Suggestio Falsi: False Suggestions of Implicature

Grice was onto something very BIG.

Truth-conditional semantics, non-truth conditional semantics, etc.

The idea of true and false -- should be tamed.

The taming of the true, Grice says.

The taming of the false is never as enchanting.

There's more to implicature than true and false.

But the scholastics, who were not well aware of the later developments in deontic logic by Belnap, would not have cared.

It was all verum and falsum for them.

Thus, 'suggestio' falsi, was pretty central -- when laughing at inceptors like Occam:

From the OED


suggestio falsi. Pl. suggestiones falsi.

[mod.L., = suggestion of what is false.]

A misrepresentation of the truth whereby something incorrect is implied to be true; an indirect lie. Often in contexts with suppressio veri.

QUOTES:

1815 H. Maddock Princ. & Pract. Chancery I. 208

Whenever Suppressio veri or Suggestio falsi occur..they afford a sufficient ground for setting aside any Release or Conveyance.


1855 Newspaper & Gen. Reader's Pocket Compan. i.4

He was bound to say that the suppressio veri on that occasion approached
very nearly to a positive suggestio falsi.


1898 Kipling Stalky & Co. (1899) 36

It seems..that they had held back material facts; that they were guilty
both of suppressio veri and suggestio falsi.

1907 W. de Morgan Alice-for-Short xxxvi. 389


That's suppressio veri and suggestio falsi! Besides, it's fibs!


1962 J. Wilson Public Schools & Private Practice i. 19

It is rare to find a positively verifiable untruth in a school brochure:
but it is equally rare not to find a great many suggestiones falsi,
particularly as regards the material comfort and facilities available.


1980 D. Newsome On Edge of Paradise 7

There are undoubted cases of suppressio veri; on the other hand, he appears to eschew suggestio falsi.

--- Fibs indeed. Suppress, suggest.


Write: "Griceland, Inc."


"Yes, I agree to become a Doctor in Gricean Studies"


EXAM QUESTION:

1. Discuss suggestio falsi in terms of detachability.

2. Compare suppresio veri and suggestion falsi in connection
with "The king of France is bald" uttered during Napoleon's time.

3. Invent things for 'suppressio falsi' and 'suggestio veri'.

4. No. You cannot go to the bathroom.