Satisfactoriness-Functionality (Hare on Grice 1967)

As I say, Kenny is criticising A. Ross. And Hare is criticising Kenny. (Hare, Practical Inferences). Hare, who knew Grice well, draws on Grice.


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Post this letter!
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Therefore, You either post this letter or you burn it!



Grice wants to say that

"My wife is in the kitchen or in the garden"
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follows from "My wife is in the kitchen".

Yet, it is absurd (though truth-functionally correct) to say, "My wife is in the kitchen or in the garden" when you KNOW it is in the kitchen. Not in Malagasy where people are reluctant to be specific about one's wife's whereabouts (See Ochs 1971).

Hare notes that the imperative inference above then is satisfactoriness-functional, as 'v' is truth-functional.

The implicature, as per WoW:III is that

there is NON-TRUTH-FUNCTIONAL evidence for

"My wife is in the kitchen or in the garden".

E.g. that the utterer is uncertain as to the wife's whereabouts.

The implicature is that the introduction of "v" does NOT proceed via the introduction of "v" as per the System (G, or Q).

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In the system, indeed, 'v' gets introduced:

(+,v) -- in Grice's terminology

p
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therefore, p v q.

So, here we have one big case where we do need an analogue for truth-functionality for values other than 'true'. I suggest satisfactoriness-functionality.

Note

"Grin and bear it!"

It is of course logical that

"Grin and bear it!"
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Therefore, grin!

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So, 'and' also is satisfactoriness-functional.

Grice provides tables for this for abstract values 1/0 that can be either alethic ('truth') or 'practical' (goodness, correctness, etc.).

He symbolises the connector, truth-functional or satisfactoriness-functional as

*

p * q

stands for ANY truth-functional (or more generally, satisfactoriness-functional) operator. And so on.