The Bishop and The Cricketer

When "The Times" published their obituary on Grice, anonymous, as obituaries should be, but some suspect P. F. S.) it went, "H. P. Grice, professional philosopher and amateur cricketer."

Surely P. F. S. may have been involved, since some always preferred the commuted conjunction: "H. P. Grice, cricketer -- and philosopher."

At one time, to be a 'professional' cricketer was a no-no.

At one time, to be a 'professional' philosopher was a no-no -- witness Socrates!

But you never know.

It's TOTALLY different when it comes to BISHOPS!

Grice loved that phrase, "sounds harsh." "The Austinian in the Bishop."

Bishop Berkeley and H. P. Grice -- Two Ways of Representing: Likeness Or Not.

Bishop Berkeley’s views on representation, broadly construed, relate to H. P. Grice’s views on representation, broadly construed.

In essay, “Berkeley: An Interpretation,” Kenneth Winkler argues that Bishop Berkeley sees representation as working in one of two ways.

Representation works either in the same way that an expression signifies an idea (Grice’s non-iconic) or by means of resemblance (Grice’s iconic).

But we need to explore that distinction.

This all relates to Bishop Berkeley’s and Grice’s views on language, their theory of resemblance, and the role that representation plays in their philosophiesmore widely.

It is interesting to consider, of course, Berkeley’s predecessors (e.g., Descartes, Locke, that Grice revered in the choice of the title of his compilation of essays, “Studies in THE WAY OF WORDS,” or WoW for short), Bishop Berkeley’s contemporaries (e.g., William King, Anthony Collins), and subsequent thinkers (e.g. Hume, Shepherd, and of course Grice) accepted this distinction – and their connection to the development of both Bishoop Berkeley’s and Grice’s thought.

Some philosophers connect Bishop Berkeley and Grice to non-canonical figures or those which defend novel interpretations of Berkeley’s or Grice’s own thought.

Which ARE Bishop Berkeley’s and Grice’s view on the connection between representation and resemblance?

Is Winkler right to attribute two types of representation to Berkeley? Could Winkler’s observations have a bearing on Grice?

Do Bishop Berkeley’s and Grice’s contemporaries accept the distinction between signification and representation? (Grice’s favourite example: “A cricket team may do for England what England cannot do: engage in a game of cricket.”)