Grice to the Mill

Grice writes in his "Defense of a dogma" (written with P. F. Strawson):

"An appeal to philosophical tradition is perhaps unimpressive [...]. But it
is worth pointing out that Quine's objection is not simply to the words
_analytic_ and _synthetic_ but to a distinction whish they are supposed to
express, and which at different times philosophers have supposed themselves
to be expressing by means of such pairs of words or phrases as "necessary"
and "contingent", "a priori" and "empirical", truth of reason" and "truth
of fact"".

Note that Grice could also have mentioned J.Locke's epithet "trifling" (vs non trifling) as found in RB Jones's page. And -- I now add -- JS Mill's "verbal vs. nonverbal".

JS Mill writes in ch 6 to bk I of System of Logic,

"Of propositions merely _verbal_".

Mill is considered a pre-Gricean by LR Horn, and I agree. And Grice often feared he would be seen as bringing more grice to his own mill.

Mill writes:

"Whatever possesses the whole of any set of attributes must possess any part of that same set".

I.e. The S is P when S is a subset of P.

"A proposition of this sort, however, conveys no information"

Recall Grice in "Logic & Conversation"

Supermaxim of quantity: be informative.

Maxim 1. make your contribution as informative as is required (for the
current purposes of the exchange in which you are engaged).
maxim 2. do not make your contribution more informative than is required.

Grice, op. cit., p.26


"...to anyone who previously understood the whole meaning of the terms."

"The propositions"

1. Every man is a corporeal being.
2. Every man is a living creature.
3. Every man is rational

"convey no knowledge to anyone who was already aware of the entire meaning
of the word "man", for the meaning of the word includes all this: and that
every man has the attributes CONNOTED by all these predicates is already
ASSERTED"

Grice would say "IMPLICATED" -- since I could be using English idiolectally,
where "man" means say "penis-man". In Old English, "man" was neutral,
sexually. Hence, "wo-man", was the wife-man. As contrast, the Angles had to
use "weapon-man" to mean MALE man. Odd but true.

"...when he is called a man".

Then there's the conversational implicature

4. man +> non young.

I guess in English you have to qualify "man" if you mean "boy", as per, eg.
"little man", as in title to song "Little man you've had a busy day". I'm
not sure. Perhaps "little man" is ironic there. In Dutch, "mannekin" means
little man, but then, mannekins usually _don't_ have a busy day, so never
trust the Dutch idiolect.

Mill goes on:

"non-essential or accidental propositions may be called _real_
propositions, in opposition to _verbal_."

"They predicate of a thing some fact not involved in the signification of
the name by which the proposition speaks of it. Some atribute not connoted
by the name."