H. P. Grice: Conversational Implicata and Conversation As Rational Co-Operation -- A Catalogue Raisonée
1938. NEGATION AND PRIVATION. Preferred
citation: Grice, H. P. (1938). Negation and privation, The Grice Papers, Series
II, Carton 4, Folder 10, BANC. Keyword: negation, privation, verificationism,
introspection, sense data.
Grice's reflection, in a
verificationist vein, of two types of utterance: "I don't hear a noise.” "That
is not red." The actual
ordering should be the reverse: "That
is not red." "I don't
hear a noise." Or "I am not hearing a noise." Surely, each is co-related to their
affirmative counterparts: "That
is red." "I hear a
noise." Or "I am
hearing a noise." But when
it comes to the psychological state, attitude, or stance, it is easier to
co-relate "That is not red" with, say, "That is green."
"That is green" does NOT feature "not," and it is
alleged by Grice to be the source or reason for Utterer U to utter "That
is red." In the case of
"I don't hear a noise," the source or reason is the absence,
'verified' by introspetion, of a psychological state, attitude or stance,
co-related to the affirmative counterpart, "I hear a noise,” or "I
am hearing a noise” -- which again, does NOT include the "not"
operator. The first
utterance is thus explained in terms of mere sense data; the second, with the
aid of introspection ultimately related to sense data ('noise'). Grice could have used, "I don't see it as red." Or "I am not seeing the pillar box as blue” and unify his account. The
important distinction is that "That is not red." does not mention the
first-person. Thus, "I don't hear a noise" seems like an apt
utterance to receive an introspective analysis. In relying on introspection, Grice is being very pre-war Oxonian, at
that! 1938. ''Negation and Privation,' The H. P. Grice Papers,
Series II (Essays), Carton 4, Folder 10, BANC MSS 90/135c The Bancroft
Library, University of California, Berkeley. Keywords: negation,
privation, verificationism. Grice's attempt to 'eliminate' "not"
along verificationist lines. "That is not red" is based on "That
is green." "I am not hearing a noise" is based on the
absence of an introspection to the effect that the utterer is hearing a
noise. Grice was involved in serious philosophical studies before the
Second World War under the tutelage of Hardie at Corpus. While his
socialising was limited ("having been born on the wrong side of the
tracks"), he was unable to attend Austin's seminal Thursday
evening play group meetings with the seven: Hampshire, Hart, MacDermott,
MacNabb, Woozley, and Berlin. But he learned all about the methodology
when he returned to Oxford after the war. He will turn back to the topic
of negation later at Oxford (vide Grice 1961). He will later consider negation
within the list of formal devices along with their vernacular
counterparts. In the fourth William James lecture he considers a role for
negation along the lines of Cook Wilson in Statement and Inference. His
'Vacuous Names' contains introduction and elimination for negation.
In his commentary in P. G. R. I. C. E. he illustrates the Humeian
projection (metaphysical construction routine) with the pre-intuitive
concept of negation, specifying the various stages the intuitive concept
undergoes until it becomes fully rationally recostructed.
1941. PERSONAL IDENTITY, Mind. Repr. in
Perry. Preferred citation:: Grice, H. P. (1941). Personal identity, The H. P.
Grice Papers, Series II (Essays), BANC, University of California Press, Carton
4, Folder 12, "Personal Identity,” Published in Mind. Preferred
citation: Grice, H. P. (1941). Personal identity, in J. R. Perry, Personal
identity, Berkeley, University of California Press, reprinted from Mind.
The Grice Papers, Series II (Essays), Carton 4, Folder 12, BANC. Keyword:
"I," personal identity, Locke. (The folder includes some notes on David Hume). Grice was concerned with
issues involved the use of the first person singular ("I will be fighting
soon") since his pre-war days at Oxford. The topic had a special Oxonian pedigree that Grice had occasion to study
and explore for his M. A. Lit. Hum. Locke had famously defended a memory-based account of "I" that
had received some alleged counter-example by some Scots philosophers, notably
Reid. In his approach to
"I," Grice updates the analysis. It's now a 'logical
construction' of "I" utterances, and relying on Gallie. Grice uses
Broad's taxonomy of "I" utterances, too. He deals with the Reid-type counterexample,
and comes up with a rather elaborate 'analysans' for a simple "I" statement:
"I am hearing a noise." 1941. 'Personal Identity,’ in Mind,
repr. in J. Perry, Personal Identity, Berkeley, University of California
Press, The H. P. Grice Papers, Series II (Essays) and Series V (Topical) BANC
MSS 90/135c, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley. Keywords:
first personal pronoun, "I", personal identity, Hume, Locke. Grice's
attempt to reduce "I" statements ("I am hearing a noise") in
terms of a chain of mnemonic states. While quoting from recent philosophers
such as Gallie and Broad, he has an occasion to go back to Locke and contest
the infamous counterexample presented by Reid. Grice concludes with a methodological
note: the intricacy of one's analysis should not be a minus, but a plus. He
will later reconsider Broad's observation and re-titles it "the
logical-construction theory of personal identity." It was Haugeland who
had Grice re-consider Hume's vagaries with personal identity. Unlike the more conservative
Locke (that Grice favours), eliminationist Hume sees "I" as a
conceptual chimaera.
1946. DISPOSITIONS AND INTENTION. Preferred citation: Grice,
H. P. (1946). Dispositions and intention, The Grice Papers, Series V (Topical),
Carton 6, Folder 30, BANC. Grice is especially concerned with a
'dispositional' analysis to 'intending.' He will later reject it in "Intention and uncertainty." Grice is especially interested in
distinguishing his views from RYLE's dispositional account of intentions, which
Grice sees as 'reductionist,' and indeed 'eliminationist.’ The logic of
'dispositions' is tricky, as Grice will later explore in connection with
'rationality' (rational propension or propensity) and metaphysics (the 'as if'
operator).
1946. COMMON SENSE AND SCEPTICISM, repr. in Studies in the Way of
Words, Part II, Semantics and Metaphysics, Essay. While it
is strictly slightly odd to quote this as "(1946)" just because, by a
stroke of the pen, Grice writes that date in the Harvard volume, we will
follow the practice. Grice always took the sceptic's challenge, and in his
later reflections, as an affront to our idea of rationality. Hume's sceptical
attack is partial, and targeted towards practical rationality, though.
Grice is here concerned with a Cantabrigian topic popularised by G. E.
Moore. As Grice recollects, "Some like Witters, but Moore's my man."
Unlike the Cambridge analysts such as Moore, Grice saw himself as a 'linguistic
turn' Oxonian analyst, so it's only natural he connects scepticism and
common sense with 'ordinary language', the elephant in Grice's room.
1946. PEIRCE’S THEORY OF SIGNS. Preferred citation: Grice, H. P.
(1946). Seminar on C. S. Peirce's Theory of Signs, The H.P. Grice Papers,
Series V (Topical), Carton 8, Folder 29, BANC MSS 90/135c, The Bancroft
Library, University of California, Berkeley. Keywords: sign,
Peirce. Important as a source for Grice's attempt to 'English' Peirce.
Peirce ultra-Latinate and Greek taxonomies have Grice nervous. He proposes
to reduce all of Peirceian divisions to 'mean.' In the proceedings, he
quote from Ogden, Richards, Ewing. It is from Peirce that Grice explores
examples such as those spots 'meaning' measles. Grice's use of Peirce is
illustrative, thus, of the Oxonian linguistic turn focused on 'ordinary
language.' In finding Peirce krypo-technical, Grice is ensuing that his
tutees, and indeed any Oxonian philosophy student (Grice was university lecturer)
be aware that 'to mean' should be more of a priority than this or that
jargon by this or that (New World?) philosopher!
1948. MEANING, repr. in Studies in the Way of Words. "Meaning,”
The Oxford Philosophical Society. Published in "The Philosophical Review.” Preferred citation: Grice, H. P. (1948), Meaning, The Grice
Papers, Series II (Essays),
Carton 1, Folder 16. AUTHORS CITED: STEVENSON, C. L. For Stevenson, smoke 'means' fire. "Meaning" develops out of an
interest by H. P. Grice on the philosophy of C. S. Peirce. In his essays on
Peirce, Grice quotes from many other authors, including, besides C. S. Peirce,
C. K. Ogden, I. A. Richards, and A. C. Ewing. Grice had no intention to
submit "Meaning" to publication. Bennett guessed that Grice had
decided to publish it in 1957, just a year after his "Defence of a
dogma." However, the story is other. It was Strawson who submits the essay
by Grice to "The Philosophical Review." P. F. Strawson had attended Grice's talk on
Meaning for The Oxford Philosophical Society. An interesting fact, that confused a few, is that H. L. A. Hart quotes
from Grice's "Meaning." In his critical review of Holloway for The Philosophical Quarterly, Hart
quotes Grice pre-dating the publication of "Meaning" in "The
Philosophical Review."
1956. IN DEFENCE OF A DOGMA, in Studies in the Way of Words. 'In defence of a dogma' With P. F. Strawson, The
Philosophical Review, repr. in Grice, Studies in the Way of Words,
Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1989, Preferred citation: Grice, H.
P. (1956). The analytic-synthetic distinction, The H. P. Grice Papers, Series V
(Topical), BANC MSS 90/135c. Keywords: analytic-synthetic distinction The
locus classicus for the 'ordinary-language' philosophical response to Quine in
"Two dogmas of empiricism." Grice and Strawson claim that '... is
analytic" does have an ordinary use, as attached two a type of behavioural
conversational response. To an analytically false move (such as "My neighbour's
three-year-old son is an adult") the addressee is bound to utter, "I
don't understand you! You are not being figurative, are you?." To a
synthetically false move, on the other hand (such as "My neighbour's
three-year-old understands Russell's Theory of Types"), the addressee will
jump with, "Can't believe it!"
1956. G. E. MOORE AND PHILOSOPHER’S PARADOXES, in Studies in the Way of
Words. "G. E. Moore and Philosopher's Paradoxes,” Published in Studies
in the Way of Words. Preferred citation: Grice, H. P. (1956). G.
E. Moore and philosopher's paradoxes, in Studies in the Way of Words, Part II,
Semantics and Metaphysics, Essay, The Grice Papers, Series II (Essays), Carton
4, Folder 13, BANC. Keywords: G. E. Moore, paradox, ordinary language, Norman
Malcolm. While an Oxonian
thoroughbred, Grice was a bit like Austin, "Some like Witters, but Moore's my man." Grice spends some time exploring what Malcolm
has to say about Moore in connection with that particularly "Oxonian"
turn of phrase, "ordinary language." For Moore, a 'paradox' by a 'philosopher' arises when 'Philosopher' fails
to abide by the dictates of Ordinary Language. Grice is totally against this view as TOO BROAD to even claim to be true!
1957. METAPHYSICS (1957).
Metaphysics,' With P. F. Strawson and D. F. Pears, in D. F. Pears, The
Nature of Metaphysics, proceedings of the BBC Third programe lectures.
Preferred citation: Grice, H. P. (1957). Metaphysics, The H. P. Grice Papers,
Series V (Topical), BANC MSS 90/135c, The Bancroft Library, University of
California, Berkeley. Keywords: metaphysics, presupposition, Aristotle,
Kant, Hume, Collingwood. Grice participated in two of them. He discusses
Collingwood on presupposition. Metaphysics remained a favourite topic for
Grice's philosophical explorations, as it is evident from his 1988 essay on
"Metaphysics, Philosophical Eschatology, and Plato's Republic," reprinted
in his Studies in the Way of Words. The BBC lecture is typically dated in tone.
It was the days when philosophers thought they could educate the non-elite by
dropping names like Collingwood. The Third Programme was extremely popular,
especially in London, as it was a way for Londoners to get to know "what
is going on" down at Oxford
-- the only place an educated Londoner at the time was interested in displaying
some interest about!
1958. OXFORD PHILOSOPHY
AND LINGUISTIC BOTANISING (1958). Carton
1, Folder 19, Oxford
Philosophy and Linguistic
Botanising. Preferred citation: Grice, H. P. (1970). "Oxford Philosophy
and Linguistic Botanising." The
Grice Papers, Series II (Essays)
Carton 1, Folder 19. Grice’s main Oxonian association: H. P. Grice, St. John's, Oxford. By
"Oxford Philosophy," H. P. Grice notably refers to J. L. Austin's
Play Group, of which he was a member. But Grice had Oxford associations
pre-war, and after the demise of Austin. But back to the Play Group, this, to
some, infamous, playgroup, met on Saturday mornings at different venues at
Oxford, including Grice's own St. John's -- apparently, Austin's favourite
venue. Austin regarded himself
and his 'kindergarten' as 'linguistic' or 'language' *botanists*. The idea was to list various 'ordinary' uses
of this or that 'philosophical notion." Austin: "They say philosophy is about language; well, then, let's
botanise!" Grice's
involvement with "Oxford philosophy" of course predated his
associations with Austin's play group. He always said he was fortunate of
having been a tutee to Hardie at Corpus. H. P. Grice, Corpus,
Oxford. Grice would occasionally
refer to the emblematic pelican, so prominently displayed at Corpus. Grice had an interim association with the
venue one associates most directly with philosophy, Merton --: H. P. Grice, Merton, Oxford.
1961. THE CAUSAL THEORY
OF PERCEPTION, in Studies in the Way of Words, Part II, Semantics and
Metaphysics, Essay, Symposium with A. R. White, Proceedings of the
Aristotelian Society, supplementary volume, 35, no. 1:121-153 Repr.
in Warnock (1968) and, without the excursus on implication, in Grice (1989), The
H. P. Grice Papers, Series V (Topical), BANC MSS 90/135c, The Bancroft Library,
The University of California, Berkeley. Keyword: causal theory of
perception, implicature. The locus classicus in the philosophical literature
for Grice's implicatum. He introduces a 'dout-or-denial' condition for an
utterance of a 'phenomenalist' report ("That pillar-box seems red to
me." He attacks neo-Wittgensteinian approaches that regard the report as
_false_. In a long excursus on 'implication,' he compares the phenomenalist
report with utterances like "He has beautiful handwriting" (He is
hopeless at philosophy), a particularised conversational implicatum; "My wife is
in the kitchen or the garden" (I have non-truth-functional grounds to
utter this), a generalised conversational implicatum, "She was poor
but she was honest" (a Great-War witty (her poverty and her honesty
contrast), a 'conventional' implicatum; and "Have you stopped beating your
wife?" -- an old Oxonian conundrum -- (You have been beating your
wife), a presupposition. More importantly, he considers different tests
for each. Those for the conversational implicatum will become crucial:
cancellability, calculability, non-detachability, and indeterminacy. Back to
the issue of perception, he holds a conservative view as presented by Price at
Oxford. One interesting reprint is in "Causal Theories." White's
response is usually ignored, but shouldn't. White is an Australian philosopher
at Oxford who is usually regarded as a practitioner of 'ordinary-language' philosophy.
However, in his response, White hardly touches the issue of the 'implicature'
with which Grice is primarily concerned.
1962. SOME REMARKS ABOUT
THE SENSES, in Studies in the Way of Words, in Part II, Semantics
and Metaphysics, Essay, 1989. R. J. Butler, Analytic Philosophy.
Oxford: Blackwell. An interesting piece in that it was commissioned by Butler,
who knew Grice from his Oxford days. Grice cites O. P. Wood and R. Albritton.
Grice is concerned with a special topic in the philosophy of perception,
notably the identification of the traditional 'five' senses: vision, audition,
taste, smell, and tact. He introduces what is regarded in the philosophical
literature as the first 'thought-experiment,' in terms of the senses that
Martians may have. They have two pairs of eyes: are we going to allow that they
'see' with both pairs? Grice introduces a sub-division of seeing: a Martian x-s
an object with his upper pair of eyes, but he y-s an object with the lower pair
of eyes. In his exploration, he takes a 'realist' stance, which respects the
'ordinary' discursive ways to approach issues of perception. A second
interesting point is that in allowing this to be reprinted in Butler's
"Analytic philosophy," Grice is demonstrating that 'analytic
philosophers' should NOT be obsessed with 'ordinary language.' Butler's
compilation, a rather dry one, is meant as a response to the more linguistic
oriented ones by G. N. Flew (Grice's first tutee at St. John's, as it happens),
also published by Blackwell, and containing pieces by Austin, and company. One
philosopher who took Grice very seriously on this was Coady, in his "The
senses of the Martians."
1964. LOGIC AND CONVERSATION (1964, 1967). Carton 1, Folders 21-23. "Logic
and Conversation.” Preferred citation: Grice, H. P. (1964). 'Logic and
conversation,’ The Grice Papers, Series
II (Essays), Carton 1, Folders 21, 22, and 23, repr. as Part I of Studies in
the Way of Words. Keywords:
logic, conversation, implicature, principle of conversational helpfulness.
Variations on a theme by Grice: "Make your contribution such as is
required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction
of the talk exchange in which you are engaged." Variations on a theme by Grice. "I
wish to represent a certain subclass of non-conventional implicaturcs, which I
shall call CONVERSATIONAL implicaturcs, as being essentially connected with
certain general features of discourse; so my next step is to try to say what
these features are." "The following may provide a first approximation
to a general principle. Our talk exchanges do not normally consist of a
succession of disconnected remarks, and would not be rational if they did. They
are characteristically, to some degree at least, cooperative efforts; and each
participant recognizes in them, to some extent, a common purpose or set of
purposes, or at least a mutually accepted direction. This purpose or direction
may be fixed from the start (e.g., by an initial proposal of a question for
discussion), or it may evolve during the exchange; it may be fairly definite,
or it may be so indefinite as to leave very considerable latitude to the
participants (as in a casual conversation). But at each stage, SOME possible
conversational moves would be excluded as conversationally unsuitable. We might
then formulate a rough general principle which participants will be expected
(ceteris paribus) to observe, namely: Make your conversational contribution
such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose
or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged. One might label this
the COOPERATIVE PRINCIPLE." "We might then formulate a rough general principle which
participants will be expected (ceteris paribus) to
observe, namely: "Make your contribution such as is required, at
the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk
exchange in which you are engaged." One might label this the Cooperative Principle." Strictly,
the principle itself is not co-operative: conversants are. Less literary variant: Make your move such as is required by the accepted goal of the
conversation in which you are engaged. But why “LOGIC” and conversation?
"Logica" had been part of the
'trivium' for ages -- "Although they called it 'dialectica,' then."
Grice on the seven liberal arts.
Moved by P. F. Strawson's treatment of
the 'formal' devices in "Introduction to Logical Theory," Grice
targets these, in their 'ordinary-discourse' counterparts. Strawson indeed
characterizes Grice as his ‘logic’ tutor – Strawson was following a P. P. E.,
and his approach to logic was practical. His ‘philosophy’ tutor was Mabbott. For
Grice, with a M. A. Lit. Hum. the situation was different. He knew that the
Categoria and De Interpretatione of his beloved Aristotle were part of the
Logical Organon which had been so influential in the history of philosophy. Grice attempts to reconcile Strawson's
observations with the idea that the 'formal' devices reproduce some sort of
'explicatum,' or 'explicitum,' as identified by Whitehead and Russell in
"Principia Mathematica." In the proceedings, Grice has to rely on some general features of
discourse, or conversation as a rational co-operation. The alleged divergence between the
'ordinary-language' operators and their 'formal' counterparts is explained in
terms of the CONVERSATIONAL IMPLICATA, then. I.e. the content of the
psychological attitude that the addressee A has to ascribe to the utterer U to
account for any divergence between the formal device and its alleged
'ordinary-language' counterpart, while still assuming that U is engaged in a
co-operative transaction. The utterer
and his addressee are seen as caring for the mutual goals of conversation --
the exchange of information and the institution of decisions -- and judging
that conversation will only be profitable (and thus reasonable and rational) if
conducted under some form of principle of 'conversational helpfulness.'
"The observation of a principle
of conversational
helpfulness is reasonable (rational)
along the following lines: anyone who cares about the goals that are central to conversation/communication
(such as giving and receiving information, influencing and being influenced by
others) must be expected to have an interest, given suitable circumstances, in
participating in a conversation that will be profitable ONLY on the assumption
that it is conducted in general accordance with a principle of conversational
helpfulness."
1966. DESCARTES ON CLEAR
AND DISTINCT PERCEPTION (1966). Repr. in Studies in the Way of Words. Carton 1, Folder 20. "Descartes
on 'Clear and Distinct Perception'.” Preferred citation: Grice, H. P. (1966). "Descartes on clear and distinct
perception" The Grice Papers, Series II (Essays), Carton 1, Folder 20, Repr. in Part II (Semantics and
Metaphysics) to Studies in the Way of Words. Keyword:
Descartes, clear and distinct perception, certainty. Grice found Descartes very funny -- in a
French way! H. P. Grice is
interested in contesting A. J. Ayer and other Oxford philosophers, on the topic
of a criterion for 'certainty.' In
so doing, Grice choses Descartes's time-honoured criterion of 'clarity' and
'distinction,' as applied to perception. Grice does NOT quote Descartes in French! In the proceedings, Grice distinguishes between two 'kinds' of certainty
apparently ignored by Descartes: (a)
OBJECTIVE CERTAINTY: Ordinary-language
variant: "It is certain
that p.” -- whatever "it" refers to. (b) SUBJECTIVE CERTAINTY: Ordinary-language
variant: "I am certain that
p." "I" being, of
course, Grice, "in my bestest days, of course!" There are further items on Descartes in the
Grice Collection, notably in the last series, of topics arranged
alphabetically. Grice never
cared to publish his views on Descartes until he found an opportunity to do so
when compiling his Studies in the Way of Words.
1967. LOGIC AND CONVERSATION. Repr. in Studies in the Way of Words, Part
I. Carton 1, Folders 24-26. The William James Memorial Lectures on Logic and Conversation,
Harvard. Preferred citation: Grice, H. P. (1967). The William
James lectures on logic and conversation, The Grice Papers, Series
II (Essays), Carton 1, Folders 24, 25, and 26. Keywords: logic,
conversation, implicature. CONTENTS: Lecture 1 -- 'Prolegomena', Lecture 2 -- 'Logic and Conversation',
Lecture 3 -- 'Further notes on logic
and conversation', Lecture 4 --
'Indicative conditionals', Lecture
5 -- 'Utterer's meaning and intentions', Lecture 6 -- 'Utterer's meaning, sentence-meaning, and word-meaning',
Lecture 7 -- 'Some modelsl for
implicature' -- "I hope they don't expect me to lecture on James!"
Grice admired James, but not vice
versa. Grice entitled the set as
being "Logic and Conversation." That is the title, also, of the
second lecture. Grice keeps those titles seeing that it was way the whole set
of lectures were frequently cited, and that the second lecture had been
published under that title in Davidson and Harman, "Logic and
Grammar." The content of
each lecture is indicated below. In
the first, Grice manages to quote from Witters. In the last, he didn't! 1967. UTTERER’S MEANING, SENTENCE-MEANING,
AND WORD-MEANING (1967). Repr. in Studies in the Way of Words. Carton 1, Folder 27, "Utterer's
Meaning, Sentence-Meaning, and Word-Meaning,” The Foundations of Language.
Preferred citation: Grice, H. P. (1967). 'Utterer's meaning,
sentence-meaning, and word-meaning,' the sixth William James lecture, The
Foundations of Language. The Grice Papers, Series II (Essays),
Carton 1, Folder 27. The phrase 'utterer' is meant to provoke. Grice
thinks that 'speaker' is too narrow. "Surely you can mean by just UTTERING
stuff!" This is the sixth
William James lecture, as published in "The Foundations of Language."
As it happens, it became a popular lecture, seeing that J. R. Searle selected
this from the whole set for his Oxford reading in philosophy, "The
philosophy of language.” It is also the essay cited by Chomsky in his
influential John Locke lectures. Chomsky
takes Grice to be a 'behaviourist,' even along Skinner's lines, which provoked
a reply by Suppes, later reprinted in P. G. R. I. C. E., or Philosophical
Grounds of Rationality: Intentions, Categories, Ends. (In The New World, the "H. P." was
often given in a more "simplified" form.). 1967. UTTERER’S
MEANING AND INTENTIONS (1967). Repr. in Studies in the Way of Words. Carton 1, Folders 28-30, "Utterer's
Meaning and Intentions,” The Philosophical Review. Preferred citation: Grice, H. P. (1967).
'Utterer's meaning and intentions,' the fifth William James lecture, The
Philosophical Review. The Grice Papers, Series II (Essays) Carton 1, Folders 28, 29, and 30. Grice is not an
animist. While he allows for natural phenomena to mean ("smoke means
fire"), 'meaning' is best ascribed to some utterer, where this 'meaning'
is nothing but the intentions behind his utterance. This is the fifth William
James lecture. Grice was careful enough to submit it to "The Philosophical
Review," since it is a strictly philosophical development of the views
expressed in "Meaning" which Strawson had submitted on Grice's behalf
to the same "Review" and which had had a series of responses by
various philosophers. Among these philosophers is Strawson himself in
"Intention and convention in the the theory of speech acts," also in
"The Philosophical Review." Grice quotes from very many other philosophers in this essay, including:
J. O. Urmson, W. Stampe, P. F. Strawson, S. R. Schiffer, J. R. Searle. P. F. Strawson is especially relevant since
he started a series of alleged counter-examples with his infamous example of
the 'rat-infested house.' Grice
particularly treasured Stampe's alleged counter-example involving his beloved
bridge! Anita Avramides wrote her Oxon D. Phil on that, under Strawson!
1976. MEANING REVISITED,
repr. in Studies in the Way of Words. Carton
1, Folders 17-18. "Meaning Revisited.” Preferred citation:
Grice, H. P. (1976). 'Meaning
Revisited', The Grice Papers,
Series II (Essays), Carton 1, Folders 17 and 18. This is the
title H. P. Grice chose for a contribution to a symposium at Brighton organised
by N. V. Smith. It comprises three sections. Grice is concerned with
the application of his "M. O. R.," or "Modified Occam's
Razor" to the lexeme, "mean." The also explores an 'evolutionary' model of creature construction
reaching a stage of non-iconic representation. Finally, Grice attempts to construct 'meaning' as a 'value-paradeigmatic'
notion. A version was published
in the proceedings of the Brighton symposium, by Croom Helm, London.
1969. VACUOUS NAMES, in
Davidson/Hintikka. Carton 1, Folder 31, "Vacuous Names.” For Davidson/Hintikka, Words and objections:
essays on the work of W. V. Quine. Preferred citation: Grice, H. P. (1969). 'Vacuous names,' in
Davidson and Hintikka, Words and objections: essays on the work of W. V. Quine,
Dordrecht: Reidel. The Grice Papers, Series II (Essays), Carton 1, Folder 31,
and Carton 2, Folders 1, 2, 3, and 4. Grice's favourite vacuous name is
Bellerophon. This is an
essay commissioned by Donald Davison and Jaako Hintikka for "Words and
objects: essays in the work of W. V. Quine" for Reidel. "Words and objects" had appeared
(without Grice's contribution) as a special issue of "Synthese."
Grice's contribution, along with Quine's "Reply to H. P. Grice,"
appeared only in the reprint of that special issue for Reidel in
Dordrecht. Grice cites from various philosophers (and logicians -- this
was the time when logic was starting to be taught OUTSIDE philosophy
departments, or 'sub-faculties'), such asG. Myro, B. Mates, K. S. Donnellan, P. F.
Strawson, Grice was particularly
proud to be able to quote Mates "by mouth or book." Grice takes the opportunity, in his tribute
to Quine, to introduce one of two of his syntactical devices to allow for
conversational implicata to be given maximal scope. The device in "Vacuous Names" is a
subscription device to indicate the ordering of introduction of this or that
operation. Grice wants to give
room for utterances of a special 'existential' kind be deemed
rational/reasonable, provided the principle of conversational helfpulness is
thought of by the addressee to be followed by the utterer. "Someone isn't attending the party
organised by the Merseyside Geographical Society." "That is Marmaduke Bloggs, who climbed
Mt. Everest on hands and knees." "But who, as it happened, turned out to be an invention of the
journalists at the Merseyside Newsletter."
1970. THE URBANA
LECTURES. The Urbana Lectures.
Preferred citation: Grice, H. P. (1970). The Urbana Lectures, The H. P. Grice
Papers, Series II, Carton 2, Folders 5, 6, 7, and 8, BANC MSS 90/135c. The
Grice Collection also contains a folder for "Odd ends: Urbana and
non-Urbana." Grice
continues with the elaboration of a formal calculus. He originally baptised it
"System Q" in honour of Quine. At a later stage, Myro will
re-name it "System G," in a special version, "System GHP,"
a highly powerful/hopefully plausible version of System G," "in
gratitude to Grice."
1971. INTENTION AND
UNCERTAINTY, Proceedings of the British
Academy. Preferred citation: Grice,
H. P. (1971). 'Intention and uncertainty,' Proceedings of the British Academy.
The Grice Papers, Series II (Essays), Carton 2, Folders 9 and 10. This is
the Henriette Herz British Academy lecture, and as such published in The
Proceedings of the British Academy. Grice calls himself a neo-Prichardian (after the Oxford philosopher) and
cares to quote from a few other philosophers -- some of whom he was not
necessarily associated with: such as Kenny and Anscombe, and some of whom he
was, notably D. F. Pears. Grice
quotes Pears as a philosopher he found especially congenial to explore areas in
what both called 'philosophical psychology,' notably the tricky use of
'intending' as made by a few philosophers even in their own circle (such as
Hampshire and Hart in "Intention, decision, and certainty." The title of Grice's lecture is meant to
provoke those philosophers who were too ready to bring in 'certainty' in an
area that requires deep philosophical exploration.
1973. PROBABILITY, DESIRABILITY AND MODE OPERATORS. Preferred citation: Grice,
H. P. (1973). 'Probability, desirability, and mode operators,' Conference on
Implicature, The Grice Papers, Series II, Carton 2, Folder 11. Grice had been freely using the very English
'mood' until J. M. E Moravsik, of all people, corrected him: "What you mean ain't a 'mood.'"
"I shall call it 'mode' just to
please you, J. M. E." A
version of this essay was presented in a conference whose proceedings were
published, except for Grice's essay, due to 'technical complications,' viz. his
idiosyncratic use of idiosyncratic symbology! By 'mode' Grice means indicative or imperative. Following Davidson, Grice
attaches probability to the indicative, via the doxastic, and desirability to
the indicative, via the boulomaic. He also allows for mixed utterances. Probability is qualified with a
suboperator indicating a degree d; ditto for desirability, degree d'.
1983. THE CONCEPTION OF VALUE, Clarendon. The Paul Carus Lectures on the
conception of value. Preferred citation: Grice, H. P. (1983). The Conception of Value, Clarendon.
The Grice Papers, Series II, Carton 2, Folders 12, 13, 14, 15, and 16, BANC. "I
LOVE CARUS.” Grice was undecided as to what his Paul Carus lectures were
be on. He had explored 'meaning'
under its 'value' "optimality" guise in "Meaning
revisited." Grice thought
that introducing 'value-paradeigmatic' notions would allow him to respond in a
more apt way to what some critics were raising as a possible 'vicious circle'
in his approach to 'semantic' and 'psychological' notions. The Carus lectures are then dedicated to the
'construction,' alla Hume, of 'value-paradeigmatic' notions, and value itself.
Grice starts by quoting Austin and J.
L. Mackie, of Oxford. The lectures are intended to a general audience,
provided it is a *philosophical* general audience! Most of the second lecture is Grice's subtle
exploration of Kant's categorical imperative, with which he had struggled in
the last John Locke lecture on aspects of reasoning -- notably the 'reduction'
of the categorical imperative to this or that 'counsel of prudence' with an
implicated protasis to the effect that the agent is aiming at 'eudaimonia.'
1973. REPLY TO DAVIDSON
ON ‘INTENDING.’ Preferred citation: Grice,
H. P. (1973). 'Reply to Davidson on 'Intending,' The H. P. Grice Papers, Series
II (Essays), Carton 2, Folders 17 and 18, BANC. Keywords: intending, implicature,
disimplicature. Grice and
Davidson were members of "The Grice and Davidson Mutual Admiration
Society." Davidson, not
being Oxonian, was perhaps not acquainted with Grice's polemics at Oxford with
Hart and Hampshire (where Grice sided with Pears, rather). Grice and Pears hold a 'minimalist' approach
to 'intending.' On the other
hand, Davidson makes what Grice sees as 'the same mistake' again of BUILDING
'certainty' into the concept. Grice
finds that to apply the idea of a conversational IMPLICATUM at this point is
'too social to be true.' Rather,
Grice prefers to coin the conversational DISIMPLICATUM: Marmaduke Bloggs intends to climb Mt Everest
on hands and knees. The
utterance above, if merely reporting what Bloggs thinks, may involve a 'loose'
use of "intends." The
certainty on the agent's part on the success of his enterprise is thus cast
with doubt. Davidson was
claiming that the agent's belief in the probability of the object of the
agent's intention was a mere conversational IMPLICATUM on the utterer's part.
Grice responds that the ascription of
such a belief is an ENTAILMENT of a strict use of 'intend,' even if, in cases
where the utterer aims at a conversational DISIMPLICATUM, it can be
'dropped.' The addressee
will still regard the utterer as abiding by the principle of conversational
helpfulness. D. F. Pears was
especially interested in the Davidson-Grice polemic on intending. Keywords: INTENDING, BELIEVING.
1975. METHOD IN PHILOSOPHICAL PSYCHOLOGY: FROM THE BANAL TO THE BIZARRE,
in Grice, The Conception of Value. Presidential address to the American
Philosophical Association, Pacific Division. Preferred citation: Grice, H.
P. (1975). Method in philosophical psychology: from the banal to the bizarre,
in The Conception of Value. The Grice Papers, Series II (Essays),
Carton 2, Folders 19, 20, and 21. Keywords: philosophical
psychology, pirotology, immanuel. Grice's "Method" is reprinted in The Conception of
Value. Grice was
forever grateful to Carnap for having coined 'pirot.' "Or having thought to have coined.
Apparently, someone had used the expression before him to mean some sort of
exotic fish." Grice wasn't
sure what his presidential address to the American Philosophical Association
will be about. He chose
"the banal" (i.e. the 'ordinary-language' counterpart of something
like a 'need' we ascribe to a squirrel to gobble nuts) and the 'bizarre': the
philosopher's construction of 'need' and other 'psychological,' now theoretical
terms. In the proceedings, Grice
creates the discipline of 'pirotology.' He cares to mention very many philosophers: Aristotle, D. K. Lewis, G.
Myro, L. Witters, F. R. Ramsey, G. Ryle, and a few others! The essay became popular when, of all people,
Ned Block, cited it as a programme in 'functionalism,' which it is!
1982. AKRASIA, in Hintikka and Vermazen, Actions and events, Clarendon.
"Incontinence.” Preferred citation: Grice, H. P. (1982). Davidson on
weakness of the will, in Hintikka and Vermazen, Actions and Events,
Clarendon. Akrasia, The H. P. Grice Papers, Series II (Essays), Carton 2,
Folders 22 and 23. Keywords: akrasia, philosophical psychology,
rationality. "We shouldn't be saying this, but we are
saying it!" Grice prefers
'akrasia,' but he is happy to use Cicero's translation of this. For Grice,
'akrasia' has to be accounted for by a theory of rationality from the start.
Grice is interested in both the
common-or-garden 'boulomaic' version of akrasia, involving the volitive 'soul,'
and 'alethic' or doxastic 'akrasia,' involing the judicative soul proper.
1967. FURTHER NOTES ON
LOGIC AND CONVERSATION, in Studies in the Way of Words. Published in Peter Cole, "Pragmatics," for Academic Press,
London. Preferred citation: Grice, H. P. (1967). Further notes on
logic and conversation, in Studies in the Way of Words, Part I (Logic
and Conversation, Essay 3), The H. P Grice Papers, Series II, Carton 2, Folder
24, BANC. Keywords: Modified Occam's razor, implicature. The essay had
circulated since the Harvard days, and it was also reprinted by Peter Cole in
his Pragmatics for Academic Press. "Personally, I
prefer 'dialectica.'" -- Grice. This is the third William James
lecture at Harvard. It is particularly useful for Grice's introduction of
his 'razor,' "M. O. R.," or "Modified Occam's Razor,"
jocularly expressed by Grice as: "Senses
are not to be multiplied beyond necessity.” An Englishing of the Ockham's
Latinate, "Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem."
1970. PRESUPPOSITION AND CONVERSATIONAL IMPLICATURE, repr. in Studies in
the Way of Words. Repr. in P. Cole, Radical pragmatics, for Academic Press,
London. Preferred citation: Grice, H. P. (1970). Presupposition and
conversational implicature, in Studies in the Way of Words, Part II, Semantics
and metaphysics, Essay, The H. P. Grice Papers, Series II (Essays), Carton 2,
Folder 25, BANC. Keywords: presupposition, conversational
implicature. Grice much preferred Collingwood's to Strawson's
presuppositions! Grice thought, and rightly, too, that if his notion of
the conversational implicatum was to gain Oxonian currency, it should supersede
Strawson's idea of the 'prae-suppositum.' Strawson, in his attack
to Russell, had been playing with Quine's idea of a 'truth-value gap.' Grice shows that neither the metaphysical
concoction of a truth-value gap nor the philosophical tool of the
'prae-suppositum' is needed: "The
king of France is bald" ENTAILS
'There is a king of France." "The king of France ain't bald” on the other hand, merely IMPLICATES
it, as a perfectly adequate cancellation, abiding with the principle of
conversational helpfulness" is in the offing: "The king of France ain't bald. What
made you think he is? For starters, he ain't real!" Grice credits Hans Sluga for having pointed
out to him the way to deal with "the" formally. Grice opts for
the Whiteheadian-Russellian standard rendition, in terms of the iota
operator.
1980. FREEDOM IN KANT’S
GRUNDLEGUNG. "Freedom and Morality
in Kant's Foundations.” Preferred citation: Grice, H. P. (1980). Freedom and
Morality in Kant's Grundlegung, The H. P. Grice Papers, Series II
(Essays), Carton 2, Folders 26, 27, and 28, BANC. Keywords: Grundlegung, freedom,
autonomy. Grice would refer to
this, as Kantians do, as the Grundlegung. Grice was never happy with 'eleutheria,' qua Greek philosophical notion.
"To literal to be true? By "Foundations," Grice obviously means
Kant's essay.Grice preferred to quote Kant in English. The reason being that
Grice was practising "ordinary-language" philosophy; and you cannot
expect much 'linguistic botany' in a language other than your own! Kant was not too 'ordinary' in his use of
German, either! The English
translations that Grice used captured, in a way, all that Grice thought was
worth capturing in Kant's philosophy. Kant was not your 'standard'
philosopher in the programme Grice was familiar with: Lit. Hum. Oxon. However, Kant was popular in The New World,
where Grice lectured profusely.
1977. ASPECTS OF REASON AND REASONING, in Grice, Aspects of Reason,
Clarendon. The John Locke Lectures "Aspects of Reason.” Preferred
citation: Grice, H. P. (1977). Aspects of reason, The Kant
Lectures, Stanford, Clarendon. The H. P. Grice Papers, Series II, Carton 2,
Folders 29 and 30, BANC. Keywords: reason, happiness. While Locke hardly
mentions 'reason,' his friend Burthogge does, and profusely! It was
slightly ironic that Grice had delivered these lectures as the Rationalist Kant
lectures at Stanford. He was
honoured to be invited to Oxford. Officially, to be a John Locke lecture you
have to be *visiting* Oxford. While
Grice was a fellow of St. John's, he was still most welcome to give his set of
lectures on reasoning at the Sub-Faculty of Philosophy. He quotes very many authors, including Locke!
In his "proemium," Grice notes that while he was rejected the Locke
scholarship back in the day, he was extremely happy to be under Locke's aegis
now!
1986. ACTIONS AND EVENTS, The Pacific Philosophical Quarterly. Preferred
citation: Grice, H. P. (1986). Actions and events, The Pacific
Philosophical Quarterly, The Grice Papers, Series II (Essays), Carton 3,
Folders 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, BANC. Keywords: action, event. Davidson had
published some stuff on 'actions' and 'events,' or 'events and actions,'
actually. Davidson's point was that “p.q” (e.g. “It is raining, and it is pouring”) denotes EVENTS. But "Smith went
fishing" denotes an 'action,' which is a kind of 'event.' However, Davidson is fighting against your
intuition, if you are a follower of Whitehead and Russell, to symbolise the
"Smith" sentence as: Fs,
where 's' stands for Smith and F for
'fishing.' The logical form of
'event' reports and 'action' reports seems to be slightly more complicated.
Davidson's point especially involved 'adverbs': “The horse runs fast; therefore,
the horse runs.” Grice explores
all these topics and submits the thing to "The Pacific Philosophical
Quarterly." He quotes vary
many philosophers, not just Davidson, including: Reichenbach, Robinson, and
Kant.
1958. POST-WAR OXFORD PHILOSOPHY (1958), in Studies in the Way of Words. Carton
3, Folder 6, "Post-war Oxford Philosophy.” Preferred
citation: Grice, H. P. (1958).
Postwar Oxford philosophy, in Studies in the Way of Words, Part II, Semantics
and Metaphysics, Essay. The Grice Papers, Series II (Essays), Carton 3, Folder
6, BANC. Repr. in Grice, Studies in the Way of Words. Grice
found it important to reprint this since he had updated thoughts on the matter,
which he displays in his "Conceptual analysis and the province of
philosophy." The topic
represents one of the strands he identifies behind the unity of his philosophy.
By "post-war Oxford
philosophy," Grice meant the period he was interested in. While he had been at Corpus, Merton, and St.
John's in the pre-war days, for some reason, he felt that he had made history
in the post-war period. The
historical reason Grice gives is understandable enough. In the pre-war days, Grice was the good
student and the new fellow of St. John's -- the other one was Mabbott. But he had not been able to engage in
philosophical discussion much, other than with other tutees of Hardie. AFTER the war, Grice joins Austin's
"Saturday mornings." Indeed,
for Grice, 'post-war' means "all philosophy after the war," since he
never abandoned the methods he developed under Austin, which were pretty
congenial to the ones he had himself displayed in the pre-war days, in essays
like "Negation" and "Personal Identity." Grice was an EXPERT on Oxonian philosophy.
He saw himself as a member of the
school of analytic philosophy, rather than the abused term 'ordinary-language'
philosophy. This is evident by
the fact that he contributed to such polemic -- but typically Oxonian --
volumes such as Butler, Analytic Philosophy, published by Blackwell (of all
publishers). Grice led a very
social life at Oxford, and held frequent philosophical discussions with
philosophers such as Austin, J.
L., Pears, D. F. , Strawson, P. F., Thomson, J. F. , Urmson, J. O. , Warnock, G. J. , and many others.
1988. STUDIES IN THE WAY OF WORDS (1988). London: Harvard University
Press. Carton 3, Folders 7-21, Studies in the Way of Words. Preferred citation: Grice, H. P. (1988). Studies in the
Way of Words, London: Harvard University Press. The Grice Papers, Series
II, Carton 3, Folders 7 to 21, BANC. Keywords: implicature, rationality. This
is the title Grice eventually chooses for his compilation of essays. It is a
tribute to Locke. The 'studies'
are organised in two Parts. Part I is "Logic and Conversation" and
Part II in "Semantics and Metaphysics."
1987. RETROSPECTIVE EPILOGUE (1987), in Studies in the Way of Words. Carton
3, Folders 22-25, "Retrospective Foreword.” Preferred citation: Grice, H. P. (1987).
Retrospective epilogue, in Studies in the Way of Words, London,
Harvard University Press. The Grice Papers, Series II (Essays), Carton 3,
Folders 22-26, and Carton 4, Folder 1 and 2, BANC. Grice drops a few words as a
'foreword,' explaining the ordering of essays. He mentions that he hesitated to
follow Bennett's suggestion to order the essays chronologically. Rather, he chose to just publish the whole
set of seven William James lectures as Part I. Part II is organised more or less thematically, though. 1987.
RETROSPECTIVE EPILOGUE (1987), in Studies in the Way of Words. Carton 3,
Folder 26. "Retrospective Epilogue". Preferred
citation: Same as above, BANC. This is a long exploration by Grice on the many
'strands' he identifies in his own philosophy. 'Strand' should not mislead us. For Grice, philosophy, like virtue, is entire. All the strands therefore show some
'latitudinal,' and we hope, 'longitudinal' unity. By these two types of 'unity,' Grice means
the obvious idea that all sub-disciplines of philosophy (philosophy of
language, philosophy of perception, philosophical psychology, etc.) interact,
and that a historical regard for one's predecessors is a must. Carton 4, Folder 1, "Retrospective Epilogue" (continued). Preferred citation: same as above, BANC. Carton
4, Folder 2, "Retrospective Epilogue" and
"Foreword,” Preferred citation: same as above, BANC.
1988. METAPHYSICS,
PHILOSOPHICAL ESCHATOLOGY, AND PLATO’S REPUBLIC (1988), in Studies in the Way
of Words. Carton 4, Folders 3-4, "Metaphysics, Philosophical Eschatology, and Plato's Republic,” Preferred
citation: Grice, H. P. (1988).
Metaphysics, philosophical eschatology, and Plato's Republic, in Studies in the
Way of Words, Part II, Semantics and metaphysics, Essay. The Grice Papers,
Series II (Essays), Carton 4, Folders 3 and 4, BANC. Repr. in Studies
in the Way of Words. Grice had a specific reason to reprint this. More than
an exegesis on Plato, it is Grice's take on the fact that metaphysics needs to
be subdivided into ontology proper and what he calls 'philosophical
eschatology,' for the study of things like his 'category shift,' etc. The use of Plato is merely an application of
his philosophically eschatological approach to the item 'just,' as used by
Socrates ('morally just') and Thrasymachus ('legally just'). Grice has one
specific essay on Aristotle (published in The Pacific Philosophical Quarterly).
So he thought Plato merited his own essay, too. Grice is concerned with a neo-Socratic (versus neo-Thrasymachean) account
of 'moral' justice as conceptually prior to 'legal' justice. In the proceeding, he creates 'philosophical
eschatology' as the OTHER branch to metaphysics (along with ontology).
To say that 'just' crosses a categorial
barrier (from the moral to the legal) is to utter a metaphysical, strictly
eschatological, pronouncement.
1957. MEANING (1957).
REPRINTS. Carton 4, Folder 5,
H. P. Grice's Reprints. Preferred
citation: Grice, H. P. (1957). Reprints, The H. P. Grice Papers, Series II (The
Essays of H. P. Grice), Carton 4, Folder 5, BANC.
1970. ARISTOTLE ON BEING AND GOOD (1970). Keyword: ARISTOTLE. Carton 4, Folder
6, "Aristotle on Being and
Good.” Preferred citation: Grice,
H. P. (1970). Aristotle on being and good, The Grice Papers, Series II
(Essays), Carton 4, Folder 6, BANC. Keywords: Aristotle, being, good. As from this folder, the essays are ordered
alphabetically, starting with "Aristotle,” Grice will explore Aristotle on
'being' in explorations with A. D. Code. Grice comes up with 'izzing' and
'hazzing' as the two counterparts to Aristotle's views on, respectively,
essential and non-essential predication. Grice's views on Aristotle on 'the good' connect with Grice's
Aristotelian idea of 'eudaimonia,' that he explores elsewhere.
1988. ARISTOTLE ON THE MULTIPLICITY OF BEING (1988), Pacific
Philosophical Quarterly. Carton 4, Folder 7, "Aristotle on the Multiplicity of
Being,” Repr. in The Pacific Philosophical Quarterly (edited by B. F.
Loar). Preferred citation: Grice, H. P. (1988). Aristotle on the
multiplicity of being, The Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, The
Grice Papers, Series II (Essays), Carton 4, Folder 7, BANC. A thorough
discussion of Owens's treatment of Aristotle as leading us to the 'snares' of
ontology. Grice distinguishes
between 'izzing' and 'hazzing,' which he thinks help in clarifying, 'more
axiomatico,' what Aristotle is getting at with his remarks on 'essential'
versus 'non-essential' predication. Surely, for Grice, being should not be multiplied beyond necessity (but
izzing and hazzing ARE already multiplied).
1970. ARISTOTLE ON PLEASURE (1970). Carton 4, Folder
8, "Aristotle: Pleasure.” Preferred
citation: Grice, H. P. (1970).
'Aristotle on pleasure,' The Grice Papers, Series II (Essays), Carton 4, Folder
8, BANC. Keywords: hedonism, pleasure, Aristotle. As a Lit. Hum. Oxon., and especially as a
tutee of Hardie at Corpus, Grice was well aware of the centrality of 'hedone'
in Aristotle's system. "Pleasure"
is rendered "placitum" (as in "ad placitum") in scholastic
philosophy. But Grice prefers
'agreeable.' One of Grice's
requisites for an ascription of 'eudaimonia,' precisely require that the system
of ends an agent chooses to realise be an 'agreeable' one.
1965. CONVERSATIONAL
IMPLICATURE (1965). Carton 4, Folder 9, "Conversational Implicature" Grice's main invention, one
which trades on the distinction between what an utterer IMPLIES and what his
expression does. "A distinction apparently denied by Witters, and all
too frequently ignored by, of all people, Austin." Grice is implicating that Austin's sympathies
were for the 'subjectification' of "Linguistic Nature." Grice remains an obdurate individualist, and
never loses sight of the distinction that gives rise to the conversational
implicatum, which can very well be hyper-contextualised, idiosyncratic, and
perfectly particularised! His
Oxonian example: "I can
very well mean that my tutee is to bring me a philosophical essay next week by
uttering "It is raining.""
1961. NEGATION (1961). Carton 4, Folder 11, "Negation.”
Preferred citation: Grice, H. P.
(1961). Negation, The Grice Papers, Series II (Essays), Carton 4, Folder 11,
BANC. Keyword: negation, logical form. Strawson had included a section on 'not' in his "Introduction to
Logical Theory." Grice
addresses that point. Unlike
"and," "or," and "if," "not" is a
truth-functor (or satisfactory-value-functor) of the unary type. Grice is interested in applying Cook Wilson's
"Statement and inference" to explore what the role of 'not' might
be. And he succeds in finding one. It is explained in terms of the
conversational implicatum: "That's
not red” now IMPLICATES that some utterer has, somewhere, sometime, expressed
the contrary opinion.
The H. P. Grice Papers,
Oxford, etc. Part of The
Grice Collection
Extent: The number of containers of The H. P. Grice Papers is 10
cartons Linear feet: 12.5. Carton 1 -- 31 folders, Carton
2 -- 30 folders, Carton 3 -- 26
folders, Carton 4 -- 30 folders,
Carton 5 -- 31 folders, Carton 6 -- 38 folders, Carton 7 -- 32 folders, Carton 8 -- 33 folders, Carton 9 -- 31 folders and Carton 10 -- No folders – Tapes.
The H. P. Grice Papers consist of the publications, unpublications, and
correspondence by English philosopher H. P. Grice, during his years at Corpus,
Merton, and St. John's, Oxford -- and beyond. It is part of The H. P.
Grice Collection, comprising items not contained in The H. P.
Grice Papers. H. P. Grice's published oeuvre includes the volumes Studies
in the Way of Words (Cambridge, Mass. and London, Harvard University
Press), -- a compilation of many of his essays, grouped around his William
James 'Logic and Conversation' lectures, along with second part which he
entitled 'Semantics and metaphysics'), The Conception of Value (Clarendon),
organised around the Carus lectures, but reprinting his "Method in
philosophical psychology' and a discussion on 'Metaphysics, philosophical
psychology, and value' he had published elsewhere, and Aspects of
Reason (Clarendon), centred around the John Locke lectures, but also
reprinting his one of his essays on eudaimonia.
H. P. Grice published some of his essays in periodical publications
such as:
Mind ('Personal Identity')
The Philosophical Review ('Meaning' and 'Utterer's Meaning
and Intentions', 'In defence of a dogma')
The Proceedings of The Aristotelian Society ('The Causal Theory of
Perception')
The Foundations of Language ('Utterer's meaning, sentence-meaning
and word-meaning')
The Proceedings of The British Academy ('Intention and
Uncertainty')
The Proceedings of the American Philosophical Association ('Method in
philosophical psychology: from the banal to the bizarre'), and
The Pacific Philosophical Quarterly ('Actions and events,'
'Aristotle on the multiplicity of being').
Grice is careful in noting the provenance of his many essays in Studies
in the Way of Words. Besides these periodical publications, some of H. P. Grice's essays
appeared as commissioned chapters for volumes, such as
Analytic Philosophy, ed. by R. J. Butler, for Blackwell ('Some remarks
about the senses')
Words and objections: essays in the work of W. V. Quine, ed. by D. Davidson and
G. Harman for Reidel, Dordrecht ('Vacuous names')
Mutual knowledge ('Meaning revisited')
Logic and grammar ('Logic and conversation')
The nature of
metaphysics
Speech acts ('Logic and conversation')
Pragmatics ('Further notes on logic and conversation')
Radical Pragmatics ('Presupposition and conversational
implicature')
Actions and events: essays on the work of Donald Davidson, ed. by Hintikka and
Vermazen ('Davidson on weakness of the will').
Grice’s reprints: many of Grice's essays are reprinted in
compilations, at Oxford and elsewhere, including:
Warnock's The Philosophy of Perception ('The Causal Theory of
Perception' originally in the Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society)
Strawson's Philosophical Logic ('Meaning,' originally in
The Philosophical Review)
Perry's Personal Identity ('Personal identity,' repr.
from Mind)
Searle's The Philosophy of Language ('Utterer's meaning,
sentence-meaning, and word-meaning,' repr. from The Foundations of
Language).
Grice himself reprinted many of his essays in his Studies in the
Way of Words. A chronological listing is given as Appendix B below.
Included in The H. P. Grice Papers are extensive notes and research Grice
conducts on theories of semantics, reason, trust, and value. H. P. Grice's
most popular lectures, including The John Locke Lectures at Oxford on Aspects
of reason, The William James Lectures at Harvard on Logic and conversation, The
Paul Carus Lectures on The Conception of Value, Urbana lectures, and The
Immanuel Kant Lectures at Stanford, are all documented both as drafts and
finalised forms of transcripts, and also in audio files within the collection. H. P.
Grice's contributions include The William James Lectures at Harvard on Logic
and Conversation, "Utterer's Meaning, Sentence-Meaning, and
Word-Meaning," in The Foundations of Language, "The
Urbana Lectures," "Logic and Conversation" (in Davidson and
Harman, Logic and Grammar), The Immanuel Kant Lectures at Stanford
on Aspects of Reason, The John Locke Lectures at Oxford, and The Paul Carus
Lectures on The Conception of Value. H. P. Grice's publications and
'unpublications' are compilations of his extensive research performed mainly in
the philosophy of language, but also in metaphysics, Aristotelian philosophy,
philosophical psychology, and ethics. H. P. Grice is attributed with
coining "implicature" to describe a dimension of utterer's meaning,
and for defining his own paradox known as "Grice's paradox,"
introduced in Grice's Studies in the Way of Words, a compilation of
his essays. Included in the H.
P. Grice collection is Grice's research on Aristotle's metaphysics with A. D.
Code, meta-ethics with J. Baker, metaphysics with P. F. Strawson and G. Myro,
intention and philosophical psychology, with D. F. Pears, and the philosophy of
perception, with G. J. Warnock and R. O. Warner. Also included in The H. P. Grice Papers is,
under Series IV, documentation of Grice's involvement with various philosophical
associations, such as The Aristotelian Society, The British Academy, and The
American Philosophical Association.
How the folders unfold into the five series: SERIES
I (Correspondence). Carton 1,
folders 1-15. Series I divided
into Series IA: Correspondence
with Baker, Bennett, Bealer, Code, Suppes, Warner, and Wyatt, and Series IB: Other; SERIES II (Essays). Carton 1: Folders 16-31,
Carton 2: 30 folders, Carton 3: 26 folders, and Carton 4: 30 folders; SERIES III (The Doctrines). Carton 5: 31 folders, Carton
6: Folders 1-3; SERIES IV (Associations).
Carton 6: Folders 4-12 and Carton
10: Audio-tapes; and SERIES V (Topical). Carton 6: Folders 13-38, Carton 7: 32 folders, Carton 8: 33 folders, and Carton 9: 31 folders
Container List: The H. P. Grice Papers comprise five series: SERIES
I: The Correspondence of H. P. Grice (A: Baker, Bennett, Bealer, Code, Suppes, Warner, Wyatt, B: General); SERIES II: Essays; SERIES
III: Doctrines; SERIES IV:
Associations, and SERIES V:
Topical.
Series I: The Correspondence of H. P. Grice.
Physical Description: THE CORRESPONDENCE OF H.
P. GRICE comprises just one
Carton 1, Folders 1-15 (There
are further folders in Carton 1 which pertain to Series II). The
correspondence of H. P. Grice is arranged alphabetically according to surname
of correspondent, followed by correspondence of a more general, sometimes
administrative, kind. Scope and Content Note. "Series I: The Correspondence of H. P. Grice" includes
correspondence with philosophers such as J. Baker, G. P. Bealer, R. O. Warner,
and R. Wyatt, addressing various forms of his research on philosophy.
BAKER. Carton 1, Folder 2. Correspondence with J. Baker. Preferred citation: Grice,
H. P. (1982). Correspondence with J. Baker, The Grice Papers, Series I (Correspondence), Carton 1, Folder 2. Grice and Baker
collaborated mainly on work on ethics seen as an offspring, alla Kant, of
philosophical psychology. Baker contributes to P. G. R. I. C. E., a festschrift
for Grice ("Philosophical Grounds of Rationality: Intentions, Categories,
Ends") with an essay on the purity, and alleged lack thereof of, of
morally evaluable motives ("Do one's motives have to be
pure?"). Baker also contributed to a volume on Grice's honour published by
Palgrave, Meaning and analysis: essays on H. P. Grice. Baker
is the organiser of a symposium on the thought of H. P. Grice for the American
Philosophical Association. Proceedings in The Journal of Philosophy -- The
chair is J. F. Bennett, with contributions by Baker, R. Grandy, and comments by
R. Stalnaker and R. Warner.
BENNETT. Carton 1, Folder 1, Correspondenc with J. F. Bennett, of Oxford. Bennett quotes Grice in his "Linguistic
Behaviour." Grice quotes
Bennett in the "Foreword" to Studies in the Way of
Words. Bennett has an earlier work on Rationality, which evidenced that
the topic was key in Grice's Oxford. Preferred citation: Grice, H. P. (1988). Correspondence with
J. F. Bennett, The Grice Papers,
Series I (Correspondence -- A), Carton 1, Folder 1.
BEALER. Correspondence with G. P. Bealer. Carton 1, Folder 4. Preferred citation: Grice,
H. P. (1986). Correspondence with G. P. Bealer, The Grice Papers,
Series I (Correspondence). Carton
1, Folder 4. Bealer refers to Grice in his influential Clarendon essay on
content. Bealer is concerned with how 'pragmatic inference' may intrude in the
ascription of a psychological state, attitude, or stance.
CODE. Correspondence with A. D. Code, Carton 1, Folders 5-6. Preferred
citation: Grice, H. P.
(1980). Correspondence with A. D. Code, The Grice Papers, Series I
(Correspondence), Carton 1,
Folders 5 and 6. Grice saw in Code an excellent Aristotelian. They
collaborated on an exploration of Aristotle's underlying logic of essential and
non-essential predication, for which they would freely use such verbal forms as
'izzing' and 'hazzing.'
SUPPES. Correspondence with P. Suppes, Carton 1, Folders 7-8. Preferred
citation: Grice, H. P.
(1985). Correspondence with P. Suppes, The Grice Papers, Series I
(The Correspondence of H. P. Grice -- Sub-Series A), Carton 1, Folders 7 and
8. Suppes was involved in the P. G. R. I. C. E., and contributed an
excellent "The Primacy of Utterer's Meaning," where he addresses what
he rightly sees as unfair characterisations of Grice as a behaviourist by three
philosophers: Yu, Biro, and Chomsky. (Biro was able to reply to Suppes's
commentary on Grice as proposing a reductive but not reductionist analysis of
meaning).
WARNER. Correspondence with R. O. Warner, Carton 1,
Folder 9. Preferred citation: Grice, H. P. (1980). Correspondence with
R. O. Warner, The Grice Papers,
Series I (The Correspondence of H. P.
Grice), Carton 1, Folder 9. Warner was especially helpful with Grice's
third difficult Carus lecture, a metaphysical defence of absolute
value. Warner also connected with Grice in such topics as the philosophy
of perception (seen in an evolutionary light) and the Kantotelian idea of
happiness. In response to
Warner's overview of Grice's oeuvre for the festschrift (that Warner
co-authored with Grandy), Grice refers to the editors by the collective name of
"Richards."
WYATT. Correspondence with R. Wyatt, Carton 1, Folders 10-12. Preferred
citation: Grice, H. P. (1980). Correspondence with R. Wyatt, The Grice
Papers, Series I (The
Correspondence of H. P. Grice), Carton 1, Folders 10, 11, and 12.
SERIES IB -- Correspondence: Other. Carton 1. Folders 13-14. Correspondence: Other. Carton
1, Folder 15. Preferred
citation: Grice, H. P. (1988).
Various correspondence, The Grice Papers, Series I (Correspondence), Carton
1, Folders 13, 14, and 15. Series IB contains also various published essays on Grice. Preferred
citation: Grice, H. P. (1988). Various published essays on Grice, The Grice
Papers, Series IB, Carton 1, Folders 13, 14, and 15, BANC, Bancroft.
Series II: H. P. Grice’s Philosophical Essays. Some Selected Publications. Physical Description: Carton 1 (folders
16-31), and Cartons 2, 3, and 4.
These essays by H. P. Grice are arranged chronologically. However, for those "n. d."
publications, the order is alphabetical by keyword and/or title. Scope and Content Note. Series II, "Grice's Selected
Publications" includes H. P. Grice's published essays. Series II also contains H. P. Grice's drafts
and notes that accompany the publication of the essays, some unpublished
essays, along with their drafts and/or notes, and published transcripts of his
various lectures (William James, Urbana, Carus, John Locke). Also included in Series II is Grice's volume
for Harvard University Press, Studies in the Way of Words, a
compilation of his most influential essays, including, "Meaning" (The
Philosophical Review) "Utterer's Meaning and Intentions" (The
Philosophical Review) and "Logic and Conversation" (in Davidson's
and Harman's Logic and Grammar).
A PHILOSOPHER’S PROSPECTUS. Preferred citation: Carton 4, Folder
14, BANC.
PHILOSOPHY AND ‘ORDINARY LANGUAGE’. Preferred citation: Carton 4, Folder
15, "Philosophy and 'Ordinary Language'.” Preferred citation: Grice, H. P.
(1960). "Philosophy and 'Ordinary Language,'" The Grice Papers,
Series II (Essays), Carton 4, Folder 15. At the time of writing,
"'ordinary-language' philosophy" had become, "even within
Oxford," a bit of a term of abuse. Grice tries to defend Austin's
approach to it, while suggesting ideas that Austin somewhat ignored, like what
an utterer implies by the use of an 'ordinary-language' expression, rather than
what the expression itself does. Grice is concerned, contra Austin, in
explanation (or 'explanatory adequacy'), not taxonomy (or 'descriptive
adequacy'). Grice disregards Austin's piecemeal approach to 'ordinary
language,' as Grice searches for 'the big picture of it all.' Grice never used
'ordinary language' seriously. The phrase was used, as he explains, by those
who HATED 'ordinary-language' philosophy. There's no such thing as 'ordinary
language.' Surely you cannot fairly describe the idiosyncratic linguistic
habits of an Old Cliftonian as even 'remotely' 'ordinary.' "Extra-ordinary"
more likely! As far as the 'philosophy' bit goes, this is what Bergmann
jocularly described as the 'linguistic turn.' But as Grice notes, the
linguistic turn involves both the 'ideal language' and the 'ordinary language.'
Grice defends Austin's choice of the 'ordinary' seeing that 'it was what he had
to hand!'
SOME REFLECTIONS ABOUT
ENDS AND HAPPINESS, in Aspects of reason. Carton 4, Folder 16. "Some
Reflections about Ends and Happiness.” Repr. in Aspects of Reason,
Clarendon. Preferred citation: Grice, H. P. (1977). Some reflections on
ends and happiness, in Aspects of reason, Clarendon, The H. P. Grice
Papers, Series II (Essays), Carton 4, Folder 16, BANC. Keywords: eudaimonia,
telos. For Grice, as for Aristotle, and indeed Kant (Kantotle, in short),
a 'telos' and 'eudaimonia' are related in subtle ways. For 'eudaimonia' we cannot deal with just ONE
end, but a system of ends (Although such a system may be a singleton). Grice specifies a subtle way of
characterising 'end' so that a particular ascription of an 'end' may ENTAIL an
ascription of 'eudaimonia.' Grice
follows the textual criticism of his former tutee, J. L. Ackrill, in connection
with the Socratic point that 'eudaimonia' IS literally related to the
'eudaimon.'
1982. REFLECTIONS ON MORALS. Carton 4, Folders 17-25. "Reflections on Morals.” Preferred
citation: Grice, H. P. (1982). Reflections on morals, The H. P. Grice Papers,
Series II (Essays), Folders 17-25, BANC. Grice's explorations on morals are language based. With a substantial
knowledge of the classical languages ("that are so good at verb systems
like the optative, that English lacks"), Grice explores modals like
"should, "ought," and,
"must.” He is well aware of R. M. Hare's reflections
on the 'neustic' qualifications of the 'phrastic.'"Imperatives"
have usually been one source for the philosopher's concern with the language of
morals. "Imperatives" have usually been one source for the
philosopher's concern with the language of morals. Grice attempts to balance this with a similar
exploration on 'good,' now regarded as the 'value-paradeigmatic' notion par
excellence. We cannot
understand, to echo Strawson, 'the concept of a person' unless we understand
the concept of a GOOD person, i.e. the philosopher's conceptION of a good
person.
1972. REPLY TO G. E. M.
ANSCOMBE. Carton 4, Folder 26.
"Reply to G. E. M. Anscombe.” Preferred citation: Grice, H. P. (1972).
Reply to G. E. M. Anscombe, The H. P. Grice Papers, Series II (Essays), Carton
4, Folder 26, BANC. Anscombe's views were often discussed by Oxonian
philosophers. She had brought Witters to the "Dreaming Spires," as it
were. Grice was especially
connected with Anscombe's reflections on 'intention.' While Grice favoured an approach such as
Hampshire, in "Thought and Action," he borrows a few points from
Anscombe, notably that of 'direction of fit' (originally Austin's). Grice explicitly refers to Anscombe in
"Intention and uncertainty," and in his reminiscences he hastens to
add that Anscombe would never attend any of Austin's Saturday mornings -- as
neither would Dummett.
1986. REPLY TO RICHARDS, in Grandy/Warner. Carton 4, Folders 27-30, "Reply
to Richards.” Preferred citation: Grice, H. P. (1985). Reply to Richards, repr.
in part in The Conception of Value, The H. P. Grice Papers, Series
II (Essays), Carton 4, Folders 27-30, BANC. Originally entitled,
"Prejudices and predilections; which become, the life and opinions of H.
P. Grice." Grice is playing
with the first name of both Warner and Grandy, or Grandy and Warner. Grice is especially concerned with what
'Richards' see as a commitment on Grice's part to the abstract entity of a
'proposition.' Grice also deals
with the alleged insufficiency in his conceptual analysis of 'reasoning.'
He brings for good measure a point
about a potential 'regressus ad infinitum' in his account of a chain of
intentions involved in meaning and communicating in general.
Series III: The Doctrines. Physical Description: Carton 5, Carton 6
(folders 1-3). The items are
arranged chronologically. Again, for those "n.d." items, the
order is alphabetical. Scope and
Content Note. Series III
includes seminars and lectures given during Grice's years at both Oxford and
Berkeley, and elsewhere (e.g. Cornell).
1962. GRICE AT CORNELL. Carton 5, Folder 1. Grice's Seminar at Cornell. Preferred
citation: Grice, H. P. (1966).
The Cornell Seminar, The Grice Papers, Series III (Doctrines), Carton 5, Folder
1. Historically important in that they predate his Harvard William James
lectures which made of him a household name in New-World philosophy. Harman
cites a seminar by Grice on trying at Brandeis, 1962.
A SEMINAR WITH GRICE. Carton 5, Folder 2. Grice Seminar. Cf. Carton 5, Folder 8.
A PHILOSOPHICAL TALK. Carton 5, Folder 3. Philosophy. With J. Baker. Cf. Carton 5, Folder 4, Philosophy.
KANT’S ETHICS. Carton 5,
Folders 5-6. Kant's Ethical Theory. An exploration of the
categorial imperative and its reduction to the hypothetical one.
ARISTOTLE’S ETHICA NICHOMACHAEA, Carton 5, Folder 7, "Aristotle's Ethics.” Notably the
Nichomachean Ethics.
KANT’S ETHICS. Carton 5,
Folder 8, Philosophy, Kant, With J. Baker. Notably the categorical imperative. Cf. Carton 5, Folder 9, "Kant's
Ethics.”
1977. ASPECTS OF REASON, Stanford. Carton 5, Folders 10-13, Kant
Lectures
PHILOSOPHY, Carton 5, Folders 14-15, Philosophy
KANT’S ETHICS. Carton 5, Folders 16-17, "Kant's
Ethics"
1977. KNOWLEDGE AND BELIEF. Carton 5, Folder 18, "Knowledge and belief.” Preferred
citation: Grice, H. P. (1966). Knowledge and belief, The H. P. Grice Papers,
Series III (Doctrines), Carton 5, Folder 18, BANC. Two basic psychological
states, attitudes, or stances. Grice is concerned with Gettier-type cases, and
also the 'factivity' of 'know' versus the non-factivity of 'believe.' Grice followed Hintikka's lexicological
innovations: the logic of belief is 'doxastic;' the logic of knowledge is
'epistemic.'
KANT’S ETHICS. Carton 5,
Folders 19-21, Kant's Ethics
METAPHYSICS. Carton 5,
Folder 22, Philosophy, With G. Myro. Grice and Myro
developed a Geach-type of 'qualified identity.' The formal aspects were developed by Myro. Grice discussed Wiggins's
"Sameness and substance," rather than Geach.
KANT. Carton 5, Folder 23, Kant
METAPHYSICS AND THE LANGUAGE OF PHILOSOPHY. Carton 5, Folder
24. "Metaphysics and the
Language of Philosophy.” Preferred citation: Grice, H. P. (1980). Metaphysics
and the language of philosophy, The H. P. Grice Papers, Series III (Doctrines),
Carton 5, Folder 24. Grice had been interested in the methodology of
'metaphysics' from the Oxford days. He counted as one memorable experience in the area his participation in
two episodes for BBC Third Programme on "The nature of metaphysics"
with the organiser, D. F. Pears, and his former tutee, P. F. Strawson. Grice was particularly keen on Collingwood's
views on metaphysical presuppositions.
1980. FREEDOM. Carton 5, Folder 25, "Freedom.” Preferred citation: Grice,
H. P. (1980). Freedom, The H. P. Grice Papers, Series III (Doctrines), Carton
5, Folder 25, BANC. The topic of 'freedom' Grice saw as crucial in his
elucidation of a rational being. "Conditions of freedom" are
necessary for the very idea, as Kant was well aware. Grice would engage
in a bit of language botany, when exploring the ways the adjective 'free' is
used, 'freely,' in 'ordinary language': 'free fall,' 'alcohol-free,'
'sugar-free.' His more systematic reflections deal with 'pirotology, or 'creature
construction'. Vegetables, for example are less free than animals. And Humans
are more free than non-human. Grice wants to deal with some of the paradoxes
identified by Kant about freedom, and he succeeds in solving some of them.
There is a section on freedom in “Action and events,” 1988.
PHILOSOPHY. Carton 5, Folder 26, Lectures
KANT’S ETHICS. Carton 5,
Folders 27-28, Kant's Ethics
THE CRITERIA OF INTELLIGENCE, Carton 5, Folder 29, "The
Criteria of Intelligence.” Preferred citation: Grice, H. P. (1975). The
criteria of intelligence, The H. P. Grice Papers, Series III (Doctrines),
Carton 5, Folder 29, BANC. In "Aspects of reason," he mentions 'flat'
rationality, and certain other 'talents' that are more difficult for the
philosopher to conceptualise, such as 'nose' (i.e. intuitiveness), acumen,
tenacity, and such. Grice's
approach is 'pirotological.' If Locke had used 'intelligent' to refer to Prince
Maurice's parrot, Grice wants to find criteria for 'intelligent' as applied to
his favourite type of 'pirot,' rather ("intelligent, indeed
rational.")
1980. MENTALISM. Carton 5,
Folder 30, "Modest Mentalism,” Preferred
citation: Grice, H. P. (1980). Modest mentalism, The H. P. Grice Papers,
Series III (Doctrines), Carton 5, Folder 30, BANC. Grice would seldom use
'mind' or 'mental.' His sympathies went for more Grecian terms like 'soul,'
i.e. the psyche and the psychological.
FROM ZENO TO SOCRATES. Carton 5, Folder 31, Topics for
Pursuit, Zeno, Socrates. Grice's review of the history of philosophy
SEMANTICS. Carton 6, Folders 1-2, Phonetics,
Syntax, and Semantics, With J.
F. Staal. Staal was particularly good at this type of 'formalistic'
philosophy, which was still adequate to reflect the subtleties of 'ordinary
language.'
THE ‘THAT’-CLAUSE. Carton 6, Folder 3, The "That"-Clause, With J. F. Staal.
Preferred citation: Grice, H. P.
(1970). The 'that'-clause, The Grice Papers, Series III (Doctrines), Carton 6,
Folder 3, BANC. The 'that'-clause was brought to the fore by Davidson, who,
consulting the Oxford English Dictionary, reminds philosophers that the English
'that' is VERY cognate with the German idiom. More specifically, 'that' is a DEMONSTRATIVE, even if the syntax, in
English, hides this fact in ways which German syntax doesn't. Grice NEEDS to rely on 'that'-clauses for his
analysis of 'mean,' 'intend,' and notably 'will.' He finds that Prichard's genial discovery was
the license to use 'willing' as pre-facing a 'that'-clause. This allows
Grice to deals with 'willing' as applied to a third person ("I will that
he'll win the chess match."). Philosophers who disregard this 'third-person' use may indulge in
introspection and subjectivism when they shouldn't!
Series IV: H. P. Grice's
Contributions to Philosophical Associations. Physical Description: Carton 6
(folders 4-12), Carton 10. The
items are arranged chronologically. Scope and Content Note. The
Series IV includes Kant's Stanford Lectures, various notes and audio tapes of
Beanfest, Grice's group research on universalia, and conferences and discussions
concerning the American Philosophical Association. Also includes a carton of cassettes, magnetic
recorder tapes, and cassette sets of four on professional talks with George
Myro on identities (unqualified and relative), metaphysics, and relatives and
Grice's various seminars on his philosophical theories given at different
institutions such as Stanford, Berkeley, and Seattle.
1971. ENTAILMENT. Carton 6,
Folder 4, "Entailment,” Symposium for the American
Philosophical Association. Preferred citation: Grice, H. P. (1971).
Entailment, The American Philosophical Association, The H. P. Grice Papers,
Series IV (Associations), Carton 6, Folder 4, BANC. Keyword: entailment.
The notion had been introduced in the
philosophical literature by G. E. Moore. Grice is especially interested in the "ENTAILMENT + IMPLICATUM"
pair. A philosophical expression
may be said to be co-related to an ENTAILMENT (which is rendered in terms of a
reductive analysis). However,
the use of the expression may co-relate to this or that IMPLICATUM which is
rendered 'reasonable' in the light of the addressee's assumption that the
utterer is ultimately abiding by a principle of conversational
helfpulness.Grice thinks many philosophers take an IMPLICATUM as an ENTAILMENT
when they surely shouldn't!
1977. ASPECTS OF REASON, Clarendon. Carton 6, Folders
5-6, Stanford - "Some
Aspects of Reason.” The Immanuel Kant Memorial Lectures. Preferred citation: Grice, H. P.
(1977). Aspects of reason, Clarendon, The H. P. Grice Papers,
Series IV (Associations), Carton 6, Folders 5 and 6, BANC. Keywords:
reason. The lectures were
also delivered as the John Locke lectures. Grice is concerned with the reduction of the categorical imperative to
the hypothetical imperative. His
main thesis he calls the "AEQUI-vocality" thesis: "must" has only ONE sense, that
crossed the 'boulomaic/doxastic' divide.
1980. CAUSE. Carton 6,
Folder 7, "Causality,” Conference,
Colloquium at Stanford. Preferred citation: Grice, H. P. (1980). Causality,
Stanford Colloquium, The H. P. Grice Papers, Series IV (Associations), Carton
6, Folder 7, BANC. Keyword: cause. Grice's exploration on 'cause' are very rich. He is concerned with some misuse of 'cause'
in ordinary language. If as Hume
suggests, to cause is to will, one would say that "The decapitation of
Charles I willed his death," which sounds harsh. Grice later relates 'cause' to the Greek
'aitia,' as he should. He notes collocations like 'rebel without a cause.'
For the Greeks, and the Griceians, it's
a CAUSE TO which one should be involved in elucidating. A "cause to..." connects with the
idea of 'freedom.' eauchamp"A cause. Grice was constantly aware of the threat of
MECHANISM, and his idea was to provide philosophical room for the idea of
'finality,' which is NOT 'mechanistically derivable.' This leads him to
discussion of overlap and priority of, say, a physical-cum-physiological versus
a psychological theory explaining this or that piece of rational behaviour. He can
be Wittgensteinian when citing Anscombe's translation: No psychological concept
without the behaviour the concept is brought to explain.
PHILOSOPHY. Carton 6, Folder 8. Conferences, Discussion at the American
Philosophical Association, Randall Parker's Transcription of the Audio-Tapes,
contained in Carton 10. Preferred citation: Grice, H. P. (1980). Transcripts,
The H. P. Grice Papers, Series IV (Associations), Carton 6, Folder 8, BANC.
Unfortunately, Parker typed ‘carulise’ for ‘karulise.’ Or not.
TELEOLOGY. Carton 6, Folder 9, Unity of Science and Teleology, "Hands
Across the Bay," and Beanfest. Preferred citation: Grice, H. P. (1980).
Unity of science and teleology, The H. P. Grice Papers, Series IV (Associations),
Carton 6, Folder 9, BANC. As the scholastics used it, 'teleology' was a
science, the science of 'telos,' or finality. The unity of science is
threatened by teleology. Unified science seeks for 'mechanistically derivable'
teleology. But Grice's sympathies lie for 'detached' finality.
PHILOSOPHY. Carton 6, Folder 10, Beanfest, Transcripts and
Audio Cassettes. Prefeerred citation: Grice, H. P. (1980). Transcripts, The H.
P. Grice Papers, Series IV (Associations), Carton 6, Folder 10, BANC.
UNIVERSALIA, Carton 6,
Folder 11, Group, "Universals.” Preferred citation:
Grice, H. P. (1980). Universalia, The H. P. Grice Papers, Series IV (Assocations),
Carton 6, Folders 11 and 12, BANC. Grice doing history of philosophy. His main
concern is with 'universalia' as abstract entities. He proposes an exploration
of 'universalia' as a response to Extensionalism, so fashionable, he thinks, in
the New World ("The School of Latter-Day Nominalists"). Cf. Carton 6, Folder 12, Group,
"Universals,” Partial Working Copy
1980. THE AUDIO-FILES. Carton 10. Audio Files of various
lectures and conferences. Preferred citation: Grice, H. P. (1980). The
audio-files, The H. P. Grice Papers, Series IV (Associations), Carton 10. A
previous folder in the collection contains the transcripts. These are the
audio-tapes themselves, obviously not in folders.
Series V: Philosophical Subject – Files. Physical Description: Carton 6 (folders 13-38), Cartons 7-9.
Items are arranged aphabetically by
philosophical subject. Scope and Content Note. The "Series V" includes seminar
notes at Reed, notes on ancient philosophers such as Aristotle, modern
philosophers such as Descartes, and their own philosophical theories, research
and accompanying notes on other prominent philosophers such as Kant and
Davidson, notes with colleagues J. Baker, A. D. Code, M. Friedman, G. Myro, P.
Suppes, R. O. Warner, G. J. Warnock, and P. F. Strawson, on various theories of
reason, trust, language semantics, universals, and values.
THE ANALYTIC-SYNTHETIC DISTINCTION. Carton 6, Folders
13-14, "The
Analytic/Synthetic Distinction.” Preferred citation: Grice, H. P. (1956). The
analytic-synthetic distinction, The Grice Papers, Series V (Topical), Carton 6,
Folders 13 and 14, BANC. The idea of 'analyticity' was for Grice very important
to defend. Philosophy depends on
it! He knew that to many his
claim to fame was his "In defence of a dogma," the dogma of
analyticity, no less. He
eventually turns to a 'pragmatist' justification of the distinction. This pragmatist justification is still in
accordance with what he sees as the use of 'analytic' in 'ordinary language'.
His infamous examples: "My
neighbour's three-year old understands Russell's Theory of Types." A: Hard to believe, but I will. "My neighbour's three-year old is an
adult." Metaphorically? No.
Then I don't understand you, and what
you've just said is, in my scheme of things, analytically FALSE. Grice was also circumstantially concerned
with the 'synthetic a priori,' and he would ask his children's playmates:
"Can a sweater be red and green
all over? No stripes allowed!" The distinction is ultimately Kantian, but it had brought to the fore by
the 'linguistic turn,' Oxonian and other!
1956. ON ARISTOTLE’S CATEGORIAE. Carton 6, Folder 15. Aristotle and "Categories.” Preferred
citation: Grice, H. P. (1956). Aristotle's Categoriae, The Grice Papers, Series
V, Carton 6, Folder 15, BANC. Keywords: Aristotle, Categoriae. Grice thought Aristotle was the best! Aristotle saw 'Categoriae,' along with 'De
Interpretatione' as part of his 'Organon.' However, philosophers of
language tend to explore these topics without a consideration of the later
parts of the Organon dealing with the syllogism, the tropes, and the
topics. The reason Grice
is attracted to the Aristotelian category (as Austin and Strawson equally were)
is that 'category' allows for a 'linguistic turn' reading. While meant by Aristotle in a primarily
ontological way, Oxonian philosophers hasten to add that a 'category of
expression,' as Grice puts it, is just as valid a topic for philosophical
exploration. Grice will later
add an intermediary category, which is the subject of his philosophical
psychology. As such, a category can be construed ontologically, or
representationally: the latter involving philosophical psychological concepts,
and expressions themselves. For
Aristotle, as Grice and Austin, and Grice and Strawson, were well aware as they
educated some of the poor at Oxford ("Only the poor learn at Oxford"
-- Arnold), there are ten categories. Grice doesn't care about the number. But the first are important. THERE's 'substantia prima,' such as Grice.
And then there's 'substantia secunda,'
such as Grice's rationality. The 'essentia.' Then there are various types of 'attributes.' But even 'substantia secunda' may be regarded
as an 'attribute.' Grice invents
"Category Shift," or subject-ification. Essence may be introduced as a sub-type of an
attribute. We would have
'substantia prima' AND 'attribute,' which in turn gets divided into 'essential'
and 'non-essential.' While
Austin was not so fun to play with, Strawson is.”Banbury is a very altruist person.” Where is his altruism? Nowhere to be seen. Yet we may speak of Banbury's altruism.
It's a matter of a 'category shift.'
Grice was slightly disappointed, but he
perfectly understood, that Strawson, who had footnoted Grice as 'the tutor from
whom I never ceased to learn about logic' in "Introduction to Logical
Theory," fails to acknowledge that MOST of the research in Strawson's
"Individuals: an essay in descriptive (not revisionary) metaphysics"
derives from the conclusions reached at his joint philosophical investigations
with Grice. But "the tutor
from whom I never ceased to learn about metaphysics" sounds clumsier!
ARISTOTLE’S NICHOMACHAEAN ETHICS (1980). Carton 6, Folder
16, Aristotle's Ethics. Grice
was 'very fortunate' to have Hardie as his tutor. He overused Hardie's lectures
on Aristotle, too, and instilled them on his own tutees!
1980. ARISTOTLE ON FRIENDSHIP (1980). Carton 6, Folder
17, Aristotle on Friendship.
Preferred citation: Grice, H. P.
(1980). Aristotle on friendship, The Grice Papers, Series V (Topical), Carton
6, Folders 17 and 18, BANC. Grice is
concerned with Aristotle's rather cryptic view of the friend (philos, amicus)
as the 'alter ego.' In Grice's
cooperative, concerted, view of things, a friend in need is a friend indeed!
1980. RATIONALITY, TRUST, AND DECENCY (1980). Carton 6, Folder
18, Rationality, Trust, and Decency. Preferred
ciation: Grice, H. P. (1980).
Rationality, trust, and decency, The Grice Papers, Series V (Topical), Carton
6, Folder 18, BANC. Keywords: rationality, trust, decency. Grice's idea of 'decency' is connected to his
explorations on 'rational' and 'reasonable'. To cheat may be neither
unreasonable nor rational. It's
just repulsive! Indecent, in
other words. In all this, Grice
is concerned with 'ordinary language,' and treasures Austin's question to
Warnock (when Warnock was looking for a fellowship at Austin's college):
"Warnock: what would you say the
difference is between (i) and (ii)?" i. Smith plays cricket rather properly. ii. Smith plays cricket rather incorrectly. "They spent the whole dinner over such
subtleties!" "And
Warnock fell in love with Austin." Grice's explorations on 'trust' are Warnockian in character too. For
Warnock, in "Object of morality," trust is key, indeed, the very
object of morality.
1988. ARISTOTLE ON THE MULTIPLICITY OF BEING (1988). Pacific
Philosophical Quarterly. Carton 6, Folder 19, Aristotle and
Multiplicity. Published as
"Aristotle on the multiplicity of being" in The Pacific Philosophical
Quarterly. Preferred citation: Grice,
H. P. (1988). Aristotle on the multiplicity of being, The Pacific
Philosophical Quarterly, The H. P. Grice Papers, Series V (Topical), Carton
6, Folder 19, BANC. For Grice there is 'multiplicity' in both 'being' and
'good' -- both accountable in terms of implicata. Grice is yielding his
razor. "Senses are not to
be multiplied beyond necessity." But then Aristotle is talking about the 'multiplicity' of '... is' and
'... is good.' Surely, there are
ways to turn Aristotle into the monoguist he has to be!
THE PHILOSOPHY OF BEALER. Carton 6, Folder 20, Bealer. G. P. Bealer is one of Grice's most
brilliant tutees! The Grice
collection contains a full folder of correspondence with Bealer (Series I (The
Correspondence of H. P. Grice)).
PHILOSOPHY. Carton 6, Folder 21, Berkeley Group,
Team Notes
1961. THE CAUSAL THEORY OF PERCEPTION, in Studies in the Way of Words. Carton
6. Folder 22. "The Casual Theory Perception,” Published
in The Proceedings of The Aristotelian Society. Symposium with A. R. White.
Chair: R. Braithwaite, Cambridge. Preferred citation: Grice, H. P. (1961). The causal theory of perception,
in Studies in the Way of Words, repr. from Proceedings of the
Aristotelian Society, The H. P. Grice Papers, Series V (Topical), Carton 6,
Folder 22, BANC. Grice found that a full reprint from the
Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society in a compilation also containing the
William James Harvard would be too repetitive. Therefore, he omits the
'excursus' on 'implication.' However, the way he re-formulates, in 1988, what
that 'excursus' covers is very interesting: there's conversational implicata,
particularised ("Smith has beautiful handwriting") and generalised
("My wife is in the kitchen or in the garden"), there's
presupposition (You haven't stopped beating your wife"), and there's
CONVENTIONAL implicata ("She was poor, but she was honest"). Warnock had attended Austin's "Sense and
Sensibilia" (not to be confused with Austen's Sense and Sensibility).
But Warnock preferred philosophical
investigations with Grice. Warnock:
"Grice once told me, not on a Saturday morning, either, 'How clever
language is'” For they had found that 'ordinary language' does NOT need the
concept of a visum. Grice and
Warnock spent lovely occasions exploring what Oxford has as "the
philosophy of perception." While
Grice later came to see it as a bit or an offshoot of 'philosophical
psychology,' 'the philosophy of perception' is concerned with that treasured
bit of the Oxonian philosopher's lexicon, the sense-datum, always in the
singular! The 'cause' involved
is crucial. If a material thing causes the sense-datum of a nut, that's because
the squarrel (or squirrel) won't be nourished by the sense datum of a nut, but
by a nut, only.
CATEGORIES: ARISTOTLE AND BEYOND. Carton 6, Folder 23. Categories. With P. F. Strawson. Preferred
citation: Grice, H. P. (1956). Categories, The H. P. Grice Papers, Series V (Topical),
Carton 6, Folder 23, BANC. Grice found Aristotle's coinage of a
'category' a bit of a geniality. As
a representative of the 'linguistic turn' in philosophy, Grice was attracted to
the idea that a category can be understood variously, as applying to the realm
of reality (ontology), but also to the philosophy of language (category of
expression) and to philosophical psychology (category of representation).
Grice kept his explorations on
categories under two very separate categories: his explorations with J. L.
Austin (very serious), and his explorations with P. F. Strawson (more
congenial). Where is Smith's
altruism? Nowhere to be seen.
Should we say it's idle (otiose) to
speak of altruism? No, it's just
an ATTRIBUTE, which, via category shift, can be made the subject of your
sentence, Strawson. It's not
spatio-temporal, though, right? Not
really.I don't particularly like your 'trouser words,' Grice.
THE CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE. Carton 6, Folder 24, The categorical imperative. Preferred citation: Grice, H. P. (1976). The
categorical imperative, The H. P. Grice Papers, Series V (Topical), Carton 6,
Folder 24, BANC. Keyword: categorical imperative. An exploration of the
logical form of Kant's concoction. Grice is interested in its conceptual connection with the 'hypothetical'
imperative, in terms of the type of connection between the protasis and the
apodosis. Grice spends the full
second Paul Carus lecture on the conception of value on this. Grice is aware that the topic is central for
Oxonian philosophers such as R. M. Hare (a member of Austin's Play Group, too),
who will regard the UNIVERSABILITY of an imperative as a mark of its
categorial, indeed, moral status. He would refer to conversational maxims as contributing to a
CONVERSATIONAL IMMANUEL, if it can be shown that, qua items under an
overarching principle of conversational helpfulness, each displays qualities
associated with conceptual, formal, and applicational generality.
1977. PERSONAL IDENTITY, REVISITED. Carton 6, Folder 25, "The
Logical-Construction Theory of Personal Identity.” Preferred citation: Grice,
H. P. (1977). The logical-construction theory of personal identity, The H. P. Grice
Papers, Series V (Topical), Carton 6, Folder 25, BANC. The term is Broad's --
but Grice loved it. Rational reconstruction is not too dissimilar. But Grice
prefers Broad's more conservative label. Ultimately, it means that we can provide an analysandum for an
"I" utterance WITHOUT using "I," but only 'mnemonic
concepts, which belong in a theory of philosophical psychology.
THE ‘THAT’-CLAUSE. Carton 6, Folder 26, Davidson's "On Saying
That.” Preferred citation: Grice, H. P. (1970). Davidson on saying that, The H.
P. Grice Papers, Series V (Topical), Carton 6, Folder 26, BANC. Grice had
explored 'that'-clauses with Staal. He was concerned about the viability of
Davidson's initially appealing etymological approach to the 'that'-clause in
terms of 'demonstration.' Grice had presupposed the logic of 'that'-clauses
from a much earlier stage ("Those spots mean that he has measles.")
1966. DESCARTES ON ‘CLEAR AND DISTINCT PERCEPTION, in Studies in the Way
of Words, Carton 6, Folders 27-28, "Descartes on clear and distinct
perception.” Preferred citation: Grice, H. P. (1966). Descartes on clear and
distinct perception, in Studies in the Way of Words, Part II, Semantics and
Metaphysics, Essay, The H. P. Grice Papers, Series V (Topical), Carton 6,
Folders 27 and 28, BANC. Grice's interest in Descartes connects with
Descartes's search for a criterion of 'certainty' in terms of 'clarity' and
'distinction' of this or that perception. Having explored the philosophy
of perception with Warnock, it's only natural he wanted to give Descartes's
rambles a second and third look!
INDICATIVE CONDITIONALS, EMBEDDING. Carton 6, Folder 29. Michael Sinton
on "Grice on Denials of Indicative Conditionals.” Strawson had elaborated
on what he felt was a divergence between Whitehead's and Russell's 'horseshoe,'
and 'if.' Grice thought Strawson's observations could be understood in terms of
ENTAILMENT + IMPLICATUM ("Robbing Peter to Pay Paul"). But problems,
as first noted to Grice, by L. J. Cohen, of Oxford, remain, when it comes to
the scope of the implicatum within the operation of, say, 'negation.' Analogous
problems arise with implicata for the other earlier dyadic functors,
"and" and "or," and Grice looks for a single explanation of
the phenomenon. The qualification 'indicative' is modal. "Ordinary
language" allows for 'if' utterances to be in modes other than the
imperative. "Counter-factual," if you need to be philosophical
krypto-technical, 'subjective' is you are more of a classicist! Grice took a
cavalier to the problem: Surely it won’t do to say “You couldn’t have done
that, since you were in Seattle,” to someone who figuratively tells you he’s
spend the full summer cleaning the Aegean stables.
IN DEFENCE OF A DOGMA. Carton 6, Folder 31. "Two Dogmas of Empiricism.”
For Quine, there are two. Grice is mainly interested in the first one: that
there is a distinction between the analytic and the synthetic. Grice considers
Empiricism as a monster on his way to the Rationalist City of Eternal
Truth.
AKRASIA. Carton 6, Folder 32, "Emotions and Incontinence.” Preferred citation: Grice, H. P. (1980). Emotion and akrasia, The H. P. Grice Papers, Series V (Topical), Carton 6, Folder 32, BANC. The concept of 'emotion' needs a philosophical elucidation. Akrasia for Grice covers both boulomaic and doxastic versions. The boulomaic version may be closer to the concept of an emotion.
1971. ENTAILMENT. Carton 6, Folder 33, "Entailment and Paradoxes.”
Preferred citation: Grice, H. P. (1970). Entailment and paradoxes, The H. P. Grice
Papers, Series V (Topical), Carton 6, Folder 33, BANC. Keyword: entailment,
paradox. Series IV (Associations) contains a folder on 'Entailment,' as a draft
of his contribution to a colloquium organised by The American Philosophical
Association. While 'entailment,' as introduced in the philosophical
literature by Moore, is hardly seen in terms of the paradoxes, 'if' is. Grice
connects the two. The relation of 'consequence' may be considered a
meta-conditional, where paradoxes arise. His Bootstrap is a principle
designed to empoverish the metalanguage so that the philosopher can succeed in
the business of pulling himself up by his own!
META-ETHICS. Carton 6,
Folders 34-35, Ethics, With Judith Baker. Cf. Carton 6, Folder 36, Ethics, North
Carolina Notes.
1986. REPLY TO RICHARDS. Carton 6, Folder 37, Festschrift and Warner Notes. Preferred citation:
Grice, H. P. (1985). Prejudices and
predilections, which become, the life and opinions of H. P. Grice, repr. in
part in The Conception of Value, The H. P. Grice Papers, Series V (Topical),
Carton 6, Folder 37, BANC. Strictly, it is not a festschrift in that the name
is hidden behind the acronym: P
Paul, Philosophical, G, Grounds
of, R Rationality, I Intentions,
C Categories, E Ends. Notably on the philosophy of perception. Also
on the conception of value, especially that tricky third lecture on a
metaphysical foundation for objective value. Grice was supposed to reply to the individual
contributors, but does not. However, in his oeuvre we may identify points of
contacts between the philosophers who contributed and his own views.
FINAL CAUSE. Carton 6,
Folder 38, "Finality.” With A. D Code. Preferred
citation: Grice, H. P. (1980). Finality, The H. P. Grice Papers, Series V (Topical),
Carton 6, Folder 38, BANC. Keyword: final cause, finality, telos, teleology.
Code was the Aristotelian, and he and
Grice are especially concerned in the idea of 'causa finalis.' For Grice only detached finality can threaten
Mechanism, as it should!
THE TYPE-TOKEN
DISTINCTION. Carton 7, Folder 1, "Form, Type, and Implication.” Preferred citation: Grice, H. P.
(1977). Form, type, and implication, The H. P. Grice Papers, Series V
(Topical), Carton 7, Folder 1, BANC. Grice was not enamoured with the
'type'/'token' or 'token'/'type' distinction. His thoughts on 'logical form' were provocative: "If you can't put
it in logical form, it's not worth saying." Strawson infamously reacted, but with a smile: "Oh, no! If you CAN
put it in logical form, it's not worth saying."
1980. FREGE (1980). Carton 7, Folder 2, Frege, Words and Sentences. Preferred
citation: Grice, H. P. (1980). Frege, The Grice Papers, Series V (Topical),
Carton 7, Folder 2, BANC. Frege was one of Grice's obsessions. A
Fregeian sense is an explicatum, or implicitum -- a concession to get his principle
of conversational helpfulness working in the generation of conversational
implicata, that can only mean progress for philosophy! There is an affinity between Frege's
treatment of 'colouring' (the German particle "aber") and Grice's
idea of a convetional implicatum ("She was poor, but she was honest")
Grice does not seem interested in
providing a philosophical exploration of conventional implicata, and there is a
reason for this. Conventional
implicata are NOT essentially connected, as conversational implicata are, with
RATIONALITY. Conventional implicata CANNOT be 'calculable.' They have less of a philosophical interest,
too, in that they are NOT cancellable. Grice sees cancellability as a way to
prove some philosophers who analyse an expression in terms of 'sense' and
'entailment,' where a cancellable conversational implicatum is all there is (to
it). Grice gives only
another example of a conventional implicatum: 'therefore,' as in Jill's
utterance: "Jack is an Englishman; he is, therefore, brave." This is interesting because
"therefore" compares to "so" which P. F. Strawson, in P. G.
R. I. C. E., claims is the ASSERTED counterpart to "if." But Strawson was never associated with the
type of linguistic botany that Grice was.
KANT’S GRUNDLEGUNG. Carton 7, Folder 3, Kant's "Fundamental Principles of the
Metaphysic of Ethics.” Keyword: Grundlegung. While Grice can't read Kant
in German, he uses the English vernacular. Note the archaic 'metaphysic' sic in singular. Cf. Carton 7, Folder 4, Kant's "Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals.” Keyword:
Grundlegung. More Kant.
Preferred citation combining both.
SEMANTICS. Carton 7, Folder 5, Grammar and
Semantics, With R. O. Warner. Truth-conditional semantics and implicata
EUDAIMONIA. Carton 7, Folder 6, "Happiness,
Discipline, and Implicatures.” Preferred citation: Grice, H. P. (1980). Happiness, discipline,
and implicature, The H. P. Grice Papers, Series V (Topical), Carton 7, Folder
6, BANC. Keyword: eudaimonia. While
Grice felt he had to use 'happiness,' he is always having Aristotle's
'eudaimonia' in mind! Keyword:
Eudaimonia. The implicata of
"Smith is happy" are more complex than Kantotle thought!
PERSONAL IDENTITY, REVISITED: HUME. Carton 7, Folder 7,
"David Hume.” Preferred citation:
Grice, H. P. (1980). David Hume, The H.
P. Grice Papers, Series V (Topical), Carton 7, Folder 7, BANC. Cf. The Hume
Society. Grice calls one of his metaphysical construction routines
"Humeian Projection." Grice
called one of his metaphysical construction routines "Humeian
projection," since the 'mind,' as it were, 'spreads over' its objects.
Grice was especially concerned with the
poverty of Hume's criticism to Locke on personal identity. To be
combined with: Carton 7, Folders 8-9, David Hume's Account on Personal Identity. Preferred citation: Grice, H. P. (1980). David Hume's account of
personal identity, The Grice Papers, Series V (Topical), Carton 7, Folders 8
and 9. Keywords: Hume, personal identity. Grice opted for a Lockeian memory-based on "I" utterances that
Hume rather regarded as 'vague,' and 'confusing. Locke's approach to identity is NOT eliminationist as Hume's is. Grice explored these issues with J. C.
Haugeland.
THE GRICE-MYRO THEORY OF
IDENTITY. Carton 7, Folder 10, Identity, Notes, With G. Myro. Preferred
citation: Grice, H. P. (1980). Identity, The Grice H. P. Papers, Series V
(Topical), Carton 7, Folder 10, BANC. Keyword: relative identity. The idea that "=" is unqualified
needs qualification. Whitehead and Russell ignored this. Grice and Myro didn't!
Grice wants to allow for “It is the case that a = b /t1” and “ It is
not the case that a = b /t2.” The idea is intuitive, but philosophers of a
Leibnizian bent are too accustomed to deal with "=" as an absolute. Grice
applies this to 'human' vs. 'person.' A human may be identical to a person, but
cease to be so.
AUSTIN ON IFS AND CANS. Carton 7, Folders 11-12, "Ifs
and Cans.” Preferred citation: Grice, H. P. (1970). Ifs and cans, The H. P. Grice
Papers, Series V (Topical), Carton 7, Folders 11 and 12, BANC. Keywords:
conditional, power. Two of
Grice's favourites. He opposed Strawson's view on 'if.' Grice thought that 'if'
was the horseshoe of Whitehead and Russell, provided we add an IMPLICATUM to an
ENTAILMENT. The 'can' is merely
dispositional, if not alla Ryle, alla Grice!
1967. FURTHER NOTES ON LOGIC AND CONVERSATION. Carton 7, Folder
13, Irony, Stress, and Truth,
Part of "Further notes on Logic
and Conversation,” Reprinted in Studies in the Way of Words. Preferred
citation: Grice, H. P. (1967).
Further notes on logic and conversation, The H. P. Grice Papers, Series V (Topical),
Carton 7, Folder 13, BANC. Three topics where the IMPLICATUM helps. "He is a scoundrel" may well be the
IMPLICATUM of "He is a fine friend." But cfr. the pretense theory of irony. Grice, being a classicist, loved
the etymological connection. With
Stress, he was concerned with anti-Gettier uses of emphatic 'know': "I
KNOW." (Implicatum: I do have conclusive evidence"). "Truth" (or "... is
true") sprang from Grice's attention to that infamous Bristol symposium
between Austin and Strawson. Grice
wants to defend Austin's correspondence theory against Strawson's
'performative' approach. If
"... is true" IMPLICATES "someone previously affirmed
this," that does not mean a 'ditto' IMPLICATUM is part of the ENTAILMENT
of an "... is true" utterance.
KANT. Carton 7, Folders 14-16, Immanuel Kant. To combine with Carton 7, Folder 17, Kant's Ethics,
to combine with Carton 7, Folder
18, Kant, Mid-sentences,
Freedom. Grice was especially concerned with Kant's having brought back the old
Greek idea of 'eleutheria' for philosophical discussion.
LANGUAGE AND REALITY.
THE IRVINE LECTURES. Carton 7, Folder 19, Language and Reference, Language and Reality. Preferred citation: Grice, H. P. (1977). Language and Reference, The Irvine lectures, The H.
P. Grice Papers, Series V (Topical), Carton 7, Folder 19, BANC. Grice favours a
transcendental approach to communication. Our beliefs worth communicating have to be true. Our orders worth communicating have to refer
to our willings.
SEMANTICS. Carton 7, Folder 20, Language Semantics, alla
Tarski.
1977. ASPECTS OF REASON, Clarendon. Carton 7, Folders 21-22, John
Locke Lecture Notes.. Preferred citation: Grice, H. P. (1977). Aspects of reason, Clarendon, The H. P.
Grice Papers, Series V (Topical), Carton 7, Folders 21 and 22, BANC. On aspects
of reason. Including extensive language botany on 'rational', 'reasonable,' and
indeed 'reason' (justificatory, explanatory, and mixed). At this point,
Grice notes that linguistic botany is INDISPENSABLE towards the construction of
a more systematic explanatory theory. It is an exploration of a range of uses of 'reason' that leads him to his
"Aequi-vocality" thesis that 'must' has only one sense!
1988. ACTIONS AND EVENTS. Carton 7, Folder 23, Davidson's "The Logical Form of Action
Sentences.” A Davidsonian problem. Category shift invites us to see Smith's
fishing as the subject of an 'action sentence.' Cf. The horse runs fast; therefore, the horse runs.
1976. PHILOSOPHICAL PSYCHOLOGY, Carton 7, Folders 24-25, Meaning and Philosophical Psychology. Preferred citation: Grice, H. P.
(1976). Meaning and philosophical psychology, The H. P. Grice Papers, Series V
(Topical), Carton 7, Folders 24 and 25, BANC. Meaning is perhaps the
psychological state, attitude, or stance, per excellence. Grice coins "M-intention" for the
bunch of intentions a rational 'meaner' must mean before he even EXPLICATES
something! While not explicitly,
Grice wants to supersede Peirce's merely taxonomic approaches to the thing,
more in the vein of Ogden and Richards.
THE NATURE OF METAPHYSICS. Carton 7, Folders 26-27, Metaphysics. Preferred citation: Grice, H. P.
(1957). Metaphysics, in D. F. Pears, The Nature of Metaphysics,
London, Macmillan, The H. P. Grice Papers, Series V (Topical), Carton 7,
Folders 26 and 27, BANC. Cf. Grice/Strawson/Pears, "Metaphysics," in
D. F. Pears, The Nature of Metaphysics, The BBC Third Programme.
BENEVOLENTIA. Carton 7, Folder 28, Metaphysics and
Ill-Will. Keyword: Ill-will. A
conceptual elucidation.
THE THEORY-THEORY. THEORISING. Carton 7, Folder 29, Metaphysics and Theorizing. Preferred
citation: Grice, H. P. (1980). Metaphysics and theorising, The H. P. Grice
Papers, Series V (Topical), Carton 7, Folder 29, BANC. Grice called himself
'folksy': his theories, even if subject to various types of Ramseyfication, are
'popular' in kind! And ceteris
paribus! Metaphysical
construction is disciplined and the best theorising the philosopher can hope
for!
MYTH. Carton 7, Folder 30, Method and Myth. A philosopher should be, as
Plato was, to use a myth, if he thinks his tutee will thank him for that!
INDUCTION. Carton 7, Folder 31, Mill's Induction. Preferred citation: Grice, H. P. (1977). Mill's
Induction, The H. P. Grice Papers, Series V (Topical), Carton 7, Folder 31,
BANC. More Grice to the Mill. Grice loved Hardie's playing with Mill's Method
of Difference with an Oxford copper. He also quotes Kneale and Keynes on
induction.
ACTIONS AND EVENTS: VARIORA.
Carton 7, Folder 32, Miscellaneous. Actions and Events. Preferred citation: Grice, H. P. (1986).
Actions and events, The Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, The H. P. Grice
Papers, Series V (Topical), Carton 7, Folder 32, BANC. "Actions and
events" is Davidsonian in motivation, but Kantian in method!
Carton 8, Folder 1, Miscellaneous, With J. Baker.
Carton 8, Folder 2, Miscellaneous, Metaphysics
Notes
POST-WAR OXFORD PHILOSOPHY. Carton 8, Folder 3, Miscellaneous, Oxford Philosophy. Preferred
citation: Grice, H. P. (1958). Postwar Oxford philosophy, in Studies in the Way
of Words, Part II, Semantics and Metaphysics, Essay, The H. P. Grice Papers,
Series V (Topical), Carton 8, Folder 3, BANC.
By Oxford philosophy, Grice meant his own!
Carton 8, Folders 4-8, Miscellaneous, Philosophy.
Carton 8, Folders 9-13, Miscellaneous, Philosophy, Topics
PROBABILITY,
DESIRABILITY, AND MODALITY. Carton 8,
Folders 14-15, "Modality, Desirability, and Probability.”
Preferred citation: Grice, H. P. (1977). Modality, desirability, and
probability, The Grice Papers, Series V (Topical), Carton 8, Folders 14 and
15. He would use 'mode
operator.' Modality is the more
correct term, for things like 'should,' 'ought,' and 'must,' in that order. One
sense. The doxastic modals are
correlated to probability. The boulomaic modals are correlated to desirability.
There is probability to a degree d.
But there is also desirability to a
degree d. They both
combine in Grice's attempt to show how Kant's categorical imperative reduces to
the hypothetical. Kant
uses 'modality' in a way that Grice disfavours, preferring 'modus.' Grice is aware that Kant's use of 'modality'
is qua category (Kant's reduction to four of Aristotle's original ten
categories).
Carton 8
Folders 16-17
"Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics"
"Aristotle's Ethics"
From Hardie.
Carton 8
Folder 18
Objectivity and Value
Preferred citation: Grice, H. P. (1983). The conception of value, Clarendon, The H. P. Grice
Papers, Series V (Topical), Carton 8, Folder 18, BANC. His third Carus lecture.
He tries to find out what J. L. Mackie means when he says that a value is
ultimately 'subjective'. What about intersubjective, and constructively
'objective'?
Carton 8, Folder 19, Objective Value, Rational Motivation. The rational motivation for
objective value. Many notions are value-paradeigmatic. The most
important of all philosophical notions, that of 'rationality,' presupposes
objective value as one of its motivations. For Grice, 'ratio' can be understood 'cognoscendi' but also 'essendi.'
"Rational motivation" involves both types of 'ratio.'
Carton 8, Folder 20, Oddents (or Odd Ends), Urbane
and Not Urbane, Or Urbana and Not-Urbana. Preferred citation: Grice,
H. P. (1977). Odds and ends: Urbana and non Urbana, The Grice Papers, Series V
(Topical), Carton 8, Folder 20.
Carton 8, Folders 21-22, Vision, Taste, and The philosophy of perception: Preferred citations:
Grice, H. P. (1959). Vision, The H. P. Grice
Papers, Series V (Topical), Carton 8, Folders 21 and 22, BANC. Keyword: vision,
seeing. Preferred citation: Grice,
H. P. (1959). Taste, The H. P. Grice Papers, Series V (Topical), Carton 8,
Folders 21 and 22, BANC. Keyword: taste, the objects of the five senses.
Preferred citation: Grice, H. P.
(1959). Perception, The H. P. Grice Papers, Series V (Topical), Carton 8,
Folders 21 and 22, BANC. Keyword: philosophy of perception. Mainly with Warnock. Keywords: Vision, Taste, Perception. Warnock
reprinted Grice's "Causal Theory of Perception" in his influential
Reading in Philosophy, "The philosophy of perception." To be
combined with Carton 8 Folder 23, Perception, With G. J. Warnock. To be combined with Carton 8, Folder 24, Perception, With
Warnock. Warnock learned about perception much more from Grice than from
Austin! To be combined with Carton
8, Folder 25, Perception, With R. O. Warner. An evolutionary
justification of 'material' thing as the denotatum of a perceptual
judgement.
1966. DESCARTES ON CLEAR
AND DISTINCT PERCEPTION. Carton 8,
Folder 26, "Descartes on Clear and
Distinct Perception" and "Malcolm
on Dreaming.” Descartes meets Malcolm, and vice versa. Preferred citation: Grice, H. P. (1966).
Descartes on clear and distinct perception, in Studies in the Way of Words,
Part II, Semantics and Metaphysics, Essay, The H. P. Grice Papers, Series V
(Topical), Carton 8, Folder 26, BANC. Keyword: perception. Preferred citation: Grice, H. P. (1966). Dreaming, The H. P. Grice Papers, Series V
(Topical), Carton 8, Folder 26, BANC. Keywords: Malcolm, dreaming.
1953. GRICE ON GORDON. Carton 8, Folder 27, "A Pint of
Philosophy" by Alfred Brook Gordon, includes notes by Grice. Figurative!
EUDAIMONIA AND PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. Carton 8, Folder 28, "A Philosophy of Life,” Happiness, Notes.
Preferred citation: Grice, H. P.
(1980). Eudaimonia, The H. P. Grice Papers, Series V (Topical), Carton 8,
Folder 28, BANC. Keywords: Kantotle, eudaimonia.
PEIRCE. Carton 8, Folder 29, "C. S. Pierce's Theory of Signs.”
Preferred citation: Grice, H. P. (1947). C. S. Peirce's theory of signs, The H.
P. Grice Papers, Series V (Topical), Carton 8, Folder 29, BANC. Keyword:
meaning. He cites Ewing, Ogden and Richards, and many others. "Those spots
mean measles." Grice finds
Peirce 'krypto-technical' and proposes to "English" him into an
'ordinary-language' philosopher. He
does not altogether fail!
PIROTS. Carton 8, Folder 30, "Basic Pirotese, Sentence
Semantics and Syntax.” KEYWORDS: pirot, pirotese, semantics, syntax. Pirotese is the philosopher's engaging in
pirotology. "Pirots
karulise elatically." But not
all of them. Grice finds that
the pirotological talk allows to start from zero. He is constructing a language --
"Pirotese" -- and the world that language is supposed to represent or
denote.
PIROTS. Carton 8, Folder 31, "Pirots and Obbles,” KEYWORDS: pirot, obble, creature construction.
An obble is a pirot's object. Grice introduces potching and cotching. To
potch is what a pirot does with an obble: he perceives it. To cotch is what a
pirot can further do with an obble: know or cognise it. Cotching, unlike potching, is factive.
PIROTS. Carton 8, Folders 32-33, "Methodology
– Pirots,” KEYWORDS: "pirot.” Pirotology. Creature-construction. The
genitorial programme. Grice as engineer.
Carton 9
Folder 1
"Practical Reason"
KEYWORD: reason, practical reason. Grice prefers the idiom of
'soul.' There's the ratiocinative soul. Within the ratiocinative, there's the
executive soul and the merely administrative soul. Cicero had to translate
Aristotle into 'prudentia,' every time Aristotle talked of 'phronesis.' Grice
was aware that Kant's terminology can be confusing. Kant had used
"pure" reason for reason in the doxastic realm. Kant's critique of practical reason is HARDLY
symmetrical to his critique of 'doxastic' reason. Grice, with his 'aequi-vocality' thesis of
'must' ("must" crosses the doxastic-boulomaic divide), Grice is being
more of a symmetricalist.
Carton 9, Folder 2, "Preliminary Valediction,” For the Studies in the Way of Words.
Carton 9, Folder 3, "Presupposition and implicature,” Preferred citation: Grice, H. P. (1970). Presupposition and
conversational implicature, in Studies in the Way of Words, Part
II: Semantics and metaphysics, Essay, repr. from Cole, Radical
Pragmatics, The Grice Papers, Series V (Topical), Carton 9, Folder 3, BANC.
KEYWORDS: implicature, presupposition. His take on Strawson. "The king of France is bald"
entails there is a king of France. "The king of France ain't bald" does not; only implicate it.
Grice knew he was robbing Peter to pay
Paul.
Carton 9, Folder 4, "Probability and life.” KEYWORDS: life,
probability. Evolutionary
account of the pirot's adaptability to its changeable environs. Grice borrows the notion of probability from
Davidson, whose early claim to fame was to provide the logic of the notion.
Grice abbreviates probability by
"Pr." and compares it to a boulomaic operator, "De." for
desirability. A rational agent
must calculate both the probability and the desirability of his action. For both probability and desirability, the
degree is crucial. Grice symbolises this by 'd': probability in degree d;
probability in degree d'. The
topic of life Grice relates to that of adaptation and surival, and connects
with his genitorial programme of creature construction
("pirotology."): life as continued operancy.
TRUST AND RATIONALITY. Carton 9, Folder 5, "Rationality and
trust,” Preferred citation: Grice,
H. P. (1967). Rationality and trust, The Grice Papers, Series V (Topical),
Carton 9, Folder 5, BANC. KEYWORDS: trust, rationality. Trust and rationality are pre-requisites of
conversation. Cf. his desideratum of conversational candour, subsumed
under the over-arching principle of conversational helpfulness (formerly
'conversational benevolence-cum-self-interest'). Grice thought that the principle of conversational benevolence has to be
weighed against the principle of conversational self-interest. The result is the overarching principle of
conversational helpfulness. Clarity gets in the picture. The desideratum of
conversational clarity is a reasonable requirement for conversants to abide
by. Grice follows some of
Warnock's observations. The
logical grammar of 'trust' is subtle, especially when we are considering the
two sub-goals of conversation -- giving and receiving information/influencing
and being influenced by others --. In both sub-goals, trust is paramount.The explorations of trust had
become an Oxonian hobby, with authors not such like Warnock, but B. A. O.
Williams, and others.
Carton 9, Folder 6, "Reasons.” Preferred citation: Grice, H. P. (1966). Aspects of reason, Clarendon, Reasons, The H. P. Grice Papers, Series V (Topical), Carton 9, Folder 6, BANC. Linguistic analysis on 'justificatory,' 'explanatory' and 'mixed' uses of 'reason.' While Grice knows that the basic use of 'reason' is qua verb (reasoner reasons from premise P to conclusion C), he spends some time in exploring 'reason' as noun. Grice found it a bit of a roundabout way to approach rationality. However, his distinction between 'justificatory' and 'explanatory' 'reason' is built upon his linguistic botany on the use of 'reason' qua noun. Explanatory reason seems more basic for Grice than 'justificatory' reason. Explanatory reason EXPLAINS the rational agent's behaviour. Grice is aware of Freud and his 'rationalizations.' An agent may invoke some 'reason' for his acting which is not 'legitimate.' An agent may convince himself that he wants to move to Bournemouth because of the weather; when in fact, his reason to move to Bournemouth is to be closer to Cowes and join the yacht club there.
1982. REFLECTIONS ON
MORALS, Carton 9, Folder 7, "Reflections on morals.” KEYWORDS:
meta-ethics. Meta-ethics. Morals
is very Oxonian. There were in Grice's time only THREE chairs of philosophy at
Oxford: the three W: The
Waynflete chair of metaphysical philosophy, The Wykeham chair of logic (not
philosophy, really), and The
White chair of moral philosophy. Later,
the Wilde chair of philosophical psychology was created. Grice was familiar with Austin's cavalier
attitude to morals as White's professor of moral philosophy, succeeding Kneale.
When R. M. Hare succeeds Austin, Grice
knew that it was time to play with implicata! Grice's approach to morals is very 'meta-ethical' and starts with a
fastidious exploration of 'modes' related to phrases involving 'should,'
'ought,' and 'must.' For
Hampshire, 'should' is the moral word par excellence. For Hare, it is 'ought.' For Grice, it is "MUST." However, Grice also wants to say that
whatever he'll say about the 'moral' MUST must apply to the 'doxastic'
"must," as in "What goes up must come down."
HETEROLOGICAL. Carton 9,
Folder 8, "Russell and Heterologicality.” Preferred
citation: Grice, H. P. (1970).
Russell and heterologicality, The H. P. Grice Papers, Series V (Topical),
Carton 9, Folder 8, BANC. KEYWORDS: Russell, heterological. Grice was
fascinated by Baron Russell's remarks on 'heterological.' And its implicate!
MEANING REVISITED, REVISITED. Carton 9, Folder 9, Notes on Schiffer, On Remnants on meaning.
S. R. Schiffer had been Strawson's
tutee at Oxford as a Rhode Scholar in the completion of his D. Phil. on
'Meaning' (later published by Clarendon). Eventually, Schiffer grew sceptic, and let Grice know about it! Grice did not find Schiffer's arguments
totally destructive, but saw the positive side to them: they should remind any
philosopher that the issues he is dealing are profound and bound to involve
much elucidation before they are solved.
ONTOGENESIS. Carton 9, Folder 10, "Semantics
of Children's Language.” KEYWORDS: semantics, children's language, ontology,
phylogeny, developmental pragmatics, learning, acquisition. Interesting
in that he was always enquiring his children's playmates: "Can a sweater
be red and green all over? No stripes allowed!"
SEMANTICS. Carton 9, Folder 11, "Sentence
Semantics,” Truth-conditional, constructivist. While Grice is NOT
concerned about the 'semantics' of utterer's meaning, he is about the semantics
of SENTECE meaning. Grice's
second stage of his programme about meaning begins with specifications of
'means' as applied to 'x'. He is
having Tarski's and Davidson's elaborations of schemas like “"p" means that p.” "Snow is white" means that snow is
white.
PROPOSITION AND
PROPOSITIONAL COMPLEX. Carton 9,
Folder 12, "Sentence Semantics and Propositional
Complexes.” KEYWORDS: propositional complex. Grice was keen on the concept of a
'propositional complex,' which allowed him NOT to commit to the abstract entity
of a 'proposition,' if the latter is regarded as an extensional family of
'propositional complexes' (Paul saw Peter; Peter was seen by Paul). The topic of a propositional complex was one
that Grice regarded as Oxonian in nature. C. A. B. Peacocke had struggled with the same type of problems, in his
various essays on the theory of content. Only a perception-based account of content in terms of 'qualia' gets the
philosopher out of the vicious circle of introducing linguistic entities to
clarify psychological entities and vice versa.
IZZING AND HAZZING. Carton 9, Folder 13. D. Code's "Significance of the Middle Book's Aristotle's
Metaphysics.” KEYWORDS: Aristotle, metaphysics, the middle book. Very middle. Grice never knew what was middle
for Aristotle, but admired Code too much to air this! The organisation of Aristotle's metaphysics
was a topic of much concern for Grice. With Code, Grice coined 'izzing' and 'hazzing' to refer to essential and
non-essential attribution.
THRASYMACHUS. Carton 9, Folder 14, "Social justice.” On Socrates and Thrasymachus. Grice was well aware that Rawls have made use of Grice's ideas on 'personal identity.' The philosophical elucidation of 'fairness' is of great concern for Grice. He had been in touch with the explorations by Nozick and Nagel along anti-Rawlsian lines. Grice's ideas on rationality guide his exploration of 'social justice.'
INTENTION AND
SUBJECTIVITY. Carton 9, Folder 15, ""Subjective" conditions and intentions.” KEYWORDS:
intention, subjective condition. Cf. his dispositional account to
'intending.' A subjective
condition takes into account the intender's, rather than the ascriber's, point
of view: Marmaduke Bloggs
intends to climb Mt Everest on hands and knees.
SUPER-RELATION. Carton 9, Folder 16, "Super-relatives,”
Very Super.
1980. SEMANTICS (1980). Carton 9, Folders 17-18, "Syntax and semantics.” KEYWORDS: syntax,
semantics. Especially the
former. Grice loved two devices of the syntactic kind: subscripts and square
brackets (for the assignment of 'common-ground status'). Grice was a conservative when it comes to
syntax and semantics. He would hardly use 'pragmatics,' but was aware of
Morris's triangle. Syntax is
presented along the lines of Gentzen -- a system of 'natural deduction' in
terms of inference rules of introduction and elimination for each formal
device. Semantics pertains
rather to Witters's truth-values: the assignment of a satisfactory-valuation:
the true and the good.
1980. THE WHY (1980). Carton 9, Folder 19, "The "that" and the "why.” Metaphysics. KEYWORDS:
explanation, description, 'why,' 'what'. Taxonomy, worse than Explanation,
always. Grice is exploring the
'taxonomy-description' vs. explanation dichotomy. He would often criticise
Austin for spending too much valuable time on linguistic botany, 'without an
aim in his head.' Instead, other
philosophers look for the 'big picture of it all,' and disregard piecemeal
analyses. Conversation is a good
example. While Austin would subjectify 'Language' (Linguistic Nature), Grice
rather places rationality squarely on the behaviour displayed by utterers as
they make conversational moves that their addressees will judge as 'rational'
along specific lines. Observation of the principle of conversational
helpfulness is RATIONAL (reasonable) along the following lines: Anyone who cares about the two goals which
are central to conversation: -- giving and receiving information/influencing and being influenced by others
-- is expected to have an interest in
taking part in a conversation which will only be profitable under the
assumption that it is conducted along the lines of the principle of
conversational helpfulness.1980. TRUST (1980). Carton 9, Folder 20, Trust, Metaphysics, and Value. With J. Baker. Preferred
citation: Grice, H. P. (1980).
Trust, metaphysics, and value, The Grice Papers, Series V (Topical), Carton 9,
Folder 20, BANC. KEYWORDS: trust, metaphysics, value. Trust a corollary of
the principle of conversational helpfulness. The logical grammar of 'trust' is an interesting one. Grice used to speak
of 'candour.' In a given conversational setting, assuming the principle of
conversational helpfulness is operating, the utterer U is assumed by the
addressee A to be 'trustworthy.' There
are two dimensions for trust, which relate to the TWO goals which Grice assumes
the principle of conversational helpfulness captures: -- giving and
receiving information, and influencing and being influenced by others. In both sub-goals, trust is key. In the doxastic realm, trust has to do, not
so much with 'truth' (with which the expression is cognate) but 'evidence.'
In the boulomaic realm, 'evidence'
becomes less crucial. Grice mentions attitudes of the boulomaic type that are
not usually judged in terms of evidential support. However, in the 'boulomaic' realm, utterer
will be assumed as 'trustworthy' if the conative attitudes he displays are
'sincere.'
1986. UNIVERSALIA (1986). Carton 9, Folder 21, "Universals.” KEYWORDS:
universalia. The Grice Papers contains folders on universalia in Series IV
(Associations), too. Universalia as abstrata. Grice's concern with 'universalia' can be
traced back to his reading of Aristotle's "Categoriae." Other than the 'substantia prima,' it may be
said that anything else -- attribute, etc. -- belongs in the realm of
'universalia.’ As such, univeralia are not spatio-temporal continuants. However, his category shift allows Grice to
have this 'universalia' as subjects of discourse. The topic is approached formally by means of
the notion of 'order': 'first-order predicate calculus' ranges over
individuals, in Strawson's use of the term. Higher-order predicate calculus ranges over 'predicates' and beyond -- as
such, 'universalia' can only be formalised in higher-order calculi.
1986. UNIVERSALIA. Carton 9, Folder 22, "Universals,” With M. Friedman. KEYWORDS:
universalia.
1980. TELEOLOGY. Carton 9,
Folder 23, "Value, Metaphysics, and Teleology,” KEYWORDS:
value, metaphysics, teleology, telos, finality, mechanism. Grice was obsessed with the Greek idea of a
'telos,' as overused by Aristotle. He thought teleology is a key philosophical
way to contest Mechanism, so popular in The New World. Strictly, and Grice
knew this, 'teleology' is constituted as a 'discipline.' For the
philosopher, 'teleology' is that part of philosophy that studies the realm of
the 'telos.' Informally,
'teleological' is opposed to 'mechanistic'. Grice is interested in the mechanism/teleology debate. He found New-World philosophers too
mechanistic-oriented, in contrast with the more 'two-culture' atmosphere he was
familiar with at Oxford!
1983. ABSOLUTE VALUE. Carton 9, Folder 24. “Values, Morals, Absolutes, and the Metaphysical.” The absolute versus
the relative, is constructed OUT of the relative, thought. There is hardly a
realm of UNconstructed reality. Grice
is especially concerned with J. L. Mackie's rather cavalier attitude towards
the relative and the absolute. Surely
the 'absolute' IS a construction out of the 'relative.' Grice takes a Kantotelian attitude. We
designate a proper judge, the ratiocinative part of the soul of a personal
being. Whatever is 'relative' to this particular creature attains, ipso facto,
'absolute value.' Grice proposes
a reduction of 'what is valuable-ABSOLUTE' to 'what is valuable-RELATIVE,' and
succeeds!
VALUE SYSTEMS, Carton 9, Folders 25-27.
THE KANTIAN PROBLEM. Carton 9, Folders 25-27, Miscellaneous, "Value sub-systems,” "The
Kantian Problem" Values
coordinate in systems. One such is 'eudaimonia.' Kant's problem is the reduction of the categorical imperative to the
hypothetical imperative. For
Kant, values tend towards the subjective. Grice, rather, wants to offer a
'metaphysical' defence of 'objective' value. Grice called the manual of conversational maxims the Conversational
Immanuel.
1982. VALUE AND RAIONALISM (1982). Carton 9, Folder 28, "Values and rationalism.” KEYWORDS:
value, rationalism, axiology. As
opposed to 'relativism,' which denies the rational basis to attitude
ascriptions. Grice is concerned
with the absence of a thorough discussion of 'value' by English
philosophers. Continental philosophers, by comparison, have a special
discipline, 'axiology,' for it! Similarly,
a continental-oriented tradition Grice finds in The New World in philosophers
of a pragmatist bent, such as Carus. Grice wants to say that 'rationality' is a value, because it is a faculty
that a creature (human) displays to adapt and survive to his changing environments.
1978. VIRTUE (1978). Carton 9, Folder 29, Philippa Foot's "Virtues and Vices.” KEYWORDS:
Philippa Foot, virtue, vice, virtue ethics, flourishing He admired Foot's ability to make the right
conceptual distinction. Foot is following a very Oxonian tradition best
represented by the work of G. J. Warnock. Of course, Grice was over-familiar with the 'virtue' vs. 'vice'
distinction, since Hardie had instilled it on him at Corpus! For Grice, 'virtue' and 'vice' display an
interesting 'logical' grammar, though. He would say that 'rationality' is a
virtue; fallacious reasoning is a vice. Some things he took more of a moral standpoint about. To cheat is neither
irrational nor unreasonble: just plain 'repulsive.' As such, it would be a 'vice.' Grice is concerned with 'vice' in his account
of 'akrasia.' If agent A KNOWS
that doing x is 'virtuous,' yet decides to do ~x, which is 'vicious,' A is
being 'akratic.' For Grice, akratic behaviour applies both in the doxastic
and the boulomaic realm. And it
is part of the philosopher's job to elucidate the conceptual intricacies
attached to it.
1980. NEEDING, WANTING (1980). Carton 9, Folders 30-31, "Wants and Needs.” Preferred citation: Grice,
H. P. (1980). Wants and needs, The Grice Papers, Series V (Topical), Carton 9,
Folders 30 and 31, BANC. KEYWORDS: want, need, wanting, needing,
philosophical psychology, soul. "Want" etymologically means "absence;"
"need" should be preferred. The squarrel (squirrel) Toby NEEDS intake
of nuts, and you'll soon see gobbling them! There is not much philosophical
bibliography on these two 'psychological states' Grice is analysing. Their
logic is interesting: (i) Smith
wants to play cricket. (ii)
Smith NEEDS to play cricket. Grice is concerned with the propositional content attached to the 'want'
and 'need' predicate. "Wants that" sounds harsh; so does
"need that." Still,
there are propositional attached to (i) and (ii): "Smith plays
cricket." Grice took a very
cavalier attitude to what linguists spend their lives analysing. He thought it was surely NOT the job of the
philosopher, especially from a prestigious university such as Oxford, to deal
with the arbitrariness of grammatical knots attached to this or that English
verb. He rarely used "English," but stuck with 'ordinary language.'
Surely, he saw himself in the tradition
of Kantotle, and so, aiming at grand philosophical truths: not conventions of
usage, even his own!
APPENDIX A: H. P. Grice: Catalogue Raisonée
Grice, H.P. (1938). ‘Negation and privation’ The H.P. Grice
Papers, BANC MSS 90/135c, The Bancroft Library, University of California,
Berkeley.
(1941). ‘Personal
identity,’ in Mind, repr. in J. Perry, Personal Identity,
Berkeley, University of California Press.
(1946). Seminar on Peirce's
theory of signs, The H.P. Grice Papers, BANC MSS 90/135c, The Bancroft Library,
University of California, Berkeley.
(1948). Intentions and
dispositions.' On Ryle and Hampshire.
(1956). In defence of a
dogma, with P. F. Strawson, The Philosophical Review, repr. in
Grice, Studies in the Way of Words, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press,
1989.
(1957). 'Meaning,' The
Philosophical Review.
(1957). 'Metaphysics,' with
P. F. Strawson and D. F. Pears, in D. F. Pears, The nature of metaphysics.
London: Macmillan.
(1959). ‘Vision,’ with G.
J. Warnock, The H. P. Grice Papers, Series V, Carton 8, Folder 21, BANC MSS
90/135c, The Bancroft Library, The University of California, Berkeley.
(1960). ‘The philosophy of
perception,’ notes with G. J. Warnock on visum. The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC
MSS 90/138c.
(1961). ‘The causal theory
of perception,’ symposium with A.R. White, Proceedings of the
Aristotelian Society, supplementary volume, 35, no. 1:121-153, repr. in
Warnock (1968) and, without the excursus on implication, in Grice (1989).
(1962). ‘Some remarks about
the senses,’ in R. J. Butler, Analytic Philosophy. Oxford:
Blackwell, repr. in Grice 1989.
(1964). ‘Logic and
conversation,’ an Oxford seminar, in The H.P. Grice Papers, BANC MSS 90/135c,
The Bancroft Library, The University of California, Berkeley.
(1967). The William James
Memorial Lectures, in The H.P. Grice Papers, BANC MS 90/135c, The Bancroft
Library, The University of California, Berkeley, repr. in a revised form as
Part I of Grice (1989).
(1968). 'Utterer's meaning,
sentence-meaning, and word-meaning,' The Foundations of Language, repr. in J.
R. Searle, The Philosophy of Language, Oxford.
(1969). 'Vacuous names,' in
D. Davidson and J. Hintikka, Words and objections: essays on the work of W. V.
Quine. Dordrecht: Reidel.
(1969). ‘Utterer’s meaning
and intentions,’ The Philosophical Review, 72(2): 147-177, repr. in
Grice (1989).
(1970). The philosophy of
perception: a retrospective, with G. J. Warnock, The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC
MSS 90/135c, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.
(1970). ‘Philosophy and
ordinary language,' The H.P. Grice Papers, Series II, Carton 4, Folder 15, BANC
MSS 90/135c, The Bancroft Library, The University of California, Berkeley.
(1971). ‘Intention and
uncertainty,’ Proceedings of the British Academy, 57:263-269.
(1971). 'Entailment,' The
H. P. Grice Papers, Series IV, Carton 6, Folder 4, BANC MSS 90/135c, The
Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.
(1971). 'Ifs and cans,' The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC MSS 90/135c,
The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.
(1972.) Potching and
cotching obbles. The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC MSS 90/135c, The Bancroft
Library, University of California, Berkeley.
(1973). 'Identity,' with G.
Myro, The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC MSS 90/135c, The Bancroft Library, University
of California, Berkeley.
(1973). ‘Davidson on intending,’ The H.P. Grice Papers, BANC MSS
92/135c, The Bancroft Library, The University of California at Berkeley.
(1974). ‘Disimplicature,’
The H.P. Grice Papers, BANC MSS 90/135c, The Bancroft Library, The University
of California, Berkeley.
(1974) ‘Frege: words, and
sentences,’ The H. P. Grice Papers.
(1975). 'Method in
philosophical psychology: from the banal to the bizarre,' Proceedings
and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association, repr. in The
Conception of Value.
(1975). ‘Logic and
conversation,’ in Davidson and Harman (1975), also in Cole and Morgan (1975),
repr. in a revised form in Grice (1989).
(1976). ‘Russell and
heterologicality,’ The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC MSS 90/135c, The Bancroft
Library, University of California, Berkeley.
(1977). ‘Mill's induction,’
The H. P. Grice Papers, Series V, Carton 7, Folder 31, BANC MSS 90/135c, The
Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.
(1977). ‘The Kant
Lectures,’ Stanford. Redelivered as The John Locke lectures, repr. in Aspects
of Reason. Oxford: The Clarendon Press.
(1978). ‘Further notes on logic and conversation,’ in Cole (1978),
repr. in a revised form in Grice (1989).
(1979). ‘Knowledge and belief,’ The H. P. Grice Papers, Series
III, Carton 5, Folder 18, BANC MSS 90/135c, The Bancroft Library, University of
California, Berkeley.
(1980). 'Socrates,' The H.
P. Grice Papers, Series III, Carton 5, Folder 31, BANC MSS 90/135c, The
Bancroft Library, The University of California, Berkeley.
(1981). ‘Presupposition and
conversational implicature,’ in Cole (1981), repr. in a revised form in Grice
(1989).
(1982). 'Meaning
revisited,' in N. V. Smith, Mutual knowledge. Repr. in Studies in the Way of
Words.
(1983). ‘The Paul Carus
lectures,’ repr. as The Conception of Value. Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1991.
(1984). ‘Prejudices and
predilections, which become, the life and opinions of Paul Grice,’ The H.P.
Grice Papers, BANC MSS 91/135c, The Bancroft Library, The University of
California, Berkeley.
(1985). 'The unity of science and teleology,' The H. P. Grice
Papers, Series IV, Carton 6, Folder 9, BANC MSS 90/135c, The Bancroft Library,
The University of California, Berkeley.
(1986). ‘Reply to
Richards,’ in Grandy/Warner, Philosophical Grounds of Rationality: Intentions,
Categories, Ends. pp. 45-108.
(1987). ‘Retrospective
epilogue,’ repr. in Grice (1989), Studies in the Way of Words,
Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
(1988). ‘Metaphysics and
theorizing,’ The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC MSS 90/135c, The Bancroft Library,
University of California, Berkeley.
(1988). ‘Aristotle on the
multiplicity of being,’ posthumously edited by B. F. Loar. Pacific
Philosophical Quarterly.
APPENDIX B: H. P. Grice
Grice, H. P.
1948. ‘'Meaning.' The
Oxford Philosophical Society, in Studies in the Way of Words, Part II,
Semantics and Metaphysics, Essay, repr. from The Philosophical Review, The H.
P. Grice Papers, Series II (Essays), BANC MSS 90/135c, The Bancroft
Library, University of California, Berkeley. Grice may be seen as a
practitioner of 'ordinary-language' philosophy (his explorations of the factivity
or lack thereof of various uses of "to mean." The second part of the
essay, for which he became philosophically very popular, takes up an
intention-based approach to semantic notions. The only authority Grice cites,
in a typical Oxonian fashion, is C. L. Stevenson, who, from The New World, had
been defending an emotivist theory of ethics, and making a few remarks on how
"to mean" is used, with scare quotes, in something like a 'causal'
account ("Smoke 'means' fire."). After its publication in The
Philosophical Review, Grice's account received "almost as many alleged counterexamples
as rule-utilitarianism" (B. J. Harrison), but mostly outside Oxford, and
in The New
World. New-World
philosophers saw Grice's attempt as reductionist and as oversimplifying Quine's
troubles with empiricism. "Meaning" was reprinted in various
collections, notably in P. F. Strawson's Philosophical Logic (and it should be
remembered that it was Strawson who had the thing typed and submitted to The
Philosophical Review!)
1953. 'G. E. Moore and
Philosopher's Paradoxes,' repr. in Studies in the Way of Words, in Part
II, Semantics and Metaphysics, Essays, The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC MSS
90/135c, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.
Keywords: G. E. Moore, paradox. As with his earlier 'Common sense and
scepticism,' Grice tackles Moore's and Malcolm's claim that 'ordinary
language,' so-called, solves a few of "Philosopher"'s paradoxes.
"Philosopher" is Moore's attempt at humour to symbolise
"any" philosopher. Grice finds problems in this, as over-simplifying
a pretty convoluted terrain.
1957. 'Meaning' Published
in The Philosophical Review. The preferred quotation is of
course Grice, H. P. (1948), seeing that Grice recalled the exact year when
he gave the talk for the Philosophical Society at Oxford. It was however,
the publication in The Philosophical Review that occasioned a tirade of alleged
counter-examples by New-World philosophers, and at least one or two Oxonians:
Urmson and Strawson. Urmson criticised the NECESSITY of Grice's account, by
introducing an alleged counter-example involving bribery. Grice will consider a
way out of Urmson's alleged counter-example in his fifth Wiliam James Lecture. Strawson's
alleged counter-example was perhaps slightly more serious, if regressive. His
"rat-infested house" alleged counter-example started a chain which
required Grice to avoid, ultimately, any 'sneaky' intention by way of a
recursive clause to the effect that, for utterer U to have MEANT that p, all
meaning-constitutive intentions should be 'above board.'
1958. 'Post-war Oxford
philosophy,' repr. in Studies in the Way of Words, Part II, Semantics and Metaphysics,
Essay, The H. P. Grice Papers, Series II (Essays), BANC MSS 90/135c, The
Bancroft Library, The University of California, Berkeley. While Grice
loved to drop Oxonian names -- notably his 'rivals,' such as Dummett or
Anscombe, he knew when not to. His "Post-war Oxford philosophy," as
opposed to more specific items in The Grice Collection, remains 'general' in
tone, and intended as a defense of the 'ordinary-language' approach to philosophy.
Surprisingly, or perhaps not (for those who knew Grice), he takes a pretty
idiosyncratic characterisation of conceptual analysis. Grice's philosophical
problems emerge with Grice's idiosyncratic use of this or that expression.
Conceptual analysis is meant to solve HIS problems, not others'!
1959. ‘Vision,' With G.
J. Warnock, The H. P. Grice Papers, Series V (Topical), Carton 8,
Folder 21, BANC MSS 90/135c, The Bancroft Library, The University of
California, Berkeley. Of the five senses, Grice and Warnock are
particularly interested in 'seeing.' As Grice will put it later, 'see' is a
factive. It presupposes the existence of the event reported after the
'that'-clause. A 'visum,' however, as an intermediary between the material
thing and the perceiver does not seem necessary in 'ordinary' discourse.
Warnock will reconsider Grice's views too ("On what is seen," in
Sibley). While Grice uses 'vision,' he knows he is interested in Philosopher's
paradox concerning 'seeing,' notably Witters on 'seeing as.'
1959. Taste. The H. P.
Grice Papers.
1960. 'The philosophy of
perception,' Notes with G. J. Warnock on visum, The H. P. Grice
Papers, BANC MSS 90/138c. Keywords: visum, Warnock, Grice, the philosophy of
perception. Grice kept the lecture notes to a view of publishing a
retrospective. Warnock recalled Grice saying, "How clever language
is!"
1964. 'Logic and
conversation,' an Oxford seminar, in The H.P. Grice Papers, BANC MSS
90/135c, The Bancroft Library, The University of California, Berkeley. Keyword:
implicatum, principle of conversational helpfulness. In titling his seminar
"Logic and Conversation," Grice is thinking Strawson. After all, in
the seminal "Introduction to Logical Theory," that every Oxonian
student was reading, Strawson had the cheek to admit that he never ceased to
learn logic from his tutor, Grice. Yet he elaborates a totally anti Griceian
view of things. To be fair to Strawson, the only segment where he acknwoledges
Grice's difference of opinion is a brief footnote, concerning the 'strength' or
lack thereof, of this or that quantified utterance. Strawson uses an adjective
that Grice will seldom do, 'pragmatic'. On top, Strawson attributes the
adjective to 'rule.' For Grice, in Strawson's wording, there is this or that 'pragmatic
rule' to the effect that one should make a stronger rather than a weaker
conversational move. Strawson's Introduction was published BEFORE Grice aired
his views for the Aristotelian Society. In this seminar then Grice takes the
opportunity to correct a few misunderstandings. Important in that it is
Grice's occasion to introduce the principle of conversational helpfulness as generating
implicata under the assumption of rationality. The lecture makes it obvious
that Grice's interest is methodological, and not 'philological.' He is not
interest in conversation per se, but only as the source for his principle of
conversational helpfulness and the notion of the conversational implicatum,
which springs from the distinction between what an utterer implies and what his
expression does, a distinction 'apparently denied by Witters and all too
frequently ignored by Austin.'
1966. 'Descartes on clear
and distinct perception,' Repr. in Part II (Semantics and Metaphysics) to
Studies in the Way of Words, The H. P. Grice Papers, Series II (Essays) and
Series V (Topical), BANC MSS 90/135c, The Bancroft Library, The University of
California, Berkeley. Grice is NOT interested in an exegesis of
Descartes's thought. He doesn't care to give a reference to any edition of
Descartes's oeuvre. But he plays with 'certain'. "It is certain that
p" is objective certainty, apparently. "I am certain that p" is
subjective certainty, rather. Oddly, Grice will turn to UNcertainty as it
connects with intention in his British Academy lecture.
1967. LOGIC AND
CONVERSATION, in Studies in the Way of Words. The William James Memorial
Lectures on Logic and Conversation, in Studies in the Way of Words, as Part I,
"Logic and Conversation," The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC MSS 90/135c,
The Bancroft Library, The University of California, Berkeley. In The H.P.
Grice Papers, BANC MS 90/135c, The Bancroft Library, The University of
California, Berkeley, repr. in a revised form as Part I of Grice (1989). The original
set consisted of seven lectures. To wit: Prolegomena, Logic and conversation,
Further notes on logic and conversation, Indicative Conditionals, Utterer's
meaning and intentions, Utterer's meaning, sentence-meaning, and word meaning,
and Some models for implicature. They were pretty successful at Oxford. While
the notion of an 'implicatum' had been introduced by Grice at Oxford, even in
connection with a principle of conversational helpfulness, he takes the
occasion now to explore the type of rationality involved. Observation of the
principle of conversational helpfulness is rational (reasonable) along the
following lines: anyone who cares about the two central goals to conversation
(give/receive information, influence/be influened) is expected to have an
interest in participating in a conversation that is only going to be profitable
given that it is conducted along the lines set by the principle of
conversational helpfulness. In "Prolegomena" he lists Austin,
Strawson, Hare, Hart, and himself, as victims of a disregard for the
implicatum. In the third lecture he introduces his razor, "Senses are not
to be muliplied beyond necessity." In "Indicative conditionals"
he tackles Strawson on 'if' as not representing the horse-shoe of Whitehead and
Russell. The next two lectures, "Utterer's meaning and intentions"
and "Utterer's meaning, sentence-meaning, and word-meaning" refine
his earlier, more austere, account of this particularly Peirceian phenomenon.
He concludes the lectures with an exploration on the relevance of the implicatum
to philosophical psychology.
1967. PROLEGOMENA, in
Studies in the Way of Words. Prolegomena, in Studies in the Way of Words, Part
I ("Logic and Conversation"), Essay 1, The H. P. Grice Papers. A
discussion of Oxonian philosophers of Grice's play group, notably J. L. Austin,
P. F. Strawson, H. L. A. Hart, and R. M. Hare. He adds himself for good measure
("A causal theory of perception"). Philosophers, even at Oxford, have
to be careful with the attention that is due to 'general principles of discourse.'
Grice quotes philosophers of an earlier generation, such as Ryle, and some
interpreters or practitioners of Oxonian analysis, such as Benjamin and Searle.
He even manages to quote from Witters's "Philosophical
investigations," on seeing a banana as a banana.
1967. LOGIC AND
CONVERSATION, in Studies in the Way of Words. Logic and Conversation, in
Studies in the Way of Words, Part I ("Logic and Conversation"), Essay
2, The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC. An elaboration of his Oxonian seminar on
"Logic and conversation." There's a principle of conversational
helpfulness, which includes a desideratum of conversational candour and a desideratum
of conversational clarity, and the sub-principle of conversational
self-interest clashing with the sub-principle of conversational benevolence.
The whole point of the manoeuvre is to provide a rational basis for a
conversational 'implicatum,' as his term of art goes. Observation of the
principle of conversational helpfulness is rational/reasonable along the
following lines: anyone who is interested in the two goals conversation is
supposed to serve -- give/receive information, influence/be influenced --
should only care to enter a conversation that will be only profitable under the
assumption that it is conducted in accordance with the principle of conversational
helfpulness, and attending desiderata and sub-principles. Grice takes special
care in listing tests for the proof that an implicatum is 'conversational' in
this rather technical usage: a conversational implicatum is RATIONALLY
calculable (it is the content of a psychological state, attitude or stance that
the addressee assigns to the utterer on condition that he is being helpful),
non-detachable, indeterminate, and VERY cancellable, thus never part of the
'sense' and never an 'entailment' of this or that piece of philosophical
vocabulary.
1967. Further notes on
logic and conversation, in Studies in the Way of Words, Part I ("Logic and
Conversation"), Essay III, The H. P. Grice Papers. But what do we
mean 'sense'. Surely Occam was right with his Entia non sunt multiplicanda
praeter necessitatem. We need to translate that alla 'linguistic turn.' Grice
jokes: "Senses are not be multiplied beyond necessity." He also
considers irony, stress, and truth, which the Grice Papers have under a special
folder in the Series V (Topical).
1967. INDICATIVE
CONDITIONALS, in Studies in the Way of Words. Indicative conditionals, in
Studies in the Way of Words, Part I ("Logic and Conversation"), Essay
IV, The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC. In "Prolegomena," Grice had
quoted verbatim from Strawson's infamous idea that there is a SENSE of
inferrability with 'if.' While the lecture covers much more than 'if' ("He
only said 'if';" "Oh, no, he said a great deal more than that!,"
the title was never meant to be original. Grice in fact provides a rational
justification for the three connectives ("and," "or," and
"if") and before that, the unary functor "not."
Utterer's meaning and
intentions, in Studies in the Way of Words, Part I ("Logic and
Conversation"), Essay V, repr. from The Philosophical Review, The H.
P. Grice Papers, BANC. This is Grice's occasion to address some of the
criticisms -- in the form of alleged counter-examples, typically, as his later
reflections on epagoge versus diagoge note -- by J. O. Urmson, P. F. Strawson,and
other philosophers associated with Oxford, such as J. R. Searle, D. W. Stampe,
and S. R. Schiffer. The final 'analysandum' is pretty complex (of the type that
he did find his analysis of "I am hearing a sound" complex in
"Personal identity" -- "hardly an obstacle for adopting
it!" --), it became yet another target of attack by especially New-World
philosophers in the pages of Mind, Nous, and other journals.
1967. Utterer's meaning,
sentence-meaning, and word meaning, in Studies in the Way of Words, Part I ("Logic
and Conversation"), Essay VI, The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC. Grice wants to
keep on playing. In "Meaning," he had said "x means that p"
is surely reducible to utterer U means that p. In this lecture, he lectures us
as to how to proceed. In so doing he invents this or that procedure: some
basic, some resultant. When Chomsky reads the reprint in Searle's Philosophy of
Language, he cries: "Behaviourist! Skinnerian!" It was Suppes who
comes to Grice's defence. "Surely the way Grice uses expressions like 'resultant'
procedure are never meant in the strict 'behaviourist' way." Suppes
concludes that it is much fairer to characterise Grice as an 'intentionalist.'
1967. SOME MODELS FOR
IMPLICATURE, in Studies in the Way of Words, Part I ("Logic and
Conversation"), Essay VI, The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC.. A rather obscure
exploration on the connection of semiotics and philosophical psychology. Grice
is aware that there is an allegation in the air about a possible 'vicious'
circle in trying to define 'category of expression' in terms of a 'category of
representation.' He does not provide a solution to the problem which he'll take
up in his "Method in philosophical psychology," in his role of
President of the American Philosophical Association.
1968. 'Utterer's meaning,
sentence-meaning, and word-meaning' Published in The Foundations of Language,
ed. by J. F. Staal. The H. P. Grice Papers, Repr. in J. R.
Searle, The Philosophy of Language, Oxford, The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC. Staal
asked Grice to publish the sixth William James lecture for a newish periodical
publication of whose editorial board he was a member. The fun thing is Grice
complied!
1969. 'Utterer’s meaning and
intentions' The Philosophical Review, 72(2): 147-177, Repr. in
Grice (1989), The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC, Berkeley.This is officially the
fifth William James lecture. Grice takes up the analysis of 'meaning' he had presented
back in 1948 at the Oxford Philosophical Society. Motivated mainly by
Strawson's attack in "Intention and convention in speech acts," that
offered an alleged counter-example to the sufficiency of Grice's analysis,
Grice ends up introducing so many intention that he almost trembled. He ends up
seeing 'meaning' as a 'value-paradeigmatic' concept, perhaps never realisable
in a sublunary way. But it is the analysis in this particular essay where he is
at his formal best. He distinguishes between protreptic and exhibitive
utterances, and also modes of correlation (iconic, conventional). He symbolises
the utterer and the addressee, and generalises over the type of psychological
state, attitude, or stance, "meaning" seems to range (notably
indicative vs. imperative). He formalises the 'reflexive' intention, and more
importantly, the 'overtness' of communication in terms of a self referential
recursive intention that disallows any 'sneaky' intention to be brought into
the picture of meaning-constitutive intentions.
1969. 'Vacuous names,'
in Donald Davidson and Jaako Hintikka, Words and objections: essays on the work
of W. V. Quine, Dordrecht, Reidel, The H. P. Grice Papers, Series II
(Essays), BANC MSS 90/135c, Berkeley. Keywords: identificatory use,
non-identificatory use, subscript device. Davidson and Hintikka were well
aware of the 'New-World' impact of the 'Old-World' ideas displayed by
Grice and Strawson in their attack to Quine. Quine had indeed addressed Grice's
and Strawson's 'sophisticated' version of the paradigm-case argument in
"Word and Object." Davidson and Hintikka arranged to publish a
special issue for a periodical publication, to which P. F. Strawson had already
contributed. It was only natural, when Davidson and Hintikka were informed by
Reidel of their interest in turning the special issue into a separate volume,
that they would approach the other infamous member of the dynamic
duo! Commissioned by Donald Davidson and J. Hintikka for Words and
objections: essays on the work of W. V. Quine. Grice introduces a
subscript device to account for 'implicata' of utterances
like "Marmaduke Bloggs won't be attending the party; he was invented
by the journalists." In the later section, he explores identificatory
and non identificatory uses of 'the' without involving himself in
the problems Donnellan did! Some philosophers, notably Ostertag, have
found the latter section the most intriguing bit, and thus Ostertag cared to
reprint the section on Descriptions for his edited MIT volume on the
topic.
1970. 'Presupposition and
conversational implicature, 'Repr. in a revised form in Part II (Semantics and metaphysics)
to Studies in the Way of Words, The H. P. Grice Papers, Series V (Topical),
BANC MSS 90/135c, Berkeley. Soon after delivering in the New World his
exploration on the implicatum, Grice has no better idea than to promote
Strawson's philosophy in the New World. Strawson will later reflect on the
colder shores of the Old World, so we know what Grice had in mind! Strawson's
main claim to fame in the New World (and at least Oxford in the Old World) was
his "On referring," where he had had the cheek to say that by
uttering, "The king of France is not bald," the utterer IMPLIES that
there is a king of France. He later changed that to "the utterer PRESUPPOSES."
So Grice knew what he was dealing with. Grice and Strawson had entertained
Quine at Oxford, and Strawson was particularly keen on that turn of phrase he
learned from Quine, 'the truth-value gap.' Grice, rather, found it pretty repulsive:
"Tertium exclusum!" So, Grice goes on to argue that by uttering 'The
king of France is bald,' one of the ENTAILMENTS of the proposition explicitly
conveyed is indeed 'There is a king of France.' However, in its negative
co-relate, things change. By uttering 'The king of France ain't bald,' the
utterer merely IMPLICATES (in a pretty cancellable format) that he believes
there is a king of France. ("The king of France ain't bald: there's no
king of France!").
1959. 'The philosophy of
perception: a retrospective, with G. J. Warnock,' The H. P. Grice Papers,
BANC MSS 90/135c, The Bancroft Library, University of California,
Berkeley. Keywords: perception, the philosophy of perception, visum. Warnock
was possibly the only philosopher at Oxford Grice felt congenial enough to
engage in different explorations in the so-called 'philosophy of perception.'
Their joint adventures involved the disimplicature of a 'visum.' Grice later
approached sense data in more 'evolutionary' terms: a material thing is to be
vindicated transcendentally, in the sense that it is a material thing (and not
a sense datum or collection thereof) that nourishes a creature like a human.
Grice was particularly grateful to Warnock. By reprinting the full symposium on
"The Causal Theory of Perception" in his influential series of Oxford
Readings in Philosophy, Warnock had spread Grice's lore of implicature all
over!
1970. 'Philosophy and
'ordinary' language,' The H. P. Grice Papers, Series II, Carton 4,
Folder 15 BANC MSS 90/135c, The Bancroft Library, The University of
California, Berkeley. Keywords: 'ordinary-language' philosophy. Grice is not
really interested in 'ordinary' language as a philologist might. He SPOKE 'ordinary' language,
he thought. The point had been brought to the fore by Austin. "If they
think philosophy is a play on words, well then, let's play the game."
Grice's interest is methodological. Malcolm had been claiming that
'ordinary language' is incorrigible. While Grice agreed that 'language can be
clever,' he knew that Aristotle was possibly right when he explored 'ta
legomena' in terms of the 'many' and the selected 'wise.'
1971. 'Intention and
uncertainty,' Proceedings of the British Academy, 57:263-269,
The H. P. Grice Papers, Series II (Essays), BANC MSS 90/135c, Berkeley. This
is the Henriette Herz Trust annual lecture. Grice had been appointed a FBA in
1966, but he took his time to deliver his lecture. He was motivated by
Hampshire's and Hart's essay on intention and certainty in "Mind."
Grice manages to quote from Prichard (he calls himself a neo-Prichardian), Anscombe
(whom he otherwise would not count, although they shared a discussion table at
the American Philosophical Association), Kenny, and Pears. His most congenial
approach was Pears's.
1971. 'Entailment,' The
H. P. Grice Papers, Series IV (Associations) Carton 6, Folder 4, and
Series V (Topical), BANC MSS 90/135c, The Bancroft Library, University
of California, Berkeley. Grice was interested in G. E. Moore's coinage of
'entailment' for logical consequence. As an analyst, Grice knew that a true
conceptual analysis needs to be reductive (if not reductionist). The prongs the
analyst lists are thus 'entailments' of the concept in question. Philosophers,
however, may misidentify what is an entailment for an implicature, or vice
versa. Initially, Grice was interested in the second family of cases. With his
coinage of 'disimplicature,' he expanded his interest to cover the first family
of cases, too. Grice remained a philosophical methodologist: he is not so much
concerned with any area or discipline or philosophical concept per se (unless
it's rationality), but with the misuses of some tools in the philosophy of
language as committed by some of his colleagues at Oxford.
1970. 'Ifs and
cans,' The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC MSS 90/135c, The Bancroft
Library, University of California, Berkeley. Keyword: Austin. Austin had
brought the topic to the fore as an exploration of free will. D. F. Pears had
noted that 'conversational' implicature may account for the conditional
perfection ('if' yields 'iff'). Cfr. M. R. Ayers on Austin on 'if' and
'can.'
1972. 'Potching and cotching
obbles,' The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC MSS 90/135c, The Bancroft
Library, University of California, Berkeley. Keyword: Pirotese. Grice was
fascinated by Carnap's "pirots" which karulise elatically. Grice adds
'potching' for something like 'perceiving' and 'cotching' for something like
'cognising.'
1973. ‘'Identity'
-- With G. Myro, The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC MSS 90/135c, The
Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley. Keywords: identity,
relative identity, the Grice-Myro theory of identity. While Grice presupposes
the use of "=" in his treatment of 'the' king of France, he also
explores a relativisation of "=." His motivation was an essay by
Wiggins, almost Aristotelian in spirit, against Strawson's criterion of
space-time continuancy for the identification of the 'substantia prima.' Grice wants
to apply '=' to cases were the time continuancy is made explicit. This yields
that "a = b" in scenario S, but that it may not be the case that
"a = b" in a second scenario S'. Myro had an occasion to expand on
Grice's views in his contribution on the topic for Philosophical Grounds of
Rationality: Intentions, Categories, Ends, or P. G. R. I. C. E. for short. Myro
mentions his System Ghp, a highly powerful/hopefully plausible version of
Grice's System Q, "in gratitude to H. P. Grice."
1974. 'Davidson on
intending,' The H.P. Grice Papers, BANC MSS 92/135c, The Bancroft
Library, The University of California at Berkeley. Grice's response to
Davidson's pretty unfair use of Grice's notion of conversational implicature in
Davidson's analysis of intention caught a lot of interest. D. F. Pears loved
Grice's reply. Implicatum here is out of the question -- disimplicatum may not.
Grice just saw that his theory of conversation is TOO SOCIAL to be true when
applied to 'intending.' The doxastic condition is one of the ENTAILMENTS in an
ascription of an intending. It cannot be cancelled as an implicatum can. If it CAN
be cancelled, it is best seen as a DISIMPLICATUM, or a loose use by an utterer
meaning less than what he says or explicitly conveys to more careful
conversants.
1974. 'Disimplicature,' The
H.P. Grice Papers, BANC MSS 90/135c, The Bancroft Library, The University
of California, Berkeley. Keyword: disimplicature. If Grice's claim to fame is
'implicature,' he finds 'disimplicature' an intriguing notion to capture those occasions
when an utterer means LESS than he says. His examples include: a loose use of
'intending' (without the entailment of the doxastic condition), the uses of 'see'
in Shakespeareian contexts ("Macbeth saw Banquo," "Hamlet saw
his father on the ramparts of Elsinore") and the use of "is" to mean
"seems" ("That tie is blue under this light, but green otherwise,"
when both conversants know that a change of colour is out of the question. He
plays with "You're the cream in my coffee" being an utterance where
the disimplicature (i.e. entailment dropping) is total.
"Disimplicature" does not appeal to a new principle of conversational
rationality. It is perfectly accountable by the principle of conversational
helpfulness, in particular, the desideratum of conversational candour.
1970. 'Frege: words, and
sentences,' The H. P. Grice Papers, Series V (Topical), BANC MSS 90/135c,
Berkeley. Keywords: Frege. Frege was the topic of Dummett's explorations.
A student of Grice's at Berkeley brought Dummett's "Frege" and told
Grice that he intended to explore this. "Have you read it?" "No
I haven't. And I hope I won't" was Grice's reply. Some authors have noted
some similarities between Grice's notion of a 'conventional' implicature and
Frege's rambles on 'colouring. Grice was more interested in the idea of a
"Fregeian" sense. One of his metaphysical construction-routines
(Humeian projection) is aimed at the generation of concepts, in most cases the
'rational reconstruction' of an intuitive concept displayed in 'ordinary
discourse.'
1975. 'Method in
philosophical psychology: from the banal to the bizarre,' in The
Conception of Value, Clarendon, repr. from The Proceedings and Addresses of
the American Philosophical Association. Grice's method in functionalist
philosophical psychology. Introduces pirotology as a creature-construction
discipline. Repr. in The Conception of Value, it reached a wider audience.
The essay is highly subdivided, and covers a lot of ground. Grice starts by
noting that, contra Ryle, he wants to see psychological predicates as
theoretical concepts. The kind of theory he is having in mind is 'folksy.' The
first creature he introduces to apply his method is Toby, a squarrel, that is a
reconstructed squirrel. Grice gives some principles of pirotology. Maxims of
rational behaviour compound to form what he calls an immanuel, of which The
Conversational Immanuel is a part. Grice concludes with a warning against the
Devil of Scientism, but acknowledges perhaps he was giving much too credit to
Myro's influence on this!
1967. 'Logic and
conversation,' n Davidson and Harman (1975), also in Cole and Morgan
(1975), repr. in a revised form in Grice (1989). While the essay was also
reprinted by Cole and Morgan, Grice always cited it from the Davidson's and
Harman's two-column reprint. Most people without a philosophical
background first encounter Grice through this essay. Philosophers
usually get first acquainted with his "In defence of a dogma," or
"Meaning." In "Logic and Conversation," Grice
re-utilises the notion of an implicatum and the principle of
conversational helpfulness that he had introduced at Oxford to a more
select audience. Grice's idea is that the observation of the principle of
conversational helfpulness is rational (reasonable) along the
following lines: anyone who is concerned with the two goals which are
central to conversation (to give/receive information, to influence/be
influenced) should be interested in participating in a conversation that
is only going to be profitable on the assumption that it is conducted
along the lines of the principle of conversational helfpulness. Grice's
point is methodological. He is not at all interested in conversational
exchanges as such. Unfortunately, the essay starts "in media res,"
and skips Grice's careful list of Oxonian examples of 'disregard' for the key
idea of what a conversant IMPLICATES by the conversational move he makes.
His concession is that there is an EXPLICATUM or EXPLICITUM (roughly, the
logical form) which is beyond pragmatic constraints. This concession
is easily explained in terms of his overarching irreverent, conservative,
dissenting rationalism.
1976. 'Meaning
revisited,' Repr. in Part II (Semantics and Metaphysics) to Studies in the
Way of Words. A fascinating exploration in three parts. In the first, he
applies his modified occam's razor to "mean": "Smoke means
rain" and "I mean love," don't need different 'senses' of
'mean.' He was aware that that was exactly the terminology he had adopted in
both "Meaning" and the relevant William James lectures (V and VI) at
Harvard. In the second part he applies pirotology. We have a pirot feeling
pain, simulating it, and finally uttering, "I am in pain." In the
concluding section, he sees 'meaning' as an 'optimum,' i.e. a value-paradeigmatic
notion introducing 'value' in its guise of 'optimality.'
1970. 'Russell and
heterologicality,' The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC MSS 90/135c, The
Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley. Keywords: Russell,
heterological. Grice was particularly interested in Russell's philosophy
because of the usual Oxonian antipathy towards his type of philosophising.
Being an irreverent conservative rationalist, Grice found in Russell a good
point for dissent!
1977. 'Mill's
induction,' The H. P. Grice Papers, Series V, Carton 7, Folder 31,
BANC MSS 90/135c, The Bancroft Library, University of
California, Berkeley. Keywords: Mill, induction. Grice loved to
reminisce an anecdote concerning his tutor Hardie at Corpus when Hardie invoked Mill's
principles to prove that Hardie was not responsible for a traffic jam. In
drafts on word play, Grice would speak of not bringing "more Grice to
your Mill." Mill's System of Logic was part of the reading material
for his degree in Lit. Hum. at Oxford, so he was very familiar with it. Mill
represents the best of the English empiricist tradition. Grice kept an
interest on inductive methodology. In his "Life and opinions" he
mentions some obscure essays by Kneale and Keynes on the topic. Grice was interested
in Kneale's 'secondary induction,' since Grice saw this as an application of a
construction routine. He was also interested in Keynes's notion of a
'generator property,' which he found metaphysically intriguing.
1977. 'The Immanuel Kant
Memorial Lectures', Aspects of reason,
Clarendon, Stanford, Redelivered as The John Locke
lectures, Repr. in Aspects of Reason. Oxford: The Clarendon
Press, The Grice Collection contains previous drafts of this. The H.
P. Grice Papers, Series V (Topical), Bancroft. Keyword: reasoning. Grice
structures the lectures in the form of a philosophical dialogue with his
audience. The first lecture is intended to provide a bit of 'linguistic
botanising' for 'reasonable,' and 'rational.' In later lectures, Grice
tackles 'reason' qua noun. The remaining lectures are meant to explore what he
calls the "Aequi-vocality" thesis: "must" has only ONE
SENSE that crosses what he calls the 'doxastic' 'boulomaic' divide. He is
especially concerned -- this being the Kant lectures -- with Kant's attempt
to reduce the categorical imperative to a 'counsel of prudence.' Kant
re-introduces the Aristotelian idea of 'eudaimonia.' While a further
lecture on 'happiness' as the pursuit of a system of ends is NOT strictly
part of the either the Kant or the Locke lectures, it relates, since eudaimonia
may be regarded as the goal involved in the relevant imperative.
1977. Reason and
reasoning. As the title implies, Grice takes the verb, "to
reason," as conceptually prior. A reasoner reasons, briefly, from a
premise to a conclusion. There are types of reason: flat reason and gradual
reason. He famously reports Shropshire, another tutee with Hardie, and his
proof on the immortality of the human soul. He makes some remarks on 'akrasia'
as key, too. Reason and reasons. If the first lecture was dedicated
to an elucidation (and indeed attempt at a 'conceptual' analysis in terms
of intentions and doxastic conditions reasoner R intends that premise P yields
conclusion C and believes his intention will cause his entertaining of the
conclusion from his entertaining the premise), the second lecture, which
takes up some earlier notes on linguistic botanising -- now in The Grice
Papers -- focuses on 'reason' qua noun. This leads to a THEORY of reasons as
justificatory, explanatory, and mixed. He makes use of the
protreptic/exhibitive distinction, as he approaches an allege divide
between the boulomaic and the doxastic.
1977. Practical and
alethic reasons. The boulomaic (or volitive) is a part of the soul; so is the
doxatic (or judicative). Grice plays with correlative operators: desirability
versus probability. He invokes the 'exhibitive'/'protreptic' distinction he had
introduced in the fifth William James lecture, now applied to psychological
attitudes themselves.
1977. Further remarks on
practical and alethic reasons. Grice's attempt is to tackle the Kantian problem
in the Grundlegung: how to derive the categorical imperative from a counsel of
prudence. Under the assumption that the protasis is "Let the agent be happy,"
Grice does not find it obtuse at all to construct a universalisable imperative
out of a mere 'motive'-based counsel of prudence.
1978. 'Further notes on logic
and conversation,' n Peter Cole (1978), repr. in a revised form in Grice
(1989), The H. P. Grice Papers, Series II (Essays), BANC MSS 90/135c,
Bancroft. Keywords: Modified Occam's Razor. The preferred citation
should be Grice 1967:III. This is originally the third William James
lecture, in a revised form. In that lecture, Grice introduced the
"M. O. R.," or Modified Occam's Razor: "Senses are not be
multiplied beyond necessity." The point is that "ENTAILMENT-CUM-IMPLICATUM" does
the job that MULTIPLIED SENSES should not do!
1979. Proem, Aspects
of reason, Clarendon, The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC, Berkeley. A
special note on occasion of delivering his lectures on 'Aspects of reason and
reasoning' at Oxford as the John Locke Memorial Lectures at Merton.
Particularly apt in mentioning his failing to obtain the John Locke lectureship
(Strawson did!), but feeling safe under Locke's aegis now.
'Knowledge and
belief,' The H. P. Grice Papers, Series III (Doctrines), Carton 5,
Folder 18, BANC MSS 90/135c, The Bancroft Library, University of
California, Berkeley. Keywords: knowledge, belief. The topic had
attracted the attention of some Oxonian philosophers such as J. O. Urmson
in "Parenthetical verbs." Urmson speaks of a 'scale': "I
know" can be used parenthetically, as "I believe" can. For
Grice, to utter "I believe" is obviously to make a weaker
conversational move. The addressee is thus allowed to infer that the
utterer is not in a position to make the stronger claim. The mechanism is
explained via his principle of conversational helpfulness.
1980. 'Meaning
revisited', Repr. in Part II (Semantics and metaphysics) to Studies in the
Way of Words. A revision of Grice 1976, which should be the preferred citation.
1980. 'Socrates,' The
H. P. Grice Papers, Series III (The Doctrines), Carton 5, Folder
31, BANC MSS 90/135c, The Bancroft Library, The University
of California, Berkeley. Keyword: Socrates. Grice's most extensive
published account of Socrates is in his commentary on Plato's Republic:
a 'eschatological' comment, as he puts it. He has Socrates – and the
neo-Socrates -- exploring the logic and grammar of 'just' against the
attack by Thrasymachus -- and the neo-Thrasymachus. Grice's point is that
while the legal 'just' may be conceptually PRIOR to the moral 'just,' the moral
'just' is evaluationally prior.
1980. Some reflections about
ends and happiness, in Aspects of Reason. Preferred citation:
Grice, H. P. 1980). Some reflections about ends and happiness, The H. P. Grice Papers,
BANC, MSS 90/135c, Bancroft. Grice is concerned with the specific system of
ends that 'eudaimonia' consists for for both Kant and Aristotle (or Kantotle
for short). Grice borrows, but never returns, some reflections by his fomer tuttee
at St. John's, J. L. Ackrill. Ackrill's point is about the etymological basis
for 'eudaimonia,' from 'eudaimon.' Grice thinks the metaphor should be disimplicated,
and taken quite 'literally.' Grice concludes with a set of ends that justify
our ascription of 'eudaimonia' to the agent.
1981. 'Presupposition and conversational implicature,'
in Peter Cole (1981), repr. in a revised form in Grice (1989). Keywords:
presupposition, conversational implicature A reprint of Grice (1970),
which should be the preferred citation. There are divergences in this
draft, though. The original source of this exploration was a seminar
in 1970. Grice is interested in re-conceptualising Strawson's manoeuvre
regarding 'presupposition' as involving what Grice disregards as a metaphysical
concoction: the truth-value gap. In Grice's view, based on a principle
of conversational 'tailoring' that falls under his principle of conversational
helpfulness -- indeed under the desideratum of conversational clarity
("be perspicuous [sic]") -- 'The king of France is bald' ENTAILS
there is a king of France; while 'The king of France ain't bald' merely
IMPLICATES it.
1982. 'Meaning revisited,' In N. V. Smith, Mutual
knowledge, Croom Helm, London. Repr. in Part II (Semantics and
Metaphysics) to Studies in the Way of Words. An axiological approach
to meaning. Strictly a reprint of Grice (1976), which should be the
preferred citation.
1983 'The Paul Carus lectures,' repr. as The Conception of
Value. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991, The H. P. Grice Papers, Series
II (Essays), BANC MSS 90/135c, Bancroft. There were three Paul Carus
lectures. The first is a review of J. L. Mackie's Inventing right
and wrong; the second is an exploration on the categorical imperative,
and its connection with a prior hypothetical imperative; the third is a
metaphysical defence of absolute value.
1983. VALUE AND OBJECTIVITY (1983). Value and objectivity, The
Conception of Value, Clarendon, The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC
MSS 90/135c, Bancroft. A discussion of J. L. Mackie's Inventing
right and wrong. In the proceedings, Grice quotes the 'artless sexism' of
J. L. Austin in talking about the 'trouser words' in Sense and Sensibilia.
Grice tackles all the distinctions Mackie had played with:
objective/subjective, absolute/relative, categorical/hypothetical.
1983. RELATIVE AND ABSOLUTE VAUE (1983). Relative and absolute
value, The Conception of value, Clarendon, The H. P. Grice Papers,
BANC MSS 90/135c, Bancroft. An exploration on Paton on the categorical
imperative. Grice had previously explored the logical form of hypothetical
imperatives in the Kant (and later Locke) lectures (notably Lecture IV, "Further remarks
on practical and alethic reasons"). Here he considers topics related to
Hare's tropic-clistic neustic-phrastic quartet. What does it mean that a
command is conditional? The
two successors of Grice's post as Tutorial Fellow at St. John's, Baker and
Hacker, will tackle the same issue with humour, in "Sense and
nonsense," published by Blackwell (too irreverent to be published by
the Clarendon).
1983. METAPHYSICS AND VALUE (1983).
Metaphysics and value,
The Conception of Value, Clarendon, The H. P. Grice Papers, Bancroft. A
metaphysical defence of absolute value. The topic fascinated Grice, and he
invented a few routines to cope with it. Humeian projection rationally
reconstructs the intuitive concept 'being of value.' Category shift allows
to put a value such as Banbury's disinterestedness in subject form. But the
most important routine is that of Trans-Substantion, or Metousiosis. A
human reconstructs as a rational personal being, and alla Kantotle,
whatever he judges is therefore 'of absolute value.' The issue involves for
Grice the introduction of a final cause: 'the final cause of a tiger is to
tigerise,' the final cause of a reasoner is to reason! And this entails
absolute value, now metaphysically defended.
1984. 'Prejudices and predilections; which become, the
life and opinions of H. P. Grice, The H.P. Grice Papers, BANC MSS 91/135c, The
Bancroft Library, The University of California, Berkeley. Most of this
material was included as the second part of his "Reply to Richards."
The life and opinions are distinctly separated. Under 'Life,' Grice
convers his initial conservative, irreverent rationalism under his
non-conformist father, his tutorials with Hardie at Corpus, and his
associations with J. L. Austin's Play Group. Under 'Opinions,' he mainly
expands on 'ordinary-language' philosophy and his way to the City of
Eternal Truth. Metaphysics, Philosophical Psychology, and
Value, in The Conception of Value, The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC,
Bancroft. Part of his "Prejudices and predilections."
1985. 'The unity of science and teleology,' The
H. P. Grice Papers, Series IV (Associations), Carton 6, Folder 9,
BANC MSS 90/135c, The Bancroft Library, The University of California,
Berkeley. Keywords: unity of science, teleology. "Unity of
science" was a very "New-World" expression that Grice did not
quite buy it. He was brought up in a world of 'two cultures.' Peter Winch
and other philosophers were contesting the idea that science is unitary,
when it comes to the explanation of rational behaviour. Since a
philosophical approach to the explanation of rational behaviour, including
conversational behaviour (to account for the conversational implicata) is
Grice's priority, he needs to distinguish himself from those who propose a
'unified' science, which Grice regards as eliminationist and reductionist.
1986 'Reply to Richards' In Grandy/Warner, Philosophical
Grounds of Rationality: Intentions, Categories, Ends pp.
45-108. The 'Reply' is divided in sections. After a preamble displaying
his gratitude for the volume in his honour, he turns to his
'prejudices and predilections; which become, the life and opinions of H. P. Grice.
The third section is a reply to the editors's overview of his work. The reply
itself is subdivided into questions of meaning and rationality, and
questions of metaphysics and value.
'Actions and events' The Pacific Philosophical
Quarterly. An examination of Davidson, followed by a Kantian approach
to freedom and causation.
1987. CONCEPTUAL ANALYSIS AND THE PROVINCE OF PHILOSOPHY (1987), in
Studies in the Way of Words. 'Conceptual analysis and the province of philosophy', repr. in
Part II (Semantics and Metaphysics) to Studies in the Way of
Words. An update to his "Post war Oxford Philosophy." More
generally concerned with the province of philosophy in general and
conceptual analysis beyond 'ordinary language.' 'Retrospective Epilogue,' Repr.
in Grice (1989), Studies in the Way of Words, Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press. Grice took the occasion of the
compilation of his Studies in the Way of Words by Harvard to
review philosophical progress in terms of various 'strands' which however
display a consistent unity.
'Foreword' to Studies in
the Way of Words. Grice quotes from J. F. Bennett.
1988. 'Metaphysics,
Philosophical eschatology, and Plato's Republic,' Repr. in
Part II ("Semantics and Metaphysics") to Studies in the
Way of Words. Eschatology is a sub-discipline of metaphysics
concerned with what Grice calls a 'category shift.' Grice, exploring an
application of such a technique to Aristotle on 'friend,' applies it now to
Socrates's view, against Thrasymachus, that 'right' applies primarily to
'morality,' and secondarily to 'legality.'
'Metaphysics and
theorizing,' The H. P. Grice Papers, Series V, BANC MSS
90/135c, The Bancroft Library, University of California,
Berkeley. Keywords: metaphysics, theorising
'Aristotle on the multiplicity of being,' Posthumously edited
by B. F. Loar. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, The H.
P. Grice Papers, Bancroft. The Grice Papers contains
drafts of the essay eventually submitted for publication. Keywords:
Aristotle, multiplicity, being, izzing, hazzing.
Join The Grice Club!
References
Austin, J. L. How to do things with words.
Austin, J. L. Sense and sensibilia, ed. by G. J. Warnock.
Austin, J. L. Philosophical Papers, ed. by G. J. Warnock and J. O. Urmson
Bostock, D. On Grice.
Grice, H.P. (1938). ‘Negation and privation’ The H.P. Grice
Papers, BANC MSS 90/135c, The Bancroft Library, University of California,
Berkeley.
(1941). ‘Personal
identity,’ in Mind, repr. in J. Perry, Personal Identity,
Berkeley, University of California Press.
(1946). Seminar on Peirce's
theory of signs, The H.P. Grice Papers, BANC MSS 90/135c, The Bancroft Library,
University of California, Berkeley.
(1948). Intentions and
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(1956). In defence of a
dogma, with P. F. Strawson, The Philosophical Review, repr. in
Grice, Studies in the Way of Words, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press,
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(1957). 'Meaning,' The
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(1957). 'Metaphysics,' with
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(1959). ‘Vision,’ with G.
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(1961). ‘The causal theory
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Society, supplementary volume, 35, no. 1:121-153, repr. in Warnock (1968)
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(1962). ‘Some remarks about
the senses,’ in R. J. Butler, Analytic Philosophy. Oxford:
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(1964). ‘Logic and
conversation,’ an Oxford seminar, in The H.P. Grice Papers, BANC MSS 90/135c,
The Bancroft Library, The University of California, Berkeley.
(1967). The William James
Memorial Lectures, in The H.P. Grice Papers, BANC MS 90/135c, The Bancroft
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(1968). 'Utterer's meaning,
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(1969). 'Vacuous names,' in
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(1969). ‘Utterer’s meaning
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(1975). ‘Logic and conversation,’
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(1980). 'Socrates,' The H.
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