Grice Unlocks Locke

 1941. Personal identity, Mind, vol. 50, pp. 330-50, repr. in J. R. Perry, Personal identity, University of California Press, Berkeley, David Hume, Hume's quandary about personal identity, Hume on  personal identity, Hume's account of personal identity, personal identity, revisited, the logical-construction theory of personal identity, 1977, The H. P. Grice Papers, Series II (Essays), carton 4-folder 12 and Series V (Topical), carton 7-folders 7-9, BANC MSS 90/135c, The Bancroft Library, The University of California, Berkeley. Keywords: ‘I,’ personal identity, first person, first personal pronoun, Locke, Hume, someone, somebody. If in 'Negation and privation,' Grice tackles Aristotle, he now tackles Locke. Indeed, seeing that Grice went years later to the topic as motivated by, of all people, J. C. Haugeland, rather than perhaps the more ‘academic’ milieu that Perry offers, Grice became obsessed with Hume’s sceptical doubts! Hume writes in the “Appendix” that when he turns his reflection on himself, Hume never can perceive  this self without some one or  more perceptions. Nor can Hume ever perceive any thing  but the perceptions. It is the composition  of these, therefore, which forms the self, Hume thinks. Hume grants that one can conceive a thinking being to have either many or few perceptions. Suppose, says Hume, the mind to be reduced even below the life of an oyster. Suppose the oyster to have only one perception, as of thirst or hunger. Consider the oyster in that situation. Does the oyster conceive any thing but merely that perception? Has the oyster any notion of, to use Gallie’s pretentious Aristotelian jargon, self or substance? If not, the addition of this or other perception can  never give the oyster that notion. The annihilation, which this or that philosopher, including Grice’s first post-war tutee, A. G. N. Flew, supposes to  follow upon death, and which entirely destroys  the oyster’s self, is nothing but an extinction  of all particular perceptions; love and hatred,  pain and pleasure, thought and sensation. These therefore must be the same  with self; since the one cannot  survive the other. Is self the same with substance? If it be, how can that question have place,  concerning the subsistence of self, under  a change of substance? If they be distinct, what is the difference betwixt them? For his part, Hume claims, he has a notion of neither, when  conceived distinct from this or that particular perception. However extraordinary Hume’s conclusion may seem,   it need not surprise us. Most philosophers, such as Locke, seems inclined to think,  that ‘personal identity’ arises from  consciousness. But consciousness is nothing  but a reflected thought or perception, Hume suggests. This is Grice’s quandary about personal identity and its implicata. Some philosophers have taken Grice as trying to provide an exegesis of Locke. However, their approaches surely differ. What works for Grice may not work for Locke. For Grice it is analytically true that it is not the case that Person₁ and Person may have the same experience. Grice explicitly states that he thinks that his logical-construction theory is a modification of Locke's theory. Grice does not seem terribly interested to find why it may not, even if the York-based Locke Society might! Rather than introjecting into Locke's shoes, Grice's strategy seems to dismiss Locke, shoes and all. Specifically, it not clear to Grice what Locke's answer in the 'Essay' would be to Grice's question about this or that 'I' utterance that he sets his analysis with. Admittedly, Grice does quote, albeit briefly, directly from Locke’s 'Essay.' As far as any intelligent being can repeat the idea of any past action with the same consciousness it had of it at first, and with the same consciousness it has of any present action, Locke claims, so far the being is the same personal self. Grice tackles Locke’s claim with four objections. These are important to consider since Grice sees as improving on Locke. A first objection concerns icircularity, with which Grice easily disposes by following Hume and appealing to the experience of memory or introspection. A second objection is Reid's alleged counterexample about the long-term memory of the admiral who cannot remember that he was flogged as a boy. Grice dismisses this as involving too long-term of a memory. A third objection concerns Locke’s vagueness about the 'aboutness' of  'consciousness,’ a point made by Hume in the ‘Appendix.’ A fourth objection concerns again circularity, this time in Locke's use of 'same' in the definiens ‒ cf. Wiggins, 'Sameness and substance.' It’s extraordinary that Wiggins is philosophising on anything Griceian. Grice is concerned with the implicatum involved in the use of the first person singular. 'I will be fighting soon.’ Grice means ‘in body and soul.’ The utterance also indicates that this is Grice’s pre-war days at Oxford. No wonder his choice of an example. What else could he have in his soul? The topic of 'personal identity,’ which label Hume and Austin found pretentious, and preferred to talk about the illocutionary force of 'I,’ has a special Oxonian pedigree, perhaps as motivated by Hume’s challenge, that Grice has occasion to study and explore for his M. A. Lit. Hum. with Locke’s ‘Essay’ as mandatory reading. Locke, a philosopher with whom Oxford identifies most, infamously defends this memory-based account of 'I.’ Up in Scotland, Reid reads it and concocts this alleged counter-example. Hume, or Home, if you must, enjoys it. In fact, while in the 'Mind' essay he is not too specific about Hume, Grice will, due mainly to his joint investigations with J. C. Haugeland, approach, introjecting into the shoes of Hume ‒ who is idolised in The New World ‒ in ways he does not introject into Locke's. But Grice's quandary is Hume's quandary, too. In his own approach to 'I,’ the Cartesian ego, made transcendental and apperceptive by Kant, Grice updates the time-honoured empiricist mnemonic analysis by Locke. The first update is in 'style.' Grice embraces, as he does with ‘negation,’ a logical construction,’ alla Russell, via Broad, of this or that 'I' utterance, ending up with an analysis of a 'someone,’ less informative, utterance. Grice's immediate source is W. P. Gallie's essay on self and substance in the pages of ‘Mind.’ ‘Mind’ was still a 'review of psychology and philosophy,’ so poor Grice had no much choice. In fact, Grice is being heterodoxical or heretic enough to use the Broad’s taxonomy, straight 'from the other place' of ‘I’ utterances. The logical-construction theory is a third proposal, next to the Bradleyian idealist 'pure-ego' theory and the misleading 'covert-description' theory. Grice deals with the Reid's allged counterexample of the brave officer. “Suppose,” Reid says, and Grice quotes verbatim, “a brave officer to have been flogged when a boy at school, for robbing an orchard, to have taken a standard from the enemy in his first campaign, and to have been made a general in advanced life. Suppose also, which must be admitted to be possible, that when he-₂ took the standard, he₂ was conscious of his having been flogged at school, and that, when made a general, he₃ was conscious of his₂ taking the standard, but had absolutely lost the consciousness of his₁ flogging. These things being supposed, it follows, from Locke's doctrine, that he₁ who is flogged at school is the same person as him₂ who later takes the standard, and that he₂ who later takes the standard is the same person as him₃ who is still later made a general. When it follows, if there be any truth in logic, that the general is the same person with him₁ who is flogged at school. But the general’s consciousness does emphatically not reach so far back as his₁ flogging. Therefore, according to Locke's doctrine, he₃ is emphatically not the same person as him₁ who is flogged. Therefore, we can say about the general that he₃ is, and at the same time, that he₃ is not the same person as him₁ who was flogged at school. Grice, who’ll later add a temporal suffix to “=,” yielding, “The flogged boy =_t1 the brave officer, and the brave officer =_t2 the admiral. But the admiral ≠_t3 the flogged boy. In ‘Mind,’ Grice tackles the basic analysans, and comes up with a rather elaborate analysans for a simple 'I' or ‘Someone’ statement. Grice just turns to a generic affirmative variant of the utterance he had used in 'Negation.' It is now 'Someone, viz. I, hears that the bell tolls.’ It is the affirmative counterpart of the focus of his earlier essay on negation, 'I do not hear that the bell tolls. Grice dismisses what, ‘in the other place,’ was referred to as privileged-access, and the indexicality of 'I,' an approach that will be made popular by J. R. Perry, who however reprints Grice's essay in his influential collection for the University of California Press. By allowing for ‘someone, viz. I,’ Grice seems to be relying on a piece of reasoning which he’ll later, in his first Locke lecture, refer to as ‘too’ good.' 'I hear that the bell tolls; therefore, someone hears that the bell tolls.' Grice attempts to reduce this or that 'I' utterance ('Someone, viz. I, hears that the bell tolls’) is in terms of a chain or sequence of mnemonic states. It poses a few quandaries itself. While quoting from this or that recent philosopher such as Gallie and Broad, it is a good thing that Grice has occasion to go back to, or revisit, Locke and contest this or that infamous and alleged counterexample presented by Reid and Hume. Grice adds a methodological note to his proposed logical-construction theory of personal identity. There is some intricacy of his reductive analysis, indeed logical construction, for an apparently simple and harmless utterance (cf. his earlier essay on 'I do not hear that the bell tolls'). But this intricacy does not prove the analysis wrong. Only that Grice is too subtle. If the reductive analysis of ‘not’ is in terms of 'each state which I am experiencing is incompatible with ...'), that should not be a minus, or drawback, but a plus, and an advantage in terms of philosophical progress. The same holds here in terms of the concept of a ‘temporary state.’ Much later, Grice reconsiders, or revisits, indeed, Broad's remark and re-titles his approach as ‘the’ or ‘a’ ‘logical-construction theory of personal identity.’ And, with Haugeland, Grice re-considers Hume's own vagaries, or quandary, with personal identity. Unlike the more conservative Locke that Grice favours in the pages of ‘Mind,’ eliminationist Hume sees 'I' as a conceptual muddle, indeed a metaphysical chimæra. Hume presses the point for an 'empiricist' verificationist account of 'I.' For, as Russell would rhetorically ask, 'What can be more direct that the experience of myself?,' The Hume Society should take notice of Grice's simplification of Hume's implicatum on 'I,’ if The Locke Society won’t. As a matter of fact, Grice calls one of his metaphysical construction routines the 'Humeian projection,' so it is not too adventurous to think that Grice considers 'I'  as an intuitive concept that needs to be 'metaphysically re-constructed' and be given a legitimate Fregeian sense. Why that label for a construction routine? Grice calls this metaphysical construction routine 'Humeian projection,' since the 'mind' (or soul) as it were, 'spreads over' its objects. But, by 'mind,' Hume does not necessarily mean the 'I.' Cf. 'The mind's I.' Grice is especially concerned with the poverty and weaknesses of Hume's criticism to Locke's account of personal identity. Grice opts to revisit the Lockeian memory-based of this or that 'someone, viz. I' utterance that Hume rather regards as 'vague,' and 'confusing.' Unlike Hume's, neither Locke's nor Grice's reductive analysis of personal identity is reductionist and eliminationist. The reductive-reductionist distinction Grice draws in Retrospective epilogue as he responds to J. M. Rountree-Jack on this or that alleged ‘wrong’ on ‘meaning that.’ It is only natural that Grice would be sympathetic to Locke. Grice explores these issues with J. C. Haugeland mainly at seminars. One may wonder why Grice spends so much time in a philosopher such as Hume, with whom he agreed almost on nothing! The answer is Hume’s influence in the Third World that forced Grice to focus on this or that philosopher. Surely Locke is less popular in the New World than Hume is. One supposes Grice is trying to save Hume at the implicatum level, at least. The phrase or term of art, 'logical construction' is Russell's and Broad's, but Grice loved it. Rational reconstruction is not too dissimilar. Grice prefers Russell's and Broad's more conservative label. This is more than a terminological point. If Hume is right and there is NO 'intuitive' concept behind 'I,' one cannot strictly re-construct it, only 'construct' it. Ultimately, Grice shows that, if only at the implicatum level, we are able to provide an analysandum for this or that  'someone, viz. I' utterance without using 'I,' by implicating only this or that mnemonic concept, which belongs, naturally, as his theory of ‘negation’ does, in a theory of philosophical psychology, and again a lower branch of it, dealing with ‘memory.’ The topic of personal identity unites various interests of Grice. The first is ‘identity’ (‘=’) simpliciter. Instead of talking of the meaning of 'I,' as, say, Anscombe would, Grice sticks to the traditional category, or keyword, for this, i. e. the theory-laden, personal identity, or even personal sameness. Personal identity is a type of identity, but ‘personal’ adds something to it. Surely Hume was stretching ‘person’ a bit when using the example of a soul ‘with a life lower than an oyster. Since Grice follows Aristotle’s De Anima, he enjoys Hume’s choice, though. It may be argued that ‘personal’ adds Locke’s ‘consciousness,’ and rational agency. Grice plays with the body-soul distinction. 'I, viz someone or somebody, fell from the stairs,’ perhaps differs from ‘I will be fighting soon.’ This or that 'someone, viz. I’ utterance may be purely 'bodily.' Grice would think that the idea that his soul fell from the stairs sounds, as it would to Berkeley, harsh. But then there’s this or that one may be mixed utterance. 'Someone, viz. I, plays cricket,’ where surely your bodily mechanisms require some sort of control by the soul. Finally, this or that may be purely 'souly' ‒ the one Grice ends up analysing, 'Someone, viz. I, hear that the bell tolls.' At the time of his ‘Mind’ essay, Grice may have been unaware of the complications that the concept of a ‘person’ may bring as attached in adjective form to 'identity.’ Ayer did, and Strawson and Wiggins will, and Grice learns much from Strawson. Since Parfit, this has become a common-place topic for analysis at Oxford. A person as a complexum of a body-soul spatio-temporal continuant substance. Ultimately, Grice finds a theoretical counterpart here. A pirot may become a human, which Grice understands ‘physiologically.’ That is not enough. A pirot must aspire, via meteousis, to become a person. Thus, 'person' becomes a technical term in Grice’s grand metaphysical scheme of things. 'Someone, viz. I, hear that the bell is tolls' is analysed as  ≡df, or if and only if, a hearing that the bell tolls is a part of a total temporary t_n souly state S₁ which is one in a series such that any state S_n,  given this or that condition, contains as a part a memory M_n of the experience of hearing that the bell tolls, which is a component in some pre-sequent t_1n item, or contains an experience of hearing that the bell tolls a memory M of which would, given this or that condition, occur as a component in some sub-sequent t₂>t_n item, there being no sub-set of items which is independent of the rest. Grice simplifies the reductive analysans. ‘Someone, viz. I, hears that the bell tolls’ iff ‘a hearing that the bell tolls is a component in an item of an ‘interlocking’ series, with emphasis on ‘lock,’ series of this or that ‘memorable’ and ‘memorative’ total temporary t_n state S₁. Is Grice’s 'Personal identity' ever referred to in the Oxonian philosophical literature? Indeeed. Parfit mentions, which makes it especially memorable and memorative. P. Edwards includes a reference to Grice's ‘Mind’ essay in the entry for 'Personal identity,' as a reference to Grice et al on ‘Metaphysics,’ is referenced in Edwards's encyclopædia entry for 'metaphysics.' Grice does not attribute privileged access or incorrigibility to 'I' or the first person. He always hastens to add that 'I' can always be substituted, salva veritate (if baffling your addressee A) by 'someone or other,' if not 'some-body or other,’ a colloquialism Grice especially detested. Grice's agency-based approach requires that. I am rational provided thou art, too. If, by explicitly saying he is a Lockeian, Grice surely does not wish us to see him as trying to be original, or the first to consider this or that problem about 'I; i.e. someone.’ Still, Grice is the philosopher who explores most deeply the 'reductive analysis' of 'I, i.e. someone.' Grice needs the reductive analysis because human agency (philosophically, rather than psychologically interpreted) is key for his approach to things. By uttering 'The bell tolls,' U means that someone, viz. himself, hears that the bell tolls, or even, by uttering 'I, hear, viz. someone hears, that the bell tolls,' U means that the experience of a hearing that the bell tolls is a component in a total temporary state which is a member of a series such that each member would, given certain conditions, contain as an component one memory of an experience which is a component in a pre-sequent member, or contains as a component some experience a memory of which would, given certain conditions, occur as a component in a post-sequent member; there being no sub-set of members which is independent of the rest. ‘Thanks,’ the addressee might reply. ‘I didn’t know that! The 'reductive' bit to Grice’s analysis needs to be emphasised. For Grice, a person, and consequently, a ‘someone, viz. I’ utterance, is, simpliciter, a logical construction out of this or that Humeian experience. Whereas in Russell, as Broad notes, a logical construction of this or that philosophical concept, in this case ‘personal identity,’ or cf. Grice’s earlier reductive analysis of ‘not,’ is thought of as an 'improved,' 'rationally reconstructed' conception. Neither Russell nor Broad need maintain that the logical construction 'preserves' the original meaning of the analysandum 'someone, viz. I, hears that the bell tolls,’ or ‘I do not hear that the bell tolls’ ‒ hence their paradox of reductionist analysis. This ‘change of subject’ does not apply to Grice. Grice emphatically intends to be make explicit, if rationally reconstructed (if that's not an improvement) through reductive (if not reductionist) analysis, the concept Grice already claims to have. One particular development to consider is within Grice’s play group, that of A. M. Quinton. Grice and Quinton seem to have been the only two philosophers in Austin’s play group who showed any interest on ‘someone, viz. I.’ Or not!The fact that Quinton entitled his thing ‘The soul’ didn’t help. Note that Woozley was editing Reid on “Identity” in 1941. Cf. A. E. Duncan-Jones on ‘man’s mortality.’ Note that Quinton’s immediate trigger is Shoemaker. Grice writes that he is not “merely a series of perceptions,” for he is “conscious of a permanent self, an I who experiences these perceptions and  who is now identical with the I who experienced perceptions yesterday.” So, leaving aside that he is using ‘I’ with the third person verb, but surely this is no use-mention fallacy, it is this puzzle that provoked his thoughts on temporal-relative “=” later on. As Grice notes, Butler argued that consciousness of experience can contribute to identity but not define it. Grice will use Butler in his elaboration of conversational benevolence versus conversational self-interest. Better than Quinton, it is better to consider A. G. N. Flew in Philosophy, vol. 96, on Locke and the problem of personal identity, obviously suggested as a term paper by Grice! Wiggins cites Flew. Flew actually notes that Berkeley saw Locke’s problem earlier than Reid, which concerns the ‘transitiveness’ of ‘=.’ Recall that Wiggins’s tutor at Oxford was a tutee by Grice, J. L. Ackrill.