A Study in the Sense of Sense

Kramer wants, it seems, a specification of 'sense' and 'sanction'.

Originally, it seems, rather than connected with 'sense-datum':

do not multiply sense-data beyond encessity.

--- it was connected with 'sense': way, by-way.
(Studies in the By-Way of Words).

--- This relic is still sort of irritating in people who say things like,

I'm not using that word in that sense.

I often correct:

I'm not using that word in that _way_.

Now, 'way' itself is a complication. It's the Roman 'via'. As in my favourite via of all time, that connects, Roma, via Liguria, to Gibraltar! (via herculea).

---

Surely it would be otiose to think that a 'way' has to be 'one-way' only. The Romans indeed, used it one-way only: from Roma to Gibraltar. It was used 'and back', that's something 'way' usually works: both ways. I wouldn't be surprised if Engl. by-way is a corruption of 'bi-way', i.e two-way.

So the best way is to represent this with arrows


---> one way

<--- the other way.


I.e for a via (as in Via Veneto) there are two ways, one from here to there, the other from there to here.

How this relates to senses of 'sense' escape me, but it shouldn't escape _Kramer_.

----

Now, Grice has the razor cut

do not multiply senses beyond necessity.

He is specially or especially concerned with Strawson's proliferations:


v i. inclusive, p v q
ii. exclusive, better to use p w q.

--> i. philonian
ii. strict implication. Better use: =>

& i. commutative
ii. event-report. Better use von Wright: p/q

etc.

For each of the alleged 'second' senses a way out via implicature is and can be built.

This gives uniguity plus implicature.
Or "Grice Saves, Even Though There's No Such Thing as a Free Lunch"

Why? Well, because the second alleged sub-sense is now built as a defeated implicatum:

"My wife is either dead or alive: I'm not meaning to suggest that she is either".

"If Britney Spears sings well, Michael Jackson is not dead"

"If you break it, you bought it"

"She got off her snickers and went to bed -- but not in that order" etc.
-- this last allowing for various variants with dissimilar implicatures:
"She got off her _knickers_ and went to bed"
--> she's okay.
"She went to bed and got off her knickers"
--> ??
"She sleeps with her knickers on"
--> ??
"She doesn't wear knickers in the first place"

Cfr. "She went to bed and took off her bra"
Urmson's example:
"_He_ took off his underwear and went to bed" (but not in that order).
Grice rewrites this as:
"He got off his underwear and went to bed" (in Cole, not repr. in WoW)
A student of mine suggested -- but I failed him:
"He went to bed and got off" (but not in that order).
(Joking: I did not fail him, [he wasn't an official student at the Swimming-Pool Library, either], but ...)

Etc.

JLS