In Defense of the Under-Dogmas

Grice was one for ordering and listing.

Here are fourteen tenets he claims a person like Carnap ("although I'm not suggesting a formalist/modernist will buy all of them" "what I'm proposing is a rough caricature") would endorse:


Tenet I.

insofar as Carnap is concerned with the formulation of very general patterns of valid inference, the devices of FL (foreign language? No. Formal Language) possess a decisive advantage over the devices of NL (native language).


Tenet II.

For, it will be possible to construct in terms of the devices of FL a system of very general formulae, a considerable number of which can be regarded as, or are closely related to, patterns of inferences the expression of which involves some or all of the devices (-, &, v, ->, (x), (Ex), ix are the seven that Grice lists here -- vide Speranza, PhD for a treatment of the first three connectors: &, v, and -->).

Tenet iii.

Such a system -- call it System G -- may consist of a certain set of simple formulae that must be acceptable if the devices have the meaning that has been assigned to them. (Myro deviced this system for G, who rather would not be bothered. He did bother in Vacuous Names to have his System Q, for Quine -- and Myro merely managed to change the initial).

Tenet iv.

But the System will also contain an indefinite number of further formulae, many of which are less obviously acceptable and each of which can be shown to be acceptable if the members of the original set are acceptable. (Theorem vs. Axiom, or rather Axiom vs. Theorem. No need to introduce Gentzen-type rules here. It's all axiomatic and syntactic this far).

Tenet v.

Thus far we have, thus,a way of handling dubious acceptable patterns of inference, and vb. if, as it sometimes possible, we can apply a decision procedure, we have an even better way.

Tenet vi.

Furthermore, from a philosophical point of view, the possession by the counterparts in NL of the devices of FL of those elements in their "meaning" -- vide Grice PR, 1969 -- Foundations of Language -- for the specification of what kind of meaning is involved here: timeless utterance-part expression meaning) involved which they do not share with the corresponding devices in FL is to be regared as an imperfection of NL. (on a bad light). (This is the informalist's solecism, as when Strawson thinks he can get away with a meaning of 'if' such that it contains as part of its sense an 'inferrability' element which is merely implicated alla Carnap to Grice).

Tenet vii.

That is, the elements in question are undesirable (metaphysical) excrescences: Think of strict implication (that extensionalist Carnapians rejected, etc.).

Tenet viii.

And this is so, because the presence of these elements has the result that the concepts within which they have to appear cannot be precisely or clearly defined.

Tenet ix.

And there's a further result. To wit, that at least some statements involving them cannot, in some circumstances, be assigned a definite truth value. And here we just not mean 'truth-value gap' instead. But intensional non-truth functional, non-truth conditional element in the alleged dictiveness of the utterance that expresses or contains them.

Tenet x.

The indefiniteness of these concepts not only is objectionable in itself but also leaves open the way to METAPHYSICS, which if understood as what Heidegger, but also C. I. Lewis ,are doing, is a bad thing (This is parodying the days pre-Pears, The nature of metaphysics (Macmillan 1957 -- vintage year for Grice's metaphysical development), when metaphysics was still, as Grice has it, a 'term of abuse' (at least in Oxford under the wicked influence of the then infant-terrible, Sir Freddie Ayer).

Tenet xi.

And this so, for we cannot be certain that none of these expressions in the NL, as used in our most natural or 'ordinary' or 'common-sense' 'speech', can NOT be regarded as finally acceptable, and may turn out to be, finally, not totally INTELLIGIBLE (or explainable).

Tenet xii.

Setting the agenda then. Methodological decisions in need: the proper course is then to conceive and begin to construct or at least DEFEND, now that it's done an ideal totally REGIMENTED language -- FL indeed -- which incorporates the formal devices, the sentences of which will be clear, determinate in truth-value (cfr. "Clarity is not enough") and certifiable free from METAPHYSICAL IMPLICATIONS,

cfr. implicature

Tenet xiii.

The foundations of SCIENCE (the cathedral of learning) -- alla Morris, and Carnap, "The Journal of Unified Science" and the whole agenda of the reform of language -- cfr. Ogden on Basic English --) will now be philosophically secure, since the statements of the scientist -- if not the moralist who would rather shut up -- will be expressible (though not necessarily actually expressed -- scientists are publicly funded, and they are on the whole too tight to indulge) within the ideal language."

Tenet xiv.

Etc.

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