: groundings in the
philosophy of language. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Darwin, Charles. 1872.
The expression of emotions in man and animals. London: Murray. Grandy, R. E.
and R. O. Warner 1986. Philosophical grounds of rationality: intentions,
categories, ends. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Grice, H. P. 1948. Meaning, The
Oxford Philosophical Society. Repr. in Grice 1989. Grice, H. P. 1961. The
causal theory of perception, The Aristotelian Society. Repr. in Grice 1989.
Grice, H. P. 1967. Logic and Conversation, The William James lectures. Repr. in
a revised 1987 form in Grice 1989. Grice, H. P. 1969. Vacuous Names, in
Davidson and Hintikka, Words and objections. Dordrecht: Reidel, pp. Grice, H.
P. 1971. Intention and uncertainty, The British Academy. Oxford: Oxford
University Press. Grice, H. P. 1975. How pirots karulise elatically: some
simpler ways, The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC MSS 90/135c, The Bancroft Library,
University of California, Berkeley. Grice, H. P. 1982. Meaning Revisited, in N.
V. Smith, Mutual knowledge. London: Croom Helm, repr. in Grice 1989. Grice,
H.P. 1987. Retrospective epilogue, in Studies in the Way of Words. Grice, H. P.
1989. Studies in the way of words. London and Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Press. Hart, H. L. A. and S. N. Hampshire 1958. Intention, decision, and
certainty, Mind, 67:1-12.Kemmerling, A. M. 1986. Utterer’s meaning revisited,
in Grandy/Warner 1986. Kneale, W. C. and M. Kneale. 1966. The development of
logic. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Pecocke, C. A. B. 1989. Transcendental Arguments in the Theory of Content: An Inaugural Lecture Delivered
Before the University of Oxford on 16 May 1989. Oxford University Press.
Prichard, H. A. 1968. Moral Obligation and Duty and Interest. Essays and
Lectures, edited by
W. D. Ross and J. O. Urmson. Oxford: Oxford University. Stevenson,
C. L. 1944. Ethics and language. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.
Strawson, P. F. 1964 Intention and convention in speech acts, The Philosophical
Review, repr. in Logico-Linguistic Papers, London, Methuen, 1971, pp. 149-169 as Blackburn puts it in
his discussion of Grice in the intention-based chapter of his “Spreading the
word: groundings in the philosophy of language.” Intentio seconda or obliqua
bears heavily on Grice’s presentation for the Oxford Philosophical Society. The
motivation behind Grice’s analysis pertains to philosophical methodology. Grice
is legitimizing an ascription of ‘mean’ to a rational agent, such as … a
philosopher. This very ascription Grice finds to be ‘seemingly denied by
Wittgenstein’ (Grice 1986). As an exponent of what he would later and in jest
dub “The Post-War Oxonian School of ‘Ordinary-Language’ Philosophy,” Grice
engages in a bit of language botany, and dealing with the intricacies of
‘communicative’ uses of “mean.” Interestingly, and publicly – although a
provision is in order here – Grice acknowledges emotivist Stevenson, who
apparently taught Grice about ‘metabolic’ uses of “mean.” Stevenson, who read
English as a minor at Yale, would not venture to apply ‘mean’ to moans!
Realising it as a colloquial extension, he is allowed to use ‘mean,’ but in
scare quotes only! (“Smith’s reduced temperature ‘means’ that he is is
convalescent.” “There is a sense, to be sure, in
which a groan “means“ something, just a reduced temperature may at times ”mean”
convalescence.” Stevenson 1944:38). Close enough but no cigar. Stevenson
has ‘groan,’ which at least rhymes with ‘moan.’ (As for the proviso, Grice
never ‘meant’ to ‘publish’ his talk on ‘Meaning,’ but one of his tutees
submitted for publication, and on acceptance, Grice allowed the publication).
In “Meaning” Grice does not provide a conceptual analysis for, ‘by moaning, U
means [simpliciter] that p.’ He will in his “Meaning Revisited” – the
metabolical scare quotes are justified on two counts: ‘By moaning U means that
p’ is legitimized on the basis of the generic ‘x ‘means’ y iff x is a
consequence of y.’ But it is also justified on the basis that there is a
continuum between U’s involuntarily moaning thereby meaning that he is in pain,
and U’s voluntarily moaning, thereby ‘communicating’ that he is in pain.
However, and more importantly for our exploration of the ‘intentum,’ Grice
hastens to add that he does not agree with Stevenson’s purely ‘causal’ account.
The main reason is not ‘anti-naturalistic.’ It is just that Grice sees
Stevenson’s proposal as as involving a vicious circle. Typically, Grice
extrapolates the relevant quote from Stevenson, slightly out of context. Grice
refers to Stevenson’s appeal to "an elaborate process of conditioning
attending … communication."Grice: “If we have to take seriously the second
part of the qualifying phrase ("attending … communication"),
Stevenson’s account of meaning is obviously circular. We might just as well
say, "U means” if “U communicates,” which, though true, is not helpful. It
MIGHT be helpful for Cicero translating from Grecian to Roman: ‘com-municatio’
indeed translates a Grecian turn of phrase involving ‘what is common.’ f.
“con-” and root “mu-,” to bind; cf.: immunis, munus, moenia.’And the suggestion
would be helpful if we say that to ‘communicate,’ or ‘mean,’ is just to bring
some intentum to be allotted ‘common ground,’ because of the psi-transmission
it is shared between the emissor and his intended addressee. This one hopes is
both true AND ‘helpful.’ In
any case, Grice’s tutee Strawson later found Grice’s elucidation of utterer’s
meaning to be ‘objection-proof’ (Starwson and Wiggins, 2001) in terms of a set
of necessary and sufficient conditions, of an utterer or emissor E meaning that
p, by uttering ‘x,’ and appealing to primary and secondary intentionality. But
is Grice’s intentionalism a sort of behaviourism? Grice denies that in “Method”
calling ‘behaviourism’ ‘silly. Grice further explores intentio obliqua as it
pertains to his remarks towards a general theory of “re-presentation.” The
place where this excursus takes place is crucial. It is his Valediction to his
compilation of essays, Studies in the Way of Words, posthumously published. At
this stage, he must have felt that, what he once regarded krypto-technic in
Peirce, is no more! Grice has already identified in that ‘Valediction’ many
strands of his philosophical thought, and concludes his re-assessment of his
‘philosophy of language’ and semiotics with an attempt to provide some general
remarks about ‘to represent’ in general, perhaps to counter the allegations of
vicious circularity which his approach had received, seeing that “p” features,
as a ‘gap-sign,’ as the content of both an ‘expression’ and a ‘psychological’
attitude. In trying to reconcile his austere views on “Meaning,” back in that
evening at the Oxford Philosophical Society, where he distinguished two senses
of ‘mean’ (“Smoke ‘means’ fire,” and ““Smoke” means ‘smoke’”). By focusing on
the most general of verbs for a psychological state or attitude, ‘to
represent,’ that even allows for a non-psychological reading, Grice wants to be
seen as answering the challenge of an alleged vicious circle with which his
intention-based approach is usually associated. The secondary-intentional
non-iconic mode of representation rests on a prior iconic mode and can be
understood as ‘pre-conventional,’ without any explicit recourse to the features
we associate with a developed system of communication. Grice needs no ‘language
of thought’ or sermo mentalis alla Ockham there. Grice allows that one can
communicate fully without the need to use what more conventional philosophers
call ‘a language.’ Artists do it all the time!
The passage from intentio prima to full intentio seconda is, for Grice,
gradual and complex. Grice means to adhere with ‘ordinary’ discourse, in its implicatura
and dis-implicaata. The passage also adhering to a functionalist approach qua
‘method in philosophical psychology,’ as he’d prefer, that needs not to
postulate a full-blown ‘linguistic entity’ as the object of intentional
thought. In this respect, it is worth mentioning the work of C. A. B. Peacocke,
who knew Grice from his Oxford days and later joined his seminars at Berkeley,
and who has developed this line of thought in a better fashion than less
careful philosophers. Grice’s programme has occasionally, and justly, been
compared with phenomenological approaches to expression and communication, such
as Marty’s. It is hoped that the previous notes have shed some light on those
aspects where this interface can further be elaborated. Even as we leave an
intentio seconda to resume the discussion for a longer day. In his explorations
on the embedding of intensional concepts, Grice should be inspirational to
philosophers in more than one way, but especially in the one that he favoured
most: the problematicity of it all. As he put it in another context, when
defending absolute value. “Such
a defence of absolute value is of course, bristling with unsolved or
incompletely solved problems. I do not find this thought daunting. If
philosophy generated no new problems it would be dead, because it would be
finished; and if it recurrently regenerated the same old problems it would not
be alive because it could never begin. So those who still look to philosophy
for their bread-and-butter should pray that the supply of new problems never
dries up.” (Grice 1991). In the Graeco-Roman tradition, philosophers started to
use ‘intentio prima,’ ‘intentio secunda,’ ‘intentio tertia,’ and “… ad
infinitum,” as they would put it. In post-war Oxford, English philosopher H. P.
Grice felt the need. The formalist he was, he found subscribing numbers to embedded
intentions has a strong appeal for him. Grice’s main motivation is in the
philosophy of language, but as ancillary towards solving this or that problem
concerning the ‘linguistic’ methodology of his day. To appreciate Grice’s
contribution one need to abstract a little from his own historical
circumstances, or rather, place them in the proper context, and connect it with
the general history of philosophy. As a matter of history,
‘intentio prima,’ or ‘recta,’ as opposed to ‘obliqua,’ is part of Nicolai
Hartmann’s ‘mediaeval revival,’ as a reaction to mediaevalism having made scorn
by the likes of Rabelais that amused D. P. Henry. For the mediaeval
philosopher, to use Grice’s symbolism, was concerned with whether a chimaera
could eat ‘I2,’ a second intention. The mediaeval philosopher’s implicaturum
seems to be that a chimaera can easily eat ‘I1.’ Such a ‘quaestio
subtilissima,’ Rabelais jokes. If ‘I1,’ or, better, for
simplificatory purposes, ‘IR’ is a specific state, stance, or
attitude of the ‘soul,’ ‘ψ1’ or ‘ψR’ directed towards
its ‘de re’ ‘intentum,’ or ‘prae-sentatum,’ of the noumenon, ‘IO,’
‘intentio obliqua,’ is a state, stance, or attitude of the ‘soul,’ of the same
genus, ‘ψ2,’ or ‘ψS’ directed towards ‘ψR,’
its ‘de sensu’ ‘intentum’ now ‘re-prae-sentatum’ of the phainomenon or
ob-jectum (Abelard translates Aristotle’s ‘per divisionem’ as ‘de re’ and ‘per
compositionem’ and ‘per conjunctionem’ by ‘de sensu,’ and ‘per Soph. Elen.,
Kneale and Kneale, 1966). Grice’s intentionalism has been widely discussed, but
the defense he himself makes of intensionalism (versus extensionalism) has
proved inspiring, as when he assumes as an attending commentary to his
reductive analysis of the state of affairs by which the emissor communicates
that p, that he is putting forward “the legitimacy of [the] application of
[existential generalization] to a statement the expression of which contains
such [an] "intensional" verb[…] as "intend" (Grice 1989:
116 ). The expression ‘de sensu’ is due to Abelard, but Russell likes it. While
serving as Prince Regent of England in 1815, George IV casually remarks his
wish to meet ‘the author of Waverley’ in the flesh. The Prince was being funny,
you see. The prince would not know this, but when his press becomes embroiled in
pecuniary difficulties, Scotts set out to write a cash-cow. The result is
Waverley, a novel which did not name its author. It is a tale of the last
Jacobite rebellion in England, the “Forty-Five.” The novel meets with
considerable success. The next year, Scott. There follows a sequel, the same
general vein. Mindful of his reputation,
Scotts maintains the anonymous habit he displays with Waverley, and publishes
the sequel under “the Author of Waverley.” The identity “Author of Waverley” =
“Scott” is widely rumoured, and Scott is
given the honour of dining with George, Prince Regent, who had wished to
meet “Author of Waverley” in the flesh for a ‘snug little dinner’ at Carleton,
on hearing ‘the author of Waverley’ was in town. The use of a descriptor may
lead to the implicaturum that His Majesty is p’rhaps not sure that ‘the author
of Waverley’ has a name, and isR Scott. Lack of certainty is one
thing, yet, to quote from Russell, “an interest in the law of identity can
hardly be attributed to the first gentleman of Europe.” Grice admired Russell
profusely and one of his essays is wittily entitled, “Definite descriptions in
Russell and in the Vernacular,” so his explorations of ‘intentio’ ‘de sensu’
have an intrinsic interest. Keywords: H.
Paul Grice, intentio seconda, implicaturum, intentionalism, intentum, intentum de sensu,
‘that’-clause, the recte-oblique distinction. Grice explored issues of intentum
de sensu in various areas. First, ‘meaning.’ Second, ‘knowing.’ Third,
‘wanting.’ Fourth, ‘intending,’ Fifth, pirots, with incorrigibility and
privileged access. Sixth, morality and the regressus. Seventh, the continuum
and the unity. With Grice, it all starts, roughly, when Grice comes
up with a topic for a talk at The Oxford Philosophical Society.The Society is
holding one of those meetings, and Grice thinks of presenting a few conclusions
he had reached at his seminars on C. S. Peirce.What’s the good of an Oxford don
of keeping tidy lecture notes if you will not be able to lecture to a
philosophical addressee? Peirce is the philosopher on whom Grice choses to
lecture. In part, for “not being particularly popular on these shores,” and in
part because Grice noted the ‘heretic’ in Peirce with which he could
identify.Granted, at this stage, Grice disliked the un-Englishness of some of
Peirce’s over-Latinate jargon, what Grice finds the ‘krypto-technic.’ ‘Sign,’
‘symbol,’ ‘icon,’ and the rest of them!Instead, Grice thinks, initially for the
sake of his tutees and students – he was university lecturer -- sticking with
the simpler, ‘ordinary’, short English lexeme ‘mean.’A. M. Kemmerling, of all
people, who wrote the obituary for Grice for Synthese, has precisely cast
doubts on the ‘universal’ validity of Grice’s proposed conceptual reductive
analysis, notably in his Ph.D dissertation on ‘Meinen.’ Note the irony in Kemmerling’s title: Was Grice mit "Meinen" meint - Eine Rekonstruktion der Griceschen
Analyse rationaler Kommunikation.”
Nothing jocular in the subtitle, for this indeed is a reconstruction of
‘rational’ communication. The funny bit is in “Was mit “Meinen” Grice meint”!
In that very phrase, which is rhetorical, and allows for an answer, because ‘meinen’
is both mentioned and used, Kemmerling allows that he is ‘buying’ Grice’s idea
that his reductive analysis of ‘mean’ applies to German ‘meinen.’ Kemmerling is
also pointing to the ‘primacy’ (to use Suppes’s phrase) of ‘utterer’s’ or
‘emissor’s “communicatum” or ‘Meinung.” Kemmerling advertises his interest in
exploring on what _Grice_ means – by uttering ‘meinen,’ almost! As
Kemmerling notes, German ‘meinen,’ cognate via common Germanic with English
‘mean,’ (cf. Frisian ‘mein,’ – and Hazzlitt, “Bread, butter, and green cheese,
very good English, very good cheese”) is none other than ‘mean’ that Grice
means. And ‘Grice means’ is the only literal, i. e. non-metabolic use of the
verb Grice allows – as applied to a rational agent, which features in the subtitle
to Kemmerling’s dissertation. Thus one reads in Kluge, “Etymologische
Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 1881, of “meinen,”
rendered by J. F. Davis as ‘to think, opine, mean,’ from a MHG used to indicate, in Davis’s rendition,
‘to direct one's thoughts to, have in view, aim at, be affected towards a
person, love,’ OHG meinen, meinan, ‘to mean, think, say,
declare.’ = OS mênian,
Du. meenen, OE mœ̂nan, E mean (to this Anglo-Saxon mœ̂nan, cf. prob. moan – I know your meaning from your moaning),
all from WGmc. meinen, mainjan, ‘mênjan,’ and cognate with ‘man,’ ‘to think’ (cf. ‘mahnen,’ ‘Mann,’ and ‘Minne’). Kemmerling
is very apropos, because Grice engaged in philosophical discussion with him, as
testified by his perceptive contribution to P. G. R. I. C. E. (Kemmerling,
1986). On top, in his presentation for the Oxford Philosophical Society, Grice
wants to restrict the philosophical interest to ‘de sensu,’ the ‘that’-clause
(cf. the recte-oblique distinction), viz. not just ‘what Grice means,’ if this
is going to be expaned as ‘something wonderful.’ Not enough for Grice. It has
to be expanded, for the thing to have philosophical interest into a
‘propositional clause,’, an ‘intensional’ context, i. e., ‘Grice means that…’
Grice cavalierly dismisses other use of ‘mean,’ – notably the ubiquitous, ‘mean
to…’ – He will later explain his reason for this. It was after William James
provoked Prichard. For William James uttered: “I will that the distant table
slides on the floor toward me. It doesn’t’. Prichard turns this into the
conceptual priority of ‘will that…’ for which Grice gives him the credit he
deserved at a later lecture now on his being appointed a Fellow of The British
Academy (Grice, 1971). Strictly, what
Grice does in the Oxford Philosophical Socieety presentation is to distinguish
between various ‘mean’ and end up focusing on ‘mean’ as followed by a
‘that’-clause. In the typical Oxonian fashion, that Grice borrows (but never
returns) from J. C. Wilson, Grice has the IO as ‘meaning that
so-and-so’ (Grice, 1989: 217). Grice explicitly displays the primacy of a
reductive analysis of the conceptual circumstances involving an emissor
(Anglo-Saxon ‘utterer’) who ‘means’ that p. It will be a longer ‘shaggy-dog’
story Grice tells when he crosses the divide from ‘propositional’ (p) to
‘predicative’ ascriptions (“By uttering ‘Fido is shaggy,’ Grice means that the
dog is hairy-coated (Grice 1989). Grice notes that ‘metabolically,’ “mean,” at
least in English, can be applied to various other things, sometimes even
involving a ‘that’-clause. “By delivering his budget, the major means that we
will have a hard year.’ Grice finds that ‘but we won’t’ turns him into a
self-contradicter. In Grice’s usage, ‘x ‘means’ y’ iff ‘y is a consequence
[consequentia] of x’ --. Quite a departure from Old Frisian. If Hume’s
objection to the use of the verb ‘cause,’ is that it covers animistic beliefs
(“Charles I’s decapitation willed his death”), English allows for disimplicated
or loose ‘metabolic’ uses of ‘will’ (“It ‘will’ rain”) and ‘mean’ (Grice’s
moaning means that he is in pain).
desideratum: Qua volition,
a mental event involved with the initiation of action. ‘To will’ is sometimes
taken to be the corresponding verb form of ‘volition’. The concept of volition
is rooted in modern philosophy; contemporary philosophers have transformed it
by identifying volitions with ordinary mental events, such as intentions, or
beliefs plus desires. Volitions, especially in contemporary guises, are often
taken to be complex mental events consisting of cognitive, affective, and
conative elements. The conative element is the impetus – the underlying
motivation – for the action. A velleity is a conative element insufficient by
itself to initiate action. The will is a faculty, or set of abilities, that
yields the mental events involved in initiating action. There are three primary
theories about the role of volitions in action. The first is a reductive
account in which action is identified with the entire causal sequence of the
mental event (the volition) causing the bodily behavior. J. S. Mill, for
example, says: “Now what is action? Not one thing, but a series of two things:
the state of mind called a volition, followed by an effect. . . . [T]he two
together constitute the action” (Logic). Mary’s raising her arm is Mary’s
mental state causing her arm to rise. Neither Mary’s volitional state nor her
arm’s rising are themselves actions; rather, the entire causal sequence (the
“causing”) is the action. The primary difficulty for this account is
maintaining its reductive status. There is no way to delineate volition and the
resultant bodily behavior without referring to action. There are two
non-reductive accounts, one that identifies the action with the initiating
volition and another that identifies the action with the effect of the
volition. In the former, a volition is the action, and bodily movements are
mere causal consequences. Berkeley advocates this view: “The Mind . . . is to
be accounted active in . . . so far forth as volition is included. . . . In
plucking this flower I am active, because I do it by the motion of my hand,
which was consequent upon my volition” (Three Dialogues). In this century,
Prichard is associated with this theory: “to act is really to will something”
(Moral Obligation, 1949), where willing is sui generis (though at other places
Prichard equates willing with the action of mentally setting oneself to do
something). In this sense, a volition is an act of will. This account has come
under attack by Ryle (Concept of Mind, 1949). Ryle argues that it leads to a
vicious regress, in that to will to do something, one must will to will to do
it, and so on. It has been countered that the regress collapses; there is
nothing beyond willing that one must do in order to will. Another criticism of
Ryle’s, which is more telling, is that ‘volition’ is an obscurantic term of
art; “[volition] is an artificial concept. We have to study certain specialist
theories in order to find out how it is to be manipulated. . . . [It is like]
‘phlogiston’ and ‘animal spirits’ . . . [which] have now no utility” (Concept
of Mind). Another approach, the causal theory of action, identifies an action
with the causal consequences of volition. Locke, e.g., says: “Volition or
willing is an act of the mind directing its thought to the production of any
action, and thereby exerting its power to produce it. . . . [V]olition is
nothing but that particular determination of the mind, whereby . . . the mind
endeavors to give rise, continuation, or stop, to any action which it takes to
be in its power” (Essay concerning Human Understanding). This is a functional
account, since an event is an action in virtue of its causal role. Mary’s arm
rising is Mary’s action of raising her arm in virtue of being caused by her
willing to raise it. If her arm’s rising had been caused by a nervous twitch,
it would not be action, even if the bodily movements were photographically the
same. In response to Ryle’s charge of obscurantism, contemporary causal
theorists tend to identify volitions with ordinary mental events. For example,
Davidson takes the cause of actions to be beliefs plus desires and Wilfrid
Sellars takes volitions to be intentions to do something here and now. Despite
its plausibility, however, the causal theory faces two difficult problems: the
first is purported counterexamples based on wayward causal chains connecting
the antecedent mental event and the bodily movements; the second is provision of
an enlightening account of these mental events, e.g. intending, that does
justice to the conative element. See also ACTION THEORY, FREE WILL PROBLEM,
PRACTICAL REASONING, WAYWARD CAUSAL CHAIN. M.B. volition volition. Grice makes a double use of this. It should be thus two
entries. There’s the conversational desideratum, where a desideratum is like a
maxim or an imperative – and then there are two specific desiderata: the
desideratum of conversational clarity, and the desideratum of conversational
candour. Grice was never sure what adjective to use for the ‘desiderative.’ He
liked buletic. He liked desideratum because it has the co-relate
‘consideratum,’ for belief. He uses
‘deriderative’ and a few more! Of course what he means is a sub-psychological
modality, or rather a ‘soul.’ So he would apply it ‘primarily’ to the soul, as
Plato and Aristotle does. The ‘psyche’, or ‘anima’ is what is ‘desiderativa.’
The Grecians are pretty confused about this (but ‘boulemaic’ and ‘buletic’ are
used), and the Romans didn’t help. Grice is concerned with a
rational-desiderative, that takes a “that”-clause (or oratio obliqua), and qua
constructivist, he is also concerned with a pre-rational desiderative (he has
an essay on “Needs and Wants,” and his detailed example in “Method” is a
squarrel (sic) who needs a nut. On top, while Grice suggest s that it goes both
ways: the doxastic can be given a reductive analaysis in terms of the buletic,
and the buletic in terms of the doxastic, he only cares to provide the former.
Basically, an agent judges that p, if his willing that p correlates to a state
of affairs that satisfies his desires. Since he does not provide a reductive
analysis for Prichard’s willing-that, one is left wondering. Grice’s position
is that ‘willing that…’ attains its ‘sense’ via the specification, as a
theoretical concept, in some law in the folk-science that agents use to explain
their behaviour. Grice gets subtler when he deals with mode-markers for the
desiderative: for these are either utterer-oriented, or addressee-oriented, and
they may involve a buletic attitude itself, or a doxastic attitude. When
utterer-addressed, utterer wills that utterer wills that p. There is no closure
here, and indeed, a regressus ad infinitum is what Grice wants, since this regressus
allows him to get univeersabilisability, in terms of conceptual, formal, and
applicational kinds of generality. In this he is being Kantian, and Hareian.
While Grice praises Kantotle, Aristotle here would stay unashamedly
‘teleological,’ and giving priority to a will that may not be universalisable,
since it’s the communitarian ‘good’ that matters. what does Grice have to say
about our conversational practice? L and S have “πρᾶξις,” from “πράσσω,” and
which they render as ‘moral action,’ oποίησις, τέχνη;” “oποιότης,” “ἤθη καὶ
πάθη καὶ π.,” “oοἱ πολιτικοὶ λόγοι;” “ἔργῳ καὶ πράξεσιν, οὐχὶ λόγοις” Id.6.3;
ἐν ταῖς πράξεσι ὄντα τε καὶ πραττόμενα, “exhibited in actual life,” action in
drama, “oλόγος; “μία π. ὅλη καὶ τελεία.” With practical Grice means buletic.
Praxis involves acting, and surely Grice presupposes acting. By uttering, i. e.
by the act of uttering, expression x, U m-intends that p. Grice occasionally
refers to action and behaviour as the thing which an ascription of a
psychological state explains. Grice prefers the idiom of soul. Theres the
ratiocinative soul. Within the ratiocinative, theres the executive soul and the
merely administrative soul. Cicero had to translate Aristotle into prudentia,
every time Aristotle talked of phronesis. Grice was aware that the
terminology by Kant can be confusing. Kant used ‘pure’ reason for reason in the
doxastic realm. The critique by Kant of practical reason is hardly
symmetrical to his critique of doxastic reason. Grice, with his
æqui-vocality thesis of must (must crosses the buletic-boulomaic/doxastic
divide), Grice is being more of a symmetricalist. The buletic, boulomaic, or
volitive, is a part of the soul, as is the doxatic or judicative. And
judicative is a trick because there is such a thing as a value judgement, or an
evaluative judgement, which is hardly doxastic. Grice plays with two
co-relative operators: desirability versus probability. Grice invokes the
exhibitive/protreptic distinction he had introduced in the fifth James lecture,
now applied to psychological attitudes themselves. This Grice’s attempt is to
tackle the Kantian problem in the Grundlegung: how to derive the categorical
imperative from a counsel of prudence. Under the assumption that the protasis
is Let the agent be happy, Grice does not find it obtuse at all to construct a
universalisable imperative out of a mere motive-based counsel of prudence.
Grice has an earlier paper on pleasure which relates. The derivation involves
seven steps. Grice proposes seven steps in the derivation. 1. It is a
fundamental law of psychology that, ceteris paribus, for any creature R, for
any P and Q, if R wills P Λ judges if P, P as a result of Q, R wills
Q. 2. Place this law within the scope of a "willing" operator: R
wills for any P Λ Q, if R wills P Λ judges that if P, P as
a result of Q, R wills Q. 3. wills turns to should. If rational, R will have to
block unsatisfactory (literally) attitudes. R should (qua rational) judge for
any P Λ Q, if it is satisfactory to will that P Λ it is satisfactory
to judge that if P, P as a result of Q, it is sastisfactory to will that Q. 4.
Marking the mode: R should (qua rational) judge for any P Λ Q, if it
is satisfactory that !P Λ that if it .P, .P only as a result of Q, it
is satisfactory that !Q. 5. via (p & q -> r) -> (p
-> (q -> r)): R should (qua rational) judge for any
P Λ Q, if it is satisfactory that if .P, .P only because Q, i is
satisfactory that, if let it be that P, let it be that Q. 6. R should (qua
rational) judge for any P Λ Q, if P, P only because p yields if let
it be that P, let it be that Q. 7. For any P Λ Q if P, P only because
Q yields if let it be that P, let it be that Q. Grice was well aware that
a philosopher, at Oxford, needs to be a philosophical psychologist. So, wanting
and needing have to be related to willing. A plant needs water. A floor needs
sweeping. So need is too broad. So is want, a non-Anglo-Saxon root for God
knows what. With willing things get closer to the rational soul. There is
willing in the animal soul. But when it comes to rational willing, there must
be, to echo Pritchard, a conjecture, some doxastic element. You cannot will to
fly, or will that the distant chair slides over the floor toward you. So not
all wants and needs are rational willings, but then nobody said they would.
Grice is interested in emotion in his power structure of the soul. A need and a
want may count as an emotion. Grice was never too interested in needing and
wanting because they do not take a that-clause. He congratulates Urmson for
having introduced him to the brilliant willing that … by Prichard. Why is it,
Grice wonders, that many ascriptions of buletic states take to-clause, rather
than a that-clause? Even mean, as ‘intend.’ In this Grice is quite different
from Austin, who avoids the that-clause. The explanation by Austin is very
obscure, like those of all grammars on the that’-clause, the ‘that’ of ‘oratio
obliqua’ is not in every way similar to the ‘that’-clause in an explicit
performative formula. Here the utterer is not reporting his own ‘oratio’ in the
first person singular present indicative active. Incidentally, of course, it is
not in the least necessary that an explicit performative verb should be
followed by a ‘that’-clause. In important classes of cases it is followed by
‘to . . .,’ or by or nothing, e. g. ‘I apologize for…,’ ‘I salute you.’ Now
many of these verbs appear to be quite satisfactory pure performatives.
Irritating though it is to have them as such, linked with clauses that look
like statements, true or false, e. g., when I say ‘I prophesy that …,’ ‘I
concede that …’, ‘I postulate that …,’
the clause following normally looks just like a statement, but the verb itself
seems to be pure performatives. One may distinguish the performative
opening part, ‘I state that …,’ which makes clear how the utterance is to be
taken, that it is a statement, as distinct from a prediction, etc.), from the
bit in the that-clause which is required to be true or false. However, there
are many cases which, as language stands at present, we are not able to split
into two parts in this way, even though the utterance seems to have a sort of
explicit performative in it. Thus, ‘I liken x to y,’ or ‘I analyse x as y.’
Here we both do the likening and assert that there is a likeness by means of one
compendious phrase of at least a quasi-performative character. Just to spur us
on our way, we may also mention ‘I know that …’, ‘I believe that …’, etc. How
complicated are these examples? We cannot assume that they are purely
descriptive, which has Grice talking of the pseudo-descriptive. Want
etymologically means absence; need should be preferred. The squarrel (squirrel)
Toby needs intake of nuts, and youll soon see gobbling them! There is not much
philosophical bibliography on these two psychological states Grice is
analysing. Their logic is interesting. Smith wants to play cricket. Smith
needs to play cricket. Grice is concerned with the propositional
content attached to the want and need predicate. Wants that sounds harsh;
so does need that. Still, there are propositional attached to the pair
above. Smith plays cricket. Grice took a very cavalier attitude to what
linguists spend their lives analysing. He thought it was surely not the
job of the philosopher, especially from a prestigious university such as
Oxford, to deal with the arbitrariness of grammatical knots attached to this or
that English verb. He rarely used English, but stuck with ordinary
language. Surely, he saw himself in the tradition of Kantotle, and so,
aiming at grand philosophical truths: not conventions of usage, even his
own! 1. Squarrel Toby has a nut, N, in front of him. 2. Toby is short on
squarrel food (observed or assumed), so, 3. Toby wills squarrel food (by
postulate of Folk Pyschological Theory θ connecting willing with
intake of N). 4. Toby prehends a nut as in front (from (1) by Postulate of Folk
Psychological Theory θ, if it is assumed that nut and in front are
familiar to Toby). 5. Toby joins squarrel food with gobbling, nut, and in front
(i.e. Toby judges gobbling, on nut in front, for squarrel food (by Postulate of
Folk Psychological Theory θ with the aid of prior observation. So,
from 3, 4 and 5, 6. Tobby gobbles; and since a nut is in front of him, gobbles
the nut in front of him. The system of values of the society to which the agent
belongs forms the external standard for judging the relative importance of the
commitments by the agent. There are three dimensions of value: universally
human, cultural that vary with societies and times; and personal that vary with
individuals. Each dimension has a standard for judging the adequacy of the
relevant values. Human values are adequate if they satisfy basic needs;
cultural values are adequate if they provide a system of values that sustains
the allegiance of the inhabitants of a society; and personal values are
adequate if the conceptions of well‐being
formed out of them enable individuals to live satisfying lives. These values
conflict and our well‐being requires some way of settling their conflicts, but
there is no universal principle for settling the conflicts; it can only be done
by attending to the concrete features of particular conflicts. These features
vary with circumstances and values. Grice reads Porter.The idea of the value
chain is based on the process view of organizations, the idea of seeing a
manufacturing (or service) organization as a system, made up of subsystems each
with inputs, transformation processes and outputs. Inputs, transformation
processes, and outputs involve the acquisition and consumption of resources –
money, labour, materials, equipment, buildings, land, administration and
management. How value chain activities are carried out determines costs and
affects profits.In his choice of value system and value sub-system, Grice is
defending objectivity, since it is usually the axiological relativist who uses
such a pretentious phrasing! More than a value may co-ordinate in a system. One
such is eudæmonia (cf. system of ends). The problem for Kant is the reduction
of the categorical imperative to the hypothetical or
suppositional imperative. For Kant, a value tends towards the
Subjectsive. Grice, rather, wants to offer a metaphysical defence of objective
value. Grice called the manual of conversational maxims the Conversational
Immanuel. The keyword to search the H. P. Grice is ‘will,’ and ‘volitional,’
even ‘ill-will,’ (“Metaphysics and ill-will,” s. V, c. 7-f. 28) and
‘benevolence’ (vide below under ‘conversational benevolence”). Also
‘desirability’: “Modality, desirability, and probability,” s. V, c. 8-ff.
14-15, and the conference lecture in a different series, “Probability,
desirability, and mood operators,” s. II, c. 2-f.11). Grice makes systematic use of ‘practical’ to
contrast with the ‘alethic,’ too (“Practical reason,” s. V, c. 9-f.1), The H.
P. Grice Papers, BANC.
desideratum of conversational
candour: The term ‘desideratum’ has to be
taken seriously. It involves freedom. This includes the maximin. It should be
noted that candour is DESIRABLE. There is a desirability for candour. Candour
is not a given. Ditto for clarity. See conversational desideratum, simpliciter.
A rational desideratum is a desideratum by a rational agent and which he
expects from another rational agent. One should make the strongest move, and on
the other hand try not to mislead.Grice's Oxford "Conversation"
Lectures, 1966Grice: Between Self-Love and Benevolence As I was saying
(somewhere), Grice uses "self-love", charmingly qualified with capitals, as "Conversational
Self-Love", and, less charmingly,
"Conversational Benevolence", in lectures advertised at
Oxford, as "Logic and
Conversation" that he gave at Oxford in 1964 as
"University Lecturer in
Philosophy". He also gave seminars on "Conversational
helpfulness." A number of the lectures by Grice include discussion of
thetypes of behaviour people in general exhibit, and thereforethe types of
expectations[cfr. owings]they might bring to a venture such as a conversation.Grice
suggests that people in general both exhibitand EXPECT a certain degree of
helpfulness [-- alla Rosenschein, epistemic/boulemaic:If A cognizes that B
wills p, then A wills p.] "from
OTHERS" [-- reciprocal vs. reflexive, etc.] usually on the understanding
that such helpfulness does NOT get in the way of particular goals and does not
involve undue effort cf. least effort? - cfr. Hobbes on self-love. It two
people, even complete strangers,are going through a gate, the expectation
isthat the FIRST ONE through will hold thegate open, or at least leave it open,
for thesecond. The expectation is such that todo OTHERWISE without particular
reasonwould be interpreted as RUDE. The type of helpfulness exhibited
andexpected in conversation is more specificbecause of a particular, although
not a unique feature of conversation.It is a COLLABORATIVE venture betweenthe
participants.There is a SHARED aimGrice wonders. His words, Does "helpfulness in something WE ARE
DOING TOGETHER” equate to 'cooperation'?He seems to have decided that it
does. By the later lectures in the series, 'the principle of conversational
helpfulness'has been rebranded the expectation of 'cooperation.' During the
Oxford lectures, Grice develops his account of the precise nature of this
cooperation. It can be seen as governed by certain regularities, or principles,
detailing expected behaviour. The expression'maxim' to describe these
regularities appears relatively late in the lectures.Grice's INITIAL choices of
terms are 'objectives' and 'desiderata'.He was particularly fond of the latter.
He was interested in detailing the desirable forms of behaviour for the purpose
of achieving a joint goal of the conversation. Initially, Grice posits TWO such
desiderata. Those relating to candour on the one hand and clarity on the other.
The desideratum of candour contains his general PRINCIPLE of making the
strongest (MAX) possible statement and, as a LIMITING (MAX) factor on this, the
suggestion that speakers should try not to mislead. (Do not mislead). cfr.
our"We are brothers"-- but not mutual."We are married to each
other". "You _are_ a boor".----The desideratum of conversational
clarity concerns the manner of expression. [His later reference to Modus or
Mode as used by Kant as one of the four
categories] for any conversational contribution. It includes the IMPORTANT
expectations of relevance to understanding and also insists that the main
import of an utterance be clear and explicit. (“Explicate!”) These two factors
are constantly to be WEIGHED against two
FUNDAMENTAL and SOMETIMES COMPETING DEMANDS. Contributions to a conversation
are aimed towards the agreed current purposes by the PRINCIPLE of Conversational
Benevolence. The principle of CONVERSATIONAL SELF-LOVE ensures the assumption
on the part of both participants that neither will go to unnecessary trouble
[LEAST EFFORT] in framing their contribution. This has been a topic of interest
to Noh end. In "Conversational Immanuel" Grice tries different ways
of making sense -- it is very easy to do so -- of Grice's distinctions that go
over the head of some linguists I know! Reasonable versus rational for example.
A Rawlsian distinction of sorts. Rational is too weak. We need 'reasonable'.
So, what sort of reasonableness is that which results from this harmonious, we
hope, clash of self-love and benevolence? Grice tried, wittily, to extend the
purposes of conversation to involve MUTUALLY INFLUENCING EACH OTHER -- a
reciprocal. (WoW, ii). And there's a mythical reconstruction of this in his
"Meaning Revisited" which he contributed to this symposium organised
by N. Smith on Mutua knowledge. But issues remains, we hope. The concept of
‘candour’is especially basic for Grice since it is constitutive of what it
means to identify the ‘significatum.’ As he notes, ‘false’ information is no
information. This is serious, because it has to do with the acceptum. A
contribution which is not trustworthy is not deemed a contribution. It is
conceptually impossible to intend to PROVIDE information if you are aware that
you are not being trustworthy and not conveying it. As for the degree of
explicitness, as Grice puts it. Since in communication in a certain fashion all
must be public, if an idea or thesis is heavily obscured, it can no longer be
regarded as having been propounded. This gives acceptum justification to the
correlative desideratum of conversational clarity. On top, if there is a level
of obscurity, the thing is not deemed to have been a communicatum or
significatum. It is all about confidence, you know. U expects A will find him
confident. Thus we find in Short and Lewis, “confīdo,” wich they render as
“to trust confidently in something,” and also, “confide in, rely firmly upon,
to believe, be assured of,” as an enhancing of “sperare,” in Cicero’s Att. 6,
9, 1. Trust and rationality are pre-requisites of conversation. Urmson develops
this. They phrase in Urmson is "implied claim." Whenever U makes a
conversational contribution in a standard context, there is an implied claim to
U being trustworthy and reasonable. What do Grice and Urmson mean by an
"implied claim"? It is obvious enough, but they both love to expand.
Whenever U utters an expression which can be used to convey truth or falsehood
there is an implied claim to trustworthiness by U, unless the situation shows
that this is not so. U may be acting or reciting or incredulously echoing the
remark of another, or flouting the expectation. This, Grice and Urmson think,
may need an explanation. Suppose that U utters, in an ordinary
circumstance, ‘It will rain tomorrow,’ or ‘It rained yesterday,’ or ‘It is
raining.’ This act carries with it the claim that U should be trusted and
licenses A to believe that it will rain tomorrow. By this is meant that
just as it is understood that no U will give an order unless he is entitled to
give orders, so it is understood that no U will utter a sentence of a kind
which can be used to make a statement unless U is willing to claim that that
statement is true, and hence one would be acting in a misleading manner if one
uttered the sentence if he was not willing to make that claim. Here, the
predicate “implies that …,” Grice, Grant, Moore, Nowell-Smith, and Urmson
hasten to add, is being used in such a way that, if there is a an expectation
that a thing is done in Circumstance C, U implies that C holds if he does the
thing. The point is often made if not always in the terms Grice uses, and it
is, Urmson and Grice believe, in substance uncontroversial. Grice and Urmson
wish to make the point that, when an utterer U deploys a hedge with an indicative
sentence, there is not merely an implied claim that the whole statement is true
but also that is true. The implied or expressed claim by the utterer to
trustworthiness need not be very strong. The whole point of a hedge is to
modify or weaken (if not, as Grice would have it, flout) the claim by U to full
trustworthiness which would be implied by the unhedged assertion. But
even if U utters “He is, I suppose, at home;” or “I guess that the penny
will come down heads," U expresses, or for Urmson plainly implies,
with however little reason, that this is what U accepts as worth the trust by
A. Now Grice and Urmson meet an objection which is made by some philosophers to
this comparison. Grice and Urmson intend to meet the objection by a fairly
detailed examination of the example which they themselves would most likely
choose. In doing this Grice and Urmson further explain the use of a
parenthetical verb. The adverb is "probably" and the verb is “I
believe.” To say, that something is probable, the imaginary objector will say,
is to imply that it is reasonable to believe, that the evidence justifies a
guarded claim for the trust or trustworthiness of U and the truth of the
statement. But to say that someone else, a third person, believes something
does not imply that it is reasonable for U or A to believe it, nor that the
evidence justifies the guarded or implied claim to factivity or truth which U
makes. Therefore, the objector continues, the difference between the use
of “I believe” and “probably” is not, as Grice and Urmson suggest, merely one
of nuance and degree of impersonality. In one case, “probably,” reasonableness
is implied; in the other, “believe,” it is not. This objection is met by Grice
and Urmson. They do so by making a general point. To use the rational-reasonable
distinction in “Conversational implicaturum” and “Aspects,” there is an implied
claim by U to reasonableness. Further to an implied claim to trust
whenever a sentence is uttered in a standard context, now Grice and Urmson add,
to meet the sceptical objection about the contrast between “probably” and “I
believe” that, whenever U makes a statement in a standard context there is an
implied claim to reasonableness. This contention must be explained alla
Kant. Cf. Strawson on the presumption of conversational relevance, and
Austin, Moore, Nowell-Smith, Grant, and Warnock. To use Hart’s
defeasibility, and Hall’s excluder, unless U is acting or story-telling, or
preface his remarks with some such phrase as “I know Im being silly, but
…” or, “I admit it is unreasonable, but …” it is, Grice and
Urmson think, a presupposition or expectation of communication or conversation
that a communicator will not make a statement, thereby implying this trust,
unless he has some ground, however tenuous, for the statement. To
utter “The King is visiting Oxford tomorrow,” or “The President of the BA has a
corkscrew in his pocket,” and then, when asked why the utterer is uttering
that, to answer “Oh, for no reason at all,” would be to sin, theologically,
against the basic conventions governing the use of discourse. Grice goes on to
provide a Kantian justification for that, hence his amusing talk of maxims and
stuff. Therefore, Urmson and Grice think there is an implied or expressed
claim to reasonableness which goes with all our statements, i.e.
there is a mutual expectation that a communicator will not make a statement
unless he is prepared to claim and defend its reasonablenesss. Cf. Grice’s
desideratum of conversational candour, subsumed under the over-arching
principle of conversational helpfulness (formerly conversational
benevolence-cum-self-love). Grice thinks that the principle of
conversational benevolence has to be weighed against the principle of
conversational self-love. The result is the overarching principle of
conversational helpfulness. Clarity gets in the picture. The desideratum of
conversational clarity is a reasonable requirement for conversants to abide
by. Grice follows some observations by Warnock. The logical grammar
of “trust,” “candour,” “charity,” “sincerity,” “decency,” “honesty,” is subtle,
especially when we are considering the two sub-goals of conversation: giving
and receiving information/influencing and being influenced by others. In both
sub-goals, trust is paramount. The explorations of trust has become an Oxonian
hobby, with authors not such like Warnock, but Williams, and
others. Grice’s essay is entitled, “Trust, metaphysics, value.” Trust as a
corollary of the principle of conversational helpfulness. In a given conversational
setting, assuming the principle of conversational helpfulness is operating, U
is assumed by A to be trustworthy and candid. There are two modes of
trust, which relate to the buletic sub-goal and the doxastic sub-goal which
Grice assumes the principle of conversational helpfulness captures:
giving and receiving information, and influencing and being influenced by
others. In both sub-goals, trust is key. In the doxastic realm, trust
has to do, not so much or only, with truth (with which the expression is cognate),
or satisfactoriness-value, but evidence and probability. In the buletic realm,
there are the dimensions of satisfactoriness-value (‘good’ versus ‘true’), and
‘ground’ versus evidence, which becomes less crucial. But note that one is
trustworthy regarding BOTH the buletic attitude and the doxastic attitude.
Grice mentions this or that buletic attitudes which is not usually judged in
terms of evidential support (“I vow to thee my country.”) However, in the
buletic realm, U is be assumed as trustworthy if U has the buletic attitude he
is expressing. The cheater, the insincere, the dishonest, the untrustworthy,
for Grice is not irrational, just repugnant. How immoral is the idea that
honesty is the best policy? Is Kant right in thinking there is no right to
refrain from trust? Surely it is indecent. For Kant, there is no motivation or
‘motive,’ pure or impure, behind telling the truth – it’s just a right, and an
obligation – an imperative. Being trustworthy for Kant is associated with a
pure motive. Grice agrees. Decency comes into the picture. An indecent agent
may still be rational, but in such a case, conversation may still be seen as
rational (if not reasonable) and surely not be seen as rational helpfulness or
co-operation, but rational adversarial competition, rather, a zero-sum game.
Grice found the etymology of ‘decent’ too obscure. Short and Lewis have
“dĕcet,” which they deem cognate with Sanscrit “dacas,” ‘fame,’ and Grecian
“δοκέω,‘to seem,’ ‘to think,’ and with Latin ‘decus,’ ‘dingus.’ As an impersonal
verb, Short and Lewis render it as ‘it is seemly, comely, becoming,; it
beseems, behooves, is fitting, suitable, proper (for syn. v. debeo init.):
decere quasi aptum esse consentaneumque tempori et personae, Cic. Or. 22, 74;
cf. also nunc quid aptum sit, hoc est, quid maxime deceat in oratione videamus,
id. de Or. 3, 55, 210 (very freq. and class.; not in Caesar). Grice’s idea of
decency is connected to his explorations on rational and reasonable. To cheat
may be neither unreasonable nor rational. It is just repulsive. Indecent,
in other words. In all this, Grice is concerned with ordinary language,
and treasures Austin questioning Warnock, when Warnock was pursuing a
fellowship at Magdalen. “What would you say the difference is between ‘Smith plays
cricket rather properly’ and ‘Smith plays cricket rather incorrectly’?” They
spent the whole dinner over the subtlety. By desserts, Warnock was in love with
Austin. Cf. Grice on his prim and proper Aunt Matilda. The exploration by
Grice on trust is Warnockian in character, or vice versa. In “Object of
morality,” Warnock has trust as key, as indeed, the very object of morality.
Grice starts to focus on trust in an Oxford seminars on the implicaturum. If
there is a desideratum of conversational candour, and the goal of the principle
of conversational helpfulness is that of giving and receiving information, and
influencing and being influenced by others, ‘false’ ‘information’ is just no
information – Since exhibiteness trumps protrepsis, this applies to the buletic,
too. Grice loved that Latin dictum, “tuus candor.” He makes an early defence of
this in his fatal objection to Malcolm. A philosopher cannot intentionally
instill a falsehood in his tutee, such as “Decapitation willed the death of
Charles I” (the alleged paraphrase of the paradoxical philosopher saying that
‘causing’ is ‘willing’ and rephrasing “Decapitation was the cause of the death
of Charles I.” There is, for both Grice and Apel, a transcendental (if weak)
justification, not just utilitarian (honesty as the best policy), as Stalnaker
notes in his contribution to the Grice symposium for APA. Unlike Apel, the
transcendental argument is a weak one in that Grice aims to show that
conversation that did not abide by trust would be unreasonable, but surely
still ‘possible.’ It is not a transcendental justification for the ‘existence’
of conversation simpliciter, but for the existence of ‘reasonable,’ decent
conversation. If we approach charity in the first person, we trust ourselves
that some of our beliefs have to be true, and that some of our desires have to
be satisfactory valid, and we are equally trusted by our conversational
partners. This is Grice’s conversational golden rule. What would otherwise be
the point of holding that conversation is rational co-operation? What would be
the point of conversation simpliciter? Urmson follows Austin, so Austin’s
considerations on this, notably in “Other minds,” deserve careful examination.
Urmson was of course a member of Grice’s play group, and these are the philosophers
that we consider top priority. Another one was P. H. Nowell-Smith. At least two
of his three rules deserve careful examination. Nowell-Smith notes that this or that ‘rule’
of contextual implication is not meant to be taken as a ‘rigid rule’. Unlike
this or that rule of entailment, a conversational rule can be broken without
the utterer being involved in self-contradiction or absurdity. When U uses an
expression to make a statement, it is contextually implied that he believes it
to be true. Similarly, when he uses it to perform any of the other jobs for
which sentences are used, it is contextually implied that he is using it for
one of the jobs that it normally does. This rule is often in fact broken.
Anti-Kantian lying, Bernhard-type play-acting, Andersen-type story-telling, and
Wildeian irony is each a case in which U breaks the rule, or flouts the
expectation, either overtly or covertly. But each of these four cases is a
secondary use, i.e. a use to which an expression cannot logically or conceptually
be put unless, as Hart would have it, it has a primary use. There is no limit
to the possible uses to which an expression may be put. In many cases a man
makes his point by deliberately using an expression in a queer way or even
using it in the ‘sense’ opposite to its unique normal one, as in irony (“He is
a fine friend,” implying that he is a scoundrel). The distinction between a
primary and a secondary use is important because many an argument used by a
philosopher consists in pointing out some typical example of the way in which
some expression E is used. Such an argument is always illegitimate if the
example employed is an example of a secondary use, however common such a use
may be. U contextually implies that he has what he himself believes to be good
reasons for his statement. Once again, we often break this rule and we have
special devices for indicating when we are breaking it. Phrases such as
‘speaking offhand …,’ 'I do not really know but …,’ and ‘I should be inclined
to say that …,’ are used by scrupulous persons to warn his addressee that U has
not got what seem to him good reasons for his statement. But unless one of
these guarding phrases is used we are entitled to believe that U believes
himself to have good reasons for his statement and we soon learn to *mistrust*
people who habitually infringe this rule. It is, of course, a mistake to infer
from what someone says categorically that he has in fact good reasons for what
he says. If I tell you, or ‘inform’ to you, that the duck-billed platypus is a
bird (because I ' remember ' reading this in a book) I am unreliable; but I am
not using language improperly. But if I tell you this without using one of the
guarding phrases and without having what I think good reasons, I am. What U
says may be assumed to be relevant to the interests of his addressee. This is
the most important of the three rules; unfortunately it is also the most
frequently broken. Bores are more common than liars or careless talkers. This
rule is particularly obvious in the case of answers to questions, since it is
assumed that the answer is an answer. Not all statements are answers to
questions; information may be volunteered. Nevertheless the publication of a
text-book on trigonometry implies that the author believes that there are
people who want to learn about trigonometry, and to give advice implies a
belief that the advice is relevant to one’s addressee's problem. This rule is
of the greatest importance for ethics. For the major problem of ethics is that
of bridging the gap between a decisions, an ought-sentence, an injunction, and
a sentence used to give advice on the one hand and the statements of *fact*,
sometime regarding the U’s soul, that constitute the reasons for these on the
other. It is in order to bridge these gaps that insight into necessary
synthetic connexions is invoked. This rule of contextual implication may help
us to show that there is no gap to be bridged because the reason-giving
sentence must turn out to be also *practical* from the start and not a statement
of *fact*, even concerning the state of the U’s soul, from which a practical
sentence can somehow be deduced. This rule is, therefore, more than a rule of
good manners; or rather it shows how, in matters of ordinary language, rules of
good manners shade into logical rules. Unless we assume that it is being
observed we cannot understand the connexions between decisions, advice, and
appraisals and the reasons given in support of them. Refs.: The main reference is in the first set of ‘Logic and
conversation.’ Many keywords are useful, not just ‘candour,’ but notably
‘trust.’ (“Rationality and trust,” c. 9-f. 5, “Trust, metaphysics, and value,”
c. 9-f. 20, and “Aristotle and friendship, rationality, trust, and decency,” c.
6-f. 18), BANC.
desideratum of conversational
clarity. There is some overlap here with
Grice’s category of conversational manner – of Grice’s maxim of conversational
perspicuity [sic] – and at least one of the maxims proper, ‘obscuirty
avoidance,’ or maxim of conversational obscurity avoidance. But at Oxford he
defined the philosopher as the one whose profession it is to makes clear things
obscure. The word desideratum has to be taken seriously. It involves freedom.
In what way is “The pillar box seems red to me” less perspicuous than “The
pillar box is red”? In all! If mutual expectation not to mislead and produce
the stronger contribution are characteristics of candour, expectation of mutual
relevance to interests, and being explicit and clear in your point are two
characteristics of this desideratum. “Candour” and “clarity’ are somewhat
co-relative for Grice. He is interested in identifying this or that
desideratum. By having two of them, he can play. So, how UNCLEAR can a
conversationalist be provided he WANTS to be candid? Candour trumps clarity.
But too much ‘unperspicuity’ may lead to something not being deemed an ‘implicaturum’
at all. Grice is especially concerned with philosopher’s paradoxes. Why would
Strawson say that the usage of ‘not,’ ‘and,’ ‘or,’ ‘if,’ ‘if and only if,’
‘all,’ ‘some (at least one), ‘the,’ do not correspond to the logician’s use?
Questions of candour and clarity interact. Grice’s first application, which he
grants is not original, relates to “The pillar box seems red” versus “The
pillar box is red.” “I would not like to give the false impression that the
pillar box is not red” seems less clear than “The pillar box is red” – Yet the
unperspicuous contributin is still ‘candid,’ in the sense that it expresses a
truth. So one has to be careful. On top, philosophers like Lewis were using
‘clarity is not enough’ as a battle cry! Grice’s favourite formulations of the
imperatives here are ‘self-contradictory,’ and for which he uses ‘[sic]’,
notably: “Be perspicuous [sic]’ and “Be brief. Avoid unnecessary prolixity
[sic].’
desirability: Correlative: credibility. For Grice, credibility reduces
to desirability (He suggests that the reverse may also be possible but does not
give a proposal). This Grice calls the Jeffrey operator. If Urmson likes
‘probably,’ Grice likes ‘desirably.’ This theorem is a corollary of the
desirability axiom by Jeffrey, which is: "If prob XY = 0, for a prima facie PF(A V B) A (x E w)] = PFA A (x E w)] + PfB A
(x El+ w)]. This is the account by Grice of the adaptability of a pirot to its
changeable environs. Grice borrows the notion of probability (henceforth,
“pr”) from Davidson, whose early claim to fame was to provide the logic of the
notion. Grice abbreviates probability by Pr. and compares it to a buletic operator
‘pf,’ ‘for prima facie,’ attached to ‘De’ for desirability. A rational agent
must calculate both the probability and the desirability of his action. For
both probability and desirability, the degree is crucial. Grice symbolises this
by d: probability in degree d; probability in degree d. The topic of life
Grice relates to that of adaptation and surival, and connects with his
genitorial programme of creature construction (Pology.): life as continued
operancy. Grice was fascinated with life (Aristotle, bios) because bios is what
provides for Aristotle the definition (not by genus) of psyche. The steps
are as follows. Pf(p ⊃!q)/Pr(p ⊃ q); pf((p1 ^ p2) ⊃!q)/pr(p1
^ p2 ⊃q);
pf((p1 ^ p2 ^ p3) ⊃!q)/pr(p1 ^ p2 ^ p3 ^ p4 ⊃q);
pf (all things before me ⊃!q)/pr (all things before me ⊃
q); pf (all things considered ⊃ !q)/pr(all things considered ⊃ q); !q/|- q; G wills !q/G judges q. Strictly, Grice avoids using
the noun probability (other than for the title of this or that lecture). One
has to use the sentence-modifier ‘probably,’ and ‘desirably.’ So the specific
correlative to the buletic prima facie ‘desirably’ is the doxastic ‘probably.’
Grice liked the Roman sound to ‘prima facie,’ ‘at first sight’: “exceptio, quae prima facie justa videatur.” Refs.:
The two main sources are “Probability, desirability, and mood operators,” c.
2-f. 11, and “Modality, desirability and probability,” c. 8-ff. 14-15. But most
of the material is collected in “Aspects,” especially in the third and fourth
lectures. The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC.
detachability. A rather abstract notion. One thinks of ‘detach’ in
physical terms (‘semi-detached house’). Grice means it in an abstract way. To
detach – what is it that we detach? We detach an implicaturum. Grice is not so
much concerned with how to DETACH an implicaturum, but how sometimes you
cannot. It’s NON-detachability that is the criterion. And this should be a
matter of a prioricity. However, since style gets in the picture, he has to
allow for exceptions to this criterion. A conversational, even philosophically interesting
one, generated by the conversational category of modus (as the maxim of
orderliness: “he went to bed and took off his boots”) is detachable. How to
interpret this in an one-off predicament. Cf. non-detachability. And the other
features or tests or catalysts that Grice uses. In Causal Theory of Perception,
the ideas are FOUR, which he nicely summarises in WoW on the occasion of
eliminating the excursus. And then he expands on Essay II, as an update. His
tutees at Oxford are aware of the changes. Few care, though. Even his
colleagues don’t, they are into their own things. So let’s compare the two
versions of the catalysts in Causal and Essay II. Version of the four catalysts
up to the first two examples in “Causal”: The first cxample is a stock case of what
is sometimes called " prcsupposition " and it is often held that here
1he truth of what is irnplicd is a necessary condition of the original
statement's beirrg cither true or false. This might be disputed, but it is at
lcast arguable that it is so, and its being arguable might be enough to
distinguish-this type of case from others. I shall however for convenience
assume that the common view mentioned is correct. This consideration clearly
distinguishes (1) from (2); even if the implied proposition were false, i.e. if
there were no reason in the world to contrast poverty with honesty either in
general or in her case, the original statement could still be false; it would
be false if for example she were rich and dishonest. One might perhaps be less
comfortable about assenting to its truth if the implied contrast did not in
fact obtain; but the possibility of falsity is enough for the immediate
purpose. My next experiment on these examples is to ask what it is in each case
which could properly be said to be the vehicle of implication (to do the
implying). There are at least four candidates, not necessarily mutually
exclusive. Supposing someone to have uttered one or other of my sample
sentences, we may ask whether the vehicle of implication would be (a) what the
speaker said (or asserted), or (b) the speaker (" did he imply that . . .
.':) or (c) the words the speaker used, or (d) his saying that (or again his
saying that in that way); or possibly some plurality of these items. As regards
(a) I think (1) and (2) differ; I think it would be correct to say in the case
of (l) that what he speaker said (or asserted) implied that Smith had been
beating this wife, and incorrect to say in the case of (2) that what te said
(or asserted) implied that there was a contrast between e.g., honesty and
poverty. A test on which I would rely is the following : if accepting that the
implication holds involves one in r27 128 H. P. GRICE accepting an
hypothetical' if p then q ' where 'p ' represents the original statement and '
q' represents what is implied, then what the speaker said (or asserted) is a
vehicle of implication, otherwise not. To apply this rule to the given
examples, if I accepted the implication alleged to hold in the case of (1), I
should feel compelled to accept the hypothetical " If Smith has left off
beating his wife, then he has been beating her "; whereas if I accepted
the alleged implication in the case of (2), I should not feel compelled to
accept the hypothetical " If she was poor but honest, then there is some
contrast between poverty and honesty, or between her poverty and her
honesty." The other candidates can be dealt with more cursorily; I should
be inclined to say with regard to both (l) and (2) that the speaker could be
said to have implied whatever it is that is irnplied; that in the case of (2)
it seems fairly clear that the speaker's words could be said to imply a
contrast, whereas it is much less clear whether in the case of (1) the
speaker's words could be said to imply that Smith had been beating his wife;
and that in neither case would it be evidently appropriate to speak of his
saying that, or of his saying that in that way, as implying what is implied.
The third idea with which I wish to assail my two examples is really a twin
idea, that of the detachability or cancellability of the implication. (These
terms will be explained.) Consider example (1): one cannot fi.nd a form of
words which could be used to state or assert just what the sentence "
Smith has left off beating his wife " might be used to assert such that
when it is used the implication that Smith has been beating his wife is just
absent. Any way of asserting what is asserted in (1) involves the irnplication
in question. I shall express this fact by saying that in the case of (l) the
implication is not detqchable from what is asserted (or simpliciter, is not
detachable). Furthermore, one cannot take a form of words for which both what
is asserted and what is implied is the same as for (l), and then add a further
clause withholding commitment from what would otherwise be implied, with the
idea of annulling the implication without annulling the assertion. One cannot
intelligibly say " Smith has left off beating his wife but I do not mean
to imply that he has been beating her." I shall express this fact by
saying that in the case of (1) the implication is not cancellable (without THE
CAUSAL THEORY OF PERCEPTION r29 cancelling the assertion). If we turn to (2) we
find, I think, that there is quite a strong case for saying that here the implication
ls detachable. Thcrc sccms quitc a good case for maintaining that if, instead
of sayirrg " She is poor but shc is honcst " I were to say " She
is poor and slre is honcst", I would assert just what I would havc
asscrtcct ii I had used thc original senterrce; but there would now be no
irnplication of a contrast between e.g', povery and honesty. But the question
whether, in tl-re case of (2), thc inrplication is cancellable, is slightly
more cornplex. Thcrc is a sonse in which we may say that it is non-cancellable;
if sorncone were to say " She is poor but she is honest, though of course
I do not mean to imply that there is any contrast between poverty and honesty
", this would seem a puzzling and eccentric thing to have said; but though
we should wish to quarrel with the speaker, I do not think we should go so far
as to say that his utterance was unintelligible; we should suppose that he had
adopted a most peculiar way of conveying the the news that she was poor and
honesl. The fourth and last test that I wish to impose on my exarnples is to
ask whether we would be inclined to regard the fact that the appropriate
implication is present as being a matter of the meaning of some particular word
or phrase occurring in the sentences in question. I am aware that this may not
be always a very clear or easy question to answer; nevertheless Iwill risk the
assertion that we would be fairly happy to say that, as regards (2), the
factthat the implication obtains is a matter of the meaning of the word ' but
'; whereas so far as (l) is concerned we should have at least some inclination
to say that the presence of the implication was a matter of the meaning of some
of the words in the sentence, but we should be in some difficulty when it came
to specifying precisely which this word, or words are, of which this is true.
After third example introduced:It is plain that there is no case at all for
regarding the truth of what is implied here as a pre-condition of the truth or
falsity cf 130 H. P. GRICB what I have asserted; a denial of the truth of what
is implied would have no bearing at all on whether what I have asserted is true
or false. So (3) is much closer to (2) than (1) in this respect. Next, I (the
speaker) could certainly be said to have implied that Jones is hopeless
(provided that this is what I intended to get across) and my saying that (at
any rate my saying /s/ that and no more) is also certainly a vehicle of
implication. On the other hand my words and what I say (assert) are, I think,
not here vehicles of implication. (3) thus differs from both (1) and (2). The
implication is cancellable but not detachable; if I add o'I do not of course
mean to imply that he is no good at philosophy " my whole utterance is
intelligible and linguistically impeccable, even though it may be extraordinary
tutorial behaviour; and I can no longer be said to have implied that he was no
good, even though perhaps that is what my colleagues might conclude to be the
case if I had nothing else to say. The implication is not however, detachable;
any other way of making, in the same context of utterance, just the assertion I
have made would involve the same implication. Finally, the fact that the
implication holds is not a matter of any particular word or phrase within the
sentence which I have uttered; so in this respect (3) is certainly different
from (2) and, possibly different from (1). One obvious fact should be mentioned
before I pass to the last example. This case of implication is unlike the
others in that the utterance of the sentence " Jones has beautiful
handwriting etc." does not standardly involve the implication here
attributed to it; it requires a special context (that it should be uttered at
Collections) to attach the implication to its uttgrance. After fourth and last
example is introduced: in the case of (a) I can produce a strong argument in
favour of holding that the fulfllment of the THE CAUSAL THEORY OF PERCEPTION
implication of the speaker's ignorance is not a precaution of the truth or
falsity of the disjunctive statement. Suppose (c) that the speaker knows that
his wife is in the kitchen, (b) that the house has only two rooms (and no
passages etc.) Even though (a) is the casc, thc spcaker can certainly say truly
" My wife is in the housc "; he is merely not being as informative as
he could bc if nccd arose. But the true proposition that his wife is in thc
housc together with the true proposition that the house consists entirely of a
kitchen and a bedroom, entail the proposition that his wife is either in the
kitchen or in the bedroom. But il to cxpress the proposition p in certain
circumstances would bc to spcak truly, and p, togelher with another true
proposition, crrtails q, then surely to express 4 in the same circvmstances
must be to speak truly. So I shall take it that the disjunctive statement in
(4) does not fail to be true or false if the implied ignorance is in fact not
realized. Secondly, I think it is fairly clear that in this case, as in the
case of (3), we could say that the speaker had irnplied that he did not know,
and also that his saying that (or his saying that rather than something else,
v2., in which room she was) implied that he did not know. Thirdly, the
irnplication is in a sense non-detachable, in that if in a given context the
utterance of the disjunctive sentence would involve the implication that the
speaker did not know in which room his his wife was, this implication would
also be involved in the utterance of any other form of words which would make
the same assertion(e.g., "The alternatives are (1) .(2) " or " One
of the following things is the case: (a) (r) "). ln another possible
sense, however, the implication could perhaps bc said to be detachable: for
there will be some contexls of ruttcrance in Which the normal implication will
not hold; e.g., thc spokesman who announces, " The next conference will be
cither in Geneva or in New York " perhaps does not imply that lrc does not
know which; for he may well be just not saying which. This points to the fact
that the implication is cancellablg; :r nrarl could say, " My wife is
either in the kitchen or in the bctlroorn " in circumstances in which the
implication would rrornrally be present, and then go on, " Mind you, I'm
not saying tlrrrt I don't know which"; this might be unfriendly (and grcr'lrrps
ungrammatical) but would be perfectly intelligible, I2 131 132 H. P. GRICB
Finally, the fact that the utterance of the disjunctive sentence normally
involves the implication of the speaker's ignorance of the truth-values of the
disjuncts is, I should like to say, to be explained by reference to a general
principle governing the use of language. Exactly what this principle is I am
uncertain, but L first sftol would be the following: "One should not make
a weaker statement rather than a stronger one unless there is a good reason for
so doing." This is certainly not an adequate formulation but will perhaps
be good enough for my present purpose. On the assumption that such a principle
as this is of general application, one can draw the conclusion that the
utterance of a disjunctive sentence would imply the speaker's ignorance of the
truth-values of the disjuncts, given that (a) the obvious reason for not making
a statemcnt which there is some call on one to make is that one is not in a
position to make it, and given (6) the logical fact that each disjunct entails
the disjunctive, but not vice versa; which being so, the disjuncts are stronger
than the disjunctive. lf the outline just given js on the right lines, then I
would wish to say, we have a reason for refusing in the case of (4) to regard
the implication of the speaker's ignorance as being part of the meaning of the
word'or'; someone who knows about the logical relation between a disjunction
and its disjuncts, and who also knew about the alleged general principle
governing discourse, could work out for hirnself that disjunctive utterances
would involve the implication which they do in fact involve. I must insist,
however, that my aim in discussing this last point has been merelyto indicate
the position I would wish to take up, and not to argue scriously in favour of
it. My main purpose in this sub-section has been to introduce four ideas of
which l intend to make some use; and to provide some conception of tlre ways in
which they apply or fail to apply to various types of implication. By the
numbering of it, it seems he has added an extra. It’s FIVE catalysts now. He’ll
go back to them in Essay IV, and in Presupposition and Conversational
Impicature. He needs those catalysts. Why? It seems like he is always thinking
that someone will challenge him! This is Grice: “We can now show that, it
having been stipulated as being what it is, a conversational implicaturum must
possess certain features. Or rather here are some catalyst ideas which will
help us to determine or individuate. Four tests for implicaturum as it were. First,
CANCELLABILITY – as noted in “Causal Theory” – for two of the examples
(‘beautiful handwriting’ and ‘kitchen or bedroom’ and NEGATIVE version of “You
don’t cease to eat iron”) and the one of the pillar box -- Since, to assume the
presence of a conversational implicum, we have to assume that the principle of
conversational co-operation is being observed, and since it is possible to opt
out of the observation of this principle, it follows that an implicaturum can
be canceled in a particular case. It may be explicitly canceled, if need there
be, by the addition of a clause by which the utterer states or implies that
he has opted out (e. g. “The pillar box
seems red but it is.”). Then again it may be contextually (or implicitly)
canceled (e. g. to a very honest person, who knows I disbelieve the examiner
exists, “The loyalty examiner won’t be summoning you at any rate”). The
utterance that usually would carry an implicaturum is used on an occasion that
makes it clear or obvious that the utterer IS opting out without having to bore
his addressee by making this obviousness explicit. There is a second litmus
test or catalyst idea. nsofar as the calculation that a implicaturum is present
requires, besides contextual and background information only a knowledge or
understanding or processing of what has been said or explicitly conveyed (‘are
you playing squash? B shows bandaged leg) (or the ‘conventional’ ‘commitment’ of
the utterance), and insofar as the manner or style, of FORM, rather than
MATTER, of expression plays no role in the calculation, it will NOT be possible
to find another way of explicitly conveying or putting forward the same thing, the
same so-and-so (say that q follows from p) which simply ‘lacks’ the unnecessary
implicaturum in question -- except [will his excluders never end?] where some
special feature of the substituted version [this other way which he says is not
conceivable] is itself relevant to the determination of the implicaturum (in
virtue of this or that conversational maxims pertaining to the category of
conversational mode. If we call this feature, as Grice does in “Causal Theory,”
‘non-detachability’ – in that the implicaturum cannot be detached from any
alternative expression that makes the same point -- one may expect the implicaturum
carried by this or that locution to have a high degree of non-detachability. ALTERNATIVES
FOR “NOT” Not, it is not the case, it is false that. There’s nothing unique
about ‘not’.ALTERNATIVES FOR “AND” and, nothing, furthermore, but. There isnothing
unique about ‘and’ALTERNATIVES FOR “OR”: One of the following is true. There is
nothing unique about ‘or’ALTERNATIVES FOR “IF” Provided. ‘There is nothing
unique about ‘if’ALTERNATIVES FOR “THE” – There is at least one and at most
one. And it exists. (existence and uniqueness). There is nothing unique about
‘the’.THIS COVERS STRAWSON’S first problem.What about the other English
philosophers?AUSTIN – on ‘voluntarily’ ALTERNATIVES to ‘voluntarily,’ with the
will, willingly, intentionally. Nothing unique about ‘voluntarily.’STRAWSON on
‘true’ – it is the case, redundance theory, nothing. Nothing unique about
‘true’HART ON good. To say that ‘x is commendable’ is to recommend x. Nothing
unique about ‘good.’HART on ‘carefully.’ Da Vinci painted Mona Lisa carefully,
with caution, with precaution. Nothing unique about ‘carefully.’THIRD LITMUS
TEST or idea. To speak approximately, since the calculation of the presence of
an implicaturum presupposes an initial knowledge, or grasping, or
understanding, or taking into account of the ‘conventional’ force (not in
Austin’s sense, but translating Latin ‘vis’) of the expression the utterance of
which carries the implicaturum, a conversational implicaturum will be a
condition that is NOT, be definition, on risk of circularity of otiosity,
included in the original specification of the expression's conventional force.
If I’m saying that ‘seems’ INVOLVES, as per conventional force, ‘doubt or
denial,’what’s my point? If Strawson is right that ‘if’ has the conventional
force of conventionally committing the utterer with the belief that q follows
from p, why bother? And if that were so, how come the implicaturum is still
cancellable?Though it may not be impossible for what starts life, so to speak,
as a conversational implicaturum to become conventionalized, to suppose that
this is so in a given case would require special justification. (Asking Lewis).
So, initially at least, a conversational implicaturum is, by definition and
stipulation, not part of the sense, truth-condition, conventional force, or
part of what is explicitly conveyed or put forward, or ‘meaning’ of the
expression to the employment of which the impicatum attaches. FOURTH LITMUS
TEST or catalyst idea.Mentioned in “Causal theory” The alethic value –
conjoined with the test about the VEHICLE --. He has these as two different
tests in “Causal”. Since the truth of a conversational implicaturum is not
required by (is not a condition for) the truth of what is said or explicitly
conveyed (what is said or explicated – the explicatum or explcitum, or what is
explicitly conveyed or communicated) may be true -- what is implicated may be
false – that he has beautiful handwriting, that q follows from p, that the
utterer is ENDORSING what someone else said, that the utterer is recommending
x, that the person who is said to act carefully has taken precaution), the implicaturum
is NOT carried by what is said or the EXPLICATUM or EXPLICITUM, or is
explicitly conveyed, but only by the ‘saying’ or EXPLICATING or EXPLICITING of
what is said or of the explicatum or explicitum, or by 'putting it that
way.’.The fifth and last litmus test or catalyst idea. Since, to calculate a
conversational implicaturum is to calculate what has to be supposed in order to
preserve the supposition that the utterer is a rational, benevolent, altruist
agent, and that the principle of conversational cooperation is being observed,
and since there may be various possible specific explanations or alternatives
that fill the gap here – as to what is the content of the psychological
attitude to be ascribed to the utterer, a list of which may be open, or
open-ended, the conversational implicaturum in such cases will technically be
an open-ended disjunction of all such specific explanations, which may well be
infinitely non-numerable. Since the list of these IS open, the implicaturum
will have just the kind of INDETERMINACY or lack of determinacy that an implicaturum
appears in most cases to possess.
determinatum:
determinable, a general characteristic or property analogous to a genus except
that while a property independent of a genus differentiates a species that
falls under the genus, no such independent property differentiates a determinate
that falls under the determinable. The color blue, e.g., is a determinate with
respect of the determinable color: there is no property F independent of color
such that a color is blue if and only if it is F. In contrast, there is a
property, having equal sides, such that a rectangle is a square if and only if
it has this property. Square is a properly differentiated species of the genus
rectangle. W. E. Johnson introduces the terms ‘determinate’ and ‘determinable’
in his Logic, Part I, Chapter 11. His account of this distinction does not
closely resemble the current understanding sketched above. Johnson wants to
explain the differences between the superficially similar ‘Red is a color’ and
‘Plato is a man’. He concludes that the latter really predicates something,
humanity, of Plato; while the former does not really predicate anything of red.
Color is not really a property or adjective, as Johnson puts it. The
determinates red, blue, and yellow are grouped together not because of a
property they have in common but because of the ways they differ from each
other. Determinates under the same determinable are related to each other and
are thus comparable in ways in which they are not related to determinates under
other determinables. Determinates belonging to different determinables, such as
color and shape, are incomparable. ’More determinate’ is often used
interchangeably with ‘more specific’. Many philosophers, including Johnson,
hold that the characters of things are absolutely determinate or specific.
Spelling out what this claim means leads to another problem in analyzing the
relation between determinate and determinable. By what principle can we exclude
red and round as a determinate of red and red as a determinate of red or round? determinism, the view that every event or
state of affairs is brought about by antecedent events or states of affairs in
accordance with universal causal laws that govern the world. Thus, the state of
the world at any instant determines a unique future, and that knowledge of all
the positions of things and the prevailing natural forces would permit an
intelligence to predict the future state of the world with absolute precision.
This view was advanced by Laplace in the early nineteenth century; he was
inspired by Newton’s success at integrating our physical knowledge of the
world. Contemporary determinists do not believe that Newtonian physics is the
supreme theory. Some do not even believe that all theories will someday be
integrated into a unified theory. They do believe that, for each event, no
matter how precisely described, there is some theory or system of laws such
that the occurrence of that event under that description is derivable from
those laws together with information about the prior state of the system. Some
determinists formulate the doctrine somewhat differently: a every event has a
sufficient cause; b at any given time, given the past, only one future is
possible; c given knowledge of all antecedent conditions and all laws of
nature, an agent could predict at any given time the precise subsequent history
of the universe. Thus, determinists deny the existence of chance, although they
concede that our ignorance of the laws or all relevant antecedent conditions
makes certain events unexpected and, therefore, apparently happen “by chance.”
The term ‘determinism’ is also used in a more general way as the name for any
metaphysical doctrine implying that there is only one possible history of the
world. The doctrine described above is really scientific or causal determinism,
for it grounds this implication on a general fact about the natural order,
namely, its governance by universal causal law. But there is also theological
determinism, which holds that God determines everything that happens or that,
since God has perfect knowledge about the universe, only the course of events
that he knows will happen can happen. And there is logical determinism, which
grounds the necessity of the historical order on the logical truth that all
propositions, including ones about the future, are either true or false.
Fatalism, the view that there are forces e.g., the stars or the fates that
determine all outcomes independently of human efforts or wishes, is claimed by
some to be a version of determinism. But others deny this on the ground that
determinists do not reject the efficacy of human effort or desire; they simply
believe that efforts and desires, which are sometimes effective, are themselves
determined by antecedent factors as in a causal chain of events. Since
determinism is a universal doctrine, it embraces human actions and choices. But
if actions and choices are determined, then some conclude that free will is an
illusion. For the action or choice is an inevitable product of antecedent
factors that rendered alternatives impossible, even if the agent had
deliberated about options. An omniscient agent could have predicted the action
or choice beforehand. This conflict generates the problem of free will and
determinism.
deutero-esperanto: Also Gricese – Pirotese. “Gricese”
is best. Arbitrariness need not be a two-party thing. E communicates to himself
that there is danger by drawing a skull. Grice genially opposed to the idea of
a convention. He hated a convention. A language is not conventional. Meaning is
not conventional. Communication is not conventional. He was even unhappy with
the account of convention by Lewis in terms of an arbitrary co-ordination.
While the co-ordination bit passes rational muster, the arbitrary element is
deemed a necessary condition, and Grice hated that. For Grice there is natural,
and iconic. When a representation ceases to be iconic and becomes, for lack of
a better expression, non-iconic, things get, we may assume conventional. One
form of correlation in his last definition of meaing allows for a conventional
correlation. “Pain!,” the P cries. There is nothing in /pein/ that minimally
resembles the pain the P is suffering. So from his involuntary “Ouch” to his
simulated “Ouch,” he thinks he can say “Pain.” Bennett explored the stages after
that. The dog is shaggy is Grices example. All sorts of resultant procedures
are needed for reference and predication, which may be deemed conventional. One
may refer nonconventionally, by ostension. It seems more difficult to predicate
non-conventionally. But there may be iconic predication. Urquhart promises
twelve parts of speech: each declinable in eleven cases, four numbers, eleven
genders (including god, goddess, man, woman, animal, etc.); and conjugable in
eleven tenses, seven moods, and four voices. The language will translate any
idiom in any other language, without any alteration of the literal sense, but
fully representing the intention. Later, one day, while lying in his bath,
Grice designed deutero-esperanto. The obble is fang may be current only
for Griceian members of the class of utterers. It is only this or that
philosophers practice to utter The obble is fang in such-and-such
circumstances. In this case, the utterer U does have a readiness to utter The
obble is feng in such-and-such circumstances. There is also the scenario in
which The obble is fang is may be conceived by the philosopher not to be deemed
current at all, but the utterance of The obble is feng in such-and-such
circumstances is part of some system of communication which the utterer U
(Lockwith,, Urquart, Wilkins, Edmonds, Grice) has devised but which has never
been put into operation, like the highway code which Grice invent another day
again while lying in his bath. In that case, U does this or that basic or
resultant procedure for the obble is feng in an attenuated but philosophically
legitimate fashion. U has envisaged a possible system of practices which
involve a readiness to utter Example by Grice that does NOT involve a
convention in this usage. Surely Grice can as he indeed did, invent a
language, call it Deutero-Esperanto, Griceish, or Pirotese, which nobody
at Oxford ever uses to communicat. That makes Grice the authority - cf. arkhe,
authority, government (in plural), "authorities" - and Grice can lay
down, while lying in the tub, no doubt - what is proper. A P can be said
to potch of some obble o as fang or as feng. Also to cotch of some obble
o, as fang or feng; or to cotch of one obble o and another obble o as being fid
to one another.” In symbols: (Ex)(Ey).Px ^ Oy ^ potch(x, y, fang) (Ex)(Ey).Px ^
Oy ^ potch(x, y, feng) (Ex)(Ey).Px ^ Oy ^ cotch(x, y, fang) (Ex)(Ey).Px ^ Ox ^
cotch(x, y, feng) (Ex)(Ey).Px ^ Oz ^ Oy ^ cotch(x, fid(y,z)). Let’s say that Ps
(as Russell and Carnap conceived them) inhabit a world of obbles, material
objects, or things. To potch is something like to perceive; to cotch something
like to think. Feng and fang are possible descriptions, much like our
adjectives. Fid is a possible relation between obbles. Grice provides a
symbolisation for content internalisation. The perceiver or cognitive
Subjects perceives or cognises two objects, x, y, as holding a relation of some
type. There is a higher level that Ps can reach when the object of their
potchings and cotchings is not so much objects but states of affairs. Its
then that the truth-functional operators will be brought to existence “^”:
cotch(p ^ q) “V”: cotch(p v q) “)”: )-cotch(p ) q) A P will be able
to reject a content, refuse-thinking: ~. Cotch(~p). When P1 perceives P2, the
reciprocals get more complicated. P2 cotches that P1!-judges that
p. Grice uses ψ1 for potching and ψ2 for cotching. If P2 is
co-operative, and abides by "The Ps Immanuel," P2 will honour, in a
Kantian benevolent way, his partners goal by adopting temporarily his partners
goal potch(x (portch(y, !p)) ⊃ potch(x, !p). But by then, its hardly simpler
ways. Especially when the Ps outdo their progenitor Carnap as metaphysicians.
The details are under “eschatology,” but the expressions are here “α izzes α.” This
would be the principle of non-contradiction or identity. P1 applies it war, and
utters War is war which yields a most peculiar implicaturum. “if α izzes
β ∧ β izzes γ, α izz γ.” This is
transitivity, which is crucial for Ps to overcome Berkeley’s counterexample to
Locke, and define their identity over time. “if α hazzes β, α izzes β.” Or,
what is accidental is not essential. A P may allow that what is essential
is accidental while misleading, is boringly true. “α hazzes β iff α hazzes
x ∧ x izzes β.” “If β is a
katholou or universalium, β is an eidos or forma.” For surely Ps need not be
stupid to fail to see squarrelhood. “if α hazzes β ∧ α izzes a particular, γ≠α ∧ α izz β.” “α izzes predicable
of β iff ((β izzes α) ∨ (∃x)(β hazzes x ∧ x izzes α). “α izzes essentially predicable of β ⊃⊂ β izzes α α izzes non-essentially/accidentally
predicable of β ⊃⊂ (∃x)(β hazzes x ∧ x izzes α). α = β iff α izzes β ∧ β izzes α. “α izzes an atomon,
or individuum ⊃⊂ □(∀β)(β izzes α ⊃ α izzes β). “α izzes a particular ⊃⊂ □(∀β)(α izzes predicable of β ⊃ (α izzes β ∧ β izzes α)). α izzes a
universalium ⊃⊂ ◊(∃β)(α izzes predicable of α ∧ ~(α izzes β ∧ β izzes α). α izzes
some-thing ⊃ α izzes an individuum. α izzes an eidos or forma ⊃ (α izzes some-thing ∧ α izzes a universalium); α
izzes predicable of β ⊃⊂ (β izzes α) ∨ (∃x)(β hazzes x ∧ x izzes α). “ α izzes essentially predicable of α
α izzes accidentally predicable of β ⊃ α ≠ β. ~(α izzes
accidentally predicable of β) ⊃ α ≠ β. α izzes an kathekaston or particular ⊃ α izzes an individuum; α izz a
particular ⊃ ~(∃x)(x ≠ α ∧ x izz α). ~(∃x).(x izzes a particular ∧ x izzes a forma) ⊢ α izzes a forma ⊃ ~(∃x)(x ≠ α ∧ x izzes α). x izzes a
particular ⊃ ~(∃β)(α izzes β); α izzes a forma ⊃ ((α izzes predicable of
β ∧ α ≠ β) ⊃ β hazzes α); α izzes a
forma ∧ β
izzes a particular ⊃ (α izzes predicable of β ⊃⊂ β hazzes A); (α izzes a
particular ∧ β izzes a universalium ∧ β izzes predicable of α) ⊃ (∃γ)(α ≠ γ ∧ γ izzes essentially predicable
of α). (∃x) (∃y)(x izzes a particular ∧ y izzes a universalium ∧ y izzes predicable of x ⊃ ~(∀x)(x izzes a universalium ∧ x izzes some-thing). (∀β)(β izzes a universalium ⊃ β izzes some-thing). α izzes a
particular) ⊃ ~∃β.(α ≠ β ∧ β izzes essentially predicable of α). (α izzes predicable
of β ∧ α
≠ β) ⊃ α
izzes non-essentially or accidentally predicable of β. Grice
is following a Leibnizian tradition. A philosophical language is any
constructed language that is constructed from first principles or certain
ideologies. It is considered a type of engineered language.
Philosophical languages were popular in Early Modern times, partly motivated by
the goal of recovering the lost Adamic or Divine language. The term
“ideal language” is sometimes used near-synonymously, though more modern
philosophical languages such as “Toki Pona” are less likely to involve such an
exalted claim of perfection. It may be known as a language of pure
ideology. The axioms and grammars of the languages together differ from
commonly spoken languages today. In most older philosophical languages,
and some newer ones, words are constructed from a limited set of morphemes that
are treated as "elemental" or fundamental. "Philosophical
language" is sometimes used synonymously with "taxonomic
language", though more recently there have been several conlangs
constructed on philosophical principles which are not taxonomic. Vocabularies
of oligo-synthetic communication-systems are made of compound expressions,
which are coined from a small (theoretically minimal) set of morphemes;
oligo-isolating communication-systems, such as Toki Pona, similarly use a
limited set of root words but produce phrases which remain s. of distinct
words. Toki Pona is based on minimalistic simplicity, incorporating
elements of Taoism. Láadan is designed to lexicalize and grammaticalise the
concepts and distinctions important to women, based on muted group
theory. A priori languages are constructed languages where the vocabulary
is invented directly, rather than being derived from other existing languages
(as with Esperanto, or Grices Deutero-Esperanto, or Pirotese or Ido). It all
starts when Carnap claims to know that pritos karulise elatically. Grice as
engineer. Pirotese is the philosophers engaging in Pology. Actually, Pirotese
is the lingo the Ps parrot. Ps karulise elatically. But not all of
them. Grice finds that the Pological talk allows to start from
zero. He is constructing a language, (basic) Pirotese, and the
philosophical psychology and world that that language is supposed to represent
or denote. An obble is a Ps object. Grice introduces potching and
cotching. To potch, in Pirotese, is what a P does with an obble: he perceives
it. To cotch is Pirotese for what a P can further do with an obble: know or
cognise it. Cotching, unlike potching, is factive. Pirotese would
not be the first language invented by a philosopher. Deutero-Esperanto
-- Couturat, L., philosopher and logician who wrote on the history of
philosophy, logic, philosophy of mathematics, and the possibility of a universal
language. Couturat refuted Renouvier’s finitism and advocated an actual
infinite in The Mathematical Infinite 6. He argued that the assumption of
infinite numbers was indispensable to maintain the continuity of magnitudes. He
saw a precursor of modern logistic in Leibniz, basing his interpretation of
Leibniz on the Discourse on Metaphysics and Leibniz’s correspondence with
Arnauld. His epoch-making Leibniz’s Logic 1 describes Leibniz’s metaphysics as
panlogism. Couturat published a study on Kant’s mathematical philosophy Revue
de Métaphysique, 4, and defended Peano’s logic, Whitehead’s algebra, and
Russell’s logistic in The Algebra of Logic 5. He also contributed to André
Lalande’s Vocabulaire technique et critique de la philosophie 6. Refs.: While the reference to
“Deutero-Esperanto’ comes from “Meaning revisited,” other keywords are useful,
notably “Pirotese” and “Symbolo.” Also keywords like “obble,” and “pirot.” The
H. P. Grice Papers, BANC.
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