H. P. Grice: "The Utterer Conversationally Implicates That P" (As Opposed To "What The Utterer Conversational Implicates") -- 1961 -- The utterer (or human agent) as the 'vehicle,' "he who does the implying"

H. P. Grice

The conversational implicatum


Grice embarks on a discursus about this or that "aspect" of the concept or concepts, i.e. this or that concept, behind "imply," of "implication" (philosophical Latin, 'implicatio,' translating some Grecian expression).

Grice embarks on an examination of this or that aspect of this or that concept underlying the use of "imply", "using some more or less well-worn examples."

From the philosophical literature, almost.

By using 'well-worn,' he means that he is NOT interested in 'implictaum' per se, but just in a more or less detailed examination.

He has detected a nuance, and he does not want to embark on an enterprise that will 'collide with the conversational facts.'

He has detected a nuance, but, before going to rush ahead and EXPLOIT it, he wants to clarify what kind of a nuance it is.

In this, he is following his usual trajectory.

Bring the distinction:

what an utterer means by uttering this or that expression.

what the expression may later and derivatively be said to 'mean.'

Surely an 'expression' does not 'intend,' so an expression does not 'mean.'

The project is meta-linguistic, as it were, or meta-philosophical, because now Grice is not, say, concerned with "I," or with "not," but, as he did when exploring Stevenson and Peirce, with "communicate."

Surely he wants to see 'imply' as falling under 'communicate.'

By uttering x, U means/implies/suggests/hints that p iff U communicates that p.

Grice entitles the exploration, "Implication."

This is interesting. In English, when he entitled his lecture for the Oxford philosophical society, he used 'meaning,' which is ambiguous between the noun (Philosophical Latin, "significatio") and the verb (Philosophical Latin, "significare,")

Here, the options are "Implying," versus "Implication."

But "Implying" had NOT made it into the range of keywords as used by philosophers, so he has to be careful, and opts for the more traditional label, 'implication.'

Surely he'll later revert to the Latinate "implicatum," as if to mark a distinction between the 'conversational implicature' (he finds 'implicature,' like 'utterance', has a 'conventient' act/object ambiguity) and other types of implication he is hardly interested in, in not dealing with conversation as rational co-operation.

Grice introduces four different examples and uses or applies upon them four different ideas or tests as catalysts.

Four and four, as it were.

1) PRESUPPOSITION
2) CONVERSATIONAL implicature, generalised.
3) CONVERSATIONAL implicature, particularised.
4) CONVENTIONAL implicature, or implicatum.

FOUR CATALYSTS:

1) CANCELLABILITY
2) VEHICLE
3) NON-DETACHABILITY
4) SATISFACTORINESS.

The four examples are all "cases in which in  'ordinary' parlance,"

if you are an Oxonian philosopher

"or at least in 'philosophical' parlance,"

which at Oxford, or in Oxonian parlance, means, in 'ordinary philosophical parlance,' 

"something or other," strictly a proposition 'p,'

"might be said to be implied as distinct from being stated."

The explicitum-implicitum distinction.
The explicatum-implicatum distinction.

Note that he's using 'stating' as the ground-floor central speech act.

"Implying" is rather a 'higher-level' NON-CENTRAL speech act.

This is important.

Giving and receiving information (via stating) and influencing and being influenced by others (via ordering) can occur at the EXPLICIT level, and the principle of conversational helpfulness still applies.

But giving and receiving information (via implying) and influencing and being influenced by others (via implying) still operate under the governance of the principle of conversational helpfulness.

It might be argued that 'rationality' SHOWS more with the conversational implicatum than it shows with the conversational explicatum.

That is because Grice is operating with the idea that the explicatum is rather boringly 'conventional,' or arbitrary; whereas in figures of speech like 'suggestio falsi,' and such, the ratiocinative powers of the *addressee* (who is the one who does the CALCULATING) use the 'principle of conversational helpfulness' as one of the premises.

In the case of the utterer, the goal-directed behaviour is a reflection on the addressee's calculability. The utterer must plan his utterance so that what he implies will be 'recovered' by the addressee, and again using the principle of conversational helpfulness as one of the premises, now in the planning. 


GRICE'S FIRST PAIR OF EXAMPLES of 'implying' as opposed to 'stating':

(l) 

Smith has not left off beating his wife.

where 

"what is implied is that Smith HAS been beating his wife."

But this is cancellable:

1b. Smith has not left off beating his wife, because he never did beat his wife.

Perhaps not 'ordinary' parlance, but surely 'philosophical' parlance!

GRICE'S SECOND EXAMPLE: 
conventional implicatum

(2) 

She was poor but she was honest 
and her parents were the same
till she met a city feller
and she lost her honest name
'tis the same the whole world over

(Grice's father played it in C major).

Cf. Frege on 'aber' as "Farbung," neither "Sinn" nor "Bedeutung."

Grice's other examples: 'so,' 'therefore,' 'on the other hand.'
where 

"what is implied is (very roughly) that there is some contrast between poverty and honesty, or between her poverty and her honesty."

whoever _she_ was.

By expliciting the implicitum as "between poverty and honesty," he is referring to the REFRAIN of the ditty: the implicatum indeed refers to her parents, and the moral is that the poor get the blame for the rich's dishonesty.



Grice notes:

"The first example is a stock case of what is sometimes called "presupposition"."

Even by Occam. Occam's favourite example was:

"Have you stopped eating iron?"

Grice goes on:

"and it is often held that here the truth (1) of what is irnplied is a NECESSARY condition of the original statement's being either true (1) or false (0)."

"This might be disputed, but it is at least arguable that it IS so, and its being arguable might be enough to distinguish this type of case from others."

Note however the cancellation in the NEGATIVE version of the 'presupposition,' which makes it less arguable that this is a 'different' type of 'implying' from the conversational implicatum.

Grice:

"I shall however for convenience assume that the common view mentioned is correct."

Which also depends on a binary truth-value assignation ('two-valued' logic, as he'll put it in "Logic and Conversation"). Notably with the operator "not" and a non-bivalent logic, the implicatum becomes altogether a 'different animal'!

"This consideration [about 1s and 0s] clearly distinguishes (1) from (2)."

"Even IF the implied proposition is false (0), i.e., if there is no reason in the world to contrast poverty with honesty either in general or in her case, the original statement could still be false (0)."

""She was poor but she was honest" would be false (0) if for example she were rich and dishonest."

In fact, Maloney had this version:

"She was rich and quite dishonest,
and her parents were the same
till she met a poor good feller
and he gained a honest name."


"One might perhaps be less comfortable about assenting to its TRUTH (1) if the implied contrast did not in fact obtain."

But that's because one usually disregards levels in speech acts, or central versus non-central (peripheric) acts of communication.

"But the possibility of falsity (0) is enough for the immediate purpose."

Grice's next experiment on these two examples -- of alleged 'presupposition' or 'the prae-suppositum' and the alleged 'conventional implicatum' -- is to ask WHAT it is in each case which could properly be said to be the 'vehicle' of implication (to do the implying).

Is it the utterer? -- That is Grice's main implicature.

If it ain't, I'm not caring for it!

There are at least four candidates, not necessarily mutually exclusive. 

Supposing someone to have uttered one or other of my sample sentences, we may ask whether the vehicle of implication would be:

CANDIDATE I for vehicle of implying (what or who DOES the implying).

(a) what the utterer said (or asserted or stated or explicitly conveyed), or 

CANDIDATE II for vehicle of implying (what or who does the implying):

(b) the utterer himself ("does he imply that ...'?) or 

CANDIDATE III for vehicle of implying (what or who does the implying):

(c) the words or the expression E the utterer U used, or 

CANDIDATE IV for vehicle of implying (what or who does the implying):

(d) the utterer's saying or explicitly conveying  that (or again his saying that in this or that way); or possibly some plurality of these items. 

As regards the first candidate, (a), what the utterer asserted, "I think (1) and (2) differ."

"I think it would be correct to say in the case of (l) that WHAT the utterer U says (or asserts of explicitly conveys) does imply that Smith had been beating this wife."

"Yet it would be incorrect to say in the case of (2) that WHAT the utterer U says (or asserts or explicitly conveys) implies that there is a contrast between e.g., honesty and poverty."

A test on which Grice would rely is the following.

A meta-if:

IF accepting that the implication (or implicatum) does hold involves the philosopher in accepting a proposition of the form, 'if p, q' where 'p' represents the original statement ("Smith hasn't stopped beating his wife," "She was poor but she was honest") and 'q' represents what is implied, the implicatum ("He had been beating her," "There is a contrast between honesty and poverty"), WHAT the utterer U says (or asserts or explicitly conveys) is the vehicle of implication, otherwise not."

So let's consider the 'otherwise not' for the case of 'but':

In "She was poor but she was honest"

the philosopher NEED NOT accept, and in fact refuse to accept the 'horseshoe' statement:

She was poor but she was honest
HORSESHOE
There is a contrast between honesty and poverty

To apply this rule to the given examples:

If the addressee accepts that Smith has been beating her wife, the addressee "should feel compelled" to accept 

"If Smith hasn't left off beating his wife, he has been beating her."

It's stronger with the affirmative counterpart.

Whereas if the addressee accepts that there is a contrast between honesty and poverty, the addressee 

"should NOT feel compelled" to accept:

If she was poor but she was honest, there is some contrast between her poverty and her honesty.


 The two other candidates (ONE OF WHICH IS KEY FOR GRICE the rationalist) can be dealt with more cursorily.

One should be inclined to say, with regard to both (l) and (2), that the UTTERER himself may be deemed to imply, or indeed IMPLIES whatever it is that is implied."

I.

By uttering "Smith hasn't stopped beating his wife," the UTTERER implies that Smith has been beating his wife, or it's the utterer who implies that Smith has been beating his wife, or the utterer HIMSELF implies that Smith has been beating his wife.

II

By uttering "She was poor but she was honest," the UTTERER implies that there is a contrast between honesty and poverty, or it's the utterer who implies that there is a contrast between honesty and poverty, or the utterer HIMSELF implies that there is a contrast between honesty and poverty. 




In the case of "She was poor but she was honest" it seems fairly clear that the UTTERER's expression may be said or deemed to imply a contrast.

It is much less clear or obvious whether in the case of "Smith hasn't stopped beating his wife," the utterer's expression may be said or deemed to imply that Smith had been beating his wife.

In neither case would it be EVIDENTLY, or clearly or perspicuously APPROPRIATE to speak of the utterer's saying that, or of his saying that in this or that way, or in that PARTICULAR way, or in THAT way, as implying what is implied. 

The third idea, catalyst, or test, with which I wish to assail my two examples is really a twin idea, that of the detachability or cancellability of the implication. 

These terms will be explained, so do not worry.

Consider example (1): 

Smith hasn't stopped beating his wife.

One cannot seem to find a form of expression which could be used to state or assert just what the sentence "Smith has left off beating his wife" might be used (by the utterer) to assert such that when this other or alternative form of expression is so used by the utterer the implication that Smith has been beating his wife is just absent. 

ANY possible way of asserting (using any possible expression, of philosophical interest or not) what is asserted in (1) involves, or attaches to, the implication in question. 

I shall express this fact by saying that in the case of (l) the implication is not detachable from what is asserted (or, simpliciter, is not detachable). 

But philosophers should be concerned with philosophically interesting concepts which ARE detached from this or that way of putting it.

We may be language botanists, but we love variety!

CANCELLATION:

Furthermore, one cannot take a form of words or an alternative expression for which both what is asserted (or explicitly conveyed) and what is implied by the utterer is the same as for (l), and THEN go on and add a further clause withholding "conversational," rational, commitment from what would otherwise be implied, with the idea of annulling (or cancelling, or pre-empting, or voiding) the implication *without* annulling the assertion or statement or what the UTTERER has explicitly conveyed (to wit: that Smith hasn't stopped beating his wife"). 

One can intelligibly, i.e. conceptually intelligibly, utter: 

"Smith hasn't left off beating his wife, but I do not mean to imply that he has been beating her." 

The problem is with the AFFIRMATIVE:

One CANNOT intelligibly, i.e., conceptually intelligibly, utter:

"Smith HAS left off beating his wife, but I do not mean to imply that he has  been beating her."


Grice expresses this fact by saying that in the case of (1), an affirmative sentence carrying a presupposition, as opposed to its negative counterpart, the implication is NOT cancellable (without thereby cancelling the assertion). 

If we turn to (2), "She was poor but she was honest," we find, I think, that there is quite a strong case for saying that here the implication IS detachable. 

There seems quite a good case for maintaining that if, instead of saying "She was poor but she is was honest " I were to say "She was poor *and* she was honest", I would assert (state or explicitly convey -- but this is a trick) just what I would have asserted if I had used the original "but" sentence.

But there would now be no implication of a contrast between, e. g., povery and honesty. 



But the question whether, in tl-re case of (2), thc inrplication is cancellable, is slightly more cornplex. Thcrc is a sonse in which we may say that it is non-cancellable; if sorncone were to say " She is poor but she is honest, though of course I do not mean to imply that there is any contrast between poverty and honesty ", this would seem a puzzling and eccentric thing to have said; but though we should wish to quarrel with the speaker, I do not think we should go so far as to say that his utterance was unintelligible; we should suppose that he had adopted a most peculiar way of conveying the the news that she was poor and honesl. The fourth and last test that I wish to impose on my exarnples is to ask whether we would be inclined to regard the fact that the appropriate implication is present as being a matter of the meaning of some particular word or phrase occurring in the sentences in question. I am aware that this may not be always a very clear or easy question to answer; nevertheless Iwill risk the assertion that we would be fairly happy to say that, as regards (2), the factthat the implication obtains is a matter of the meaning of the word ' but '; whereas so far as (l) is concerned we should have at least some inclination to say that the presence of the implication was a matter of the meaning of some of the words in the sentence, but we should be in some difficulty when it came to specifying precisely which this word, or words are, of which this is true. I may now deal more briefly with my remaining examples. (3) I am reporting on a pupil at Collections. All I say is " Jones has beautiful handwriting and his Englishis grammatical." We might perhaps agree that there would here be a strong, even overwhelming, implication that Jones is no good at philosophy. It is plain that there is no case at all for regarding the truth of what is implied here as a pre-condition of the truth or falsity cf 130 H. P. GRICB what I have asserted; a denial of the truth of what is implied would have no bearing at all on whether what I have asserted is true or false. So (3) is much closer to (2) than (1) in this respect. Next, I (the speaker) could certainly be said to have implied that Jones is hopeless (provided that this is what I intended to get across) and my saying that (at any rate my saying /s/ that and no more) is also certainly a vehicle of implication. On the other hand my words and what I say (assert) are, I think, not here vehicles of implication. (3) thus differs from both (1) and (2). The implication is cancellable but not detachable; if I add o'I do not of course mean to imply that he is no good at philosophy " my whole utterance is intelligible and linguistically impeccable, even though it may be extraordinary tutorial behaviour; and I can no longer be said to have implied that he was no good, even though perhaps that is what my colleagues might conclude to be the case if I had nothing else to say. The implication is not however, detachable; any other way of making, in the same context of utterance, just the assertion I have made would involve the same implication. Finally, the fact that the implication holds is not a matter of any particular word or phrase within the sentence which I have uttered; so in this respect (3) is certainly different from (2) and, possibly different from (1). One obvious fact should be mentioned before I pass to the last example. This case of implication is unlike the others in that the utterance of the sentence " Jones has beautiful handwriting etc." does not standardly involve the implication here attributed to it; it requires a special context (that it should be uttered at Collections) to attach the implication to its uttgrance. (4) If someone says " My wife is either in the kitchen or in the bedroom " it would normally be implied that he did not know in which of the two rooms she was. This example might well be held to be very similar to the case under dispute, that if such statements as " This looks red to me " so I must be careful not to prejudge any issues to my objector's disadvantage. I think, however, that in the case of (a) I can produce a strong argument in favour of holding that the fulfllment of the THE CAUSAL THEORY OF PERCEPTION implication of the speaker's ignorance is not a precaution of the truth or falsity of the disjunctive statement. Suppose (c) that the speaker knows that his wife is in the kitchen, (b) that the house has only two rooms (and no passages etc.) Even though (a) is the casc, thc spcaker can certainly say truly " My wife is in the housc "; he is merely not being as informative as he could bc if nccd arose. But the true proposition that his wife is in thc housc together with the true proposition that the house consists entirely of a kitchen and a bedroom, entail the proposition that his wife is either in the kitchen or in the bedroom. But il to cxpress the proposition p in certain circumstances would bc to spcak truly, and p, togelher with another true proposition, crrtails q, then surely to express 4 in the same circvmstances must be to speak truly. So I shall take it that the disjunctive statement in (4) does not fail to be true or false if the implied ignorance is in fact not realized. Secondly, I think it is fairly clear that in this case, as in the case of (3), we could say that the speaker had irnplied that he did not know, and also that his saying that (or his saying that rather than something else, v2., in which room she was) implied that he did not know. Thirdly, the irnplication is in a sense non-detachable, in that if in a given context the utterance of the disjunctive sentence would involve the implication that the speaker did not know in which room his his wife was, this implication would also be involved in the utterance of any other form of words which would make the same assertion(e.g., "The alternatives are (1) . . . .(2) .. . ." or " One of the following things is the case: (a) . . . . (r) . . . . "). ln another possible sense, however, the implication could perhaps bc said to be detachable: for there will be some contexls of ruttcrance in Which the normal implication will not hold; e.g., thc spokesman who announces, " The next conference will be cither in Geneva or in New York " perhaps does not imply that lrc does not know which; for he may well be just not saying which. This points to the fact that the implication is cancellablg; :r nrarl could say, " My wife is either in the kitchen or in the bctlroorn " in circumstances in which the implication would rrornrally be present, and then go on, " Mind you, I'm not saying tlrrrt I don't know which"; this might be unfriendly (and grcr'lrrps ungrammatical) but would be perfectly intelligible, I2 131 132 H. P. GRICB Finally, the fact that the utterance of the disjunctive sentence normally involves the implication of the speaker's ignorance of the truth-values of the disjuncts is, I should like to say, to be explained by reference to a general principle governing the use of language. Exactly what this principle is I am uncertain, but L first sftol would be the following: "One should not make a weaker statement rather than a stronger one unless there is a good reason for so doing." This is certainly not an adequate formulation but will perhaps be good enough for my present purpose. On the assumption that such a principle as this is of general application, one can draw the conclusion that the utterance of a disjunctive sentence would imply the speaker's ignorance of the truth-values of the disjuncts, given that (a) the obvious reason for not making a statemcnt which there is some call on one to make is that one is not in a position to make it, and given (6) the logical fact that each disjunct entails the disjunctive, but not vice versa; which being so, the disjuncts are stronger than the disjunctive. lf the outline just given js on the right lines, then I would wish to say, we have a reason for refusing in the case of (4) to regard the implication of the speaker's ignorance as being part of the meaning of the word'or'; someone who knows about the logical relation between a disjunction and its disjuncts, and who also knew about the alleged general principle governing discourse, could work out for hirnself that disjunctive utterances would involve the implication which they do in fact involve. I must insist, however, that my aim in discussing this last point has been merelyto indicate the position I would wish to take up, and not to argue scriously in favour of it. My main purpose in this sub-section has been to introduce four ideas of which l intend to make some use; and to provide some conception of tlre ways in which they apply or fail to apply to various types of implication. I do not claim to have presented a systematic theory of implication; that would be a very large undertaking and one for another occasion.