Grice's Bootstraps

In his "Prejudices and predilections, which become the life and opinions of Paul Grice", Paul Grice refers to

"a principle which I labelled as BOOTSTRAP. The principle
laid down that when one is introducing the primitive
concepts of a theory T1 formulated in an object-language L1,
one has freedom to use any battery of concepts C2 expressible
in the meta-language L2, subject to the condition that
counterparts C1 of such concepts C2 are subsequently
definable or otherwise derivable in the object-language L1".


One application:

Suppose we are discussing Aristotle's parts of speech:

"The parts of speech," he held, "are eight". "Consider zweck"


a noun

his zweck is nice

b verb

they zweck

c preposition

zweck you and me

d adverb

he runs zweck

e etc.

Suppose we subdivide Aristotle's category of 'noun' into 'name' proper and 'adjective', and we propose the disquotational remark (in quotes, below):


"by uttering "zweck" he meant "nice"".

i.e.

"by uttering "zweck" he intended to express that he believed "nice"".

This should *not*, even though in less careful speakers as (sic) Grice will, mean that "intending" relies on "meaning", but only that the *notion* of "intending" is derivable in the object-language.

Anita Avramides, of Queen's College, wrote her whole D.Phil Oxon on one of
Grice's BOOTSTRAPs, the left one (alas).