Grice's Everyman, or His Campaign Against Crypto-Technicisms

As Grice would say, "As Austin would say, a crypo-technicism is o-kay, provided it's yours." "For we found that we often needed to rely on our capacities to invent words: witness my implicature, his perlocution, or Moore's entailment or, if you have to, Hare's phrastics."

But he would NOT accept it from Peirce.

In lectures on Peirce to his PPE Oxford tutees. "You'll learn to rephrase all that Peirce said in _my_ terminology: 'to mean', or 'to mean-NN', if you must."

For he found that Peirce was being kryptotechnical: "And being kryptotechnical fails to properly answer our questions, while it may, onto the bargain, raise an improper ones."

Grice especially disliked Peirce's obscene use of 'symbol.'

"Symbol is okay if you are a Grecian. But you are not."

The OED confirms Grice. While sumbolon was used by the Grecians, it was not used by the English, who prefer 'mean'"

From the OED

symbol. Alternate spellings allowed: simbole
symbole
simboll
simbol
From the Latin Roman (Old Italian) "symbolum" (Modern Italian: simbolo)
Ultimately from the Greek:
sumbolon = a mark, a token, a ticket,
a throw
"Sumballein" = to put together, to throw.


FIRST USAGE: An authoritative statement of the belief of the Xian church.
Also of any other creed or confession of faith.

This use is traceable to Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, who applies "symbolum" to the "baptismal creed", this creed being the "mark" or "sign" of a "Xian" as distinguished from a heathen.

1450-1530 Myrr. our Ladye

This creed is called Symbole, that is to say a gatherynge of morselles.
for each of the twelve apostels put therto a morsel.

1585 T. Washington tr. Nicholay's Voy.
He said the Lord's Prayer, the salutation of the Angel,
and the Symbol of the Apostles.

===============

USAGE 2:(transferred from usage 1).

A brief or sententious statement

A formula, a motto, maxim; a summary, synopsis.

1594 Nashe Unfort. Trav. 50

The symbol thereto [sc. to the helmet] annexed
was this, Ex lachrimis lachrimae.

1662 Owen Disc. Liturgies iii.

That they might have in the Lord's Prayer a summary Symbol of all the most excellent things they were to ask of God.

1751 Johnson Rambler.

The celebrated symbol of
Pythagoras, "when the wind blows, worship its echo."

===================================


USAGE 3:




Something that stands for, represents, or denotes something else.
Not by exact resemblance, but by vague suggestion, or by some accidental or
conventional relation.

Especially a material object taken to represent something immaterial or
abstract, as a being, idea, quality, or condition

Also representative or typical figure, sign, or token; a
type (of some quality).

(RELATED TO ELINOR ROSCH's protoype. Not Jeane Rausch).



1590 Spenser F.Q.

That, as a sacred Symbol, it [sc. a
blood-stain] may dwell
In her son's flesh.

1604 Shaks. Oth.

To renownce his Baptisme, All Seales, and Simbols of redeemed sin.

1612

Dekker London Triumphing Wks.
Euery one carrying..a Symbole,
or Badge of that Learning which she professeth.

1615 G. Sandys Trav.

Ostriches are the simplest of fowle, and symbolls of folly.

1641 J. Jackson True Evang. T.

They play and sport together.
A thing so true a symbole of deerenesse.

1646 Sir T. Browne Pseud. Ep.

Salt as incorruptible, was the Simbole of friendship.

1686 South Serm., Isa. v. 20 (1727) II. 333


*****************************************

Words are the Signs and Symbols of Things;
and, as in accounts, Cyphers and Figures pass for real Sums; so..Words and
Names pass for Things themselves.


*************cfr. Grice echoing Locke in "Studies in the Way of Words"

1688 Holme Armoury

In Arms..Oranges [are] the simbol of Dissimulation.

1765-8 Erskine Inst. Law

Another symbol was anciently used in proof that a sale
was perfected, which continues to this day in bargains of lesser importance
among the lower rank of people, the parties

licking

and joining of thumbs.

1769 Robertson Chas.

There was engraved on it a cap,
the ancient symbol of freedom.

1816 Scott Old Mort.

I deliver to you, by this symbol.
Here she gave into his hand the venerable gold-headed staff
of the deceased Earl of Torwood)-`the keeping and government and
seneschalship of my Tower of Tillietudlem'.

1833 Tennyson Miller's Dau.

The kiss,
The woven arms, seem but to be
Weak symbols of the settled bliss,
The comfort, I have found in thee.

1849 Ruskin Seven Lamps

The fluting of the column, which I doubt not was the Greek symbol of the bark
of the tree.

1862 H. Spencer First Princ.

Ultimate religious ideas and ultimate scientific ideas, alike turn out to
be merely
symbols of the actual, not cognitions of it.

1865 R. W. Dale Jew. Temp.

The offering of incense is a natural symbol of adoration.

1909 Rider Haggard Yellow God

The symbols of the good and evil genii on a Mohammedan tomb.

========

USAGE 3b. The actual object representing something sacred.

1671 Evelyn Let. to Father Patrick

After the prayer..the symbols become
changed into the body and blood of Christ, after a sacramental,
spiritual, and real manner.

1704 Nelson Fest. & Fasts

Bread and Wine..by Consecration being made Symbols of the
Body and Blood of Christ.


************but cfr. Menno, "Surely Jesus was expressing (sic) a conversational implicature when he said this bread, my body, this wine, my blood."

1781 J. Morison in Transl. & Paraphr.

That symbol of his flesh he broke.

1870 M. D. Conway Earthw. Pilgr.

We read of many..religions,..all of them surrounded with fables and
symbols... Of all the symbols, the most universal was the Cross.

1877 E. Peters tr. Pfleiderer's Paulinism

This mystical element [lies] at the very root of the ancient idea of
worship; the symbol is here never mere symbol, but..medium of a real connection with the actual..object of worship.

1899 W. R. Inge Chr. Mysticism

We should..train ourselves..to consider them [sc. the sacraments] as
divinely-ordered symbols, by which the Church,..and we as members of it,
realise the highest and deepest of our spiritual privileges.

============

Sub-usage: Numism. A small device on a coin, additional to and usually
independent of the main device or `type'.

===============
Sub-usage: Symbols collectively; symbolism.

1856 Emerson Eng. Traits, Aristocr. Wks.
Proud..of the language and symbol of chivalry.

1875 E. White Life in Christ
Other portions of [the Apocalypse], and those the least loaded with
prophetic symbol.
===========

USAGE 3: A written character or mark used to represent something.
A letter figure, or sign conventionally standing for some object, process,
etc. e.g. the figures denoting the planets, signs of the zodiac, etc. in astronomy;
the letters and other characters denoting elements, etc. in chemistry,
quantities, operations, etc. in mathematics, the faces of a crystal in
crystallography.

1620 A. Hume Brit. Tongue
The symbol..I cal the written letter, quhilk representes to the eye
the sound that the mouth sould utter.

1882 Minchin Unipl. Kinemat.

Suppose



x = f(a, b, t)

y = g(a, b, t),



where f and g are symbols of functionality.



USAGE 4: attributive:

1962 W. Nowottny Lang. Poets Use viii. 180
A kind of linguistic ambiguity..seems
frequently to occur in poems bent on symbol-making.

1936 O. Nash Primrose Path 55
Still, I think, a pig's a pig
-Ah, there, symbol-minded Sig!

1913 L. Bloomfield
This symbol-object is..the word: without it no concept of action,
quality, or relation can exist.

1964 E. Becker in I. L. Horowitz New Sociol. 119
Man..possesses both thing-objects, like all other animals; and, uniquely,
symbol-objects.

1946 F. P. Chisholm in W. S.
Knickerbocker Twentieth Cent. Eng. ii. 183


The communication process
involves both speakers and listeners, writers and readers, using a
socially constructed symbol-system, in whose structure
`reality' must be represented.

1964 R. H. Robins Gen. Linguistics 13 Among symbol systems
language occupies a special place.

1946 F. P. Chisholm in W. S. Knickerbocker Twentieth Cent. Eng.
ii. 172
Our distinguishing human characteristic is that we are symbol-users.

1951 J. Holloway Lang. & Intelligence vi. 95



Intelligence displayed in a symbol-using planning
sequence sometimes enables us to reduce the sequence of actions to a
sequence of routines.

(CITED BY H.L.A.HART CITING GRICE IN PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY, 1952 -- "I owe this reflection to H. P. Grice" ("Smoke as a symbol of fire").



1977 R. Holland Self & Social Context i. 18

Ethnomethodology..embraces a phenomenological concern for the experiencing,
symbol-using self.

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USAGE 5:

A contribution (properly to a feast or picnic); a share,
portion.

1627 B. Jonson in Drayton Battle Agincourt, etc. Pref. Verses a j,
This reck'ning I will pay,
Without conferring symboles.

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VERBAL USE: TO SYMBOL = TO SYMBOLISE.

USAGE 1. TRANSITIVE.

1832 Examiner 595/1
English Justice, being, as she is symboled, hoodwinked.

1861 Meredith Evan Harrington xi,
Bread and cheese symbolled his condition.

1864 Tennyson Aylmer's F. 535
[She] read, and tore,
As if the living passion symbol'd there
Were living nerves to feel the rent.

1874 Symonds
Sk. Italy & Greece I. xi. 213
Angels..with fluttering skirts..and mouths that symbol singing.

USAGE 2: intransitive.
To make signs, to signal

1864 Carlyle Fredk. Gt.
They say and symbol to me,
`Tell us of him!'



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