mediatum: Grice is all
about the mediatum. This he call a ‘soul-to-soul’ transfer. Imagine you pick up
a rose, the thorn hurts you. You are in pain. You say “Ouch.” You transmit this
to the fellow gardener. The mediacy means, “Beware of the thorn. It may hurt
you.” “I am amazed that in The New World, it’s all about immediacy (Chisholm)
when there’s so much which is mediately of immediate philosophical importance!”
immediatum: Grice: “Here the
‘in-’ is negative!” – the presence to the mind without intermediaries. The term
‘immediatum’ and its cognates have been used extensively throughout the history
of philosophy, generally without much explanation. Descartes, e.g., explains
his notion of thought thus: “I use this term to include everything that is
within us in a way that we are IMMEDIATELY aware of it” (Second Replies).
Descartes offers no explanation of immediate awareness, but the implicaturum is
“contextually cancellable.” “Only an idiot would not realise that he is
opposing it to mediated experience.” – Grice. Grice is well aware of this. “Check
with Lewis and Short.” “mĕdĭo , 1, v. a. medius, I.to
halve, divide in the middle (post-class.), Apic. 3, 9. — B. Neutr., to be in
the middle: “melius Juno mediante,” Pall. Mart. 10, 32.” “So you see, ‘mediare’
can be transitive, but surely Descartes means it in the intransitive way –
something mediates or something doesn’t – Clear as water!” However, when
used as a primitive in this way, ‘immediatum’ may simply mean that thoughts are
the immediate objects of perception because thoughts are the only things
perceived in the strict and proper sense that no perception of an intermediary
is required for the person’s awareness of them. Sometimes ‘immediate’ means
‘not mediated’. (1) An inference from a premise to a conclusion can exhibit
logical immediacy because it does not depend on other premises. This is a
technical usage of proof theory to describe the form of a certain class of
inference rules. (2) A concept can exhibit conceptual immediacy because it is
definitionally primitive, as in the Berkeleian doctrine that perception of
qualities is immediate, and perception of objects is defined by the perception
of their qualities, which is directly understood. (3) Our perception of
something can exhibit causal immediacy because it is not caused by intervening
acts of perception or cognition, as with seeing someone immediately in the
flesh rather than through images on a movie screen. (4) A belief-formation
process can possess psychological immediacy because it contains no subprocess
of reasoning and in that sense has no psychological mediator. (5) Our knowledge
of something can exhibit epistemic immediacy because it is justified without
inference from another proposition, as in intuitive knowledge of the existence
of the self, which has no epistemic mediator. A noteworthy special application
of immediacy is to be found in Russell’s notion of knowledge by acquaintance.
This notion is a development of the venerable doctrine originating with Plato,
and also found in Augustine, that understanding the nature of some object
requires that we can gain immediate cognitive access to that object. Thus, for
Plato, to understand the nature of beauty requires acquaintance with beauty
itself. This view contrasts with one in which understanding the nature of
beauty requires linguistic competence in the use of the word ‘beauty’ or,
alternatively, with one that requires having a mental representation of beauty.
Russell offers sense-data and universals as examples of things known by
acquaintance. To these senses of immediacy we may add another category whose
members have acquired special meanings within certain philosophical traditions.
For example, in Hegel’s philosophy if (per impossibile) an object were
encountered “as existing in simple immediacy” it would be encountered as it is
in itself, unchanged by conceptualization. In phenomenology “immediate”
experience is, roughly, bracketed experience.
partiale.
impartialis – impartiality: Grice found
this amusing. “Surely conversational maxims, constituting the conversational
immanuel, are impartial – i.e. they are not part of any other part!” – “However,
it’s only because they can be partial that’s the only way they can have a bite
on us!” -- a state or disposition achieved to the degree that one’s actions or
attitudes are not influenced in a relevant respect by which members of a
relevant group are benefited or harmed by one’s actions or by the object of
one’s attitudes. For example, a basketball referee and that referee’s calls are
impartial when the referee’s applications of the rules are not affected by
whether the calls help one team or the other. A fan’s approval of a call lacks
impartiality if that attitude results from the fan’s preference for one team
over the other. Impartiality in this general sense does not exclude arbitrariness
or guarantee fairness; nor does it require neutrality among values, for a judge
can be impartial between parties while favoring liberty and equality for all.
Different situations might call for impartiality in different respects toward
different groups, so disagreements arise, for example, about when morality
requires or allows partiality toward friends or family or country. Moral
philosophers have proposed various tests of the kind of impartiality required
by morality, including role reversibility (Kurt Baier), universalizability
(Hare), a veil of ignorance (Rawls), and a restriction to beliefs shared by all
rational people (Bernard Gert).
imperatum – While of course there is a verb in the infinitive for
this, Grice prefers the past participle – “It’s so diaphanous!” -- This starts
with the Greeks, who had the klesis porstktike, modus imperativus. But then,
under the modus subjunctives, the Romans added the modus prohibitivus. So this
is interesting, because it seems that most of Grice’s maxims are ‘prohibitions’:
“Do not say what you believe to be false.” “Do not that for which you lack
adequate evidence.” And some while formally in the ‘affirmative,’ look
prohibitive with ‘negative-loaded’ verbs like ‘avoid ambiguity,’ etc. hile an
imperatus, m. is a command, ‘imperatum’ refers, diaphanously, to what is
commanded. “Impero” is actually a derivation from the intensive “in-“ and the
“paro,” as in “prepare,” “Paratum” would thus reflect the ssame cognateness
with ‘imperatum.” Modus imperativus -- imperative
mode: At one point, Grice loved the “psi,” Actions are alright, but we need to
stop at the psi level. The emissor communicates that the addressee thinks that
the emissor has propositional attitude psi. No need to get into the logical
form of action. One can just do with the logical form of a ‘that’-clause in the
ascription of a state of the soul. This should usually INVOLVE an action, as in
Hare, “The door is shut, please.” like Hare, Grice loves an imperative. In this
essay, Grice attempts an exploration of the logical form of Kant’s concoction.
Grice is especially irritated by the ‘the.’ ‘They speak of Kant’s categorical
imperative, when he cared to formulate a few versions of it!” Grice lists them
all in Abbott’s version. There are nine of them! Grice is interested in the conceptual
connection of the categorical imperative with the hypothetical or suppositional
imperative, in terms of the type of connection between the protasis and the
apodosis. Grice spends the full second Carus lecture on the conception of
value on this. Grice is aware that the topic is central to Oxonian
philosophers such as Hare, a member of Austin’s Play Group, too, who regard the
universability of an imperative as a mark of its categoricity, and indeed,
moral status. Grice chose some of the Kantian terminology on purpose.Grice
would refer to this or that ‘conversational maxim.’A ‘conversational maxim’
contributes to what Grice jocularly refers to as the ‘conversational
immanuel.’But there is an admission test.The ‘conversational maxim’ has to be
shown that, qua items under an overarching principle of conversational
helpfulness, the maxim displays a quality associated with conceptual, formal,
and applicational generality. Grice never understood what Kant meant by the
categoric imperative. But for Grice, from the acceptability of the the immanuel
you can deduce the acceptability of this or that maxim, and from the
acceptability of the conversational immanuel, be conversationally helpful, you
can deduce the acceptability of this or that convesational maxim. Grice hardly
considered Kants approach to the categoric imperative other than via the
universability of this or that maxim. This or that conversational maxim,
provided by Grice, may be said to be universalisable if and only if it displays
what Grice sees as these three types of generality: conceptual, formal, and
applicational. He does the same for general maxims of conduct. The results are
compiled in a manual of universalisable maxims, the conversational immanuel, an
appendix to the general immanuel. The other justification by Kant of the
categoric imperative involve an approach other than the genitorial
justification, and an invocation of autonomy and freedom. It is the use by
Plato of imperative as per categoric imperative that has Grice expanding on
modes other than the doxastic, to bring in the buletic, where the categoric
imperative resides. Note that in the end Kant DOES formulate the categoric
imperative, as Grice notes, as a real imperative, rather than a command, etc.
Grice loved Kant, but he loved Kantotle best. In the last Kant lecture, he
proposes to define the categorical imperative as a counsel of prudence, with a
protasis Let Grice be happy. The derivation involves eight stages! Grice found
out that out of his play-group activities with this or that linguistic nuance
he had arrived at the principle, or imperative of conversational helpfulness,
indeed formulated as an imperative: Make your contribution such as is required,
at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose of the conversation in
which you are engaged. He notes that the rationality behind the idea of
conversation as rational co-operation does not preclude seeing rationality in
conversation as other than cooperation. The fact that he chooses maxim, and
explicitly echoes Kant, indicates where Grice is leading! An exploration on
Paton on the categorical imperative. Grice had previously explored the
logical form of hypothetical or suppositional imperatives in the Kant
(and later Locke) lectures, notably in Lecture IV, Further remarks on
practical and alethic reasons. Here he considers topics related to Hares
tropic-clistic neustic-phrastic quartet. What does it mean to say that
a command is conditional? The two successors of Grices post as
Tutorial Fellow at St. Johns, Baker Hacker, will tackle the same issue with
humour, in Sense and nonsense, published by Blackwell (too irreverent to be
published by the Clarendon). Is the logical form of a maxim, .p⊃!q, or !(.p ⊃.q),
etc. Kant thought that there is a special
sub-class of hypothetical or suppositional imperative (which he
called a counsels of prudence) which is like his class of technical imperative,
except in that the end specified in a full specfication of the imperative is
the special end of eudæmonia (the agents eudæmonia). For
Grice, understanding Kant’s first version of the categorical imperative
involves understanding what a maxim is supposed to be. Grice
explores at some length four alternative interpretations of an
iffy buletic (as opposed to a non-iffy buletic): three formal, one material.
The first interpretation is the horseshoe interpretation. A blind logical
nose might lead us or be led to the assumption of a link between a
buletically iffy utterance and a doxastically iffy utterance. Such a link
no doubt exists, but the most obvious version of it is plainly
inadequate. At least one other philosopher besides Grice has noticed that If he
torments the cat, have him arrested! is unlikely to express an
buletically iffy utterance, and that even if one restricts oneself to
this or that case in which the protasis specifies a will, we find pairs of
examples like If you will to go to Oxford, travel by AA via Richmond! or
If you will to go to Cambridge, see a psychiatrist! where it is plain that one
is, and the other is not, the expression of a buletically iffy utterance. For
fun, Grice does not tell which! A less easily eliminable suggestion, yet one
which would still interprets the notion of a buletically iffy utterance in
terms of that particular logical form to which if, hypothetical or
suppositional and conditional attach,
would be the following. Let us assume that it is established, or conceded, as
legitimate to formulate an if utterance in which not only the apodosis is
couched in some mode other than the doxastic, as in this or that conditional
command. If you see the whites of their eyes, shoot fire! but also the protasis
or some part (clause) of them. In which case all of the following might be
admissible conditionals. Thus, we might have a doxastic protasis (If the cat is
sick, take it to the vet), or a mixed (buletic-cum-doxastic protasis (If you
are to take the cat to the vet and theres no cage available, put it on Marthas
lap!), and buletic protasis (If you are to take the cat to the vet, put it in a
cage!). If this suggestion seems rebarbative, think of this or that quaint if
utterance (when it is quaint) as conditionalised versions of this or that
therefore-sequence, such as: buletic-cum-doxastic premises (Take the cat
to the vet! There isnt a cage. Therefore; Put the cat on Marthas lap!), buletic
premise (Take the cat to the vet! Put it in a cage!). And then, maybe, the
discomfort is reduced. Grice next considers a second formal interpretation or
approach to the buletically iffy/non-iffy utterance. Among if utterances with a
buletic apodosis some will have, then, a mixed doxastic-cum buletic protasis
(partly doxastic, partly buletic), and some will have a purely doxastic
protasis (If the cat is sick, take him to the vet!). Grice proposes a
definition of the iffy/non-iffy distinction. A buletically iffy utterance is an
iffy utterance the apodosis of which is buletic and the protasis of which is
buletic or mixed (buletic-cum-dxastic) or it is an elliptical version of such
an iffy utterance. A buletically non-iffy utterance is a buletic utterance
which is not iffy or else, if it is iffy, has a purely doxastic protasis. Grice
makes three quick comments on this second interpretation. First, re: a real
imperative. The structures which are being offered as a way of interpreting an
iffy and a non-iffy imperative do not, as they stand, offer any room for
the appearance this or that buletic modality like ought and should which are so
prominently visible in the standard examples of those kinds of imperatives. The
imperatives suggested by Grice are explicit imperatives. An explicit buletic
utterance is Do such-and-such! and not You ought to do such and such or, worse,
One ought to do such and such. Grice thinks, however, that one can modify this
suggestion to meet the demand for the appearance or occurrence of ought (etc)
if such occurrence is needed. Second, it would remain to be decided how close
the preferred reading of Grices deviant conditional imperatives would be to the
accepted interpretation of standard hypothetical or
suppositional imperatives. But even if there were some divergence that
might be acceptable if the new interpretation turns out to embody a more
precise notion than the standard conception. Then theres the neustical versus
tropical protases. There are, Grice thinks, serious doubts of the admissibility
of conditionals with a NON-doxastic protasis, which are for Grice connected
with the very difficult question whether the doxastic and the buletic modes are
co-ordinate or whether the doxastic mode is in some crucial fashion (but
not in other) prior (to use Suppess qualification) to the buletic. Grice
confesses he does not know the answer to that question. A third formal interpretation links
the iffy/non-iffy distinction to the absolute-relative value distinction. An
iffy imperatives would be end-relative and might be analogous
to an evidence-relative probability. A non-iffy imperatives would not
be end-relative. Finally, a fourth Interpretation is not formal, but
material. This is close to part of what Kant says on the topic. It is a
distinction between an imperative being escapable (iffy), through the
absence of a particular will and its not being escapable (non-iffy). If
we understand the idea of escabability sufficiently widely, the
following imperatives are all escapable, even though their logical form is
not in every case the same: Give up popcorn!, To get slim, give up
popcorn!, If you will to get slim, give up popcorn! Suppose Grice has no
will to get slim. One might say that the first imperative (Give up
popcorn!) is escaped, provided giving up popcorn has nothing else
to recommend it, by falsifying You should give up popcorn. The
second and the third imperatives (To get slim, give up pocorn! and If
you will to get slim, give up popcorn!) would not, perhaps, involve
falsification but they would, in the circumstances, be inapplicable
to Grice – and inapplicability, too, counts, as escape. A non-iffy
imperative however, is in no way escapable. Re: the Dynamics of
Imperatives in Discourse, Grice then gives three examples which he had
discussed in “Aspects,” which concern arguments (or therefore-chains). This we
may see as an elucidation to grasp the logical form of buletically iffy
utterance (elided by the therefore, which is an if in the metalanguage)
in its dynamics in argumentation. We should, Grice suggests,
consider not merely imperatives of each sort, together with the range
of possible characterisations, but also the possible forms of argument into
which_particular_ hypothetical or suppositional imperatives might enter.
Consider: Defend the Philosophy Department! If you are to defend the
philosophy department, learn to use bows and arrows! Therefore, learn to
use bows and arrows! Grice says he is using the dichotomy of original-derived
value. In this example, in the first premise, it is not specified whether the
will is original or derived, the second premise specifies conducive to (means),
and the conclusion would involve a derived will, provided the second premise is
doxastically satisfactory. Another example would be: Fight for your country! If
you are to fight for your country, join up one of the services! Therefore, join
up! Here, the first premise and the conclusion do not specify the protasis. If
the conclusion did, it would repeat the second premise. Then theres Increase
your holdings in oil shares! If you visit your father, hell give you some oil
shares. Therefore, visit your father! This argument (purportedly) transmits
value. Let us explore these characterisations by Grice with the aid of
Hares distinctions. For Hare in a hypothetical or suppositional imperative, the
protasis contains a neustic-cum-tropic. A distinction may be made between this
or that hypothetical or suppositional imperative and a term used by Grice
in his first interpretation of the hypothetical or suppositional
imperative, that of conditional command (If you see the whites of their
eyes, shoot fire!). A hypothetical or suppositional imperative can
be distinguished from a conditional imperative (If you want to make bread,
use yeast! If you see anything suspicious, telephone the police!) by the
fact that modus ponens is not valid for it. One may use hypothetical,
suppositional or conditional imperative for a buletic utterance which features
if, and reserve conditional command for a command which is expressed by an
imperative, and which is conditional on the satisfaction of the protasis.
Thus, on this view, treating the major premise of an argument as a
hypothetical or suppositional imperative turns the therefore-chain invalid.
Consider the sequence with the major premise as a hypothetical or suppositional
imperative. If you will to make someone mad, give him drug D! You
will to make Peter mad; therefore, give Peter drug D! By uttering this
hypothetical or suppositional imperative, the utterer tells his addressee A
only what means to adopt to achieve a given end in a way which
does not necessarily endorse the adoption of that end, and hence of
the means to it. Someone might similarly say, if you will to make
someone mad, give him drug D! But, of course, even if you will to do
that, you must not try to do so. On the other hand, the
following is arguably valid because the major premise is a
conditional imperative and not a mere hypothetical or suppositional
one. We have a case of major premise as a conditional imperative: You will to
make someone mad, give him drug D! Make Peter mad! Therefore, give
Peter drug D!. We can explain this in terms of the presence of the neustic
in the antecedent of the imperative working as the major premise.
The supposition that the protasis of a hypothetical or suppositional
imperative contains a clause in the buletic mode neatly explains why the
argument with the major premise as a hypothetical or suppositional
imperative is not valid. But the argument with the major premise as a
conditional imperative is, as well as helping to differentiate a
suppositional or hypothetical or suppositional iffy imperative from a
conditional iffy imperative. For, if the protasis of the major premise in the
hypothetical or suppositional imperative is volitival, the mere fact that
you will to make Peter mad does not license the inference of the
imperative to give him the drug; but this _can_ be inferred from the
major premise of the hypothetical or suppositional imperative
together with an imperative, the minor premise in the conditional
imperative, to make Peter mad. Whether the subordinate
clause contains a neustic thus does have have a consequence as
to the validity of inferences into which the complex sentence
enters. Then theres an alleged principle of mode constancy in buletic and
and doxastic inference. One may tries to elucidate Grices ideas on the
logical form of the hypothetical or suppositional imperative proper.
His suggestion is, admittedly, rather tentative. But it might be
argued, in the spirit of it, that an iffy imperative is of the
form ((!p⊃!q) Λ .p)) ∴ !q
But this violates a principle of mode constancy. A phrastic must
remain in the same mode (within the scope of the same tropic) throughout
an argument. A conditional imperative does not violate the principle of
Modal Constancy, since it is of the form ((p⊃!q) Λ
!p)) ∴ !q The question of the logical form of
the hypothetical or suppositional imperative is
too obscure to base much on arguments concerning it. There is an
alternative to Grices account of the validity of an argument featuring a conditional
imperative. This is to treat the major premise of a conditional
imperative, as some have urged it should be as a doxastic utterance tantamount
to In order to make someone mad, you have to give him drug D. Then an
utterer who explicitly conveys or asserts the major premise of a conditional
imperative and commands the second premise is in consistency committed to
commanding the conclusion. If does not always connect phrastic with
phrastic but sometimes connects two expressions consisting of a phrastic
and a tropic. Consider: If you walk past the post office, post the
letter! The antecedent of this imperative states, it seems, the
condition under which the imperative expressed becomes operative,
and so can not be construed buletically, since by uttering a buletic
utterance, an utterer cannot explicitly convey or assert that a condition
obtains. Hence, the protasis ought not be within the scope of the
buletic !, and whatever we take to represent the form of the
utterance above we must not take !(if p, q) to do so. One way out. On
certain interpretation of the isomorphism or æqui-vocality Thesis between
Indicative and Imperative Inference the utterance has to be construed
as an imperative (in the generic reading) to make the doxasatic
conditional If you will walk past the post office, you will post
the letter satisfactory. Leaving aside issues of the implicaturum of if,
that the utterance can not be so construed seems to be shown by
the fact that the imperative to make the associated doxastically iffy
utterance satisfactory is conformed with by one who does not walk past the
post office. But it seems strange at best to say that the utterance
is conformed with in the same circumstances. This strangeness or
bafflingliness, as Grice prefers, is aptly explained away in terms of the implicaturum.
At Oxford, Dummett is endorsing this idea that a
conditional imperative be construed as an imperative to make an
indicative if utterance true. Dummett urges to divide conditional
imperatives into those whose antecedent is within the power of
the addressee, like the utterance in question, and those in which it
is not. Consider: If you go out, wear your coat! One may be not so much
concerned with how to escape this, as Grice is, but how to conform it. A child
may choose not to go out in order to comply with the imperative. For an
imperative whose protasis is_not_ within the power of the addressee (If anyone
tries to escape, shoot him!) it is indifferent whether we treat it as a
conditional imperative or not, so why bother. A small
caveat here. If no one tries to escape, the imperative is *not violated*.
One might ask, might there not be an important practical difference
bewteen saying that an imperative has not been violated and that
it has been complied with? Dummett ignores this distinction. One may
feel think there is much of a practical difference there. Is Grice
an intuitionist? Suppose that you are a frontier guard and
the antecedent has remained unfulfilled. Then, whether we say that you
complied with it, or simply did not *violate* it will make a great
deal of difference if you appear before a war crimes tribunal.
For Dummett, the fact that in the case of an imperative expressed by a
conditional imperative in which the antecedent is not within the agents power,
we should *not* say that the agent had obeyed just on the ground that the
protassi is false, is no ground for construing an imperative as expressing a
conditional command: for there is no question of fixing what shall
constitute obedience independently of the determination of what shall
constitute disobedience. This complicates the issues. One may with Grice (and
Hare, and Edgley) defend imperative inference against other Oxonian
philosophers, such as Kenny or Williams. What is questioned by the sceptics about imperative
inference is whether if each one of a set of imperatives is used with
the force of a command, one can infer a _further_ imperative with that
force from them. Cf. Wiggins on Aristotle on the practical syllogism. One
may be more conservative than Hare, if not Grice. Consider If you stand by
Jane, dont look at her! You stand by Jane; therefore, dont look at her! This is
valid. However, the following, obtained by anti-logism, is not: If you stand by
Jane, dont look at her! Look at her! Therefore, you dont stand by Jane. It may
seem more reasonable to some to deny Kants thesis, and maintain that
anti-logism is valid in imperative inference than it is to hold onto Kants
thesis and deny that antilogism is valid in the case in question. Then theres the
question of the implicatura involved in the ordering of modes. Consider:
Varnish every piece of furniture you make! You are going to make a table;
therefore, varnish it! This is prima facie valid. The following, however,
switching the order of the modes in the premises is not. You are going to
varnish every piece of furniture that you make. Make a table! Therefore;
varnish it! The connection between the if and the therefore is metalinguistic,
obviously – the validity of the therefore chain is proved by the associated if
that takes the premise as, literally, the protasis and the consequence as the
apodosis. Conversational Implicaturum at the Rescue. Problems with
or: Consider Rosss infamous example: Post the letter! Therefore, post the
letter or burn it! as invalid, Ross – and endorsed at Oxford by Williams.
To permit to do p or q is to permit to do p and to permit to do q.
Similarly, to give permission to do something is to lift a prohibition
against doing it. Admittedly, Williams does not need this so we are
stating his claim more strongly than he does. One may review Grices way
out (defense of the validity of the utterance above in terms of the implicaturum.
Grice claims that in Rosss infamous example (valid, for Grice), whilst (to
state it roughly) the premises permissive presupposition (to use the
rather clumsy term introduced by Williams) is entailed by it, the
conclusions is only conversationally implicated. Typically for an
isomorphist, Grice says this is something shared by
indicative inferences. If, being absent-minded, Grice asks his wife, What
have I done with the letter? And she replies, You have posted it or burnt it,
she conversationally implicates that she is not in a position to say which
Grice has done. She also conversationally implicates that Grice may not have
post it, so long as he has burnt it. Similarly, the future tense indicative, You
are going to post the letter has the conversational implicaturum You may be not
going to post the letter so long as you are going to burn it. But this surely
does not validate the introduction rule for OR, to wit: p; therefore, p
or q. One can similarly, say: Eclipse will win. He may not, of course, if it
rains. And I *know* it will *not* rain. Problems with and. Consider: Put on
your parachute AND jump out! Therefore, jump out! Someone who _only_ jumps out
of an æroplane does not fulfil Put on your parachute and jump out!
He has done only what is necessary, but not sufficient to fulfil it.
Imperatives do not differ from indicatives in this respect, except that
fulfilment takes the place of belief or doxa, which is the form of acceptance
apprpriate to a doxasatic utterance, as the Names implies. Someone who is
told Smith put on his parachute AND jumped out is entitled to believe
that Smith jumped out. But if he believes that this is _all_ Smith did he
is in error (Cf. Edgley). One may discuss Grices test of cancellability in the
case of the transport officer who says: Go via Coldstream or Berwick! It seems
the transport officers way of expressing himself is extremely eccentric,
or conversationally baffling, as Grice prefers – yet validly. If the transport
officer is not sure if a storm may block one of the routes, what he
should say is _Prepare_ to go via Coldstream or Berwick! As for the application
of Grices test of explicit cancellation here, it yield, in the circumstances,
the transport officer uttering Go either via Coldstream or
Berwick! But you may not go via Coldstream if you do not go via
Berwick, and you may not go via Berwick if you do not go via Coldstream. Such
qualifications ‒ what Grice calls explicit cancellation of the implicaturum ‒
seem to the addressee to empty the buletic mode of utterance of all content and
is thus reminiscent of Henry Fords utterance to the effect that people can choose
what colour car they like provided it is black. But then Grice doesnt think
Ford is being illogical, only Griceian and implicatural! Grice was fascinated
by “if” clauses in mode other than the indicative: “if the cat is on the mat,
she is purring.” “If the cat had been, make her purr!” etc. He spent years at
Clifton mastering this – only to have Ayer telling him at Oxford he didn’t need
it! “I won’t take that!” -- Refs.: There is at least one essay just about the
categorical imperative, but there are scattered references wherever Grice
considers the mood markers, The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC.
implicaturum: or, Grice’s implication. Grice makes an important
distinction which he thinks Austin doesn’t make because what a philosopher
EXPLICITLY conveys and what he IMPLICITLY conveys. It was only a few years
Grice was interacting philosophically with Austin and was reading some material
by Witters, when Grice comes with this criticism and complaint. Austin ignores
“all too frequently” a distinction that Witters apparently dnies. This is a
distinction between what an emissor communicates (e. g. that p), which can be
either explicitly (that p1) or implicitly (that p2) and what, metabolically,
and derivatively, the emissum ‘communictates’ (explicitly or implicitly). At
the Oxford Philosophical Society, he is considering Moore’s ‘entailment.’ This
is not a vernacular expression, but a borrowing from a Romance language. But
basically, Moore’s idea is that ‘p’ may be said to ‘entail’ q iff at least two
conditions follow. Surely ‘entail’ has only one sense. In this metabolically
usage where it is a ‘p’ that ‘entails’ the conditions are that there is a
property and that there is a limitation. Now suppose Grice is discussing with
Austin or reading Witters. Grice wants to distinguish various things: what the
emissor communicates (explicitly or implicitly) and the attending diaphanous
but metabolical, what WHAT THE EMSSOR COMMUNICATES (explicitly or implicitly)
ENTAILS, AND the purely metabolical what the emissum ‘entails’ (explicitly or
implicitly). This is Grice’s wording:“If we can elucidate the meaning of
"A meantNN by x that p (on a particular occasion)," this might
reasonably be expected to help us with the explication of "entails.”The
second important occasion is in the interlude or excursus of his Aristotelian
Society talk. How does he introduce the topic of ‘implication’? At that time
there was a lot being written about ‘contextual’ or ‘pragmatic’ implication –
even within Grice’s circle – as in D. K. Grant’s essay on pragmatic implication
for Philosophy, and even earlier Nowell-Smith’s on ‘contextual implication’ in
“Ethics,” and even earlier, and this is perhaps Grice’s main trigger, P. F.
Strawson’s criticism of Whitehead and Russell, with Strawson having that, by uttering
‘The king of France is not bald,’ the emissor IMPLIES that there is a king of
France (Strawson later changes the idiom from ‘imply,’ and the attending
‘implication, to ‘presuppose,’ but he keeps ‘imply’ in all the reprints of his
earlier essays). In “Causal Theory,” Grice surely cannot
just ‘break’ the narrative and start with ‘implication’ in an excursus. So the
first stage is to explore the use of ‘implication’ or related concepts in the
first part of “Causal Theory” LEADING to the excursus for which need he felt. The
first use appears in section 2. The use is the noun, ‘implication.’ And
Grice is reporting the view of an objector, so does not care to be to careful
himself.“the OBJECTION MIGHT run as follows.” “… When someone makes a remark
such as “The pillar box seems red” A CERTAIN IMPLICATION IS CARRIED.” He goes
on “This implication is “DISJUNCTIVE IN FORM,” which should not concerns us
here. Since we are considering the status of the implication, as seen by the
objector as reported by Grice. He does not give a source, so we may assume G.
A. Paul reading Witters, and trying to indoctrinate a few Oxonians into
Wittgensteinianism (Grice notes that besides the playgroup there was Ryle’s
group at Oxford and a THIRD, “perhaps more disciplined” group, that tended
towards Witters.Grice goes on:“It IS implied that…” p. Again, he expands it,
and obviously shows that he doesn’t care to be careful. And he is being ironic,
because the implication is pretty lengthy! Yet he says, typically:“This may not
be an absolutely EXACT or complete characterisation of the implication, but it
is, perhaps, good ENOUGH to be going with!” Grice goes on to have his objector
a Strawsonian, i. e. as REFUSING TO ASSIGN A TRUTH-VALUE to the utterance,
while Grice would have that it is ‘uninterestingly true. In view of this it may
to explore the affirmative and negative versions. Because the truth-values may
change:In Grice’s view: “The pillar box seems red to me” IS “UNINTERESTINGLY
TRUE,” in spite of the implication.As for “It is not the case that the pillar
box seems red,” this is more of a trick. In “Negation,” Grice has a similar
example. “That pillar box is red; therefore, it is not blue.”He is concerned
with “The pillar box is not blue,” or “It is not the case that the pillar box
is blue.”What about the truth-value now of the utterance in connection with the
implication attached to it?Surely, Grice would like, unless accepting
‘illogical’ conversationalists (who want to make that something is UNASSERTIBLE
or MISLEADING by adding ‘not’), the utterance ‘It is not the case that the
pillar box seems red to me’ is FALSE in the scenario where the emissor would be
truthful in uttering ‘The pillar box seems red to me.” Since Grice allows that
the affirmative is ‘uninterestingly true,’ he is committed to having ‘It is not
the case that the pillar box seems red’ as FALSE.For the Strawsonian
Wittgensteinian, or truth-value gap theorist, the situation is easier to
characterise. Both ‘The pillar box seems red to me” and its negation, “The pillar
box does not seem red to me” lack a truth value, or in Grice’s word, as applied
to the affirmative, “far from being uninterestingly true, is neither true nor
false,” i. e. ‘neuter.’ It wold not be true but it would not be false either –
breakdown of bivalence. Grice’s case is a complicated one because he
distinguishes between the sub-perceptual “The pillar box seems red” from the
perceptual ‘vision’ statement, “Grice sees that the pillar box is red.” So the
truth of “The pillar box seems red” is a necessary condition for the statement
about ‘seeing.’ This is itself controversial. Some philosophers have claimed
that “Grice knows that p” does NOT entail “Grice believes that p,” for example.
But for the causal theory Grice is thinking of an analysis of “Grice sees that
the pillar box is red” in terms of three conditions: First, the pillar box
seems red to Grice. Second, the pillar box is red. And third, it is the pillar
box being red that causes it seeming red to Grice. Grice goes to reformulate
the idea that “The pillar box seems red” being true. But now not
“uninterestingly true,” but “true (under certain conditions),” or as he puts it
“(subject to certain qualifications) true.” He may be having in mind a clown in
a circus confronted with the blue pillar box and making a joke about it. Those
‘certain qualifications’ would not apply to the circus case. Grice goes on to
change the adverb, it’s ‘boringly true,’ or ‘highly boringly true.’ He adds
‘suggestio falsi,’ which seems alright but which would not please the
Wittgensteinian who would also reject the ‘false.’ We need a ‘suggestio
neutri.’ In this second section, he gives the theoretical explanation. The “implication”
arises “in virtue of a GENERAL FEATURE OR PRINCIPLE” of conversation, or
pertaining to a system put in ‘communication,’ or a general feature or
principle governing an emissor communicating that p. Note that ‘feature’ and
‘principle’ are appropriately ‘vague.’ “Feature” can be descriptive.
“Principle” is Aristotelian. Boethius’s translation for Aristotle’s ‘arche.’ It
can be descriptive. The first use of ‘principle’ in a ‘moral’ or ‘practical’
context seems to post-date its use in, say, geometry – Euclid’s axioms as
‘principia mathematica,’ or Newton’s “Principia.” Grice may be having in mind Moore’s
‘paradox’ (true, surely) when Grice adds ‘it is raining.’Grice’s careful
wording is worth exploring. “The mistake
[incorrectness, falsehood] of supposing the implication to constitute a
"part of the meaning [sense]” of "The Alpha seems Beta" is somewhat
similar to, though MORE INSIDUOUS …”[moral implication here: 1540s, from Middle French insidieux "insidious"
(15c.) or directly from Latin insidiosus "deceitful, cunning, artful,
treacherous," from insidiae (plural) "plot, snare, ambush,"
from insidere "sit
on, occupy," from in- "in" (from PIE root *en "in")
+ sedere "to
sit," from PIE root *sed- (1) "to
sit." Figurative, usually with a suggestion of lying in wait and the
intent to entrap. Related: Insidiously; insidiousness]“than,
the mistake which one IF one supposes that the SO-CALLED [‘pragmatic’ or
‘contextual – implicaturum, “as I would not,” and indeed he does not – he
prefers “expresses” here, not the weak ‘imply’] “implication” that one believes
it to be raining is "a part of the meaning [or sense]" of the
expression [or emissum] "It is raining.”Grice allows that no philosopher
may have made this mistake. He will later reject the view that one
conversationally implicates that one believes that it is raining by uttering
‘It is raining.’ But again he does not give sources. In these case, while
without the paraphernalia about the ‘a part of the ‘sense’” bit, can be
ascribed at Oxford to Nowell-Smith and Grant (but not, we hope to Strawson).
Nowell-Smith is clear that it is a contextual implication, but one would not
think he would make the mistake of bringing in ‘sense’ into the bargain. Grice
goes on:“The short and literally inaccurate reply to such a supposition [mistake]
might be that the so-called “implication” attaches because the expression (or
emissum) is a PROPOSITIONAL one [expressable by a ‘that so-and-so’ clause] not
because it is the particular propositional expression which it happens to be.”By
‘long,’ Grice implicates: “And it is part of the function of the informative
mode that you utter an utterance in the informative mode if you express your
belief in the content of the propositonal expression.”Grice goes on to analyse
‘implication’ in terms of ‘petitio principii.’ This is very interesting and
requires exploration. Grice claims that his success the implicaturum in the
field of the philosophy of perception led his efforts against Strawson on the
syncategoremata.But here we see Grice dealing what will be his success.One
might, for example, suggest that it is open to the champion of sense_data to
lay down that the sense-datum sentence " I have a pink sense-datum "
should express truth if and only if the facts are as they would have to be for
it to be true, if it were in order, to say .. Something looks pink to me
", even though it may not actually be in ordei to say this (because the
D-or-D condition is unfulfilled). But this attempt to by-pass the objector's
position would be met by the reply that it begs the question; for it assumes
that there is some way of specifying the facts in isolation from the
implication standardly carried by such a specification; and this is precisely
what the objector is denying.Rephrasing that:“One might, for example, suggest
that it is open to the champion of sense_data to lay down that the sense-datum
sentence "The pillar box seems red” is TRUE if and only if the facts are
as the facts WOULD HAVE to be for “The pillar box seems red” to be true, IF (or
provided that) it were IN ORDER [i. e. conversationally appropriate], to utter
or ‘state’ or explicitly convey that the pillar box seems red, even though it
may NOT actually be in order [conversationally appropriate] to explicitly
convey that the pillar box seems red (because the condition specified in the
implication is unfulfilled).”“But this attempt to by-pass the objector's
position would be met by a charge of ‘petitio principia,’ i. e. the reply that
it begs the question.”“Such a manoeuvre
is invalid in that it assumes that there IS some way of providing a
SPECIFICATION of the facts of the matter in isolation from, or without recourse
to, the implication that is standardly carried by such a specification.”“This
is precisely what the objector is denying, i. e. the objector believes it is
NOT the case that there is a way of giving a specification of the scenario without
bringing in the implication.”Grice refers to the above as one of the
“frustrations,” implicating that the above, the ‘petitio principia,’ is just
one of the trials Grice underwent before coming with the explanation in terms
of the general feature of communication, or as he will late express, in terms
of ‘what the hell’ the ‘communication-function’ of “The pillar seems red to me”
might be when the implicaturum is not meant – and you have to go on and cancel
it (“That pillar box seems red; mind, I’m not suggesting that it’s not – I’m
practicing my sub-perceptual proficiency.”).Grice goes on to note the
generality he saw in the idea of the ‘implication.’ Even if “The pillar box
seems red” was his FIRST attack, the reason he was willing to do the attacking
was that the neo-Wittgensteinian was saying things that went against THE TENOR
OF THE THINGS GRICE would say with regard to other ‘linguistic philosophical’
cases OTHER than in the philosophy of perception, notably his explorations were
against Malcolm reading of Moore, about Moore ‘misusing’ “know.”Grice:“I was
inclined to rule against my objector, partly because his opponent's position
was more in line with the kind of thing I was inclined to say about other
linguistic phenomena which are in some degree comparable.”Rephrase:“My natural
inclination was to oppose the objector.”“And that was because his opponent's
position is more “in line” with the kind of thing Grice is inclined to say – or
thesis he is willing to put forward-- about OTHER phenomena involving this or
that ‘communication-function’ of this or that philosophical adage, which are in
some degree comparable to “The pillar box seems red.””So just before the
‘excursus,’ or ‘discursus,’ as he has it – which is then not numbered – but
subtitlted (‘Implication’), he embark on a discursus about “certain ASPECTS of
the concept OR CONCEPTS of implication.”He interestingly adds: “using some more
or less well-worn examples.” This is not just a reference to Strawson, Grant,
Moore, Hungerland and Nowell-Smith, but to the scholastics and the idea of the
‘suppositio’ as an ‘implicatio,’: “Tu non cessas edere ferrum.” Grice says he
will consider only four aspects or FOUR IDEAS (used each as a ‘catalyst’) in
particular illustrations.“Smith has not ceased beating his wife.”“Smith’s girlfriend
is poor, but honest.”“Smith’s handwriting is beautiful”“Smith’s wife is in the
kitchen or in the bathroom.”Each is a case, as Grice puts it, “in which in
ordinary parlance, or at least in Oxonian philosophical parlance, something
might be said to be ‘implied’ (hopefully by the emissor) -- as distinct from
being ‘stated,’ or ‘explicitly put.’One first illustrationEXPLICITLY CONVEYED:
“Smith has not ceased beating his wife.” IMPLICITLY CONVEYED, but cancellable:
“Smith has been beating his wife.”CANCELLATION: “Smith has not ceased beating
his wife; he never started.”APPLY THREE OTHER IDEAS.A second
illustrationEXPLICITLY CONVEYED:“Smith’s girlfriend is poor, but honest.”IMPLICITLY
CONVEYED: “There is some contrast between Smith’s girlfriend’s honesty and her
poverty; and possibly between Smith and the utterer.”CANCELLATION: “I’m sorry,
I cannot cancel that.”TRY OTHER THREE IDEAS.A third illustrationEXPLICITLY
CONVEYED “Smith’s handwriting is beautiful” – “Or “If only his outbursts were
more angelic.”IMPLICITLY CONVEYED: “He possibly cannot read Hegel in German.”CANCELLATION:
“Smith’s handwriting is beautiful; on top, he reads Hegel in German.”TRY
THREEOTHER IDEASA fourth illustration:EXPLICITLY CONVEYED: “Smith’s wife is in
the kitchen or in the bathroom.”IMPLICITLY CONVEYED: “It is not the case that I
have truth-functional grounds to express disjunct D1, and it is not the case
that I have truth-functional grounds to express disjunct D2; therefore, I am
introducting the disjunction EITHER than by the way favoured by Gentzen.”
(Grice actually focuses on the specific ‘doxastic’ condition: emissor believes
…CANCELLATION: “I know perfectly well where she is, but I want you to find out
for yourself.”TRY THREE OTHER IDEAS.Within the discursus he gives SIX (a
sextet) other examples, of the philosophical type, because he is implicating
the above are NOT of the really of philosophical type, hence his reference to
‘ordinary parlance.’ He points out that he has no doubt there are other
candidates besides his sextet.FIRST IN THE SEXTETEXPLICITLY CONVEYED: “You
cannot see a knife as a knife, though you may see what is not a knife as a
knife.”IMPLICITLY CONVEYED: “”AS” REQUIRES A GESTALT.”CANCELLATION: “I see the
horse as a horse, because my gestalt is mine.”TRY THREE OTHER IDEASSECOND IN
THE SEXTET:EXPLICITLY CONVEYED:“When Moore said he knew that the objects before
him were human hands, he was guilty of misusing the word "know".”IMPLICITLY
CONVEYED: “You can only use ‘know’ for ‘difficult cases.’CANCELLATION: “If I
know that p iff I believe that p, p, and p causes my belief in p, I know that
the objects before me are human hands.”TRY THREE OTHER IDEAS.THIRD IN THE
SEXTETEXPLICITLY CONVEYED: “For an occurrence to be properly said to have a
‘cause,’ the occurrence must be something abnormal or unusual.”IMPLICILTY
CONVEYED: “Refrain from using ‘cause’ when the thing is normal and usual.”CANCELLATION:
“If I see that the pillar box is red iff the pillar box seems red, the pillar
box is red, and the pillar box being red causes the pillar box seeming red, the
cause of the pillar box seeming red is that the pillar box is red.”TRY OTHER
THREE IDEAS.FOURTH IN THE SEXTET: EXPLICITLY
CONVEYED: “For an action to be properly described as one for which the agent is
responsible, it must be the sort of action for which people are condemned.”IMPLICITLY
CONVEYED: “Refrain ascribing ‘responsibility’ to Timmy having cleaned up his
bedroom.”CANCELLATION: “Timmy is very responsible. He engages in an action for
which people are not condemned.”TRY THREE OTHER IDEAS.FIFTH IN THE SEXTET:EXPLICITLY
CONVEYED: “What is actual is not also possible.”IMPLICITLY CONVEYED: “There is
a realm of possibilities which does not overlap with the realm of
actualities.”CANCELLATION: “If p is actual iff p obtains in world w1, and p is
possible iff p obtains in any world wn which includes w1, p is possible.”TRY
THREE OTHER IDEAS.SIXTH IN THE SEXTETEXPLICITLY CONVEYED: “What is known by me
to be the case is not also believed by me to be the case.”IMPLICITLY CONVEYED:
“To know is magical!”CANCELLATION: “If I know that p iff I believe that p, p,
and p causes my believing that p, then what is known by me to be the case is
also believed by me to be the case.”TRY THREE OTHER IDEAS.CASE IN QUESTION:EXPLICITLY
CONVEYED: “The pillar box seems red.”IMPLICITLY CONVEYED: “One will doubt it
is.”CANCELLATION: “The pillar box seems red and I hope no one doubt it is.”TRY
THREE OTHER IDEAS. THAT LISTING became commonplace for Grice. In
ProlegomenaGROUP A: EXAMPLE I: RYLE on ‘voluntarily’ and “involuntarily” in
“The Concept of Mind.” RYLE WAS LISTENING! BUT GRICE WAS without reach! Grice
would nothavecriticised Ryle at a shorter distance.EXAMPLE II: MALCOLM IN
“Defending common sense” in the Philosophical Review, on Moore’s misuse of
‘know’ – also in Causal, above, as second in the sextet.EXPLICITLY CONVEYED:“When
Moore said he knew that the objects before him were human hands, he was guilty
of misusing the word "know".REPHRASE IN “PROLEGOMENA.”IMPLICITLY
CONVEYED: “You can only use ‘know’ for ‘difficult cases.’CANCELLATION: “If I
know that p iff I believe that p, p, and p causes my belief in p, I know that
the objects before me are human hands.”EXAMPLE III: BENJAMIN ON BROAD ON THE
“SENSE” OF “REMEMBERING”EXPLICITLY CONVEYED;IMPLICITLY CONVEYEDCANCELLATIONEXAMPLES,
GROUP A, CLASS IV: philosophy of perception FIRST EXAMPLE: Witters on ‘seeing
as’ in Philosophical InvestigationsEXPLICITLY CONVEYEDIMPLICITLY
CONVEYEDCANCELLATION.Previously used in Causal as first in the sextet: FIRST IN
THE SEXTETEXPLICITLY CONVEYED: “You cannot see a knife as a knife, though you
may see what is not a knife as a knife.”Rephrased in Prolegomena. IMPLICITLY
CONVEYED: “”AS” REQUIRES A GESTALT.”CANCELLATION: “I see the horse as a horse,
because my gestalt is mine.”GROUP A – CLASS IV – PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTIONEXAMPLE
II – “The pillar box seems red to me.”Used in“Causal”EXPLICITLY CONVEYED: “The
pillar box seems red.”IMPLICITLY CONVEYED: “One will doubt it is.”CANCELLATION:
“The pillar box seems red and I hope no one doubt it is.”GROUP A – CLASS V –
PHILOSOPHY OF ACTION – Here unlike Class IV, he uses (a), etc.EXAMPLE A: WITTERS
AND OTHERS on ‘trying’ EXPLICITLY CONVEYEDIMPLICITLY CONVEYED:CANCELLATIONGROUP
A – CLASS V – “ACTION,” not ‘philosophy of action’ – cf. ‘ordinary
parlance.’EXAMPLE B: Hart on ‘carefully.’EXPLICITLY CONVEYEDIMPLICITLY CONVEYEDCANCELLATION GROUP
A – CLASS V – ACTIONEXAMPLE C: Austin in “A plea for excuses” on ‘voluntarily’
and ‘involuntarily’ – a refinement on Ryle above – using variable “Mly” – Grice
would not have criticised Austin in the play group. He rather took it against
his tutee, Strawson.EXPLICITLY CONVEYED
IMPLICITLY
CONVEYEDCANCELLATIONGROUP B: syncategorema – not lettered butFIRST EXAMPLE:
“AND” (not ‘not’)SECOND EXAMPLE: “OR”THIRD EXAMPLE: “IF” – particularly
relevant under ‘implication.’ STRAWSON, Introduction to logical theory.GRICE’S
PHRASING: “if p, q” ENTAILS ‘p horseshoe q.’ The reverse does not hold: it is
not the case that ‘p horseshoe q’ ENTAILS ‘if p, q’. Odd way of putting it, but
it was all from Strawson. It may be argued that ‘entail’ belongs in a system,
and ‘p horseshoe q’ and ‘if p, q’ are DISPARATE. Grice quotes verbatim from
Strawson:a ‘primary or standard’ use of “if …
then …,” or “if,” of which the main characteristics were: that for each
hypothetical statement made by this use of “if,” there could be made just one
statement which would be the antecedent of the hypothetical and just onestatement
which would be its consequent; that the hypothetical statement is acceptable
(true, reasonable) if the antecedent statement, if made or accepted, would, in
the circumstances, be a good ground or reason for accepting the consequent
statement; and that the making of the hypothetical statement carries the implicationeither
of uncertainty about, or of disbelief in, the fulfilment of both antecedent and
consequent.Grice rephrases that by stating that for Grice “a primary or
standard use of ‘if, then’” is characterised as follows:“for each hypothetical
statement made by this use of “if,” there could be made just one statement
which would be the antecedent of the hypothetical and just one statement which
would be its consequent; that the hypothetical statement is acceptable (true,
reasonable) if the antecedent statement, if made or accepted, would, in the
circumstances, be a good ground or reason for accepting the consequent
statement; and that the making of the hypothetical statement carries the
implication either of uncertainty about, or of disbelief in, the fulfilment of
both antecedent and consequent.”Grice rephrases the characterisation as from
“each” and eliding a middle part, but Grice does not care to add the fastidious
“[…],” or quote, unquote.“each hypothetical ‘statement’ made by this use of
“if” is acceptable (TRUE, reasonable) if the antecedent ‘statement,’ IF made or
accepted, would, in the circumstances, be a good ground or reason for accepting
the consequent ‘statement;’ and that the making of thehypothetical statement
carries the implication either of uncertainty about, or of disbelief in, the
fulfilment of both antecedent and consequent.
“A hypothetical, or conditional ‘statement’ or composite proposition
such as “If it is day, I talk”is acceptable (or TRUE, or ‘reasonable’) if (but
not only if), first, the antecedent ‘statement,’ ‘It is day,’ IF made on its
own, or accepted on its own, i. e. simpliciter, would, in the circumstances, be
a good ground or ‘reason’ for accepting the consequent ‘statement,’ to wit: “I
talk;” and, second, that the making of the conditional proposition or hypothetical
‘statement’ carries the implication, or rather the emissor of the emissum
IMPLIES, either it is not the case that the emissor is CERTAIN about or that it
is day and CERTAIN about or that he talks, or BELIEVES that it is day and
BELIEVES that he talks.”More or less Grice’s denial or doubt. Or rather ‘doubt’
(Strawson’s ‘uncertainty about’) or denial (‘disbelief in’). But it will do at
this point to explore the argument by Strawson to which Grice is responding.
First two comments. Strawson has occasion to respond to Grice’s response in
more than one opportunity. But Grice never took up the issue again in a
detailed fashion – after dedicating a full lecture to it. One occasion was
Strawson’s review of the reprint of Grice in 1989. Another is in the BA
memorial. The crucial one is repr. by Strawson (in a rather otiose way) in his
compilation, straight from PGRICE. This is an essay which Strawson composed
soon after the delivery by Grice of the lecture without consulting. Once
Stawson is aware of Grice’s terminology, he is ready to frame his view in
Grice’s terms: for Strawson, there IS an implicaturum, but it is a conventional
one. His analogy is with the ‘asserted’ “therefore” or “so.” Since this for
Grice was at least the second exemplar of his manoeuvre, it will do to revise
the argument from which Grice extracts the passage in “Prolegomena.” In the
body of the full lecture IV, Grice does not care to mention Strawson at all; in
fact, he makes rather hasty commentaries generalising on both parties of the
debate: the formalists, who are now ‘blue-collared practitioners of the
sciences,” i. e. not philosophers like Grice and Strawson; and the informalists
or ‘traditionalists’ like Strawson who feel offended by the interlopers to the
tranquil Elysium of philosophy. Grice confesses a sympathy for the latter, of
course. So here is straight from the tranquil Elysium of philosophy. For
Strawson, the relations between “if” and “⊃”
have already, but only in part, been discussed (Ch. 2, S. 7).” So one may need
to review those passages. But now he has a special section that finishes up the
discussion which has been so far only partial. So Strawson resumes the points
of the previous partial discussion and comes up with the ‘traditionalist’
tenet. The sign “⊃” is called the material implication sign. Only by Whitehead
and Russell, that is, ‘blue-collared practitioners of the sciences,’ in Grice’s
wording. Whitehead and Russell think that ‘material’ is a nice opposite to
‘formal,’ and ‘formal implication’ is something pretty complex that only they
know to which it refers! Strawson goes on to explain, and this is a reminder of
his “Introduction” to his “Philosophical Logic” where he reprints Grice’s
Meaning (for some reason). There Strawson has a footnote quoting from Quine’s
“Methods of Logic,” where the phrasing is indeed about the rough phrase, ‘the
meaning of ‘if’’ – cf. Grice’s laughter at philosophers talking of ‘the sense
of ‘or’’ – “Why, one must should as well talk of the ‘sense’ of ‘to,’ or ‘of’!’
– Grice’s implicaturum is to O. P. Wood, whose claim to fame is for having
turned Oxford into the place where ‘the sense of ‘or’’ was the key issue with
which philosophers were engaged. Strawson goes on to say that its meaning is
given by the ‘rule’ that any statement of the form ‘p⊃q’ is FALSE in the case in which the first of its
constituent statements is true and the second false, and is true in every other
case considered in the system; i. e., the falsity of the first constituent
statement or the truth of the second are, equally, sufficient conditions of the
truth of a statement of material implication. The combination of truth in the
first with falsity in the second is the single, NECESSARY AND SUFFICIENT,
condition of its falsity. The standard or primary -- the importance of this
qualifying phrase, ‘primary,’ can scarcely be overemphasized – Grice omits this
bracket when he expolates the quote. The bracket continues. The place where
Strawson opens the bracket is a curious one: it is obvious he is talking about
the primary use of ‘if’. So here he continues the bracket with the observation
that there are uses of “if” which do not
answer to the description given here, or to any other descriptions given in
this [essay] -- use of “if” sentence, on the other hand [these are
Strawson’s two hands], are seen to be in circumstances where, not knowing
whether some statement which could be made by the use of a sentence
corresponding in a certain way to the sub-ordinated clause of the utterance is
true or not, or believing it to be false, the emissor nevertheless considers that
a step in reasoning from THAT statement to a statement related in a similar way
to the main clause would be a sound or reasonable step [a reasonable reasoning,
that is]; this statement related to the main clause also being one of whose
truth the emissor is in doubt, or which the emissor believes to be false. Even
in such circumstances as these a philosopher may sometimes hesitate to apply
‘true’ to a conditional or hypothetical statement, i.e., a statement which
could be made by the use of “if ”(Philo’s ‘ei,’ Cicero’s ‘si’) in its standard significance, preferring to
call a conditional statement reasonable or well-founded. But if the philosopher
does apply ‘true’ to an ‘if’ utterance at all, it will be in such circumstances
as these. Now one of the sufficient conditions of the truth of a ‘statement’ or
formula of material implication may very well be fulfilled without the
conditions for the truth, or reasonableness, of the corresponding hypothetical
or conditional statement being fulfilled. A statement of the form ‘p ⊃ q’ (where the horseshoe is meant to represent an inverted
‘c’ for ‘contentum’ or ‘consequutum’ -- does not entail the corresponding statement
of the ‘form’ “if p, q.” But if the emissor is prepared to accept the hypothetical
statement, he must in consistency be prepared to deny the conjunction of the
statement corresponding to the sub-ordinated clause of the sentence used to
make the hypothetical statement with the negation of the statement
corresponding to its main or super-ordinated clause. A statement of the ‘form’
“if p, q” does entail the corresponding statement of the form ‘p ⊃ q.’ The force of “corresponding” may need some elucidation.
Consider the following very ‘ordinary’ or ‘natural’ specimens of a hypothetical
sentence. Strawson starts with a totally unordinary subjective counterfactual
‘if,’ an abyss with Philo, “If it’s day, I talk.” Strawson surely involves The
Hun. ‘If the Germans had invaded England in 1940, they, viz. the Germans, would
have won the war.’ Because for the Germans, invading England MEANT winning the
war. They never cared much for Wales or Scotland, never mind Northern Ireland.
Possibly ‘invaded London’ would suffice. Strawson’s second instantiation again
is the odd subjective counter-factual ‘if,’ an abyss or chasm from Philo, ‘If
it’s day, I talk.’ “If Smith were in charge, half the staff would have been
dismissed.’ Strawson is thinking Noel Coward, who used to make fun of the
music-hall artist Wade. “If you WERE the only girl in the world, and I WAS the
only boy…’. The use of ‘were’ is Oxonian. A Cockney is forbidden to use it,
using ‘was’ instead. The rationale is Philonian. ‘was’ is indicative. “If Smith were in charge, half the staff
would have been dismissed.’ Strawson’s third instantiation is, at last, more or
less Philonian, a plain indicative ‘weather’ protasis, etc. “If it rains, the
match will be cancelled.” The only reservation Philo would have is ‘will’.
Matches do not have ‘will,’ and the sea battle may never take place – the world
may be destroyed by then. “If it rains, the match will be cancelled.” Or “If it
rains, the match is cancelled – but there is a ‘rain date.’” The sentence which
could be used to make a statement corresponding in the required ‘sense’ to the
sub-ordinate clause can be ascertained by considering what it is that the
emissor of each hypothetical sentence must (in general) be assumed either to be
in doubt about or to believe to be not the case. Thus, the corresponding
sentences. ‘The Germans invaded England in 1940.’ Or ‘The Germans invade
England’ – historical present -- ‘The Germans won the war.’ Or ‘The Germans win
the war’ – historical present. ‘Smith is in charge.’ ‘Half the staff has been
dismissed.’ Or ‘Half the staff is dismissed.’ ‘It will rain.’ Or ‘It
rains.’‘The match will be cancelled.’ Or ‘The match is cancelled.’ A sentence could
be used to make a statement of material implication corresponding to the
hypothetical statement made by the
sentence is framed, in each case, from these pairs of sentences as
follows. ‘The Germans invaded England in 1940 ⊃
they won the war.’ Or in the historical present,’The Germans invade London ⊃ The Germans win the war. ‘ ‘Smith is in charge ⊃ half the staff has been, dismissed.’ Or in the present
tense, ‘Smith is in charge ⊃ half the staff is dismissed.’ ‘ It
will rain ⊃ the match will be cancelled.’ Or in the present ‘It rains ⊃ the match is cancelled.’ The very fact that a few verbal modifications
are necessary to please the Oxonian ear, in order to obtain from the clauses of
the hypothetical sentence the clauses of the corresponding material implication
sentence is itself a symptom of the radical difference between a hypothetical
statement and a truth-functional statement. Some detailed differences are also
evident from these instantiations. The falsity of a statement made by the use
of ‘The Germans invade London in 1940’ or ‘Smith is in charge’ is a sufficient
condition of the truth of the corresponding statements made by the use of the ⊃-utterances. But not, of course, of the corresponding
statement made by the use of the ‘if’ utterance. Otherwise, there would
normally be no point in using an ‘if’ sentence at all.An ‘if’ sentence would
normally carry – but not necessarily: one may use the pluperfect or the
imperfect subjunctive when one is simply working out the consequences of an
hypothesis which one may be prepared eventually to accept -- in the tense or
mode of the verb, an implication (or implicaturum) of the emissor’s belief in
the FALSITY of the statements corresponding to the clauses of the hypothetical.That
it is not the case that it rains is sufficient to verify (or truth-functionally
confirm) a statement made by the use of “⊃,”
but not a statement made by the use of ‘if.’ That it is not the case that it
rains is also sufficient to verify (or truth-functionally confirm) a statement
made by the use of ‘It will rain ⊃
the match will not be cancelled.’ Or ‘It rains ⊃
the match is cancelled.’ The formulae ‘p ⊃
q’ and ‘p ⊃ ~ q' are consistent with one another.The joint assertion of
corresponding statements of these forms is equivalent to the assertion of the
corresponding statement of the form ‘~ p.’ But, and here is one of Philo’s
‘paradoxes’: “If it rains, the match will be cancelled” (or ‘If it rains, the
match is cancelled’) seems (or sounds) inconsistent with “If it rains, the match
will not be cancelled,’ or ‘If it rains, it is not the case that the match is
cancelled.’But here we add ‘not,’ so Philo explains the paradox away by noting
that his account is meant for ‘pure’ uses of “ei,” or “si.”Their joint assertion
in the same context sounds self-contradictory. But cf. Philo, who wisely said
of ‘If it is day, it is night’ “is true only at night.”
(Diog. Laert. Repr. in Long, The Hellenistic Philosophers). Suppose we call the statement corresponding to the
sub-ordinated clause of a sentence used to make a hypothetical statement the
antecedent of the hypothetical statement; and the statement corresponding to
the super-ordinated clause, its consequent. It is sometimes fancied that, whereas
the futility of identifying a conditional ‘if’ statement with material
implication is obvious in those cases where the implication of the falsity of
the antecedent is normally carried by the mode or tense of the verb – as in “If
the Germans invade London in 1940, they, viz. the Germans, win the war’ and ‘If
Smith is in charge, half the staff is dismissed’ -- there is something to be
said for at least a PARTIAL identification in cases where no such implication
is involved, i.e., where the possibility of the truth of both antecedent and
consequent is left open – as in ‘If it rains, the match is cancelled.’ In cases
of the first kind (an ‘unfulfilled,’ counterfactual, or ‘subjunctive’
conditional) the intended addressee’s attention is directed, as Grice taught J.
L. Mackie, in terms of the principle of conversational helpfulness, ONLY TO THE
LAST TWO ROWS of the truth-tables for ‘ p ⊃
q,’ where the antecedent has the truth-value, falsity. Th suggestion that ‘~p’ ‘entails’
‘if p, q’ is felt or to be or ‘sounds’ – if not to Philo’s or Grice’s ears -- obviously
wrong. But in cases of the second kind
one inspects also the first two ROWS. The possibility of the antecedent's being
fulfilled is left open. It is claimed that it is NOT the case that the
suggestion that ‘p ⊃ q’ ‘entails’ ‘if p, q’ is felt to be or sound obviously
wrong, to ANYBODY, not just the bodies of Grice and Philo. This Strawson calls,
to infuriate Grice, ‘an illusion,’ ‘engendered by a reality.’The fulfilment of
both antecedent and consequent of a hypothetical statement does not show that
the man who made the hypothetical statement is right. It is not the case that
the man would be right, Strawson claims, if the consequent is made true as a
result of this or that factor unconnected with, or in spite of, rather than ‘because’
of, the fulfilment of the antecedent. E.
g. if Grice’s unmissable match is missed because the Germans invade – and not
because of the ‘weather.’ – but cf. “The weather in the streets.” Strawson is prepared
to say that the man (e. g., Grice, or Philo) who makes the hypothetical
statement is right only if Strawson is also prepared to say that the antecedent
being true is, at least in part, the ‘explanation’ of the consequent being
true. The reality behind the illusion Strawson naturally finds ‘complex,’ for
surely there ain’t one! Strawson thinks that this is due to two phenomena. First,
Strawson claims, in many cases, the fulfilment of both antecedent and
consequent provides confirmation for the view that the existence of states of
affairs like those described by the antecedent IS a good ‘reason’ for expecting
(alla Hume, assuming the uniformity of nature, etc.) a states of affair like
that described by the consequent. Second, Starwson claims, a man (e. g. Philo,
or Grice) who (with a straight Grecian or Griceian face) says, e. g. ‘If it
rains, the match is cancelled’ makes a bit of a prediction, assuming the
‘consequent’ to be referring to t2>t1 – but cf. if he is reporting an event
taking place at THE OTHER PLACE. The prediction Strawson takes it to be ‘The
match is cancelled.’And the man is making the prediction ONLY under what
Strawson aptly calls a “proviso,” or “caveat,” – first used by Boethius to
translate Aristotle -- “It rains.” Boethius’s terminology later taken up by the
lawyers in Genoa. mid-15c., from Medieval Latin proviso (quod) "provided
(that)," phrase at the beginning of clauses in legal documents (mid-14c.),
from Latin proviso "it
being provided," ablative neuter of provisus, past participle
of providere (see provide).
Related: Provisory. And that the cancellation of the match because of the rain
therefore leads us to say, not only that the reasonableness of the prediction
was confirmed, but also that the prediction itself was confirmed. Because it is not the case that a statement of
the form ‘ p ⊃ q’ entails the corresponding statement of the form ' if p, q
' (in its standard employment), Strawson thinks he can find a divergence
between this or that ‘rule’ for '⊃'
and this or that ‘rule’ for '’if ,’ in its standard employment. Because ‘if p, q’
does entail ‘p ⊃ q,’ we shall also expect to find some degree of parallelism
between the rules. For whatever is entailed by ‘p ⊃ q’ is entailed by ‘if p, q,’ though not everything which
entails ‘p ⊃ q’ does Strawson claims, entail ‘if p, q.’ Indeed, we find further parallels than those
which follow simply from the facts that ‘if p, q’ entails ‘p ⊃ q’ and that entailment is transitive. To some laws for ‘⊃,’ Strawson finds no parallels for ‘if.’ Strawson notes that
for at least four laws for ‘⊃,’ we find that parallel laws ‘hold’
good for ‘if. The first law is mentioned by Grice, modus ponendo ponens, as
elimination of ‘⊃.’ Strawson does not consider the introduction of the
horseshoe, where p an q forms a collection of all active
assumptions previously introduced which could have been used in the deduction
of ‘if p, q.’ When inferring ‘if p, q’ one is allowed to discharge
assumptions of the form p. The fact that after deduction of ‘if p, q’
this assumption is discharged (not active is pointed out by using [ ] in
vertical notation, and by deletion from the set of assumptions in horizontal
notation. The latter notation shows better the character of the rule; one
deduction is transformed into the other. It shows also that the rule for
the introduction of ‘if’ corresponds to an important metatheorem, the
Deduction Theorem, which has to be proved in axiomatic formalizations of logic. But back to the elimination of ‘if’. Modus ponendo ponens.
‘‘((p ⊃ q).p) ⊃ q.’ For some reason, Strawson here mixes horseshoes and ifs
as if Boethius is alive! Grice calls these “half-natural, half-artificial.’ Chomsky
prefers ‘semi-native.’ ‘(If p, q, and p) ⊃q.’
Surely what Strawson wants is a purely ‘if’ one, such as ‘If, if p, q, and p,
q.’ Some conversational implicaturum! As
Grice notes: “Strawson thinks that one can converse using his converses, but we
hardly.’ The second law. Modus tollendo tollens. ‘((p⊃q). ~ q)) ⊃ (~ p).’ Again, Strawson uses a
‘mixed’ formula: (if p, q, and it is not the case that q) ⊃ it is not the case that p. Purely unartificial: If, if p,
q, and it is not the case that q, it is not the case that p. The third law,
which Strawson finds problematic, and involves an operator that Grice does not even
consider. ‘(p ⊃ q) ≡ (~ q ⊃
~ p). Mixed version, Strawson simplifies ‘iff’ to ‘if’ (in any case, as Pears
notes, ‘if’ IMPLICATES ‘iff.’). (If p, q) ⊃
if it is not the case that q, it is not the case that p. Unartificial: If, if
p, q, it is not the case that if q, it is not the case that p. The fourth law. ((p
⊃ q).(q ⊃ r)) ⊃ (p ⊃ r). Mixed: (if p, q, and if q, r) ⊃ (if p, r). Unartificial: ‘If, if p, q, and if q, r, if p,
r.’ Try to say that to Mrs. Grice! (Grice: “It’s VERY SURPRISING that Strawson
think we can converse in his lingo!”). Now Strawson displays this or that
‘reservation.’ Mainly it is an appeal to J. Austen and J. Austin. Strawson’s implicaturum
is that Philo, in Megara, has hardly a right to unquiet the tranquil Elysium.
This or that ‘reservation’ by Strawson takes TWO pages of his essay. Strawson
claims that the reservations are important. It is, e. g., often impossible to
apply entailment-rule (iii) directly without obtaining incorrect or absurd
results. Some modification of the structure of the clauses of the hypothetical
is commonly necessary. Alas, Whitehead and Russell give us little guide as to
which modifications are required. If we
apply rule (iii) to our specimen hypothetical sentences, without modifying at
all the tenses or moods of the individual clauses, we obtain expressions which
Austin would not call ‘ordinary language,’ or Austen, for that matter, if not
Macaulay. If we preserve as nearly as
possible the tense-mode structure, in the simplest way consistent with
grammatical requirements, we obtain this or that sentence. TOLLENDO TOLLENS. ‘If
it is not the case that the Germans win the war, it is not the case that they,
viz. the Germans, invade England in 1940.’ ‘If it is not the case that half the
staff is dismissed, it is not the case that Smith is in charge.’ ‘If it is not
the case that the match is cancelled, it is not the case that it rains.’ But,
Strawson claims, these sentences, so far from SOUNDING or seeming logically
equivalent to the originals, have in each case a quite different ‘sense.’ It is
possible, at least in some cases, to frame, via tollendo tollens a target
setence of more or less the appropriate pattern for which one can imagine a use
and which DOES stand in the required relationship to the source sentence. ‘If it
is not the case that the Germans win the war, (trust) it is not the case that
they, viz. the Germans, invade England in 1940,’ with the attending imlicatum:
“only because they did not invade England in 1940.’ or even, should historical
evidence be scanty). ‘If it is not the case that the Germans win the war, it
SURELY is not the case that they, viz. the Germans, invade London in 1940.’ ‘If
it is not the case that half the staff is dismissed, it surely is not the case
that Smith is in charge.’ These changes reflect differences in the
circumstances in which one might use these, as opposed to the original,
sentences. The sentence beginning ‘If
Smith is in charge …’ is normally, though not necessarily, used by a man who
antecedently knows that it is not the case that Smith is in charge. The
sentence beginning ‘If it is not the case that half the staff is dismissed …’ is normally, though not necessarily, used by
by a man who is, as Cook Wilson would put it, ‘working’ towards the ‘consequent’
conclusion that Smith is not in charge. To
say that the sentences are nevertheless truth-functionally equivalent seems to
point to the fact that, given the introduction rule for ‘if,’ the grounds for
accepting the original ‘if’-utterance AND the ‘tollendo tollens’ correlatum, would,
in two different scenarios, have been grounds for accepting the soundness or
validity of the passage or move from a premise ‘Smith is in charge’ to its
‘consequentia’ ‘consequutum,’ or ‘conclusion,’ ‘Half the staff is dismissed.’ One
must remember that calling each formula (i)-(iv) a LAW or a THEOREM is the same
as saying that, e.g., in the case of (iii), ‘If p, q’ ‘ENTAILS’ ‘If it is not
the case that q, it is not the case that p.’ Similarly, Strawson thinks, for
some steps which would be invalid for ‘if,’ there are corresponding steps that
would be invalid for ‘⊃.’ He gives two example using a symbol Grice does not
consider, for ‘therefore,’ or ‘ergo,’ and lists a fallacy. First example. ‘(p ⊃ q).q ∴ p.’ Second example of a fallacy:‘(p ⊃ q). ~p ∴
~q.’ These are invalid
inference-patterns, and so are the correlative patterns with ‘if’: ‘If p, q; and
q ∴ p’ ‘If p, q; and it is not the case
that p ∴
it is not the case that q. The formal analogy here may be described
by saying that neither ‘p ⊃ q’ nor ‘if p, q’ is
a simply convertible (“nor hardly conversable” – Grice) formula. Strawson
thinks, and we are getting closer to Philo’s paradoxes, revisied, that there
may be this or that laws which holds for ‘p ⊃
q’ and not for ‘If p, q.’ As an example
of a law which holds for ‘if’ but not for ‘⊃,’
one may give an analytic formula. ~[(if p, q) . (if p, it is not the case that
q)]’. The corresponding formula with the horseshoe is not analytic. ‘~[(p ⊃ q) . (p ⊃ ~q)]’ is not analytic, and is
equivalent to the contingent formula ‘~ ~p.’ The rules to the effect that this
or that formula is analytic is referred to by Johnson, in the other place, as
the ‘paradox of implication.’ This Strawson finds a Cantabrigian misnomer. If Whitehead’s
and Russell’s ‘⊃’ is taken as identical either with Moore’s ‘entails’ or, more
widely, with Aelfric’s‘if’ – as in his
“Poem to the If,” MSS Northumberland – “If” meant trouble in Anglo-Saxon -- in
its standard use, the rules that yield this or that so-called ‘paradox’ -- are
not, for Strawson, “just paradoxical.” With an attitude, he adds. “They are
simply incorrect.”This is slightly illogical.“That’s not paradoxical; that’s
incorrect.”Cf. Grice, “What is paradoxical is not also incorrect.” And cf. Grice:
“Philo defines a ‘paradox’ as something that surprises _his father_.’ He is
‘using’ “father,” metaphorically, to refer to his tutor. His father was unknown
(to him). On the other hand (vide Strawson’s Two Hands), with signs you can
introduce alla Peirce and Johnson by way of ostensive definition any way you
wish! If ‘⊃’ is given the meaning it is given by what Grice calls the
‘truth-table definition,’ or ‘stipulation’ in the system of truth functions,
the rules and the statements they represent, may be informally dubbed
‘paradoxical,’ in that they don’t agree with the ‘man in the street,’ or ‘the
man on High.’ The so-called ‘paradox’ would be a simple and platitudinous
consequence of the meaning given to the symbol. Strawson had expanded on the
paradoxes in an essay he compiled while away from Oxford. On his return to
Oxford, he submitted it to “Mind,” under the editorship by G. Ryle, where it
was published. The essay concerns the ‘paradoxes’ of ‘entailment’ in detail,
and mentions Moore and C. I. Lewis. He makes use of modal operators, nec. and
poss. to render the ‘necessity’ behind ‘entail.’ He thinks the paradoxes of
‘entailment’ arise from inattention to this modality. At the time, Grice and
Strawson were pretty sure that nobody then accepted, if indeed anyone ever did
and did make, the identification of the relation symbolised by the horseshoe, ⊃, with the relation which Moore calls ‘entailment,’ p⊃q, i. e. The mere truth-functional ‘if,’ as in ‘p ⊃ q,’ ‘~(pΛ~q)’ is rejected as an analysis of the
meta-linguistic ‘p entails q.’ Strawson thinks that the identification is
rejected because ‘p ⊃ q’ involves this or that allegedly paradoxical implicaturum.Starwson
explicitly mentions ‘ex falso quodlibeet.’ Any FALSE proposition entails any
proposition, true or false. And any TRUE proposition is entailed by any
proposition, true or falso (consequentia mirabilis). It is a commonplace that
Lewis, whom Grice calls a ‘blue-collared practioner of the sciences,’
Strawson thinks, hardly solved the thing. The amendment by Lewis, for Strawson,
has consequences scarcely less paradoxical in terms of the implicatura. For if
p is impossible, i.e. self-contradictory, it is impossible that p and ~q.
And if q is necessary, ~q is impossible and it is impossible that p and ~q; i.
e., if p entails q means it is impossible that p and ~q any necessary
proposition is entailed by any proposition and any self-contradictory
proposition entails any proposition. On the other hand, the definition by Lewis
of ‘strict’ implication or entailment (i.e. of the relation which holds from p
to q whenever q is deducible from p), Strawson thinks, obviously commends
itself in some respects. Now, it is clear that the emphasis laid on the
expression-mentioning character of the intensional contingent statement by
writing ‘ ‘pΛ~q’ is impossible instead’ of ‘It is impossible that p and ~q’
does not avoid the alleged paradoxes of entailment. But, Starwson
optimistically thinks, it is equally clear that the addition of some provision
does avoid them. Strawson proposes that one should use “p entails q” such that
no necessary statement and no negation of a necessary statement can
significantly be said to “entail” or be entailed by any statement; i. e. the
function “p entails q” cannot take necessary or self-contradictory statements
as arguments. The expression “p entails q” is to be used to mean “ ‘p ⊃ q’ is necessary, and neither ‘p’ nor ‘q’ is either necessary
or self-contradictory.” Alternatively, “p entails q” should be used only to
mean “ ‘pΛ~q’ is impossible and neither ‘p’ nor ‘q,’ nor either of their
contradictories, is necessary. In this way, Strawson thinks the paradoxes are
avoided. Strawson’s proof. Let us assume that p1 expresses a contingent, and q1
a necessary, proposition. p1 and ~q1 is now impossible because ~q1 is
impossible. But q1 is necessary. So, by that provision, p1 does not entail q1.
We may avoid the paradoxical assertion “p1 entails q2” as merely falling into
the equally paradoxical assertion “ “p1 entails q1” is necessary.” For: If ‘q’ is
necessary, ‘q is necessary’ is, though true, not necessary, but a CONTINGENT
INTENSIONAL (Latinate) statement. This
becomes part of the philosophers lexicon: intensĭo, f. intendo, which L and S
render as a stretching out, straining, effort. E. g. oculorum, Scrib.
Comp. 255. Also an intensifying, increase. Calorem suum (sol) intensionibus ac
remissionibus temperando fovet,” Sen. Q. N. 7, 1, 3. The tune: “gravis, media,
acuta,” Censor. 12. Hence: ‘~ (‘q’ is necessary)’ is, though false,
possible. Hence “p1 Λ ~ (q1 is necessary)” is, though false, possible. Hence ‘p1’ does NOT entail ‘q1 is necessary.’ Thus,
by adopting the view that an entailment statement, and other intensional
statements, are contingent, viz. non-necessary, and that no necessary statement
or its contradictory can entail or be entailed by any statement, Strawson
thinks he can avoid the paradox that a necessary proposition is entailed by any
proposition, and indeed all the other associated paradoxes of entailment. Grice objects that the alleged cure by
Strawson is worse than disease of Moore! The denial that a necessary proposition can
entail or be entailed by any proposition, and, therefore, that necessary
propositions can be related to each other by the entailment relation, is too
high a price to pay for the solution of the paradoxes, which are perfectly true
utterances with only this or that attending cancellable implicaturum. Strawson’s
introduction of ‘acc.’ makes sense. Which makes sense in that Philo first
supplied his truth-functional account of ‘if’ to criticise his tutor Diodorus
on modality. Philo reported to Diodorus something he had heard from Neptune. In
dreams, Neptune appeared to Philo and told him: “I saw down deep in the waters
a wooden trunk of a plant that only grows under weather – algae -- The trunk
can burn!” Neptune said.Awakening, Philo ran to Diodorus: “A wooden trunk deep
down in the ocean can burn.” Throughout this section, Strawson refers to a
‘primary or standard’ use of ‘if,’ of which the main characteristics are
various. First, that for each hypothetical statement made by this use of ‘if,’ there
could be made just one statement which would be the antecedent of the
hypothetical and just one statement which would be its consequent. Second, that
the hypothetical statement is acceptable (true, reasonable) if the antecedent
statement, if made or accepted, would, in the circumstances, be a good ground
or reason for accepting the consequent statement. Third, the making of the
hypothetical statement carries the implication either of uncertainty about, or
of disbelief in, the fulfilment of both antecedent and consequent.’ This above
is the passage extrapolated by Grice. Grice does not care to report the
platitudionous ‘first’ ‘characteristic’ as Strawson rather verbosely puts it.
The way Grice reports it, it is not clear Strawson is listing THREE
characteristics. Notably, from the extrapolated quote, it would seem as if
Grice wishes his addressee to believe that Strawson thinks that characteristic
2 and characteristic 3 mix. On top, Grice omits a caveat immediately after the
passage he extrapolates. Strawso notes: “There is much more than this to be
said about this way of using ‘if;’ in particular, about the meaning of the
question whether the antecedent would be a GOOD ground or reason for accepting
the consequent, and about the exact way in which THIS question is related to
the question of whether the hypothetical is TRUE {acceptable, reasonable) or
not.’ Grice does not care to include a caveat by Strawson: “Not all uses of ‘if
,’ however, exhibit all these three characteristics.” In particular, there is a
use which has an equal claim to rank as standard ‘if’ and which is closely
connected with the use described, but which does not exhibit the first
characteristic and for which the description of the remainder must consequently
be modified. Strawson has in mind what
is sometimes called a ‘formal’ (by Whitehead and Russell) or 'variable' or
'general’ or ‘generic’ hypothetical. Strawson gives three examples. The first
example is ‘lf ice is left in the sun, it melts.’ This is Kantian. Cf. Grice on
indicative conditionals in the last Immanuel Kant Lecture. Grice: "It should
be, given that it is the case that one smears one's skin with peanut butter
before retiring and that it is the case that one has a relatively insensitive
skin, that it is the case that one preserves a youthful complexion." More
generally, there is some plausibility to the idea that an exemplar of the form
'Should (! E, ⊢F;
! G)' is true just in case a corresponding examplar of the form 'Should (⊢ F, ⊢G; ⊢E)' is true. Before
proceeding further, I will attempt to deal briefly with a possible objection
which might be raised at this point. I can end imagine an ardent descriptivist,
who first complains, in the face of someone who wishes to allow a legitimate
autonomous status to practical acceptability generalizations, that
truth-conditions for such generalizations are not available, and perhaps are in
principle not available; so such generalizations are not to be taken seriously.
We then point out to him that, at least for a class of such cases,
truth-conditions are available, and that they are to be found in related
alethic generalizations, a kind of generalization he accepts. He then complains
that, if finding truth-conditions involves representing the practical
acceptability generalizations as being true just in case related alethic
generalizations are true, then practical acceptability generalizations are
simply reducible to alethic generalizations, and so are not to be taken
seriously for another reason, namely, that they are simply transformations of
alethic generalizations, and we could perfectly well get on without them. Maybe
some of you have heard some ardent descriptivists arguing in a style not so
very different from this. Now a deep reply to such an objection would involve
(I think) a display of the need for a system of reasoning in which the value to
be transmitted by acceptable inference is not truth but practical value,
together with a demonstration of the role of practical acceptability
generalizations in such a system. I suspect that such a reply could be
constructed, but I do not have it at my fingertips (or tongue-tip), so I shall
not try to produce it. An interim reply, however, might take the following
form: even though it may be true (which is by no means certain) that certain
practical acceptability generalizations have the same truth-conditions as
certain corresponding alethic generalizations, it is not to be supposed that
the former generalizations are simply reducible to the latter (in some
disrespectful sense of 'reducible'). For though both kinds of generalization are defeasible, they are not defeasible in the same
way; more exactly, what is a defeating condition for a given practical
generalization is not a defeating condition for its alethic counterpart. A
generalization of the form 'should (! E, ⊢F; ! G)' may have, as a defeating condition, 'E*'; that is
to say, consistently with the truth of this generalization, it may be true that
'should (! E & ! E*, ⊢F;
! G*)' where 'G*' is
inconsistent with 'G'. But since, in the
alethic counterpart generalization 'should (⊢ F, ⊢G; ⊢E)', 'E' does not occur
in the antecedent, 'E*' cannot be a defeating end p.92 condition for this
generalization. And, since liability to defeat by a certain range of defeating
conditions is essential to the role which acceptability generalizations play in
reasoning, this difference between a practical generalization and its alethic
counterpart is sufficient to eliminate the reducibility of the former to the
latter. To return to the main theme of this section. If, without further ado,
we were to accept at this point the suggestion that 'should (! E, ⊢F; ! G)' is true just
in case 'should (⊢
F, ⊢G;
⊢E)'
is true, we should be accepting it simply on the basis of intuition (including,
of course, linguistic or logical intuition under the head of 'intuition'). If
the suggestion is correct then we should attain, at the same time, a stronger
assurance that it is correct and a better theoretical understanding of the
alethic and practical acceptability, if we could show why it is correct by
deriving it from some general principle(s). Kant, in fact, for reasons not
unlike these, sought to show the validity of a different but fairly closely
related Technical Imperative by just such a method. The form which he selects
is one which, in my terms, would be represented by "It is fully
acceptable, given let it be that B, that let it be that A" or "It is
necessary, given let it be that B, that let it be that A". Applying this
to the one fully stated technical imperative given in Grundlegung, we get
Kant’s hypothetical which is of the type Strawson calls ‘variable,’ formal,
‘generic,’ or ‘generic.’ Kant: “It is necessary, given let it be that one
bisect a line on an unerring principle, that let it be that I draw from its
extremities two intersecting arcs". Call this statement, (α). Though he
does not express himself very clearly, I am certain that his claim is that this
imperative is validated in virtue of the fact that it is, analytically, a
consequence of an indicative statement which is true and, in the present
context, unproblematic, namely, the statement vouched for by geometry, that if
one bisects a line on an unerring principle, then one does so only as a result
of having drawn from its extremities two intersecting arcs. Call this
statement, (β). His argument seems to be expressible as follows. (1) It is
analytic that he who wills the end (so far as reason decides his conduct),
wills the indispensable means thereto. (2) So it is analytic that (so far as
one is rational) if one wills that A, and judges that if A, then A as a result
of B, then one wills that B. end p.93 (3) So it is analytic that (so far as one
is rational) if one judges that if A, then A as a result of B, then if one
wills that A then one wills that B. (4) So it is analytic that, if it is true
that if A, then A as a result of B, then if let it be that A, then it must be
that let it be that B. From which, by substitution, we derive (5): it is
analytic that if β then α. Now it seems to me to be meritorious, on Kant's
part, first that he saw a need to justify hypothetical imperatives of this
sort, which it is only too easy to take for granted, and second that he invoked
the principle that "he who wills the end, wills the means";
intuitively, this invocation seems right. Unfortunately, however, the step from
(3) to (4) seems open to dispute on two different counts. (1) It looks as if an
unwarranted 'must' has appeared in the consequent of the conditional which is
claimed, in (4), as analytic; the most that, to all appearances, could be
claimed as being true of the antecedent is that 'if let it be that A then let
it be that B'. (2) (Perhaps more serious.) It is by no means clear by what
right the psychological verbs 'judge' and 'will', which appear in (3), are
omitted in (4); how does an (alleged) analytic connection between (i) judging
that if A, A as a result of B and (ii) its being the case that if one wills
that A then one wills that B yield an analytic connection between (i) it's
being the case that if A, A as a result of B and (ii) the 'proposition' that if
let it be that A then let it be that B? Can the presence in (3) of the phrase
"in so far as one is rational" legitimize this step? I do not know
what remedy to propose for the first of these two difficulties; but I will
attempt a reconstruction of Kant's line of argument which might provide relief
from the second. It might, indeed, even be an expansion of Kant's actual
thinking; but whether or not this is so, I am a very long way from being
confident in its adequacy. Back to
Strawson. First example: ‘lf ice is left
in the sun, it melts.’Or “If apple goes up, apple goes down.” – Newton,
“Principia Mathematica.” “If ice is left in the sun, it, viz. ice, melts.” Strawson’s
second example of a formal, variable, generic, or general ‘if’ ‘If the side of
a triangle is produced, the exterior angle is equal to the sum of the two interior
and opposite angles.’ Cf. Kant: “If a line on an unerring principle
is bisected, two intersecting arcs are drawn from its extremities.” Synthetical
propositions must no doubt be employed in defining the means to a proposed end;
but they do not concern the principle, the act of the will, but the object and
its realization. E.g., that in order to bisect a line on an unerring principle
I must draw from its extremities two intersecting arcs; this no doubt is taught
by mathematics only in synthetical propositions; but if I know that it is only
by this process that the intended operation can be performed, then to say that,
if I fully will the operation, I also will the action required for it, is an
analytical proposition; for it is one and the same thing to conceive something
as an effect which I can produce in a certain way, and to conceive myself as
acting in this way. Strawson’s third example: ‘If a child is very strictly disciplined
in the nursery, it, viz. the child, that should be seen but not heard, will
develop aggressive tendencies in adult life.’ To a statement made by the use of
a sentence such as these there corresponds no single pair of statements which
are, respectively, its antecedent and consequent. On the other hand, for every such statement
there is an indefinite number of NON-general, or not generic, hypothetical
statements which might be called exemplifications, applications, of the
variable hypothetical; e.g., a statement made by the use of the sentence ‘If
THIS piece of ice is left in the sun, it, viz. this piece, melts.’Strawson,
about to finish his section on “ ‘⊃’
and ‘if’,” – the expression, ‘’ ⊃’ and ‘if’” only occurs in the
“Table of Contents,” on p. viii, not in the body of the essay, as found
redundant – it is also the same title Strawson used for his essay which
circulated (or ‘made the rounds’) soon after Grice delivered his attack on
Strawson, and which Strawson had, first, the cheek to present it to PGRICE, and
then, voiding the idea of a festschrift, reprint it in his own compilation of
essays. -- from which Grice extracted the quote for “Prolegomena,” notes that
there are two ‘relatively uncommon uses of ‘if.’‘If he felt embarrassed, he
showed no signs of it.’It is this example that Grice is having in mind in the
fourth lecture on ‘indicative conditionals.’ “he didn’t show it.”Grice is giving an instantiation
of an IMPLICIT, or as he prefers, ‘contextual,’ cancellation of the implicaturum
of ‘if.’ He does this to show that even
if the implicaturum of ‘if’ is a ‘generalised,’ not ‘generic,’ or ‘general,’
one, it need not obtain or be present in every PARTICULAR case. “That is why I
use the weakened form ‘generalISED, not general. It’s all ceteris paribus
always with me).” The example Grice gives corresponds to the one Strawson
listed as one of the two ‘relatively uncommon’ uses of ‘if.’ By sticking with
the biscuit conditional, Grice is showing Strawson that this use is ‘relatively
uncommon’ because it is absolutely otiose!
“If he was surprised, he didn’t show it.”Or cf. AustinIf you are hungry,
there are. Variants by Grice on his own example:“If Strawson was surprised, he
did not show it.”“If he was surprised, it is not the case that Strawson showed
it, viz. that he was surprised.”Grice (on the phone with Strawson’s friend) in
front of Strawson – present tense version:“If he IS surprised, it is not th
case that he, Strawson, is showing it, viz. the clause that he is surprised.
Are you implicating he SHOULD?”and a second
group:‘If Rembrandt passes the exam at the Koninklijke Academie van
Beeldende Kunsten, I am a Dutchman.’‘If the Mad Hatter
is not mad, I'll eat my hat.’(as opposed to ‘If the Mad Hatter IS mad, I’ll eat
HIS hat.’)Hats were made at Oxford in a previous generation, by mad ‘hatters.’
“To eat one’s hat,” at Oxford, became synonymous with ‘I’ll poison myself and
die.’ The reason of the prevalence of Oxonian ‘lunatic’ hatters is chemical. Strawson
is referring to what he calls an ‘old wives’ tale’As every
grandmother at Oxford knows, the chemicals used in hat-making include
mercurious nitrate, which is used in ‘curing’ felt. Now exposure to the mercury
vapours cause mercury poisoning. Or, to use an ‘if’: “If Kant is exposed to
mercury vapour, Kant gets poisoned. A poisoned victim develops a severe and uncontrollable muscular
tremors and twitching limbs, distorted vision and confused speech, hallucinations
and psychosis, if not death. For a time, it was at Oxford believed that a
wearer of a hat could similarly die, especially by eating the felt containing
the mercurial nitrate. The sufficient and necessary
condition of the truth of a statement made by “If he was surprised, it is not
the case that Strawson showed it, viz. that he was surprised” is that it is not
the case that Strawson showed that he was surprised. The antecedent is otiose.
Cf. “If you are hungry, there are biscuits in the cupboard.’ Austin used to
expand the otiose antecedent further, ‘If you are hungry – AND EVEN IF YOU ARE
NOT – there are biscuits in the cupboard,” just in case someone was ignorant of
Grice’s principle of conversational helpfulness. Consequently, Strawson claims
that such a statement cannot be treated either as a standard hypothetical or as
a material implication. This is funny because by the time Grice is criticizing
Strawson he does take “If Strawson is surprised, it is not the case that he is
showing it, viz. that he is surprised.” But when it comes to “Touch the beast
and it will bite you” he is ready to say that here we do not have a case of
‘conjunction.’Why? Stanford.Stanford is the answer.Grice had prepared the text
to deliver at Stanford, of all places. Surely, AT STANFORD, you don’t want to
treat your addressee idiotically. What Grice means is:“Now let us consider
‘Touch the beast and it will bite you.’ Symbolise it: !p et !q. Turn it into
the indicative: You tell your love and love bites you (variant on William
Blake).” Grice: “One may object to the
use of ‘p.q’ on Whiteheadian grounds. Blue-collared practitioners of the
sciences will usually proclaim that they do not care about the ‘realisability’
of this or that operator. In fact, the very noun, ‘realisability,’ irritated me
so that I coined non-detachability as a balance. The blue-collared scientist
will say that ‘and’ is really Polish, and should be PRE-FIXED as an “if,” or
condition, or proviso. So that the conjunction becomes “Provided you tell your
love, love bites you.”Strawson gives his reason about the ‘implicaturum’ of
what P. L. Gardiner called the ‘dutchman’ ‘if,’ after G. F. Stout’s “
‘hat-eating’ if.” Examples of the second
kind are sometimes erroneously treated as evidence that Philo was not crazy,
and that ‘if’ does, after all, behave somewhat as ‘⊃’ behaves. Boethius
appropriately comments: “Philo had two drawbacks against his favour. He had no
drawing board, and he couldn’t write. Therefore he never symbolized, other than
‘via verba,’ his ‘ei’ utterance, “If it
is day, it is night,” which he held to be true “at night only.”” Strawson
echoes Grice. The evidence for this conversational explanation of the oddity of
the ‘dutcham’ if, as called by Gardiner, and the ‘hat-eating’ if, as called by
Stout, is, presumably, the facts, first, that the relation between antecedent
and consequent is non-Kantian. Recall that Kant has a ‘Funktion’ which, after
Aristotle’s ‘pros ti,’ and Boethius’s ‘relatio,’ he called ‘Relation’ where he
considers the HYPOTHETICAL. Kant expands in section 8.5. “In the hypothetical,
‘If God exists, I’ll eat my hat,’ existence is no predicate.”Strawson appeals
to a second, “more convincing,” fact, viz. that the consequent is obviously not
– in the Dutchman ‘if,’ or not to be, in the ‘hat-eating’ if, fulfilled, or
true.Grice’s passing for a Dutchman and sitting for an exam at the Koninklijke
Academie van Beeldende Kunsten, hardly makes him a Dutchman.Dickens was well
aware of the idiocy of people blaming hatters for the increases of deaths at
Oxford. He would often expand the consequent in a way that turned it “almost a
Wittgensteinian ‘contradiction’” (“The Cricket in the House, vii). “If the
Hatter is not mad, I will eat my hat, with my head in it.”Grice comments:
“While it is analytic that you see with your eyes, it is not analytic that you
eat with your mouth. And one can imagine Dickens’s mouth to be situated in his
right hand. Therefore, on realizing that the mad hatter is not mad, Dickens is
allowing for it to be the case that he shall eat his hat, with his head in it.
Since not everybody may be aware of the position of Dickens’s mouth, I shall
not allot this common-ground status.”Strawson
gives a third Griciean fact.“The intention of the emissor, by uttering a
‘consequens falsum’ that renders the ‘conditionalis’ ‘verum’ only if the
‘antecedens’ is ‘falsum, is an emphatic, indeed, rude, gesture, with a
gratuitious nod to Philo, to the conviction that the antecedens is not
fulfilled either. The emissor is further abiding by what Grice calls the
‘principle of truth,’ for the emissor would rather see himself dead than
uttering a falsehood, even if he has to fill the conversational space with
idiocies like ‘dutchman-being’ and ‘hat-eating.’ The fourth Griceian fact is
obviously Modus Tollendo Tollens, viz. that “(p ⊃
q) . ~q” entails “~p,” or rather, to avoid the metalanguage (Grice’s Bootlace:
Don’t use a metalanguage: you can only implicate that your object-language is
not objectual.”), “[(p ⊃ q) . ~ q] ⊃ ~ p.”At this point, Strawson
reminisces: “I was slightly surprised that on my first tutorial with Grice, he
gave me “What the Tortoise Said To Achilles,” with the hint, which I later took
as a defeasible implicaturum, “See if you can resolve this!” ACHILLEs had
overtaken the Tortoise, and had seated himself comfortably on its back.
"So you've got to the end of our race-course?" said the Tortoise.
"Even though it does consist of an infinite series of distances ? I
thought some wiseacre or other had proved that the thing couldnl't be doiie ?
" " It can be done," said Achilles. " It has been done!
Solvitur ambulando. You see the distances were constaiitly diminishing; and
so-" "But if they had beenl constantly increasing?" the Tortoise
interrupted. "How then?" "Then I shouldn't be here,"
Achilles modestly replied; "and you would have got several times round the
world, by this time! " "You flatter me-flatten, I mean," said
the Tortoise; "for you are a heavy weight, and no mistake! Well now, would
you like to hear of a race-course, that most people fancy they can get to the
end of in two or three steps, while it really consists of an infinite number of
distances, each one longer than the previous one? " "Very much indeed
!" said the Grecian warrior, as he drew from his helmet (few Grecian
warriors possessed pockets in those days) an enormous note-book and a pencil.
"Proceed! And speak slowly, please! Shorthand isn't invented yet !"
"That beautiful First Proposition of Euclid! " the Tortoise miurmured
dreamily. "You admire Euclid?" "Passionately! So far, at least,
as one can admire a treatise that wo'n't be published for some centuries to
come ! " "Well, now, let's take a little bit of the argument in that
First Proposition-just two steps, and the conclusion drawn from them. Kindly
enter them in your note-book. And in order to refer to them conveniently, let's
call them A, B, and Z:- (A) Things that are equal to the same are equal to each
other. (B) The two sides of this Triangle are things that are equal to the
same. (Z) The two sides of this Triangle are equal to each other. Readers of
Euclid will grant, I suppose, that Z follows logically from A and B, so that
any one who accepts A and B as true, must accept Z as true?" "
Undoubtedly! The youngest child in a High School-as. soon as High Schools are
invented, which will not be till some two thousand years later-will grant
that." " And if some reader had not yet accepted A and B as true, he
might still accept the sequence as a valid one, I suppose?" NOTES. 279
"No doubt such a reader might exist. He might say 'I accept as true the
Hypothetical Proposition that, if A and B be true, Z must be true; but, I don't
accept A and B as true.' Such a reader would do wisely in abandoning Euclid,
and taking to football." " And might there not also be some reader
who would say ' I accept A anld B as true, but I don't accept the
Hypothetical'?" "Certainly there might. He, also, had better take to
football." "And neither of these readers," the Tortoise
continued, "is as yet under any logical necessity to accept Z as
true?" "Quite so," Achilles assented. "Well, now, I want
you to consider me as a reader of the second kind, and to force me, logically,
to accept Z as true." " A tortoise playing football would be--"
Achilles was beginning " -an anomaly, of course," the Tortoise
hastily interrupted. "Don't wander from the point. Let's have Z first, and
football afterwards !" " I'm to force you to accept Z, am I?"
Achilles said musingly. "And your present position is that you accept A
and B, but you don't accept the Hypothetical-" " Let's call it
C," said the Tortoise. "-but you don't accept (C) If A and B are
true, Z must be true." "That is my present position," said the
Tortoise. "Then I must ask you to accept C." - "I'll do
so," said the Tortoise, "as soon as you've entered it in that
note-book of yours. What else have you got in it?" " Only a few
memoranda," said Achilles, nervously fluttering the leaves: "a few
memoranda of-of the battles in which I have distinguished myself!"
"Plenty of blank leaves, I see !" the Tortoise cheerily remarked.
"We shall need them all !" (Achilles shuddered.) "Now write as I
dictate: (A) Things that are equal to the same are equal to each other. (B) The
two sides of this Triangle are things that are equal to the same. (C) If A and
B are true, Z must be true. (Z) The two sides of this Triangle are equal to
each other." " You should call it D, not Z," said Achilles.
" It comes next to the other three. If you accept A and B and C, you must
accept Z." "And why must I?" "Because it follows logically
from them. If A and B and C are true, Z must be true. You don't dispute that, I
imagine ?" "If A and B and C are true, Z must be true," the
Tortoise thoughtfully repeated. " That's another Hypothetical, isn't it?
And, if I failed to see its truth, I might accept A and B and C, and still not
accept Z, mightn't I?" "You might," the candid hero admitted;
"though such obtuseness would certainly be phenomenal. Still, the event is
possible. So I must ask you to grant one more Hypothetical." " Very
good. I'm quite willing to grant it, as soon as you've written it down. We will
call it (D) If A and B and C are true, Z must be true. Have you entered that in
your note-book ? " " I have! " Achilles joyfully exclaimed, as
he ran the pencil into its sheath. "And at last we've got to the end of
this ideal race-course! Now that you accept A and B and C and D, of course you
accept Z." " Do I ? " said the Tortoise innocently. " Let's
make that quite clear. I accept A and B and C and D. Suppose I still refused to
accept Z? " 280 NOTES. " Then Logic would take you by the throat, and
force you to do it !" Achilles triumphantly replied. "Logic would
tell you 'You ca'n't help yourself. Now that you've accepted A and B and C and
D, you mvust accept Z!' So you've no choice, you see." "Whatever
Logic is good enough to tell me is worth writing down," said the Tortoise.
" So enter it in your book, please. We will call it (E) If A and B and C
and Dare true, Zmust be true. Until I've granted that, of course I needn't
grant Z. So it's quite a necessary step, you see?" "I see," said
Achilles; and there was a touch of sadness in his tone. Here the narrator,
having pressing business at the Bank, was obliged to leave the happy pair, and
did not again pass the spot until some months afterwards. When he did so,
Achilles was still seated on the back of the much-enduring Tortoise, and was
writing in his note-book, which appeared to be nearly full. The Tortoise was
saying " Have you got that last step written down ? Unless I've lost
count, that makes a thousand and one. There are several millions more to come.
And would you mind, as a personal favour, considering what a lot of instruction
this colloquy of ours will provide for the Logicians of the Nineteenth
Century-would you mnind adopting a pun that my cousin the Mock-Turtle will then
make, and allowing yourself to be re-named Taught- Us ?" "As you
please !" replied the weary warrior, in the hollow tones of despair, as he
buried his face in his hands. " Provided that you, for your part, will
adopt a pun the Mock-Turtle never made, and allow yourself to be re-named A
Kill-Ease !"Strawon protests:“But this is a
strange piece of logic.”Grice corrects: “Piece – you mean ‘piece’ simpliciter.”“But
what do you protest that much!?”“Well, it seems that, on any possible
interpretation, “if p, q” has, in respect of modus tollendo tollens the same powers
as ‘p ⊃ q.’“And it is just these
powers that you, and Cook Wilson before you, are jokingly (or
fantastically) exploiting!”“Fantastically?” “You call Cook Wilson
‘fantastical’? You can call me exploitative.’Strawson: “It is the absence of
Kantian ‘Relation,’ Boethius’s ‘relatio,’ Aristotle’s ‘pros ti,’ referred to in
that makes both Stout’s hat-eating if and Gardiner’s dutchman if quirks (as per
Sir Randolph Quirk, another Manx, like Quine), a verbal or conversational
flourish, an otiosity, alla Albritton, an odd, call it Philonian, use of ‘if.’
If a hypothetical statement IS, as Grice, after Philo, claims, is what
Whitehead and Russell have as a ‘material’ implication, the statements would be
not a quirkish oddity, but a linguistic sobriety and a simple truth. Or rather
they are each, the dutchman if and the
hat-eating if, each a ‘quirkish oddity’ BECAUSE each is a simple, sober, truth.
“Recall my adage,” Grice reminded Strawson, “Obscurely baffling, but Hegelianly
true!”Strawson notes, as a final commentary on the relevant section, that
‘if’ can be employed PERFORMATORILY,
which will have Grice finding his topic for the Kant lectures at Stanford:
“must” is univocal in “Apples must fall,” and “You must not lie.”An ‘if’ is
used ‘performatorily’ when it is used not simply in making this or that
statement, but in, e.g., making a provisional announcement of an intention.
Strawson’s example:“If it rains, I shall stay at home.”Grice corrected:“*I*
*will* stay at home. *YOU* *shall.*”“His quadruple implicatura never ceased to
amaze me.”Grice will take this up later in ‘Ifs and cans.’“If I can, I intend
to climb Mt Everest on hands and knees, if I may disimplicate that to
Davidson.”This hich, like an unconditional announcement of intention, Strawson
“would rather not” call ‘truly true’ or ‘falsely false.’ “I would rather
describe it in some other way – Griceian perhaps.” “A quessertion, not to be
iterated.”“If the man who utters the quoted sentence leaves home in spite of
the rain, we do not say that what he said was false, though we might say that
he lied (never really intended to stay in) ; or that he changed his mind –
which, Strawson adds, “is a form of lying to your former self.” “I agreed with
you!” Grice screamed from the other side of the Quadrangle!Strawson notes: “There
are further uses of ‘if’ which I shall not discuss.”This is a pantomime for
Austin (Strawson’s letter to Grice, “Austin wants me to go through the
dictionary with ‘if.’ Can you believe it, Grice, that the OED has NINE big
pages on it?! And the sad thing is that Austin has already did ‘if’ in “Ifs and
cans.” Why is he always telling OTHERS what to do?”Strawson’s Q. E. D.: “The
safest way to read the material implication sign is, perhaps, ‘not both … and
not …,” and avoid the ‘doubt’ altogether. (NB: “Mr. H. P. Grice, from whom I
never ceased to learn about logic since he was my tutor for my Logic paper in
my PPE at St. John’s back in the day, illustrates me that ‘if’ in Frisian means
‘doubt.’ And he adds, “Bread, butter, green cheese; very good English, very
good Friese!”. GROUP C – “Performatory” theories – descriptive,
quasi-descriptive, prescriptive – examples not lettered.EXAMPLE I: Strawson on
‘true’ in Analysis.EXAMPLE II: Austin on ‘know’ EXAMPLE III: Hare on ‘good.’EXPLICITLY
CONVEYED: if p, qIMPLICITLY CONVEYED: p is the consequensCANCELLATION: “I know
perfectly well where your wife is, but all I’ll say is that if she is not in kitchen
she is in the bedroom.”Next would be to consider uses of ‘implication’ in the
essay on the ‘indicative conditional.’ We should remember that the titling came
out in 1987. The lecture circulated without a title for twenty years. And in
fact, it is about ‘indicative conditional’ AND MORE BESIDES, including Cook
Wilson, if that’s a plus. Grice states the indirectness condition in two terms:One
in the obviously false terms “q is INFERRABLE, that’s the word Grice uses, from
p”The other one is in terms of truth-value assignment:The emissor has
NON-TRUTH-FUNCTIONAL GROUNDS for the emissum, ‘if p, q’. In Grice’s parlance:
“Grounds for ACCEPTING “p ⊃ q.”This way Grice chooses is
controversial in that usually he holds ‘accept’ as followed by the
‘that’-clause. So ‘accepting ‘p ⊃ q’” is not clear
in that respect. A rephrase would be, accepting that the emissor is in a
position to emit, ‘if p, q’ provided that what he EXPLICITLY CONVEYS by that is
what is explicitly conveyed by the Philonian ‘if,’ in other words, that the
emissor is explicitly conveying that it is the case of p or it is not the case
of q, or that it is not the case that a situation obtains such that it is the
case that p and it is not the case that q.“p ⊃ q” is F only in
the third row. It is no wonder that Grice says that the use-mention was only
used correctly ONCE.For Grice freely uses ‘the proposition that p ⊃
q.’ But this may be licensed because it was meant as for ‘oral delivery.’ THE
FIRST INSTANTIATION GRICE GIVES (WoW:58) is“If Smith is in London, he, viz. Smith,
is attending the meeting.”Grice goes on (WoW:59) to give FIVE alternatives to
the ‘if’ utterance, NOT using ‘if.’ For the first four, he notes that he fells
the ‘implicaturum’ of ‘indirectness’ seems ‘persistent.’On WoW:59, Grice refers
to Strawson as a ‘strong theorist,’ and himself as a ‘weak theorist,’ i. e. an
Occamist. Grice gives a truth-table or the ‘appropriate truth table,’ and its
formulation, and notes that he can still detect the indirectness condition
implication. Grice challenges Strawson. How is one to learn that what one
conveys by the scenario formulated in the truth-table for the pair “Smith is in
London” and “Smith is attending the meeting” – without using ‘if’ because this
is Grice’s exercise in detachment – is WEAKER than what one would convey by “If
Smith is in London, he, viz. Smith, is attending the meeting”?This sort of
rhetorical questions – “Of course he can’t” are a bit insidious. Grice failed
to give Strawson a copy of the thing. And Strawson is then invited to
collaborate with P. G. R. I. C. E., so he submits a rather vague “If and ⊃,”
getting the rebuke by Grice’s friend Bennett – “Strawson could at least say
that Grice’s views were published in three different loci.” BUT: Strawson
compiled that essay in 1968. And Strawson was NOT relying on a specific essay
by Grice, but on his memory of the general manoeuvre. Grice had been lecturing
on ‘if’ before at Oxford, in seminars entitled “Logic and Convesation.” But surely
at Oxford you are not supposed to ‘air’ your seminar views. Outside Oxford it
might be different. It shoud not!And surely knowing Grice, why would *GRICE*
provide the input to Strawson. For Grice, philosophy is very personal, and
while Grice might have thought that Sir Peter was slightly interested in what
his former tutor would say about ‘if,’ it would be inappropriate of the tutor
to overwhelm the tutee, or keep informing the tutee how wrong he is. For a
tutor, once a tutee, always a tutee. On WoW:59, Grice provides the FIRST
CANCELLATION of an ‘if,’ and changes it slightly from the one on p. 58. The
‘if’ now becomesIf Smith is in the library, he, viz. Smith, is working.’In
Wiltshire:“If Smith is in the swimming-pool library, he, viz. Smith, is swimming.”THE
CANCELLATION GOES by ‘opting out’:“I know just where Smith is and what he, viz.
Smith, is doing, but all I will tell you is that if he is in the library he is
working.”Grice had to keep adding his ‘vizes’ – viz. Smith – because of the
insidious contextualists – some of them philosophical!“What do you mean ‘he,’ –
are you sure you are keeping the denotatum constant?”Grice is challenging
Strawson’s ‘uncertainty and disbelief.’No one would be surprised if Grice’s
basis for his saying “I know just where Smith is and what he, viz. Smith, is
doing, but all I will tell you is that if he is in the library, he is working”
is that Grice has just looked in the library and found Smith working. So, Grice
IS uttering “If Smith is in the library, he is working” WHEN THE INDIRECT
(strong) condition ceteris-paribus carried by what Grice ceteris paribus
IMPLIES by uttering “If Smith is in the library, Smith is working.”The
situation is a bit of the blue, because Grice presents it on purpose as
UNVOLUNTEERED. The ‘communication-function’ does the trick. GRICE THEN GIVES
(between pages WoW: 59 and 60) TWO IMPLICIT cancellations of an implicaturum,
or, to avoid the alliteration, ‘contextual’ cancellation. Note incidentally
that Grice is aware of the explicit/implicit when he calls the cancellation,
first, EXPLICIT, and then contextual. By ‘explicit,’ he means, ‘conveying
explicitly’ in a way that commits you. THE THIRD INSTANTIATION refers to this
in what he calls a ‘logical’ puzzle, which may be a bit question-begging, cf. ‘appropriate
truth-table.’ For Strawson would say that Grice is using ‘if’ as a conscript,
when it’s a civil. “If Smith has black, Mrs. Smith has black.”Grice refers to
‘truth-table definition’ OR STIPULATION. Note that the horseshoe is an inverted
“C” for ‘contentum.’F. Cajori, “A history of mathematical notations,” SYMBOLS
IN MATHEMATICAL LOGIC, §667-on : [§674] “A theory of the ‘meccanisme du
raisonnement’ is offered by J. D. Gergonne in his “Essai de dialectique
rationnelle.”In Gergonne’s “Essai,” “H” stands for complete logical
disjunction, X” for logical product, “I” for "identity," [cf. Grize
on izzing] “C” for "contains," and "Ɔ (inverted C)" for
"is contained in." [§685] Gergonne
is using the Latinate, contineoIn rhet., the neuter substantive “contĭnens”
is rendered as “that on which something rests or depends, the chief point, hinge: “causae,” Cic. Part. Or. 29, 103; id. Top. 25, 95: “intuendum videtur, quid sit quaestio, ratio, judicatio, continens, vel ut alii vocant, firmamentum,” Quint. 3, 11, 1; cf. id. ib. § 18 sqq.—Adv.: contĭnen-ter .
So it is a natural evolution in matters of implication. while Giusberti
(“Materiale per studio,” 31) always reads “pro constanti,” the MSS occasionally
has the pretty Griciean “precontenti,” from “prae” and “contenti.” Cf. Quine,
“If my father was a bachelor, he was male. And I can say that, because ‘male’
is CONTAINED in ‘bachelor.’”E. Schröder, in his “Vorlesungen über die Algebra
der Logik,” [§690] Leipzig, uses “⊂”
for "untergeordnet”, roughly, “is included in,” and the inverted “⊃”
for the passive voice, "übergeordnet,” or includes. Some additional symbols are introduced by
Peano into Number 2 of Volume II of his influential “Formulaire.” Thus "ɔ"
becomes ⊃. By “p.⊃ x ... z. q” is
expressed “from p one DEDUCES, whatever x ... z may be, and q." In “Il calcolo geometrico,” – “according to
the Ausdehnungslehre of H. Grassmann, preceded by the operations of deductive
logic,” Peano stresses the duality of interpretations of “p.⊃
x ... z. q” in terms of classes and propositions. “We shall indicate [the
universal affirmative proposition] by the expression A < B, or B > A, which can be read "every A is a B,"
or "the class B CONTAINS A." [...]
Hence, if a,b,... are CONDITIONAL propositions, we have: a < b, or b > a, ‘says’ that "the
class defined by the condition a is part of that defined by b," or [...]
"b is a CONSEQUENCE of a," "if a is true, b is true." In Peano’s “Arithmetices principia: nova
methodo exposita,” we have: “II.
Propositions.” “The sign “C” means is a consequence of [“est consequentia.” Thus
b C a is read b is a consequence of the proposition a.” “The sign “Ɔ” means one
deduces [DEDUCITUR]; thus “a Ɔ b” ‘means’ the same as b C a. [...] IV. Classes “The sign Ɔ ‘means’ is contained
in. Thus a Ɔ b means class a is contained in class b. a, b ∈ K Ɔ (a Ɔ b) :=: (x)(x
∈ a Ɔ x ∈ b). In his “Formulaire,” Peano writes: “Soient a et b des Cls. a ⊃
b signifie "tout a est b".
Soient p et q des propositions contenant une variable x; p ⊃x
q, signifie "de p on déduit, quel que soit x, la q", c'est-à-dire:
"les x qui satisfont à la condition p satisferont aussi à la q". Russell criticizes Peano’s dualism in “The
Principles of mathematics,” §13. “The subject of Symbolic Logic consists of
three parts, the calculus of propositions, the calculus of classes and the
calculus of relations. Between the first two, there is, within limits, a
certain parallelism, which arises as follows: In any symbolic expression, the
letters may be interpreted as classes or as propositions, and the relation of
inclusion in the one case may be replaced by that of formal implication in the
other. A great deal has been made of
this duality, and in the later editions of his “Formulaire,” Peano appears to
have sacrificed logical precision to its preservation. But, as a matter of
fact, there are many ways in which the calculus of propositions differs from
that of classes.” Whiehead and Russell borrow the basic logical symbolism from
Peano, but they freed it from the "dual" interpretation. Thus, Whitehead and Russell adopt Schröder's ⊂
for class inclusion: a ⊂
b :=: (x)(x ∈ a Ɔ x ∈ b) Df. and restricted the use of the
"horseshoe" ⊃ to the connective "if’: “p⊃q.’
Whitehead’s and Russell’s decision isobvious, if we consider the following
example from Cesare Burali-Forti, “Logica Matematica,” a Ɔ b . b Ɔ c : Ɔ : a Ɔ
c [...] The first, second and fourth
[occurrences] of the sign Ɔ mean is contained, the third one means one deduces.So
the horseshoe is actually an inverted “C” meant to read “contentum” or
“consequens” (“consequutum”). Active Nominal Forms Infinitive: implicā́re
Present participle: implicāns; implicántis Future participle: implicītúrus;
implicātúrus Gerund: implicándum Gerundive: implicándus Passive Nominal Forms Infinitive: implicā́re
Perfect participle: implicī́tum; implicā́tumGRICE’s second implicit or
contextual cancellation does not involve a ‘logical puzzle’ but bridge – and
it’s his fourth instantiation:“If I have a red king, I also have a black king.”
– to announce to your competititve opponents upon inquiry a bid of five no
trumps. Cf. Alice, “The red Queen” which is a chess queen, as opposed to the
white queen. After a precis, he gives a FIFTH instantiation to prove that ‘if’
is always EXPLICITLY cancellable.WoW:60“If you put that bit of sugar in water, it
will dissolve, though so far as I know there can be no way of knowing in
advance that this will happen.”This is complex. The cancellation turns the ‘if
p, q’ into a ‘guess,’ in which case it is odd that the emissor would be
guessing and yet be being so fortunate as to make such a good guess. At the end
of page 60, Grice gives THREE FURTHER instantations which are both of
philosophical importance and a pose a problem to such a strong theorist as
Strawson.The first of the trio is:“If the Australians win the first Test, they
will win the series, you mark my words.”The second of the trio is:“Perhaps if
he comes, he will be in a good mood.”The third in the trio is:“See that, if he
comes, he gets his money.”Grice’s point is that in the three, the implicaturum
is cancelled. So the strong theorist has to modify the thesis ‘a sub-primary
case of a sub-primary use of ‘if’ is…” which seems like a heavy penalty for the
strong theorist. For Grice, the strong theorist is attaching the implicaturum
to the ‘meaning’ of ‘if,’ where, if attached at all, should attach to some
mode-marker, such as ‘probably,’ which may be contextual. On p. 61 he is
finding play and using ‘logically weaker’ for the first time, i. e. in terms of
entailment. If it is logically weaker, it is less informative. “To deny that p,
or to assert that q.”Grice notes it’s ceteris paribus.“Provided it would be
worth contributing with the ‘more informative’ move (“why deny p? Why assert
q?) While the presumption that one is interested in the truth-values of at
least p or q, this is ceteris paribus. A philosopher may just be interested in
“if p, q” for the sake of exploring the range of the relation between p and q,
or the powers of p and q. On p. 62 he uses the phrase “non-truth functional” as
applied not to grounds but to ‘evidence’: “non-truth-functional evidence.”Grice
wants to say that emissor has implicated, in a cancellable way, that he has
non-truth-functional evidence for “if p, q,” i. e. evidence that proceeds by
his inability to utter “if p, q” on truth-functional grounds. The emissor is
signaling that he is uttering “if p, q” because he cannot deny p, or that he
cannot assert q(p ⊃ q) ≡
((~p) v q)Back to the first instantiation“If Smith is in London, he, viz. Smith
is attending the meeting there, viz. in London”I IMPLICATE, in a cancellable
way, that I have no evidence for “Smith is not in London”I IMPLICATE, in a
cancellable way, that I have no evidence for “Smith is attending the lecture.On
p. 61 he gives an example of an contextual cancellation to show that even if
the implicaturum is a generalised one, it need not be present in every PARTICULAR
case (hence the weakned form ‘generalISED, not general). “If he was surprised,
he didn’t show it.”Or cf. AustinIf you are hungry, there are biscuits in the
cupboard. Traditionalist Grice on the tranquil Elysium of philosophyĒlysĭum ,
ii, n., = Ἠλύσιον, the abode of the blest, I.Elysium, Verg. A. 5, 735 Serv.; 6,
542; 744 al.; cf. Heyne Verg. A. 6, 675 sq.; and ejusd. libri Exc. VIII. p.
1019 Wagn.—Hence, II. Ēlysĭus , a, um, adj., Elysian: “campi,” Verg. G. 1, 38;
Tib. 1, 3, 58; Ov. Ib. 175; cf. “ager,” Mart. 10, 101: “plagae,” id. 6, 58:
“domus,” Ov. M. 14, 111; cf. “sedes,” Luc. 3, 12: “Chaos,” Stat. Th. 4, 520:
“rosae,” Prop. 4 (5), 7, 60. “puella,” i. e. Proserpine, Mart. 10, 24.—On p.
63, Grice uses ‘sense’ for the first time to apply to a Philonian ‘if p, q.’He
is exploring that what Strawson would have as a ‘natural’ if, not an artificial
‘if’ like Philo’s, may have a sense that descends from the sense of the
Philonian ‘if,’ as in Darwin’s descent of man. Grice then explores the ‘then’
in some formulations, ‘if p, then q’, and notes that Philo never used it, “ei”
simpliciter – or the Romans, “si.”Grice plays with the otiosity of “if p, in
that case q.”And then there’s one that Grice dismisses as ultra-otiose:“if p,
then, in that case, viz. p., q.”Grice then explores ‘truth-functional’ now
applied not to ‘evidence’ but to ‘confirmation.’“p or q” is said to be
truth-functionally confirmable.While “p horseshoe q’ is of course truth-functionally
confirmable.Grice has doubts that ‘if p, q’ may be regarded by Strawson as NOT
being ‘truth-functionally confirmable.’ If would involve what he previously
called a ‘metaphysical excrescence.’Grice then reverts to his bridge example“If
I have a red king, I have a black king.”And provides three scenarios for a
post-mortem truth-functional confirmability.For each of the three rowsNo red,
no blackRed, no blackRed, blackWhich goes ditto for the ‘logical’ puzzleIf Jones has black, Mrs.
Jones has black. The next crop of instantiations come from PM, and begins on p.
64.He kept revising these notes. And by the time he was submitting the essay to
the publisher, he gives up and kept the last (but not least, never latter)
version. Grice uses the second-floor ‘disagree,’ and not an explicit ‘not.’ So
is partially agreeing a form of disagreeing? In 1970, Conservative Heath won to
Labour Wilson.He uses ‘validate’ – for ‘confirm’. ‘p v q’ is validated iff
proved factually satisfactory.On p. 66 he expands“if p, q”as a triple
disjunction of the three rows when ‘if p, q’ is true:“(not-p and not-q) or
(not-p and q) or (p and q)”The only left out is “(p and not-q).”Grice gives an
instantiation for [p et]q“The innings closed at 3:15, Smith no batting.”as
opposed to“The inning close at 3:15, and Smith did not bat.”as displayed byp.qAfter
using ‘or’ for elections he gives the first instantation with ‘if’:“If Wilson
will not be prime minister, it will be Heath.”“If Wilson loses, he loses to
Heath.”‘if’ is noncommutative – the only noncommutative of the three dyadic
truth-functors he considers (‘and,’ ‘or’ and ‘if’).This means that there is a
‘semantic’ emphasis here.There is a distinction between ‘p’ and ‘q’. In the
case of ‘and’ and ‘or’ there is not, since ‘p and q’ iff ‘q and p’ and ‘p or q’
iff ‘q or p.’The distinction is expressed in terms of truth-sufficiency and
false-sufficiency.The antecedent or protasis, ‘p’ is FALSE-SUFFICIENT for the
TRUTH of ‘if p, q.’The apodosis is TRUE-sufficient for the truth of ‘if p, q.’On
p. 67 he raises three questions.FIRST QUESTIONHe is trying to see ‘if’ as
simpler:The three instantiations areIf Smith rings, the butler will let Smith
inIt is not the case that Smith rings, or the butler will let Smith in.It is
not the case both Smith rings and it is not the the butler will let Smith in. (Grice
changes the tense, since the apodosis sometimes requires the future tense)
(“Either Smith WILL RING…”)SECOND QUESTIONWhy did the Anglo-Saxons feel the
need for ‘if’ – German ‘ob’? After all, if Whitehead and Russell are right, the
Anglo-Saxons could have done with ‘not’ and ‘and,’ or indeed with
‘incompatible.’The reason is that ‘if’ is cognate with ‘doubt,’ but The
Anglo-Saxons left the doubt across the North Sea. it
originally from an oblique case of the substantive which may be rendered as
"doubt,” and cognate with archaic German “iba,” which may be rendered as
“condition, stipulation, doubt," Old Norse if "doubt,
hesitation," modern Swedish jäf "exception,
challenge")It’s all different with ‘ei’ and ‘si.’For sisī (orig.
and ante-class. form seī ),I.conj. [from a pronominal stem = Gr. ἑ; Sanscr.
sva-, self; cf. Corss. Ausspr. 1, 778; Georg Curtius Gr. Etym. 396],
a conditional particle, if.As for “ei”εἰ ,
Att.-Ion. and Arc. (for εἰκ, v.
infr. 11 ad
init.), = Dor. and Aeol. αἰ, αἰκ (q.
v.), Cypr.A.“ἤ” Inscr.Cypr.135.10 H.,
both εἰ and αἰ in
Ep.:— Particle used interjectionally with imper. and to express a wish, but
usu. either in conditions, if,
or in indirect questions, whether. In
the former use its regular negative is μή; in the
latter, οὐ.THIRD
QUESTION. Forgetting Grecian neutral apodosis and protasis, why did the Romans
think that while ‘antecedens’ is a good Humeian rendition of ‘protasis,’ yet
instead they chose for the Grecian Humeian ‘apodosis,’ the not necessarily
Humeian ‘con-sequens,’ rather than mere ‘post-sequens’?The Latin terminology is antecedens and consequens, the
ancestors and ... tothem the way the Greek grammatical termsή πρότασιs and
ήαπόδοσιsBRADWARDINE: Note that a consequence is an argumentation made up of an
antecedent and a consequent. He starts with the métiers.For ‘or’ he speaks of
‘semiotic economy’ (p. 69). Grice’s Unitarianism – unitary particle.If,
like iff, is subordinating, but only if is
non-commutative. Gazdar considers how many dyadic particles are possible and
why such a small bunch is chosen. Grice did not even care, as Strawson did, to take
care of ‘if and only if.’ Grice tells us the history behind the ‘nursery rhyme’
about Cock Robin. He learned it from his mother,
Mabel Fenton, at Harborne. Clifton almost made it forget it! But he recovered
in the New World, after reading from Colin Sharp that many of those nursery
rhymes travelled “with the Mayflower.” "Who Killed Cock Robin" is an
English nursery rhyme, which has been much used as a murder archetype[citation
needed] in world culture. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 494. Contents 1Lyrics 2Origin and meaning 3Notes 4
External links Lyrics[edit] The earliest record of the rhyme is in Tommy
Thumb's Pretty Song Book, published c. 1744, which noted only the first four
verses. The extended version given below was not printed until c. 1770.[1] Who killed Cock Robin? I, said the Sparrow,
with my bow and arrow, I killed Cock Robin. Who saw him die? I, said the Fly,
with my little eye, I saw him die. Who caught his blood? I, said the Fish, with
my little dish, I caught his blood. Who'll make the shroud? I, said the Beetle,
with my thread and needle, I'll make the shroud. Who'll dig his grave? I, said
the Owl, with my little trowel, I'll dig his grave. Who'll be the parson? I,
said the Rook, with my little book, I'll be the parson. Who'll be the clerk? I,
said the Lark, if it's not in the dark, I'll be the clerk. Who'll carry the
link? I, said the Linnet, I'll fetch it in a minute, I'll carry the link.
Who'll be chief mourner? I, said the Dove, I mourn for my love, I'll be chief
mourner. Who'll carry the coffin? I, said the Kite, if it's not through the
night, I'll carry the coffin. Who'll bear the pall? We, said the Wren, both the
cock and the hen, We'll bear the pall. Who'll sing a psalm? I, said the Thrush,
as she sat on a bush, I'll sing a psalm. Who'll toll the bell? I, said the
Bull, because I can pull, I'll toll the bell. All the birds of the air fell
a-sighing and a-sobbing, when they heard the bell toll for poor Cock Robin. The
rhyme has often been reprinted with illustrations, as suitable reading material
for small children.[citation needed] The rhyme also has an alternative ending,
in which the sparrow who killed Cock Robin is hanged for his crime.[2] Several
early versions picture a stocky, strong-billed bullfinch tolling the bell,
which may have been the original intention of the rhyme.[3] Origin and meaning[edit] Although the song
was not recorded until the mid-eighteenth century,[4] there is some evidence
that it is much older. The death of a robin by an arrow is depicted in a
15th-century stained glass window at Buckland Rectory, Gloucestershire,[5] and
the rhyme is similar to a story, Phyllyp Sparowe, written by John Skelton about
1508.[1] The use of the rhyme 'owl' with 'shovel', could suggest that it was
originally used in older middle English pronunciation.[1] Versions of the story
appear to exist in other countries, including Germany.[1] A number of the stories have been advanced to
explain the meaning of the rhyme: The
rhyme records a mythological event, such as the death of the god Balder from
Norse mythology,[1] or the ritual sacrifice of a king figure, as proposed by
early folklorists as in the 'Cutty Wren' theory of a 'pagan survival'.[6][7] It
is a parody of the death of King William II, who was killed by an arrow while
hunting in the New Forest (Hampshire) in 1100, and who was known as William
Rufus, meaning "red".[8] The rhyme is connected with the fall of
Robert Walpole's government in 1742, since Robin is a diminutive form of Robert
and the first printing is close to the time of the events mentioned.[1] All of
these theories are based on perceived similarities in the text to legendary or
historical events, or on the similarities of names. Peter Opie pointed out that
an existing rhyme could have been adapted to fit the circumstances of political
events in the eighteenth century.[1] The
theme of Cock Robin's death as well as the poem's distinctive cadence have
become archetypes, much used in literary fiction and other works of art, from
poems, to murder mysteries, to cartoons.[1]
Notes[edit] ^ Jump up to:a b c d e f g h I. Opie and P. Opie, The Oxford
Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (Oxford University Press, 1951, 2nd edn., 1997), pp.
130–3. ^ * Cock Robin at Project Gutenberg ^ M. C. Maloney, ed., English
illustrated books for children: a descriptive companion to a selection from the
Osborne Collection (Bodley Head, 1981), p. 31. ^ Lockwood, W. B. "The
Marriage of the Robin and the Wren." Folklore 100.2 (1989): 237–239. ^ The
gentry house that became the old rectory at Buckland has an impressive timbered
hall that dates from the fifteenth century with two lights of contemporary
stained glass in the west wall with the rebus of William Grafton and arms of
Gloucester Abbey in one and the rising sun of Edward IV in the other light;
birds in various attitudes hold scrolls "In Nomine Jesu"; none is
reported transfixed by an arrow in Anthony Emery, Greater Medieval Houses of
England and Wales, 1300–1500: Southern England, s.v. "Buckland Old
Rectory, Gloucestershire", (Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 80. ^ R.
J. Stewart, Where is St. George? Pagan Imagery in English Folksong (1976). ^ B.
Forbes, Make Merry in Step and Song: A Seasonal Treasury of Music, Mummer's
Plays & Celebrations in the English Folk Tradition (Llewellyn Worldwide,
2009), p. 5. ^ J. Harrowven, The origins of rhymes, songs and sayings (Kaye
& Ward, 1977), p. 92. External links[edit] Children's literature portal
Death and Burial of Poor Cock Robin, by H. L. Stephens, from Project Gutenberg
Death and Burial of Poor Cock Robin From the Collections at the Library of
Congress Categories: Robert Walpole1744 songsFictional passerine birdsEnglish
nursery rhymesSongwriter unknownEnglish folk songsEnglish children's
songsTraditional children's songsSongs about birdsSongs about deathMurder
balladsThe train from Oakland to
Berkeley.Grice's aunt once visited him, and he picked her up at the Oakland
Railway Station. On
p. 74, Grice in terms of his aunt, mentions for the first time ‘premise’ and
‘conclusion.’On same p. for the record he uses ‘quality’ for affirmative,
negative or infinite. On p. 74 he uses for the first time, with a point, the
expression ‘conditional’ as attached to ‘if.’Oddly on the first line of p. 75,
he uses ‘material conditional,’ which almost nobody does – except for a
blue-collared practitioner of the sciences. ‘Material’ was first introduced by
blue-collared Whitehead and Russell, practictioners of the sciences. They used
‘material’ as applied to ‘implication,’ to distinguish it, oddly, and
unclassily, from ‘formal’ implication. It is only then he quotes Wilson
verbatim in quotes“The question whether so and so is a case of a question
whether such and such” This actually influenced Collingwood, and Grice is
trying to tutor Strawson here once more!For the
logic of question and
answer has roots in the very philosophy that it was ... is John Cook Wilson,
whose Statement
and Inference can be regarded as the STATEMENT AND ITS
RELATION TO THINKING AND APREHENSIOTHE DISTINCTION OF SUBJECT AND PREDICATE IN
LOGIC AND GRAMMAR The influence of Strawson on Cook Wilson.“The building is the
Bodleian.”As answer to“What is that building?”“Which building is the
Bodleian”If the proposition is answer to first question, ‘that building’ is the
subject, if the proposition is answer to second question, ‘the bodleian’ is the
subject. Cf. “The exhibition was not visited by a bald king – of France, as it doesn’t
happen.SUBJECT AS TOPICPREDICATE AS COMMENT.Cf. Grice, “The dog is a shaggy
thig”What is shaggy?What is the dog?THIS DOG – Subject – TopicTHAT SHAGGY THING
– Subject – occasionally, but usually Predicate, Comment.In fact, Wilson bases
on StoutI am hungryWho is hungry?: subject IIs there anything amiss with you?
‘hungry’ is the subjectAre you really hungry? ‘am’ is the subject.Grice used to
be a neo-Stoutian before he turned a neo-Prichardian so he knew. But perhaps
Grice thought better of Cook Wilson. More of a philosopher. Stout seemed to
have been seen as a blue-collared practioner of the SCIENCE of psychology, not
philosophical psychology! Cf. Leicester-born B. Mayo, e: Magdalen, Lit. Hum.
(Philosophy) under? on ‘if’ and Cook Wilson in Analysis.Other example by
Wilson:“Glass is elastic.”Grice is motivated to defend Cook Wilson because
Chomsky was criticizing him (via a student who had been at Oxford). [S]uppose
instruction was being given in the properties of glass, and the instructor said
‘glass is elastic’, it would be natural to say that what was being talkedabout
and thought about was ‘glass’, and that what was said of it was that it was
elastic. Thus glass would be the subject and that it is elastic would be the
predicate. (Cook Wilson 1926/1969, Vol. 1:117f.) What Cook Wilson discusses
here is a categorical sentence. The next two quotes are concerned with an
identificational sentence. [I]n the statement ‘glass is elastic’, if the matter
of inquiry was elasticity and the question was what substances possessed the
property of elasticity, glass, in accordance with the principle of the
definition, would no longer be subject, and the kind of stress which fell upon
‘elastic’ when glass was the subject, would now be transferred to ‘glass’. [. .
.] Thus the same form of words should be analyzed differently according as the
words are the answer to one question or another. (Cook Wilson 1926/1969, Vol.
1:119f.) When the stress falls upon ‘glass’, in ‘glass is elastic’, there is no
word in the sentence which denotes the actual subject elasticity; the word
‘elastic’ refers to what is already known of the subject, and glass, which has
the stress, is the only word which refers to the supposed new fact in the
nature of elasticity, that it is found in glass. Thus, according to the
proposed formula, ‘glass’ would have to be the predicate. [. . .] Introduction
and overview But the ordinary analysis would never admit that ‘glass’ was the
predicate in the given sentence and elasticity the subject. (Cook Wilson
1926/1969, Vol. 1:121)H. P. Grice knew that P. F. Strawson knew of J. C.
Wilson on “That building is the
Bodleian” via Sellars’s criticism.There is a strong
suggestion in Sellars' paper that I would have done
better if I had stuck to Cook Wilson. This suggestion I want equally strongly
to repudiate. Certainly Cook Wilson draws
attention to an interesting difference in ways in which items
may appear in discourse. It may be roughly expressed as follows.
When we say Glass is elastic we may be talking about glass or we
may be talking about elasticity (and we may, in the relevant sense of
'about' be doing neither). We are talking about glass if we are citing
elasticity as one of the properties of glass, we
are talking about elasticity if we are citing
glass as one of the substances which are elastic. Similarly
when we say Socrates is wise, we may be citing Socrates as an
instance of wisdom or wisdom as one of the proper- ties
of Socrates. And of course we may be doing
neither but, e.g., just imparting miscellaneous
information. Now how, if at all, could this
difference help me with my question? Would it help at all, for example,
if it were plausible (which it is not) to say that we were
inevitably more interested in determining what properties a given particular
had,than in determining what particular had a given property? Wouldn't
this at least suggest that particulars were the natural subjects, in the sense
of subjects of &erest? Let me answer this
question by the reminder that what I have to do
is to establish a connexion between some formal linguistic
difference and a category difference; and a
formal linguistic difference is one which logic can take cognizance
of, in abstraction from pragmatic considerations, like the direction
of interest. Such a formal ditference exists in the
difference between appearing in discourse directly designated and
appearing in discourse under the cloak of
quantification. ““But the difference in the use of
unquantified statements to which Cook Wilson draws attention is not a
formal difference at all.”Both glass and elasticity, Socrates and wisdom
appear named in such statements, whichever, in Cook
Wilson's sense, we are talking about. An appeal
to pragmatic considerations is, certainly, an essential
part of my own account at a certain point:
but this is the point at which such considerations are in- voked to
explain why a certain formal difference should be particularly
closely linked, in common speech, with a certain category difference. The
difference of which Cook Wilson speaks is, then, though
interesting in itself, irrelevant to my question. Cook Wilson is, and I am not,
concerned with what Sellars calls dialectical
distinctions.” On p.76 Grice mentions
for the first time the “ROLE” of if in an indefinite series of ‘interrogative
subordination.”For
Cook Wilson,as Price knew (he quotes him in Belief), the function of ‘if’ is to
LINK TWO QUESTIONS. You’re the cream in my coffee as ‘absurd’ if literally (p.
83). STATEMENT In this entry we will explore how Grice sees the ‘implicaturum’
that he regards as ‘conversational’ as applied to the emissor and in reference
to the Graeco-Roman classical tradition. Wht is implicated may not be the
result of any maxim, and yet not conventional – depending on a feature of
context. But nothing like a maxim – Strawson Wiggins p. 523. Only a
CONVERSATIONAL IMPLICATURUM is the result of a CONVERSATIONAL MAXIM and the
principle of conversational helpfulness. In a ‘one-off’ predicament, there may
be an ‘implicaturum’ that springs from the interaction itself. If E draws a
skull, he communicates that there is danger. If addressee runs away, this is
not part of the implicaturum. This Grice considers in “Meaning.” “What is
meant” should cover the immediate effect, and not any effect that transpires
out of the addressee’s own will. Cf. Patton on Kripke. One thief to another:
“The cops are coming!” The
expressiom “IMPLICATION” is figures, qua entry, in a philosophical dictionary
that Grice consulted at Oxford. In the vernacular, there are two prominent
relata: entailment and implicaturum, the FRENCH have their “implication.” When
it comes to the Germans, it’s more of a trick. There’s the “nachsichziehen,”
the “zurfolgehaben,” the “Folge(-rung),” the “Schluß,” the “Konsequenz,” and of
course the “Implikation” and the “Implikatur,” inter alia. In Grecian, which Grice learned at Clifton, we
have the “sumpeplegmenon,” or “συμπεπλεγμένον,” if you must, i. e. the
“sum-peplegmenon,” but there’s also the “sumperasma,” or “συμπέϱασμα,” if you
must, “sum-perasma;” and then there’s the “sunêmmenon,” or “συνημμένον,” “sun-emmenon,”
not to mention (then why does Grice?) the “akolouthia,” or “ἀϰολουθία,” if you
must, “akolouthia,” and the “antakolouthia,” ἀνταϰολουθία,” “ana-kolouthia.”
Trust clever Cicero to regard anything ‘Grecian’ as not displaying enough
gravitas, and thus rendering everything into Roman. There’s the “illatio,” from
‘in-fero.’ The Romans adopted two different roots for this, and saw them as
having the same ‘sense’ – cf. referro, relatum, proferro, prolatum; and then
there’s the “inferentia,”– in-fero; and then there’s the “consequentia,” --
con-sequentia. The seq- root is present in ‘sequitur,’ non sequitur. The ‘con-‘
is transliterating Greek ‘syn-’ in the three expressions with ‘syn’:
sympleplegmenon, symperasma, and synemmenon. The Germans, avoiding the
Latinate, have a ‘follow’ root: in “Folge,” “Folgerung,” and the verb
“zur-folge-haben. And perhaps ‘implicatio,’
which is the root Grice is playing with. In Italian and French it
underwent changes, making ‘to imply’ a doublet with Grice’s ‘to implicate’ (the
form already present, “She was implicated in the crime.”). The strict opposite
is ‘ex-plicatio,’ as in ‘explicate.’ ‘implico’ gives both ‘implicaturum’ and
‘implicitum.’ Consequently, ‘explico’ gives both ‘explicatum’ and ‘explicitum.’
In English Grice often uses ‘impicit,’ and ‘explicit,’ as they relate to communication,
as his ‘implicaturum’ does. His ‘implicaturum’ has more to do with the contrast
with what is ‘explicit’ than with ‘what follows’ from a premise. Although in
his formulation, both readings are valid: “by uttering x, implicitly conveying
that q, the emissor CONVERSATIONALY implicates that p’ if he has explicitly
conveyed that p, and ‘q’ is what is required to ‘rationalise’ his
conversational behavioiur. In terms of the emissor, the distinction is between
what the emissor has explicitly conveyed and what he has conversationally
implicated. This in turn contrasts what some philosophers refer metabolically
as an ‘expression,’ the ‘x’ ‘implying’ that p – Grice does not bother with this
because, as Strawson and Wiggins point out, while an emissor cannot be true,
it’s only what he has either explicitly or implicitly conveyed that can be
true. As Austin says, it’s always a FIELD where you do the linguistic botany.
So, you’ll have to vide and explore: ANALOGY, PROPOSITION, SENSE, SUPPOSITION,
and TRUTH. Implication denotes a relation between propositions and statements
such that, from the truth-value of the protasis or antecedent (true or false),
one can derive the truth of the apodosis or consequent. More broadly, we can
say that one idea ‘implies’ another if the first idea cannot be thought without
the second one -- RT: Lalande, Vocabulaire technique et critique de la
philosophie. Common usage makes no strict differentiation between “to imply,”
“to infer,” and “to lead to.” Against Dorothy Parker. She noted that those of
her friends who used ‘imply’ for ‘infer’ were not invited at the Algonquin. The
verb “to infer,” (from Latin, ‘infero,’ that gives both ‘inferentia,’
inference, and ‘illatio,’ ‘illatum’) meaning “to draw a consequence, to deduce”
(a use dating to 1372), and the noun “inference,” meaning “consequence” (from
1606), do not on the face of it seem to be manifestly different from “to imply”
and “implication.” But in Oxonian usage, Dodgson avoided a confusion. “There
are two ways of confusing ‘imply’ with ‘infer’: to use ‘imply’ to mean ‘infer,’
and vice versa. Alice usually does the latter; the Dodo the former.” Indeed,
nothing originally distinguishes “implication” as Lalande defines it — “a
relation by which one thing ‘implies’ another”— from “inference” as it is
defined in Diderot and d’Alembert’s Encyclopédie (1765): “An operation by which
one ACCEPTS (to use a Griceism) a proposition because of its connection to
other propositions held to be true.” The same phenomenon can be seen in the
German language, in which the terms corresponding to “implication,” “Nach-sich-ziehen,”
“Zur-folge-haben,” “inference,” “Schluß”-“Folgerung,” “Schluß,” “to infer,”
“schließen,” “consequence,” “Folge” “-rung,” “Schluß,” “Konsequenz,”
“reasoning,” “”Schluß-“ “Folgerung,” and “to reason,” “schließen,” “Schluß-folger-ung-en
ziehen,” intersect or overlap to a large extent. In the French language, the
expression “impliquer” reveals several characteristics that the expression does
not seem to share with “to infer” or “to lead to.” First of all, “impliquer” is
originally (1663) connected to the notion of contradiction, as shown in the use
of impliquer in “impliquer contradiction,” in the sense of “to be
contradictory.” The connection between ‘impliquer’ and ‘contradiction’ does
not, however, explain how “impliquer” has passed into its most commonly
accepted meaning — “implicitly entail” — viz. to lead to a consequence. Indeed,
the two usages (“impliquer” connected with contradiction” and otherwise)
constantly interfere with one another, which certainly poses a number of
difficult problems. An analogous phenomenon can be found in the case of
“import,” commonly given used as “MEAN” or “imply,” but often wavering instead,
in certain cases, between “ENTAIL” and “imply.” In French, the noun “import” itself
is generally left as it I (“import existentiel,” v. SENSE, Box 4, and cf.
that’s unimportant, meaningless). “Importer,”
as used by Rabelais, 1536, “to necessitate, to entail,” forms via It.“importare,” as used by Dante), from the
Fr. “emporter,” “to entail, to have as a consequence,” dropped out of usage,
and was brought back through Engl. “import.” The nature of the connection
between the two primary usages of L. ‘implicare,’ It. ‘implicare,’ and Fr.
‘impliquer,’ “to entail IMPLICITitly” and “to lead to a consequence,”
nonetheless remains obscure, but not to a Griceian, or Grecian. Another
difficulty is understanding how the transition occurs from Fr. “impliquer,” “to
lead to a consequence,” to “implication,” “a logical relation in which one
statement necessarily supposes another one,” and how we can determine what in
this precise case distinguishes “implication” from “PRAE-suppositio.” We
therefore need to be attentive to what is implicit in Fr. “impliquer” and
“implication,” to the dimension of Fr. “pli,” a pleat or fold, of Fr. “re-pli,”
folding back, and of the Fr. “pliure,” folding, in order to separate out
“imply,” “infer,” “lead to,” or “implication,” “inference,” “consequence”—which
requires us to go back to Latin, and especially to medieval Latin. Once we
clarify the relationship between the usage of “implication” and the medieval
usage of “implicatio,” we will be able to examine certain derivations (as in
Sidonius’s ‘implicatura,” and H. P. Grice’s “implicaturum,” after
‘temperature,’ from ‘temperare,’) or substitutes (“entailment”) of terms
related to the generic field (for linguistic botanising) of “implicatio,”
assuming that it is difficulties with the concept of implication (e. g., the
‘paradoxes,’ true but misleading, of material versus formal implication –
‘paradox of implication’ first used by Johnson 1921) that have given rise to
this or that newly coined expression corresponding to this or that original
attempt. This whole set of difficulties certainly becomes clearer as we leave
Roman and go further upstream to Grecian, using the same vocabulary of
implication, through the conflation of several heterogeneous gestures that come
from the systematics in Aristotle and the Stoics. The Roman Vocabulary of
Implication and the Implicatio has the necessary ‘gravitas,’ but Grice, being a
Grecian at heart, found it had ‘too much gravitas,’ hence his ‘implicaturum,’
“which is like the old Roman ‘implicare,’ but for fun!” A number of different
expressions in medieval Latin can express in a more or less equivalent manner
the relationship between propositions and statements such that, from the
truth-value of the antecedent (true or false), one can derive the truth-value
of the consequent. There is “illatio,” and of course “illatum,” which Varro
thought fell under ‘inferre.’ Then there’s the feminine noun, ‘inferentia,’
from the ‘participium praesens’ of ‘inferre,’ cf. ‘inferens’ and ‘ilatum.’
There is also ‘consequentia,’ which is a complex transliterating the Greek
‘syn-,’ in this case with ‘’sequentia,’ from the deponent verb. “I follow you.”
Peter Abelard (Petrus Abelardus, v. Abelardus) makes no distinction in using
the expression “consequentia” for the ‘propositio conditionalis,’ hypothetical.
Si est homo, est animal. If Grice is a man, Grice is an animal (Dialectica, 473
– Abelardus uses ‘Greek man,’ not Grice.’ His implicaturum is ‘if a Greek man
is a man, he is therefore also some sort of an animal’). But Abelardus also
uses the expression “inferentia” for ‘same old same old’ (cf. “Implicaturum
happens.”). Si non est iustus homo, est non iustus homo. Grice to Strawson on
the examiner having given him a second. “If it is not the case that your
examiner was a fair man, it follows thereby that your examiner was not a fair
man, if that helps.” (Dialectica., 414).
For some reason, which Grice found obscure, ‘illatio” appears “almost
always” in the context of commenting on Aristotle’s “Topics,” – “why people
found the topic commenting escapes me” -- aand denotes more specifically a
reasoning, or “argumentum,” in Boethius, allowing for a “consequentia” to be
drawn from a given place. So Abelardus distinguishes: “illatio a causa.” But
there is also “illatio a simili.” And there is “iillatio a pari.” And there is
“illatio a partibus.” “Con-sequentia” sometimes has a very generic usage, even
if not as generic as ‘sequentia.” “Consequentia est quaedam habitudo inter
antecedens et consequens,” “Logica modernorum,” 2.1:38 – Cfr. Grice on
Whitehead as a ‘modernist’! Grice draws his ‘habit’ from the scholastic
‘habitudo.’ Noe that ‘antededens’ and ‘consequens.’ The point is a tautological
formula, in terms of formation. Surely ‘consequentia’ relates to a
‘consequens,’ where the ‘consequens’ is the ‘participium praesens’ of the verb
from which ‘consequentia’ derives. It’s like deving ‘love’ by ‘to have a
beloved.’ “Consequentia” is in any case present, in some way, without the
intensifier ‘syn,’ which the Roman gravitas added to transliterate the Greek
‘syn,’ i. e. ‘cum.’ -- in the expression “sequitur” and in the expression
“con-sequitur,” literally, ‘to follow,’ ‘to ensue,’ ‘to result in’). Keenan
told Grice that this irritated him. “If there is an order between a premise and
a conclusion, I will stop using ‘follow,’ because that reverts the order. I’ll
use ‘… yields …’ and write that ‘p yields q.’” “Inferentia,” which is cognate
(in the Roman way of using this expression broadly) with ‘illatio,’ and
‘illatum,’ -- frequently appears, by contrast, and “for another Grecian
reason,” as Grice would put it -- in the context of the Aristotle’s “De
Interpretatione,” on which Grice lectures only with J. L. Austin (Grice
lectured with Strawson on “Categoriae,” only – but with Austin, from whom Grice
learned – Grice lectured on both “Categoriae’ AND “De Interpretatione.” -- whether it is as part of a commentarium on Apuleius’s
Isagoge and the Square of Oppositions (‘figura quadrata spectare”), in order to
explain this or that “law” underlying any of the four sides of the square. So,
between A and E we have ‘propositio opposita.’ Between A and I, and between E
and O, we have propositio sub-alterna. Between A and O, and between E and I, we
have propositio contradictoria. And between I and O, we have “propositio
sub-alterna.” -- Logica modernorum, 2.1:115. This was irritatingly explored by
P. F. Strawson and brought to H. P. Grice’s attention, who refused to accept
Strawson’s changes and restrictions of the ‘classical’ validities (or “laws”)
because Strawson felt that the ‘implication’ violated some ‘pragmatic rule,’
while still yielding a true statement. Then there’s the odd use of “inferentia”
to apply to the different ‘laws’ of ‘conversio’ -- from ‘convertire,’
converting one proposition into another (Logica modernorum 131–39). Nevertheless,
“inferentia” is used for the dyadic (or triadic, alla Peirce) relationship of ‘implicatio,’
which for some reason, the grave Romans were using for less entertaining
things, and not this or that expressions from the “implication” family, or
sub-field. Surprisingly, a philosopher
without a classical Graeco-Roman background could well be mislead into thinking
that “implicatio” and “implication” are disparate! A number of treatises,
usually written by monks – St. John’s, were Grice teaches, is a Cicercian
monastery -- explore the “implicits.” Such a “tractatus” is not called
‘logico-philosophicus,’ but a “tractatus implicitarum,” literally a treatise on
this or that ‘semantic’ property of the
proposition said to be an ‘implicaturum’ or an ‘implication,’ or ‘propositio re-lativa.’
This is Grice’s reference to the conversational category of ‘re-lation.’
“Re-latio” and “Il-latio” are surely cognate. The ‘referre’ is a bring back;
while the ‘inferre’ is the bring in. The propositio is not just ‘brought’
(latum, or lata) it is brought back. Proposition Q is brought back (relata) to
Proposition P. P and Q become ‘co-relative.’ This is the terminology behind the
idea of a ‘relative clause,’ or ‘oratio relativa.’ E.g. “Si Plato tutee
Socrates est, Socratos tutor Platonis est,” translated by Grice, “If Strawson was
my tutee, it didn’t show!”. Now, closer to Grice “implicitus,” with an “i”
following the ‘implic-‘ rather than the expected ‘a’ (implica), “implicita,”
and “implicitum,” is an alternative “participium passatum” from “im-plic-are,”
in Roman is used for “to be joined, mixed, enveloped.” implĭco (inpl- ), āvi,
ātum, or (twice in Cic., and freq. since the Aug. per.) ŭi, ĭtum (v. Neue,
Formenl. 2, 550 sq.), 1, v. a. in-plico, to fold into; hence, I.to infold,
involve, entangle, entwine, inwrap, envelop, encircle, embrace, clasp, grasp
(freq. and class.; cf.: irretio, impedio). I. Lit.: “involvulus in pampini
folio se,” Plaut. Cist. 4, 2, 64: “ut tenax hedera huc et illuc Arborem
implicat errans,” Cat. 61, 35; cf. id. ib. 107 sq.: “et nunc huc inde huc
incertos implicat orbes,” Verg. A. 12, 743: “dextrae se parvus Iulus
Implicuit,” id. ib. 2, 724; cf.: “implicuit materno bracchia collo,” Ov. M. 1,
762: “implicuitque suos circum mea colla lacertos,” id. Am. 2, 18, 9:
“implicuitque comam laevā,” grasped, Verg. A. 2, 552: “sertis comas,” Tib. 3,
6, 64: “crinem auro,” Verg. A. 4, 148: “frondenti tempora ramo,” id. ib. 7,
136; cf. Ov. F. 5, 220: in parte inferiore hic implicabatur caput, Afran. ap.
Non. 123, 16 (implicare positum pro ornare, Non.): “aquila implicuit pedes
atque unguibus haesit,” Verg. A. 11, 752: “effusumque equitem super ipse
(equus) secutus Implicat,” id. ib. 10, 894: “congressi in proelia totas
Implicuere inter se acies,” id. ib. 11, 632: “implicare ac perturbare aciem,” Sall.
J. 59, 3: “(lues) ossibus implicat ignem,” Verg. A. 7, 355.—In part. perf.:
“quini erant ordines conjuncti inter se atque implicati,” Caes. B. G. 7, 73, 4:
“Canidia brevibus implicatura viperis Crines,” Hor. Epod. 5, 15: “folium implicaturum,”
Plin. 21, 17, 65, § 105: “intestinum implicaturum,” id. 11, 4, 3, § 9:
“impliciti laqueis,” Ov. A. A. 2, 580: “Cerberos implicitis angue minante
comis,” id. H. 9, 94: “implicitamque sinu absstulit,” id. A. A. 1, 561:
“impliciti Peleus rapit oscula nati,” held in his arms, Val. Fl. 1, 264. II.
Trop. A. In gen., to entangle, implicate, involve, envelop, engage: “di
immortales vim suam ... tum terrae cavernis includunt, tum hominum naturis
implicant,” Cic. Div. 1, 36, 79: “contrahendis negotiis implicari,” id. Off. 2,
11, 40: “alienis (rebus) nimis implicari molestum esse,” id. Lael. 13, 45:
“implicari aliquo certo genere cursuque vivendi,” id. Off. 1, 32, 117:
“implicari negotio,” id. Leg. 1, 3: “ipse te impedies, ipse tua defensione
implicabere,” Cic. Verr. 2, 2, 18, § 44; cf.: multis implicari erroribus, id.
Tusc. 4, 27, 58: “bello,” Verg. A. 11, 109: “eum primo incertis implicantes
responsis,” Liv. 27, 43, 3: “nisi forte implacabiles irae vestrae implicaverint
animos vestros,” perplexed, confounded, id. 40, 46, 6: “paucitas in partitione
servatur, si genera ipsa rerum ponuntur, neque permixte cum partibus
implicantur,” are mingled, mixed up, Cic. Inv. 1, 22, 32: ut omnibus copiis
conductis te implicet, ne ad me iter tibi expeditum sit, Pompei. ap. Cic. Att.
8, 12, D, 1: “tanti errores implicant temporum, ut nec qui consules nec quid
quoque anno actum sit digerere possis,” Liv. 2, 21, 4.—In part. perf.: “dum rei
publicae quaedam procuratio multis officiis implicaturum et constrictum
tenebat,” Cic. Ac. 1, 3, 11: “Deus nullis occupationibus est implicatus,” id.
N. D. 1, 19, 51; cf.: “implicatus molestis negotiis et operosis,” id. ib. 1,
20, 52: “animos dederit suis angoribus et molestiis implicatos,” id. Tusc. 5,
1, 3: “Agrippina morbo corporis implicatura,” Tac. A. 4, 53: “inconstantia tua
cum levitate, tum etiam perjurio implicatura,” Cic. Vatin. 1, 3; cf. id. Phil.
2, 32, 81: “intervalla, quibus implicatura atque permixta oratio est,” id. Or.
56, 187: “(voluptas) penitus in omni sensu implicatura insidet,” id. Leg. 1, 17,
47: “quae quatuor inter se colligata atque implicatura,” id. Off. 1, 5, 15:
“natura non tam propensus ad misericordiam quam implicatus ad severitatem
videbatur,” id. Rosc. Am. 30, 85; “and in the form implicitus, esp. with morbo
(in morbum): quies necessaria morbo implicitum exercitum tenuit,” Liv. 3, 2, 1;
7, 23, 2; 23, 40, 1: “ubi se quisque videbat Implicitum morbo,” Lucr. 6, 1232:
“graviore morbo implicitus,” Caes. B. C. 3, 18, 1; cf.: “implicitus in morbum,”
Nep. Ages. 8, 6; Liv. 23, 34, 11: “implicitus suspicionibus,” Plin. Ep. 3, 9,
19; cf.: “implicitus terrore,” Luc. 3, 432: “litibus implicitus,” Hor. A. P.
424: “implicitam sinu abstulit,” Ov. A. A. 1, 562: “(vinum) jam sanos
implicitos facit,” Cael. Aur. Acut. 3, 8, 87.— B. In partic., to attach closely,
connect intimately, to unite, join; in pass., to be intimately connected,
associated, or related: “(homo) profectus a caritate domesticorum ac suorum
serpat longius et se implicet primum civium, deinde mortalium omnium
societate,” Cic. Fin. 2, 14, 45: “omnes qui nostris familiaritatibus
implicantur,” id. Balb. 27, 60: “(L. Gellius) ita diu vixit, ut multarum
aetatum oratoribus implicaretur,” id. Brut. 47, 174: “quibus applicari
expediet, non implicari,” Sen. Ep. 105, 5.— In part. perf.: “aliquos habere
implicatos consuetudine et benevolentia,” Cic. Fam. 6, 12, 2: “implicatus
amicitiis,” id. Att. 1, 19, 8: “familiaritate,” id. Pis. 29, 70: “implicati
ultro et citro vel usu diuturno vel etiam officiis,” id. Lael. 22, 85. —Hence,
1. implĭcātus (inpl- ), a, um, P. a., entangled, perplexed, confused,
intricate: “nec in Torquati sermone quicquam implicaturum aut tortuosum fuit,”
Cic. Fin. 3, 1, 3: “reliquae (partes orationis) sunt magnae, implicaturae,
variae, graves, etc.,” id. de Or. 3, 14, 52: vox rauca et implicatura, Sen.
Apocol. med. — Comp.: “implicatior ad loquendum,” Amm. 26, 6, 18. — Sup.:
“obscurissima et implicatissima quaestio,” Gell. 6, 2, 15: “ista tortuosissima
et implicatissima nodositas,” Aug. Conf. 2, 10 init.— 2. im-plĭcĭtē (inpl- ),
adv., intricately (rare): “non implicite et abscondite, sed patentius et
expeditius,” Cic. Inv. 2, 23, 69. -- “Implicare” adds to these usages the idea
of an unforeseen difficulty, i. e. a hint of “impedire,” and even of deceit, i.
e. a hint of “fallere.” Why imply what you can exply? Cf. subreptitious. subreption (n.)"act
of obtaining a favor by fraudulent suppression of facts," c. 1600, from
Latin subreptionem (nominative subreptio),
noun of action from past-participle stem of subripere, surripere (see surreptitious).
Related: Subreptitious.
surreptitious (adj.)mid-15c., from Latin surrepticius "stolen,
furtive, clandestine," from surreptus, past participle
of surripere "seize
secretly, take away, steal, plagiarize," from assimilated form of sub "from
under" (hence, "secretly;" see sub-) + rapere "to
snatch" (see rapid). Related: Surreptitiously.
The source of the philosophers’s usage of ‘implicare’ is a passage from
Aristotle’s “De Int.” on the contrariety of proposition A and E (14.23b25–27),
in which “implicita” (that sould be ‘com-plicita,’ and ‘the emissor complicates
that p”) renders Gk. “sum-pepleg-menê,” “συμ-πεπλεγμένη,” f. “sum-plek-ein,”
“συμ-πλέϰein,” “to bind together,” as in ‘com-plicatio,’ complication, and
Sidonius’s ‘complicature,’ and Grice’s ‘complicature,’ as in ‘temperature,’
from ‘temperare.’ “One problem with P. F. Strawson’s exegesis of J. L. Austin
is the complicature is brings.” This is from the same family or field as
“sum-plokê,” “συμ-πλοϰή,” which Plato (Pol. 278b; Soph. 262c) uses for the
‘second articulation,’ the “com-bination” of sounds (phone) that make up a word
(logos), and, more philosophically interesting, for ‘praedicatio,’ viz., the
interrelation within a ‘logos’ or ‘oratio’ of a noun, or onoma or nomen, as in
“the dog,” and a verb, or rhema, or verbum, -- as in ‘shaggisising’ -- that
makes up a propositional complex, as “The dog is shaggy,” or “The dog
shaggisises.” (H. P. Grice, “Verbing from adjectiving.”). In De Int. 23b25-27,
referring to the contrariety of A and O, Aristotle, “let’s grant it” – as Grice
puts it – “is hardly clear.” Aristotle writes: “hê de tou hoti kakon to agathon
SUM-PEPLEG-MENÊ estin.” “Kai gar hoti ouk agathon anagkê isôs hupolambanein ton
auton.”“ἡ δὲ τοῦ ὅτι ϰαϰὸν τὸ ἀγαθὸν συμπεπλεγμένη ἐστίν.”“ϰαὶ γὰϱ ὅτι οὐϰ ἀγαθὸν
ἀνάγϰη ἴσως ὑπολαμϐάνειν τὸν αὐτόν.” Back in Rome, Boethius thought of bring
some gravitas to this. “Illa vero quae est,” Boethius goes,” Quoniam malum est
quod est bonum, IMPLICATURA est. Et enim: “Quoniam non bonum est.” necesse est
idem ipsum opinari (repr. in Aristoteles latinus, 2.1–2.4–6. In a later vulgar
Romance, we have J. Tricot). “Quant au jugement, “Le bon est mal” ce n’est en
réalité qu’une COMBINAISON de jugements, cars sans doute est-il nécessaire de
sous-entendre en même temps “le bon n’est pas le bon.” Cf. Mill on ‘sous-entendu’
of conversation. This was discussed by H. P. Grice in a tutorial with
Reading-born English philosopher J. L. Ackrill at St. John’s. With the help of H. P. Grice, J. L. Ackrill
tries to render Boethius into the vernacular (just to please Austin) as
follows. “Hê de tou hoti kakon to agathon SUM-PEPLEG-MENÊ estin, kai gar hoti
OUK agathon ANAGKê isôs hupo-lambanein ton auton” “Illa vero quae est, ‘Quoniam
malum est quod est bonum,’ IMPLICATURA est, et enim, ‘Quoniam non bonum est,’ necesse
est idem ipsum OPINARI. In the vernacular: “The belief expressed by the
proposition, ‘The good is bad,’ is COM-PLICATED or com-plex, for the same
person MUST, perhaps, suppose also the proposition, ‘The good it is not good.’”
Aristotle goes on, “For what kind of utterance is “The good is not good,” or as
they say in Sparta, “The good is no good”? Surely otiose. “The good” is a
Platonic ideal, a universal, separate from this or that good thing. So surely,
‘the good,’ qua idea ain’t good in the sense that playing cricket is good. But
playing cricket is NOT “THE” good: philosophising is.” H. P. Grice found
Boethius’s commentary “perfectly elucidatory,” but Ackrill was perplexed, and
Grice intended Ackrill’s perplexity to go ‘unnoticed’ (“He is trying to
communicate his perplexity, but I keep ignoring it.” For Ackrill was
surreptitiously trying to ‘correct’ his tutor. Aristotle, Acrkill thought, is
wishing to define the ‘contrariety’ between two statements or opinions, or not
to use a metalanguage second order, that what is expressed by ‘The good is bad’
is a contrarium of what is expressed by ‘The good is no good.’” Aristotle starts,
surely, from a principle. The principle states that a maximally false
proposition, set in opposition to a maximally true proposition (such as “The
good is good”), deserves the name “contraria” – and ‘contrarium’ to what is
expressed by it. In a second phase, Aristotle then tries to demonstrate, in a
succession of this or that stage, that ‘The good is good’ understood as a
propositio universalis dedicativa – for all x, if x is (the) good, x is good (To
agathon agathon estin,’ “Bonum est bonum”) is a maximally true proposition.” And
the reason for this is that “To agathon agathon estin,” or “Bonum bonum est,”
applies to the essence (essentia) of “good,” and ‘predicates’ “the same of the
same,” tautologically. Now consider Aristotle’s other proposition “The good is
the not-bad,” the correlative E form, For all x, if x is good, x is not bad. This
does not do. This is not a maximally true proposition. Unlike “The good is
good,” The good is not bad” does not apply to the essence of ‘the good,’ and it
does not predicate ‘the same of the same’ tautologically. Rather, ‘The good is
not bad,’ unless you bring one of those ‘meaning postulates’ that Grice rightly
defends against Quine in “In defense of a dogma,” – in this case, (x)(Bx iff
~Gx) – we stipulate something ‘bad’ if it ain’t good -- is only true notably
NOT by virtue of a necessary logical implication, but, to echo my tutor, by implicaturum,
viz. by accident, and not by essence (or essential) involved in the ‘sense’ of
either ‘good’ or ‘bad,’ or ‘not’ for that matter. Surely Aristotle equivocates slightly
when he convinced Grice that an allegedly maximally false proposition (‘the
good is bad’) entails or yields the negation of the same attribute, viz., ‘The
good is not good,’ or more correctly, ‘It is not the case that the good is
good,’ for this is axiomatically contradictory, or tautologically and
necessarily false without appeal to any meaning postulate. For any predicate,
Fx and ~Fx. The question then is one of knowing whether ‘The good is bad’
deserves to be called the contrary proposition (propositio contraria) of ‘The
good is good.’ Aristotle notes that the proposition, ‘The good is bad,’ “To agathon
kakon estin,” “Bonum malum est,” is NOT the maximally false proposition opposed
to the maximally true, tautological, and empty, proposition, “The good is
good,” ‘To agathon agathon estin,’ “Bonum bonum est.” “Indeed, “the good is
bad” is sumpeplegmenê, or COMPLICATA. What the emissor means is a complicatum,
or as Grice preferred, a ‘complicature. Grice’s complicature (roughly rendered
as ‘complification’) condenses all of the moments of the transition from the
simple idea of a container (cum-tainer) to the “modern” ideas of implication,
Grice’s implicaturum, and prae-suppositio. The ‘propositio complicate,’ is, as
Boethius puts it, duplex, or equivocal. The proposition has a double meaning – one explicit, the
other implicit. “A ‘propositio complicata’ contains within itself [“continet in
se, intra se”]: bonum non est.” Boethius then goes rightly to conclude (or
infer), or stipulate, that only a “simplex” proposition, not a propositio
complicata, involving some ‘relative clause,’ can be said to be contrary to
another -- Commentarii in librum Aristotelis Peri hermêneais, 219. Boethius’s
exegesis thesis is faithful to Aristotle. For Aristotle, nothing like “the good
is not bad,” but only the tautologically false “the good is not good,” or it is
not the case that the good is good, (to agathon agathon esti, bonum bonum est),
a propositio simplex, and not a propositio complicate, is the opposite (oppositum,
-- as per the ‘figura quadrata’ of ‘oppoista’ -- of “the good is good,” another
propositio simplex. Boethius’s analysis of “the good is bad,” a proposition
that Boethius calls ‘propositio complicate or ‘propositio implicita’ are
manifestly NOT the same as Aristotle’s. For Aristotle, the “doxa hoti kakon to
agathon [δόξα ὅτι ϰαϰὸν τὸ ἀγαθόν],” the opinion according to which the good is
bad, is only ‘contrary’ to “the good is good” to the extent that it “con-tains”
(in Boethius’s jargon) the tautologically false ‘The good is not good.’ For
Boethius, ‘The good is bad’ is contrary to ‘the good is good’ is to the extent
that ‘the good is bad’ contains, implicitly, the belief which Boethius
expresses as ‘Bonum NON est —“ cf. Grice on ‘love that never told can be” –
Featuring “it is not the case that,” the proposition ‘bonum non est’ is a
remarkably complicated expression in Latin, a proposition complicata indeed.
‘Bonum non est’ can mean, in the vernacular, “the good is not.” “Bonum non est”
can only be rendered as “there is nothing good.’ “Bonum non est’ may also be
rendered, when expanded with a repeated property, the tautologically false ‘The
good is not good” (Bonum non bonum est). Strangely, Abelard goes in the same
direction as Aristotle, contra Boethius. “The good is bad” (Bonum malum est) is “implicit” (propositio implicita or
complicate) with respect to the tautologically false ‘Bonum bonum non est’ “the
good is not good.”Abelardus, having read Grice – vide Strawson, “The influence
of Grice on Abelardus” -- explains clearly the meaning of “propositio
implicita”: “IMPLYING implicitly ‘bonum non bonum est,’ ‘the good is not good’
within itself, and in a certain wa containing it [“IM-PLICANS eam in se, et
quodammodo continens.” Glossa super Periermeneias, 99–100. But Abelard expands
on Aristotle. “Whoever thinks ‘bonum malum est,’ ‘the good is bad’ also thinks
‘bonum non bonum est,’ ‘the good is not good,’ whereas the reverse does not
hold true, i. e. it is not the case that whoever thinks the tautologically
false ‘the good is not good’ (“bonum bonum non est”) also think ‘the good is
bad’ (‘bonum malum est’). He may refuse to even ‘pronounce’ ‘malum’ (‘malum
malum est’) -- “sed non convertitur.” Abelard’s explanation is decisive for the
natural history of Grice’s implication. One can certainly express in terms of
“implication” what Abelard expresses when he notes the non-reciprocity or
non-convertibility of the two propositions. ‘The good is bad,’ or ‘Bonum malum
est’ implies or presupposes the tautologically true “the good is not good;’It
is not the case that the tautologically false “the good is not good” (‘Bonum bonum
non est’) implies ridiculous “the good is bad.” Followers of Aristotle inherit
these difficulties. Boethius and Abelard
bequeath to posterity an interpretation of the passage in Aristotle’s “De
Interpretatione” according to which “bonum malum est” “the good is bad” can
only be considered the ‘propositio opposita’ of the tautologically true ‘bonum
bonum est’ (“the good is good”) insofar as, a ‘propositio implicita’ or
‘relativa’ or ‘complicata,’ it contains the ‘propositio contradictoria, viz.
‘the good is not good,’ the tautologically false ‘Bonum non bonum est,’ of the
tautologically true ‘Bonum bonum est’ “the good is good.” It is this meaning of
“to contain a contradiction” that, in a still rather obscure way, takes up this
analysis by specifying a usage of “impliquer.” The first attested use in French
of the verb “impliquer” is in 1377 in Oresme, in the syntagm “impliquer
contradiction” (RT: DHLF, 1793). These same texts give rise to another
analysis. A propositio implicita or pregnant, or complicate, is a proposition
that “implies,” that is, that in fact contains two propositions, one
principalis, and the other relative, each a ‘propositio explicita,’ and that
are equivalent or equipollent to the ‘propositio complicata’ when paraphrased.
Consider. “Homo qui est albus est animal quod currit,” “A man who is white is
an animal who runs.” This ‘propositio complicate contains the the propositio
implicita, “homo est albus” (“a man is white”) and the propositio implicita,
“animal currit” (“an animal runs.”). Only
by “exposing” or “resolving” (via ex-positio, or via re-solutio) such an ‘propositio
complicata’ can one assign it a truth-value. “Omnis proposition implicita habet
duas propositiones explicitas.” “A proposition implicita “P-im” has (at least)
a proposition implicita P-im-1 and a different proposition implicita P-im-2.”
“Verbi gratia.” “Socrates est id quod est homo.” “Haec propositio IMplicita
aequivalet huic copulativae constanti ex duis propositionis explicitis. Socrates
est aliquid est illud est homo. Haec proposition est vera, quare et propositio
implicita vera. Every “implicit proposition” has two explicit propositions.”
“Socrates is something (aliquid) which is a man.” This implicit proposition,
“Socrates is something shich is a man,” is equivalent or equipoent to the
following conjunctive proposition made up of two now EXplicit propositions, to
wit, “Socrates is something,” and “That something is a man.” This latter
conjunctive proposition of the two explicit propositions is true. Therefore, the
“implicit” proposition is also true” (Tractatus implicitarum, in Giusberti – Materiale
per studum, 43). The two “contained” propositions are usually relative
propositions. Each is called an ‘implicatio.’ ‘Implicatio’ (rather than
‘implicitio’) becomes shorthand for “PROPOSITIO implicita.” An ‘implicatio’
becomes one type of ‘propositio
exponibilis,’ i. e. a proposition that is to be “exposed” or paraphrased for
its form or structure to be understood. In
the treatises of Terminist logic, one chapter is by custom devoted to the
phenomenon of “restrictio,” viz. a restriction in the denotation or the
suppositio of the noun (v. SUPPOSITION). A relative expression (an
implication), along with others, has a restrictive function (viz., “officium
implicandi”), just like a sub-propositional expression like an adjective or a
participle. Consider. “A man, Grice, who
argues, runs to the second base.” “Man,”
because of the relative expression or clause “who runs,” is restricted to
denoting the present time (it is not Grice, who argues NOW but ran YESTERDAY).
Moreover there is an equivalence or equipolence between the relative expression
“qui currit” and the present participle “currens.” Running Grice argues. Grice
who runs argues. Summe metenses, Logica modernorum, 2.1:464. In the case in
which a relative expression is restrictive, its function is to “leave something
that is constant,” “aliquid pro constanti relinquere,” viz., to produce a pre-assertion
that conditions the truth of the main super-ordinate assertion without being
its primary object or topic or signification or intentio. “Implicare est pro
constanti et involute aliquid significare.” “Ut cum dicitur homo qui est albus
currit.” “Pro constanti” dico, quia
praeter hoc quod assertitur ibi cursus de homine, aliquid datur intelligi,
scilicet hominem album; “involute” dico quia praeter hoc quod ibi proprie et
principaliter significatur hominem currere, aliquid intus intelligitur,
scilicet hominem esse album. Per hoc patet quod implicare est intus plicare. Id
enim quod intus “plicamus” sive “ponimus,” pro constanti relinquimus. Unde
implicare nil aliud est quam subiectum sub aliqua dispositione pro constanti
relinquere et de illo sic disposito aliquid affirmare. Ackrill translates to
Grice: “To imply” is to signify something by stating it as constant, and in a pretty
‘hidden’ manner – “involute.” When I state that the man
runs, I state, stating it as constant, because, beyond (“praeter”) the main
supra-ordinate assertion or proposition that predicates the running of the man,
my addressee is given to understand something else (“aliquid intus
intelligitur”), viz. that the man is white; This is communicated in a hidden
manner (“involute”) because, beyond (“praeter”) what is communicated (“significatur”)
primarily, principally (“principaliter”) properly (“proprie”), literally, and
explicitly, viz. that the man is running, we are given to understand something
else (“aliquid intus intelligutur”) within (“intus”), viz. that the man is white. It follows from this that implicare is
nothing other than what the form of the expression literally conveys, intus
plicare (“folded within”). What we fold
or state within, we leave as a constant.
It follows from this that “to imply” is nothing other than leaving something
as a constant in the subject (‘subjectum’), such that the subject (subjectum,
‘homo qui est albus”) is under a certain disposition, and that it is only under
this disposition that something about the subjectum is affirmed” -- De
implicationibus, Nota, 100) For the record: while Giusberti (“Materiale per
studio,” 31) always reads “pro constanti,” the MSS occasionally has the pretty
Griciean “precontenti.” This is a case of what the “Logique du Port-Royal”
describes as an “in-cidental” assertion. The situation is even more complex,
however, insofar as this operation only relates to one usage of a relative
proposition, viz. when the proposition is restrictive. A restriction can
sometimes be blocked, or cancelled, and the reinscriptions are then different for
a nonrestrictive and a restrictive
relative proposition. One such case of a blockage is that of “false
implication” (Johnson’s ‘paradox of ‘implicatio’) as in “a [or the] man who is
a donkey runs,” (but cf. the centaur, the man who is a horse, runs) where there
is a conflict (“repugnantia”) between what the determinate term itself denotes
(homo, man) and the determination (ansinus, donkey). The truth-values of a
proposition containing a relative clause or propositio thus varies according to
whether it is restrictive, and of composite meaning, as in “homo, qui est albus,
currit” (A man, who is white, runs), or non-restrictive, and of divided
meaning, as in “Homo currit qui est albus” (Rendered in the vernacular in the
same way, the Germanic languages not having the syntactic freedom the classical
languages do: A man, who is white, is running. When the relative is
restrictive, as in “Homo, qui est albus, curris”, the propositio implicits only
produces one single assertion, since the relative corresponds to a pre-assertion.
Thus, it is the equivalent, at the level of the underlying form, to a
proposition conditionalis or hypothetical. Only in the second case can there be
a “resolution” of the proposition implicita into the pair of this and that
‘propositio explicita, to wit, “homo currit,”
“homo est albus.”—and an equipolence between the complex proposition
implicita and the conjunction of the first proposition explicita and the second
proposition explicitta. Homo currit et ille est albus. So it is only in this second
case of proposition irrestrictiva that
one can say that “Homo currit, qui est albus implies “Homo currit,” and “Homo
est albus” and therefore, “Homo qui est albus currit.” The poor grave Romans
are having trouble with Grecisms. The Grecist vocabulary of implication is both
disparate and systematic, in a Griceian oxymoronic way. The grave Latin
“implicare” covers and translates an extremely varied Grecian field of
expressions ready to be botanized, that bears the mark of heterogeneous rather
than systematic operations, whether one is dealing Aristotle or the Stoics. The
passage through grave Roman allows us to understand retrospectively the
connection in Aristotle’s jargon between the “implicatio” of the “propositio
implicita,” sum-pepleg-menê, as an interweaving or interlacing, and conclusive
or con-sequential implicatio, sumperasma, “συμπέϱασμα,” or “sumpeperasmenon,” “συμπεπεϱασμένον,”
“sumpeperasmenê,” “συμπεπεϱασμένη,” f. perainein, “πεϱαίνein, “to limit,” which
is the jargon Aristotle uses in the Organon to denote the conclusion of a
syllogism (Pr. Anal. 1.15.34a21–24). If one designates as A the premise, tas
protaseis, “τὰς πϱοτάσεις,” and as B the con-clusion, “to sumperasma,” συμπέϱασμα.”
Cf. the Germanic puns with ‘closure,’ etc.
When translating Aristotle’s definition of the syllogism at Prior
Analytics 1.1.24b18–21, Tricot chooses to render as the “con-sequence”
Aristotle’s verb “sum-bainei,” “συμ-ϐαίνει,” that which “goes with” the premise
and results from it. A syllogism is a discourse, “logos,” “λόγος,” in which,
certain things being stated, something other than what is stated necessarily
results simply from the fact of what is stated. Simply from the fact of what is
stated, I mean that it is because of this that the consequence is obtained, “legô
de tôi tauta einai to dia tauta sumbainei,” “λέγω δὲ τῷ ταῦτα εἶναι τὸ διὰ ταῦτα
συμϐαίνει.” (Pr. Anal. 1.1, 24b18–21). To make the connection with
“implication,” though, we also have to take into account, as is most often the
case, the Stoics’ own jargon. What the Stoics call “sumpeplegmenon,” “συμπεπλεγμένον,”
is a “conjunctive” proposition; e. g. “It is daytime, and it is light” (it is
true both that A and that B). The conjunctive is a type of molecular
proposition, along with the “conditional” (sunêmmenon [συνημμένον] -- “If it is
daytime, it is light”) and the “subconditional” (para-sunêmmenon [παϱασυνημμένον];
“SINCE it is daytime, it is light”), and the “disjunctive” (diezeugmenon
[διεζευγμένον] -- “It is daytime, or it
is night.” Diog. Laert. 7.71–72; cf. RT: Long and Sedley, A35, 2:209 and
1:208). One can see that there is no ‘implicatio’ in the conjunctive, whereas
there is one in the ‘sunêmmenon’ (“if p, q”), which constitutes the Stoic
expression par excellence, as distinct from the Aristotelian categoric
syllogism.Indeed, it is around the propositio conditionalis that the question
and the vocabulary of ‘implicatio’ re-opens. The Aristotelian sumbainein [συμϐαίνειν],
which denotes the accidental nature of a result, however clearly it has been
demonstrated (and we should not forget that sumbebêkos [συμϐεϐηϰός] denotes
accident; see SUBJECT, I), is replaced by “akolouthein” [ἀϰολουθεῖν] (from the
copulative a- and keleuthos [ϰέλευθος], “path” [RT: Chantraine, Dictionnaire
étymologique de la langue grecque, s.v. ἀϰόλουθος]), which denotes instead
being accompanied by a consequent conformity. This connector, i. e. the “if”
(ei, si) indicates that the second proposition, the con-sequens (“it is light”)
follows (akolouthei [ἀϰολουθεῖ]) from the first (“it is daytime”) (Diog. Laert,
7.71). Attempts, beginning with Philo or Diodorus Cronus up to Grice and
Strawson to determine the criteria of a “valid” conditional (to hugies
sunêmmenon [τὸ ὑγιὲς συνημμένον] offer, among other possibilities, the notion
of emphasis [ἔμφασις], which Long and Sedley translate as “G. E. Moore’s entailment”
and Brunschwig and Pellegrin as “implication” (Sextus Empiricus, The Skeptic
Way, in RT: Long and Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers, 35B, 2:211 and
1:209), a term that is normally used to refer to a reflected image and to the
force, including rhetorical force, of an impression. Elsewhere, this “emphasis”
is explained in terms of dunamis [δύναμις], of “virtual” content (“When we have
the premise which results in a certain conclusion, we also have this conclusion
virtually [dunamei (δυνάμει)] in the premise, even if it is not explicitly
indicated [kan kat’ ekphoran mê legetai (ϰἂν ϰατ̕ ἐϰφοϱὰν μὴ λέγεται)], Sextus
Empiricus, Against the Grammarians 8.229ff., D. L. Blank, 49 = RT: Long and
Sedley, G36 (4), 2:219 and 1:209)—where connecting the different usages of
“implication” creates new problems. One has to understand that the type of
implicatio represented by the proposition conditionalis implies, in the double
usage of “contains implicitly” and “has as its consequence,” the entire Stoic
system. It is a matter of to akolouthon en zôêi [τὸ ἀϰόλουθον ἐν ζωῇ],
“consequentiality in life,” or ‘rational life, as Grice prefers, as Long and
Sedley translate it (Stobeus 2.85.13 = RT: Long and Sedley, 59B, 2:356; Cicero
prefers “congruere,” (congruential) De finibus 3.17 = RT: Long and Sedley, 59D,
2:356). It is akolouthia [ἀϰολουθία] that refers to the conduct con-sequent
upon itself that is the conduct of the wise man, the chain of causes defining
will or fate, and finally the relationship that joins the antecedent to the con-sequent
in a true proposition. Goldschmidt, having cited Bréhier (Le système stoïcien),
puts the emphasis on antakolouthia [ἀνταϰολουθία], a Stoic neologism that may
be translated as “reciprocal” implicatio,” and that refers specifically to the
solidarity of virtues (antakolouthia tôn aretôn [ἀνταϰολουθία τῶν ἀϱετῶν],
Diog. Laert. 7.125; Goldschmidt, as a group that would be encompassed by
dialectical virtue, immobilizing akolouthia in the absolute present of the wise
man. “Implicatio” is, in the final analysis, from then on, the most literal
name of the Stoic system. Refs.: Aristotle.
Anal. Pr.. ed. H. Tredennick, in
Organon, Harvard; Goldschmidt, Le système stoïcien et l’idée de temps. Paris:
Vrin, Sextus Empiricus. Against the Grammarians, ed. D. L. Blank. Oxford:
Oxford. END OF INTERLUDE. Now for “Implication”/“Implicaturum.” Implicatura was
used by Sidonius in a letter (that Grice found funny) and used by Grice in
seminars on conversational helpfulness at Oxford. Grice sets out the basis of a
systematic approach to communication, viz, concerning the relation between a
proposition p and a proposition q in a conversational context. The need is felt
by Sidonius and Grice for ‘implicaturum,’ tdistinct from “implication,” insofar
as “implication” is used for a relation between a proposition p and a
proposition q, whereas an “implicaturum” is a relation between this or that statement,
within a given context, that results from an EMISSOR having utterered an
utterance (thereby explicitly conveying that p) and thereby implicitly
conveying and implicating that q. Grice thought the distinction was ‘frequently
ignored by Austin,’ and Grice thought it solved a few problems, initially in G.
A. Paul’s neo-Wttigensteinian objections to Price’s causal theory of perception
(“The pillar box seems red to me; which does not surprise me, seeing that it is
red”). An “implication” is a relation
bearing on the truth or falsity of this or that proposition (e. g. “The pillar
box seems red” and, say, “The pillar box MAY NOT be red”) whereas an “implicaturum”
brings an extra meaning to this or that statement it governs (By uttering “The
pillar box seems red” thereby explicitly conveying that the pillar box seems
red, the emissor implicates in a cancellable way that the pillar box MAY NOT be
red.”). Whenever “implicaturum” is determined according to its context (as at
Collections, “Strawson has beautiful handwriting; a mark of his character. And
he learned quite a bit in spite of the not precisely angelic temperament of his
tutor Mabbott”) it enters the field of pragmatics, and therefore has to be
distinguished from a presupposition. Implicatio simpliciter is a relation
between two propositions, one of which is the consequence of the other (Quine’s
example: “My father is a bachelor; therefore, he is male”). An equivalent of “implication”
is “entailment,” as used by Moore. Now, Moore was being witty. ‘Entail’ is
derived from “tail” (Fr. taille; ME entaill or entailen = en + tail), and prior
to its logical use, the meaning of “entailment” is “restriction,” “tail” having
the sense of “limitation.” As Moore explains in his lecture: “An entailment is
a limitation on the transfer or handing down of a property or an inheritance.
*My* use of ‘entailment’ has two features in common with the Legalese that
Father used to use; to wit: the handing down of a property; and; the limitation
on one of the poles of this transfer. As I stipulate we should use “entailment”
(at Cambridge, but also at Oxford), a PROPERTY is transferred from the
antecedent to the con-sequent. And also, normally in semantics, some LIMITATION
(or restriction, or ‘stricting,’ or ‘relevancing’) on the antecedent is
stressed.” The mutation from the legalese to Moore’s usage explicitly occurs by
analogy on the basis of these two shared common elements. Now, Whitehead had
made a distinction between a material (involving a truth-value) implication and
formal (empty) implication. A material implication (“if,” symbolized by the
horseshoe “ ⊃,” because “it resembles an arrow,”
Whitehead said – “Some arrow!” was Russell’s response) is a Philonian
implication as defined semantically in terms of a truth-table by Philo of
Megara. “If p, q” is false only when the antecedent is true and the con-sequent
false. In terms of a formalization of communication, this has the flaw of
bringing with it a counter-intuitive feeling of ‘baffleness’ (cf. “The pillar
box seems red, because it is”), since a false proposition implies materially
any proposition: If the moon is made of green cheese, 2 + 2 = 4. This “ex falso
quodlibet sequitur” has a pedigreed history. For the Stoics and the Megarian
philosophers, “ex falso quodlibet sequitur” is what distinguishes Philonian
implication and Diodorean implication. It traverses the theory of consequence
and is ONE of the paradoxes of material implication that is perfectly summed up
in these two rules of Buridan: First, if P is false, Q follows from P; Second, if
P is true, P follows from Q (Bochenski, History of Formal Logic). A formal (empty)
implication (see Russell, Principles of Mathematics, 36–41) is a universal
conditional implication: Ɐx (Ax ⊃ Bx), for any x, if
Ax, then Bx. Different means of resolving the paradoxes of implication have
been proposed. All failed except Grice’s. An American, C. I. Lewis’s “strict”
implication (Lewis and Langford, Symbolic Logic) is defined as an implication
that is ‘reinforced’ such that it is impossible for the antecedent to be true
and the con-sequent false. Unfortunately, as Grice tells Lewis in a
correspondence, “your strict implication, I regret to prove, has the same
alleged flaw as the ‘material’ implication that your strict implication was
meant to improve on. (an impossible—viz., necessarily false—proposition strictly
implies any proposition). The relation of entailment introduced by Moore in
1923 is a relation that seems to avoid this or that paradox (but cf. Grice,
“Paradoxes of entailment, followed by paradoxes of implication – all
conversationally resolved”) by requiring a derivation of the antecedent from
the con-sequent. In this case, “If 2 + 2 = 5, 2 + 3 = 5” is false, since the
con-sequent is stipulated not be derivable from the antecedent. Occasionally,
one has to call upon the pair “entailment”/“implication” in order to
distinguish between an implication in qua material implication and an
implication in Moore’s usage (metalinguistic – the associated material
implication is a theorem), which is also sometimes called “relevant” if not
strictc implication (Anderson and Belnap, Entailment), to ensure that the
entire network of expressions is covered. Along with this first series of
expressions in which “entailment” and “implication” alternate with one another,
there is a second series of expressions that contrasts two kinds of “implicaturum,”
or ‘implicatura.’ “Implicaturum” (Fr. implicaturum, G. Implikatur) is formed
from “implicatio” and the suffix –ture, which expresses, as Grice knew since
his Clifton days, a ‘resultant aspect,’ ‘aspectum resultativus’ (as in
“signature”; cf. L. temperatura, from temperare). “Implicatio” may be thought as derived from
“to imply” (if not ‘employ’) and “implicaturum” may be thought as deriving from
“imply”’s doulet, “to implicate” (from L. “in-“ + “plicare,” from plex; cf. the
IE. plek), which has the same meaning. Some mistakenly see Grice’s “implicaturum”
as an extension and modification of the concept of presupposition, which
differs from ‘material’ implication in that the negation of the antecedent
implies the consequent (the question “Have you stopped beating your wife?”
presupposes the existence of a wife in both cases). An implicaturum escapes the
paradoxes of material implication from the outset. In fact, Grice, the ever
Oxonian, distinguishes “at least” two kinds of implicaturum, conventional and
non-conventional, the latter sub-divided into non-conventional
non-converastional, and non-conventional conversational. A non-conventional
non-conversational implicaturum may occur in a one-off predicament. A Conventional
implicaturum and a conventional implicaturum is practically equivalent,
Strawson wrongly thought, to presupposition prae-suppositum, since it refers to
the presuppositions attached by linguistic convention to a lexical item or
expression. E. g. “Mary EVEN loves
Peter” has a relation of conventional implicaturum to “Mary loves other
entities than Peter.” This is equivalent to: “ ‘Mary EVEN loves Peter’
presupposes ‘Mary loves other entities than Peter.’ With this kind of implicaturum,
we remain within the expression, and thus the semantic, field. A conventional implicaturum,
however, is surely different from a material implicatio. It does not concern
the truth-values. With conversational implicaturum, we are no longer dependent
on this or that emissum, but move into pragmatics (the area that covers the
relation between statements and contexts. Grice gives the following example:
If, in answer to A’s question about how C is getting on in his new job at a
bank, B utters, “Well, he likes his colleagues, and he hasn’t been to in prison
yet,” what B implicates by the proposition that it is not the case that C has
been to prison yet depends on the context. It compatible with two very different
contexts: one in which C, naïve as he is, is expected to be entrapped by
unscrupulous colleagues in some shady deal, or, more likely, C is well-known by
A and B to tend towards dishonesty (hence the initial question). References: Abelard,
Peter. Dialectica. Edited by L. M. De Rijk. Assen, Neth.: Van Gorcum, 1956. 2nd
rev. ed., 1970. Glossae super Periermeneias. Edited by Lorenzo Minio-Paluello.
In TwelfthCentury Logic: Texts and Studies, vol. 2, Abelaerdiana inedita. Rome:
Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1958. Anderson, Allan Ross, and Nuel Belnap.
Entailment: The Logic of Relevance and Necessity. Vol. 1. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1975. Aristotle. De interpretatione. English translation by
J. L. Ackrill: Aristotle’s Categories and De interpretatione. Notes by J. L.
Ackrill. Oxford: Clarendon, 1963. French translation by J. Tricot: Organon.
Paris: Vrin, 1966. Auroux, Sylvain, and Irène Rosier. “Les sources historiques
de la conception des deux types de relatives.” Langages 88 (1987): 9–29. Bochenski,
Joseph M. A History of Formal Logic. Translated by Ivo Thomas. New York:
Chelsea, 1961. Boethius. Aristoteles latinus. Edited by Lorenzo Minio-Paluello.
Paris: Descleé de Brouwer, 1965. Translation by Lorenzo Minio-Paluello: The
Latin Aristotle. Toronto: Hakkert, 1972. Commentarii in librum Aristotelis Peri
hermêneias. Edited by K. Meiser. Leipzig: Teubner, 1877. 2nd ed., 1880. De
Rijk, Lambertus Marie. Logica modernorum: A Contribution to the History of
Early Terminist Logic. 2 vols. Assen, Neth.: Van Gorcum, 1962–67. “Some Notes on the Mediaeval Tract De
insolubilibus, with the Edition of a Tract Dating from the End of the
Twelfth-Century.” Vivarium 4 (1966): 100–103. Giusberti, Franco. Materials for
a Study on Twelfth-Century Scholasticism. Naples, It.: Bibliopolis, 1982.
Grice, H. P. “Logic and Conversation.” In Syntax and Semantics 3: Speech Acts,
edited by P. Cole and J. Morgan, 41–58. New York: Academic Press, 1975. (Also
in The Logic of Grammar, edited by D. Davidson and G. Harman, 64–74. Encino,
CA: Dickenson, 1975.) Lewis, Clarence Irving, and Cooper Harold Langford.
Symbolic Logic. New York: New York Century, 1932. Meggle, Georg. Grundbegriffe
der Kommunikation. 2nd ed. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1997. Meggle, Georg, and
Christian Plunze, eds. Saying, Meaning, Implicating. Leipzig: Leipziger
Universitätsverlag, 2003. Moore, G. E.. Philosophical Studies. London: Kegan
Paul, 1923. Rosier, I. “Relatifs et relatives dans les traits terministes des
XIIe et XIIIe siècles: (2) Propositions relatives (implicationes), distinction
entre restrictives et non restrictives.” Vivarium 24: 1 (1986): 1–21. Russell,
Bertrand. The Principles of Mathematics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1903. implication, a relation that holds between two statements when the truth
of the first ensures the truth of the second. A number of statements together
imply Q if their joint truth ensures the truth of Q. An argument is deductively
valid exactly when its premises imply its conclusion. Expressions of the
following forms are often interchanged one for the other: ‘P implies Q’, ‘Q
follows from P’, and ‘P entails Q’. (‘Entailment’ also has a more restricted
meaning.) In ordinary discourse, ‘implication’ has wider meanings that are
important for understanding reasoning and communication of all kinds. The
sentence ‘Last Tuesday, the editor remained sober throughout lunch’ does not
imply that the editor is not always sober. But one who asserted the sentence
typically would imply this. The theory of conversational implicaturum explains
how speakers often imply more than their sentences imply. The term
‘implication’ also applies to conditional statements. A material implication of
the form ‘if P, then Q’ (often symbolized ‘P P Q’ or ‘P / Q’) is true so long
as either the if-clause P is false or the main clause Q is true; it is false
only if P is true and Q is false. A strict implication of the form ‘if P, then
Q’ (often symbolized ‘P Q’) is true exactly when the corresponding material
implication is necessarily true; i.e., when it is impossible for P to be true
when Q is false. The following valid forms of argument are called paradoxes of
material implication: Q. Therefore, P / Q. Not-P. Therefore, P / Q. The
appearance of paradox here is due to using ‘implication’ as a name both for a
relation between statements and for statements of conditional form. A
conditional statement can be true even though there is no relation between its
components. Consider the following valid inference: Butter floats in milk.
Therefore, fish sleep at night / butter floats in milk. Since the simple
premise is true, the conditional conclusion is also true despite the fact that
the nocturnal activities of fish and the comparative densities of milk and
butter are completely unreimmediate inference implication 419 4065h-l.qxd
08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 419 lated. The statement ‘Fish sleep at night’ does not
imply that butter floats in milk. It is better to call a conditional statement
that is true just so long as it does not have a true if-clause and a false main
clause a material conditional rather than a material implication. Strict
conditional is similarly preferable to ‘strict implication’. Respecting this
distinction, however, does not dissolve all the puzzlement of the so-called
paradoxes of strict implication: Necessarily Q. Therefore, P Q. Impossible that
P. Therefore, P Q. Here is an example of the first pattern: Necessarily, all
rectangles are rectangles. Therefore, fish sleep at night all rectangles are
rectangles. ‘All rectangles are rectangles’ is an example of a vacuous truth,
so called because it is devoid of content. ‘All squares are rectangles’ and ‘5
is greater than 3’ are not so obviously vacuous truths, although they are
necessary truths. Vacuity is not a sharply defined notion. Here is an example
of the second pattern: It is impossible that butter always floats in milk yet
sometimes does not float in milk. Therefore, butter always floats in milk yet
sometimes does not float in milk fish sleep at night. Does the if-clause of the
conclusion imply (or entail) the main clause? On one hand, what butter does in
milk is, as before, irrelevant to whether fish sleep at night. On this ground,
relevance logic denies there is a relation of implication or entailment. On the
other hand, it is impossible for the if-clause to be true when the main clause
is false, because it is impossible for the if-clause to be true in any
circumstances whatever. Speranza, Luigi. Join the Grice Club! Strawson, P. F..
“On Referring.” Mind 59 (1950): 320–44.
implicaturum: a pragmatic
relation different from, but easily confused with, the semantic relation of
entailment. This concept was first identified, explained, and used by H. P.
Grice (Studies in the Way of Words, 1989). Grice identified two main types of implicaturum,
conventional and non-conventional (including conversational). An emisor is said
to conversationally implicate that p in uttering x, provided that, although p
is NOT logically implied by what the emisor explicitly communicates, the
assumption that the emisor is attempting cooperative communication warrants
inferring that the emisor is communicating that p. If Grice utters “There is a
garage around the corner” in response to Strawson’s saying, “I am out of gas,”
Grice conversationally implicates that the garage is open and has gas to sell.
Grice identifies several conversational maxims to which cooperative
conversationalists may be expected to conform, and which justify inferences
about what the emisor implicates. In the above example, the implicaturums are
due to the maxim of conversational relevance. Another important maxim is the
maxim of conversational fortitude (“Make
your contribution as informatively strong as is required”). Among implicatura
due to the Maxim of conversational fortitude is the scalar implicaturum,
wherein the utterance contains an element that is part of a quantitative scale.
Utterance of such a sentence conversationally implicates that the emisor does
not believe related propositions higher on the scale of conversational
fortitude or informativeness. E. g. an emisor who says, “Some of the zoo
animals escaped,” implies that he does not believe that that most of the zoo
animals escaped, or that every animal of the zoo animals escaped. Unlike a
conversational implicaturum, a conventional implicaturum is due solely to the
semantics of the expression. An emisor is said by Grice to conventionally imply
that p, if the semantics of the expression commits the emisor to p, even though
what the emisor explicitly communicates does not entail that p. Thus, uttering,
as the Tommies did during the Great War, “She was poor but she was honest” a
Tommy implicates, but does not explicitly convey, that there is a contrast
between her poverty and her honesty.
impositum: a property of terms
resulting from a convention to designate something. A term is not a mere noise
but a significant sound. A term designating extralinguistic entities, such as
‘tree’, ‘stone’, ‘blue’, and the like, are classified by the tradition since
Boethius as terms of “prima impositio,” first imposition. A term designating another
term or other communicative items, such as ‘noun’, ‘declension’, and the like,
is classified as terms of ‘secunda imposition,’ second imposition. The
distinction between a terms of ‘prima impositio’ and ‘secunda impositio’
belongs to the realm of written and spoken language, while the parallel
distinction between terms of first and second ‘intentio’ belongs to the realm
of the soul. A ‘prima intentio’ (intentio re re), frst intention is, broadly,
thoughts about trees, stones, colours, etc. A ‘seconda intention’ (intention de
sensu), second intention, is a thought about a first intention. Refs.: H. P.
Grice, “De sensu implicaturum.”
infinitum -- cantor, G.
Grice thought that “I know there are infinitely many stars” is a stupid thing
to say -- one of a number of late nineteenthcentury philosophers including
Frege, Dedekind, Peano, Russell, and Hilbert who transformed both mathematics
and the study of its philosophical foundations. The philosophical import of
Cantor’s work is threefold. First, it was primarily Cantor who turned arbitrary
collections into objects of mathematical study, sets. Second, he created a coherent
mathematical theory of the infinite, in particular a theory of transfinite
numbers. Third, linking these, he was the first to indicate that it might be
possible to present mathematics as nothing but the theory of sets, thus making
set theory foundational for mathematics. This contributed to the Camus, Albert
Cantor, Georg 116 116 view that the
foundations of mathematics should itself become an object of mathematical
study. Cantor also held to a form of principle of plenitude, the belief that
all the infinities given in his theory of transfinite numbers are represented
not just in mathematical or “immanent” reality, but also in the “transient”
reality of God’s created world. Cantor’s main, direct achievement is his theory
of transfinite numbers and infinity. He characterized as did Frege sameness of
size in terms of one-to-one correspondence, thus accepting the paradoxical
results known to Galileo and others, e.g., that the collection of all natural
numbers has the same cardinality or size as that of all even numbers. He added
to these surprising results by showing 1874 that there is the same number of
algebraic and thus rational numbers as there are natural numbers, but that
there are more points on a continuous line than there are natural or rational or
algebraic numbers, thus revealing that there are at least two different kinds
of infinity present in ordinary mathematics, and consequently demonstrating the
need for a mathematical treatment of these infinities. This latter result is
often expressed by saying that the continuum is uncountable. Cantor’s theorem
of 2 is a generalization of part of this, for it says that the set of all
subsets the power-set of a given set must be cardinally greater than that set,
thus giving rise to the possibility of indefinitely many different infinities.
The collection of all real numbers has the same size as the power-set of
natural numbers. Cantor’s theory of transfinite numbers 0 97 was his developed
mathematical theory of infinity, with the infinite cardinal numbers the F-, or
aleph-, numbers based on the infinite ordinal numbers that he introduced in 0
and 3. The F-numbers are in effect the cardinalities of infinite well-ordered
sets. The theory thus generates two famous questions, whether all sets in
particular the continuum can be well ordered, and if so which of the F-numbers
represents the cardinality of the continuum. The former question was answered
positively by Zermelo in 4, though at the expense of postulating one of the
most controversial principles in the history of mathematics, the axiom of
choice. The latter question is the celebrated continuum problem. Cantor’s
famous continuum hypothesis CH is his conjecture that the cardinality of the
continuum is represented by F1, the second aleph. CH was shown to be independent
of the usual assumptions of set theory by Gödel 8 and Cohen 3. Extensions of
Cohen’s methods show that it is consistent to assume that the cardinality of
the continuum is given by almost any of the vast array of F-numbers. The
continuum problem is now widely considered insoluble. Cantor’s conception of
set is often taken to admit the whole universe of sets as a set, thus
engendering contradiction, in particular in the form of Cantor’s paradox. For
Cantor’s theorem would say that the power-set of the universe must be bigger
than it, while, since this powerset is a set of sets, it must be contained in
the universal set, and thus can be no bigger. However, it follows from Cantor’s
early 3 considerations of what he called the “absolute infinite” that none of
the collections discovered later to be at the base of the paradoxes can be
proper sets. Moreover, correspondence with Hilbert in 7 and Dedekind in 9 see
Cantor, Gesammelte Abhandlungen mathematischen und philosophischen Inhalts, 2
shows clearly that Cantor was well aware that contradictions will arise if such
collections are treated as ordinary sets.
prædicatum:
Grice
on the praedicatum/impraedicatum distinction – an impredicative definition is
the definition of a concept in terms of the totality to which it belongs. Whitehead
and Russell, in their “Principia Mathematica” introduce ‘im-predicative’
(earlier, ‘non-predicative,’ which Grice prefers) prohibiting an impredicative definition
from conceptual analysis, on the grounds that an impredicative definition
entails (to use Moore’s jargon) a paradox – which Grice loves. An impredicative
definition of the set R of all sets that are not members of themselves leads to
the self-contradictory conclusion that R is a member of itself if and only if
it is not a member of itself. In Grice’s rewrite: “Austin’s paradoxical dream
was to create a ‘class’ each of whose member was such that his class had no
other member.” To avoid an antinomy of this kind in the formalization of logic,
Whitehead and Russell first implement in their ramified type theory the vicious
circle principle, that no whole (totum) may contain parts (pars) that are
definable only in terms of that whole (totum). The limitation of ramified type
theory is that without use of an impredicative definition it is impossible to
quantify over every item, but only over every item of a certain order or type.
Without being able to quantify over every item generally, many of the most
important definitions and theorems of classical philosophy cannot be formulated.
Whitehead and Russell for this reason later abandoned ramified in favour of
simple type theory, which avoids a logical paradox without outlawing an impredicative
definition by forbidding the predication of terms of any type (object, property
and relation, higher-order propertiy and relations of properties and relations,
etc.) to terms of the same type.
correctum: there’s‘corrigibility’ (=
correctum) and ‘incorrigibility’ – “The implicaturum is that something
is incorrigibile it cannot be corrected – but Chisholm never explies ‘by
whom’”! (Grice uses ‘exply’ as opposite of ‘imply’). Who is corrigible? The emissor. “I am sorry I
have to tell you you are wrong.” On WoW: 142, Grice refers to the ‘authority’
of the utterer as a ‘rational being’ to DEEM that an M-intention is an
antecedent condition for his act of meaning. Grice uses ‘privilege’ as synonym
for ‘authority’ here. But not in the phrase ‘privileged access.’ His point is
not so much about the TRUTH (which ‘incorrigibility’ suggests), but about the
DEEMING. It is part of the authority or privilege of the utterer as rational to
provide an ACCEPTABLE assignment of an M-intention behind his utterance.
commensuratum:
There’s commensurability and there’s
incommensurability – “But Protagoras never explies what makes man commensurable
– only implies it!” In the philosophy of science, the property exhibited by two
scientific theories provided that, even though they may not logically
contradict one another, they have reference to no common body of data.
Positivist and logical empiricist philosophers of science like Carnap had long
sought an adequate account of a theoryneutral language to serve as the basis
for testing competing theories. The predicates of this language were thought to
refer to observables; the observation language described the observable world
or (in the case of theoretical terms) could do so in principle. This view is
alleged to suffer from two major defects. First, observation is infected with
theory – what else could specify the meanings of observation terms except the
relevant theory? Even to perceive is to interpret, to conceptualize, what is
perceived. And what about observations made by instruments? Are these not
completely constrained by theory? Second, studies by Kuhn, Paul Feyerabend, and
others argued that in periods of revolutionary change in science the adoption
of a new theory includes acceptance of a completely new conceptual scheme that
is incommensurable with the older, now rejected, theory. The two theories are
incommensurable because their constituent terms cannot have reference to a
theory-neutral set of observations; there is no overlap of observational
meaning between the competitor theories; even the data to be explained are
different. Thus, when Galileo overthrew the physics of Aristotle he replaced
his conceptual scheme – his “paradigm” – with one that is not logically
incompatible with Aristotle’s, but is incommensurable with it because in a
sense it is about a different world (or the world conceived entirely differently).
Aristotle’s account of the motion of bodies relied upon occult qualities like
natural tendencies; Galileo’s relied heavily upon contrived experimental
situations in which variable factors could be mathematically calculated.
Feyerabend’s even more radical view is that unless scientists introduce new
theories incommensurable with older ones, science cannot possibly progress,
because falsehoods will never be uncovered. It is an important implication of
these views about incommensurability that acceptance of theories has to do not
only with observable evidence, but also with subjective factors, social
pressures, and expectations of the scientific community. Such acceptance
appears to threaten the very possibility of developing a coherent methodology
for science.
consistens:
“There’s
consistens, and there’s inconsistens.” – H. P. Grice. The inconsistent triad, most
generally, any three propositions such that it cannot be the case that all
three of them are true. More narrowly, any three categorical propositions such
that it cannot be the case that all three of them are true. A categorical
syllogism is valid provided the three propositions that are its two premises
and the negation (contradiction) of its conclusion are an inconsistent triad;
this fact underlies a test for the validity of categorical syllogisms, which
test are thus called by Grice the “method of” the inconsistent triad.
dependens – independens -- independence
results, proofs of non-deducibility. Any of the following equivalent conditions
may be called independence: (1) A is not deducible from B; (2) its negation - A
is consistent with B; (3) there is a model of B that is not a model of A; e.g.,
the question of the non-deducibility of the parallel axiom from the other
Euclidean axioms is equivalent to that of the consistency of its negation with
them, i.e. of non-Euclidean geometry. Independence results may be not absolute
but relative, of the form: if B is consistent (or has a model), then B together
with - A is (or does); e.g. models of non-Euclidean geometry are built within
Euclidean geometry. In another sense, a set B is said to be independent if it
is irredundant, i.e., each hypothesis in B is independent of the others; in yet
another sense, A is said to be independent of B if it is undecidable by B,
i.e., both independent of and consistent with B. The incompleteness theorems of
Gödel are independence results, prototypes for many further proofs of
undecidability by subsystems of classical mathematics, or by classical
mathematics as a whole, as formalized in ZermeloFraenkel set theory with the
axiom of choice (ZF ! AC or ZFC). Most famous is the undecidability of the
continuum hypothesis, proved consistent relative to ZFC by Gödel, using his
method of constructible sets, and independent relative to ZFC by Paul J. Cohen,
using his method of forcing. Rather than build models from scratch by such
methods, independence (consistency) for A can also be established by showing A
implies (is implied by ) some A* already known independent (consistent). Many
suitable A* (Jensen’s Diamond, Martin’s Axiom, etc.) are now available.
Philosophically, formalism takes A’s undecidability by ZFC to show the question
of A’s truth meaningless; Platonism takes it to establish the need for new
axioms, such as those of large cardinals. (Considerations related to the
incompleteness theorems show that there is no hope even of a relative
consistency proof for these axioms, yet they imply, by way of determinacy
axioms, many important consequences about real numbers that are independent of
ZFC.) With non-classical logics, e.g. second-order logic, (1)–(3) above may not
be equivalent, so several senses of independence become distinguishable. The
question of independence of one axiom from others may be raised also for formalizations
of logic itself, where many-valued logics provide models.
determinatum: There’s the determinatum and there’s the indeeterminatum –
“And then there’s ‘indeterminacy.”” “A determinatum is like a definitum, in
that a ‘term’ is like the ‘end’ – “Thus, I am a Mercian, from Harborne.” “The
Mericans were thus called because the lived at the end of England.” “Popper,
who doesn’t know the first thing about this, prefers, ‘demarcatum’, which is
cognate with “mercian.’” Grice was always cautious and self-apologetic. “I’m
not expecting that you’ll find this to be a complete theory of implication, but
that was not my goal, and the endeavour should be left for another day, etc.”
But consider the detail into which he, like any other philosopher before, went
when it came to what he called the ‘catalyst’ tests or ideas or tests or ideas
for the implicaturum. In “Causal Theory” there are FOUR ideas. It is good to
revise the treatment in “Causal.” He proposes two ideas with the first two
examples and two further ideas with the two further examples. Surely his goal
is to apply the FOUR ideas to his own example of the pillar box. Grice notes
re: “You have not ceased eating iron” – the cxample is “a stock case of what is
sometimes called " prcsupposition " and it is often held that here
1he truth of what is irnplicd is a necessary condition of the original
statement's beirrg cither true or false.” So the first catalyst in the first
published version concerns the value, or satisfactory value. This will be
retained and sub-grouped in Essay II. “It is often held” Implicture: but often
not, and trust me I won’t. “that here the truth of what is implied [implicated
in the negative, entailed in the affirmative] is a necessary condition of the
original statement's being either true or false.” So the first catalyst in the
first published version concerns the value, or satisfactory value. This will be
retained and sub-grouped in Essay II. “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.” So he is working on a ‘distinctive feature’ model.
And ‘feature’ is exactly the expression he uses in Essay II. He is looking for
‘distinctive features’ for this or that implication. When phonologists speak of
‘distinctive feature’ they are being philosophical or semioticians.“I shall
however for convenience assume that the common view mentioned is correct.”“This
consideration clearly distinguishes “you have not ceased eating iron” from [a
case of a conventional implicaturum] “poor BUT honest.”“Even if the implied
proposition were false, i.e. if there were no reason in the world to contrast
poverty with honesty either in general or in her case, the original statement
COULD still be false.” “She [is] poor
but she [is] honest” would be false if for example she were rich and dishonest.”“One
might perhaps be less comfortable about assenting to its TRUTH if the implied
contrast did not in fact obtain; but the possibility of falsity is enough for
the immediate purpose.”“My next experiment [test, litmus idea – that he’ll
apply as one of the criteria to provide distinctive features for this or that implicaturum,
with a view to identify the nature of the animal that a conversational implicaturum
is] on these examples is to ask what it is in each case which could properly be
said to be the vehicle of implication (to do the implying).”In Essay II, since
he elaborates this at an earlier stage than when he is listing the distinctive
features, he does not deal much. It is understood that in Essay II by the time
he is listing the distinctive features, the vehicle is the UTTERER. But back in
“Causal,” he notes: “There are AT LEAST FOUR candidates, not necessarily
mutually exclusive.”“Supposing someone to have ‘uttered’ one or other of [the] sample
sentences, we may ask whether the vehicle of implication would be (FIRST) WHAT
the emissor communicated (or asserted or stated or explicitly conveyed), or
(SECOND) the emissor himself ("Surely you’re not implying that ….’ ) or (THIRD) the
utterance (FOURTH) his communicating, or
explicitly conveying that (or again his explicitly conveying that in that way);
or possibly some plurality of these items.”“As regards the first option for the
vehicle, ‘what the emissor has explicitly conveyed,’ Grice takes it that “You
have not ceased eating iron” and “Poor but honest” may differ.It seems correct
for Grice to say in the case of “eating iron” that indeed it is the case that
it is what he emissor explicitly conveys which implies that Smith has been
eating iron.On the other hand, Grice feels it would be ‘incorrect,’ or
improper, or bad, or unnatural or artificial, to say in the case of “poor but
honest” that it is the case. Rather it is NOT the case that it is WHAT the emissor explicitly conveys
which implies that there is a contrast between, e. g., honesty and poverty.”“A sub-test
on which Grice would rely is the following.If accepting that the conventional implicaturum
holds (contrast between honesty and poverty) involves the emissor in accepting
an hypothetical or conditional ‘if p, q,’ where 'p’ represents the original
statement (“She [is] poor and she [is] honest) and 'q' represents what is
implied (“There is a contrast between honesty and poverty”), it is the case
that it is what the emissor explicitly conveys which is a (or the) vehicle of
implication. If that chain of acceptances does not hold, it is not. To apply
this rule to the “eat iron” and “poor but honest”, if the emissor accepts the
implication alleged to hold in the case of “eat iron”, I should feel COMPELLED
(forced, by the force of entailment) to accept the conditional or hypothetical
"If you have not ceased eating iron, you may have never started.”[In
“Causal,” Grice has yet not stressed the asymmetry between the affirmative and
the negative in alleged cases of presupposition. When, due to the success of
his implicaturum, he defines the presuppositum as a form of implicaturum, he
does stress the asymmetry: the entailment holds for the affirmative, and the implicaturum
for the negative). On the other hand, when it comes to a CONVENTIONAL implicaturum
(“poor but honest”) if the emissor accepted the alleged implication in the case
of “poor but honest”, I should NOT feel compelled to accept the conditional or
hypothetical "If she was poor but honest, there is some contrast between
poverty and honesty, or between her poverty and her honesty." Which would
yield that in the presuppositum case, we have what is explicitly conveyed as a
vehicle, but not in the case of the conventional implicaturum.The rest of the
candidates (Grice lists four and allows for a combination) can be dealt with
more cursorily.As regards OPTION II (second):Grice should be inclined to say
with regard to both “eat iron” and “poor but honest” that the emissor could be
said to have implied whatever it is that is irnplied.As regards Option III
(third: the utterance): In the case of “poor but honest” it seems fairly clear
that the utterance could be said, if metabolically, and animistically, to
‘imply’ a contrast.It is much less clear whether in the case of “eat iron” the
utterance could be said to ‘imply’ that Smith has been eating iron.As for
option IV, in neither case would it be evidently appropriate (correct, natural)
to speak of the emissor’s explicitly conveying that, or of his explicitly
conveying that in that way, as ‘implying’ what is implied. A third catalyst
idea with which Grice wish to assail my two examples is really a TWIN idea, or
catalyst, or test [That’s interesting – two sides of the same coin] that of the
detachability or cancellability of the implication. Consider “eat iron.”One
cannot find an alternative utterance which could be used to assert explicitly
just what the utterance “Smith has not ceased from eating iron" might be
used to convey explicitly, such that when this alternative utterance is used
the implication that Smith never started eating iron is absent. Any way of (or
any utterance uttered with a view to) conveying explicitly what is explicitly
conveyed in (1) involves the implication in question. Grice expresses this fact
– which he mentioned in seminars, but this is the first ‘popularisation’ -- by
saying that in the case of (l) the implication is NOT detachable FROM what is
asserted (or simpliciter, is not detachable). Furthermore, and here comes the
twin of CANCELLABILITY: one cannot take any form of words for which both what
is asserted and what is implied is the same as for (l), AND THEN ADD a further
clause withholding commitment from what would otherwise be implied, with the
idea of ANNULLING THE IMPLICATURUM *without* ANNULLING annulling the
EXPLICITUM. One cannot intelligibly say
" Smith has left off beating his wife but I do not mean to imply that he
has been beating her." But one surely can intelligibly say, “You have not
ceased eating iron because you never started.”While Grice uses “Smith,” the
sophisma (or Griceisma) was meant in the second person, to test the tutee’s
intelligence (“Have you stopped beating your dog?”). The point is that the
tutee will be offended – whereas he shouldn’t, and answer, “I never started,
and I never will.”Grice expresses this fact by saying that in the case of ‘eat
iron’ the implication is not cancellable or annullable (without cancelling or
annulling the assertion). If we turn to “poor but honest” we find, Grice thinks,
that there is quite a strong case for saying that here the implication IS
detachable. Therc sccms quite a good case for maintaining that if, instead of
saying " She is poor but she is honcst " I were to say, alla Frege,
without any shade, " She is poor AND she is honcst", I would assert
just what I would havc asscrtcct ii I had used thc original senterrce; but
there would now be no irnplication of a contrast between e.g', povery and
honesty. Of course, this is not a philosophical example, and it would be good
to revise what Frege thought about ‘aber.’ By the time Grice is lecturing
“Causal Theory” he had lectured for the Logic Paper for Strawson before the
war, so Whitehead and Russell are in the air.Surely in Anglo-Saxon, the contrast
is maintained, since ‘and’ means ‘versus.’“She is poor contra her being
honest.”Oddly, the same contrariety is present in Deutsche, that Frege speaks,
with ‘UND.”It’s different with Roman “et.” While Grecian ‘kai,’ even Plato
thought barbaric!The etymology of ‘by-out’ yields ‘but.’So Grice is thinking
that he can have a NEUTRAL conjoining – but ‘and’ has this echo of contrariety,
which is still present in ‘an-swer, i. e. and-swear, to contradict. Perhaps a
better neutral version would be. Let’s start with the past version and then the
present tense version.“She was pooo-ooor, she was honest, and her parents were
the same, till she met a city feller, and she lost her honest name.”In terms of
the concepts CHOSEN, the emissor wants to start the ditty with pointing to the
fact that she is poor – this is followed by stating that she is honest. There’s
something suspicious about that.I’m sure a lady may feel offended without the
‘and’ OR ‘but’ – just the mere ‘succession’ or conjoining of ‘poor’ as
pre-ceding the immediate ‘honest’ ‘triggers’ an element of contrast. The
present tense seems similar: “She is poooor, she is honest, and her parents are
the same, but she’ll meet a city feller, and she’ll lose her honest name.”The
question whether, in thre case of ‘poor but honest,’ the implication is cancellable,
is slightly more cornplex, which shouldn’t if the catalysts are thought of as
twins.There is a way in which we may say that it is not cancellable, or
annullable.Imagine a Tommy marching and
screaming: “She is poor but she is honest,”“HALT!” the sargent shouts.The Tommy
catches the implicaturum:“though of course, sir, I do not mean to imply, sir, that
there is any contrast, sir, between her poverty, sir, and her honesty, sir.”As
Grice notes, this would be a puzzling and eccentric thing for a Tommy to engage
in.And though the sargent might wish to quarrel with the tommy (Atkins – Tommy
Atkins is the name”), an Oxonian philosopher should NOT go so far as to say
that the tommy’s utterance is unintelligible – or as Vitters would say,
‘nunsense.’The sargent should rather suppose, or his lieutenant, since he knows
more, that private Tommy Atkins has adopted a “most pecooliar” way of conveying
the news that she was poor and honest.The sargent’s argument to the lieu-tenant:“Atkins
says he means no disrespect, sir, but surely, sir, just conjoining poverty and
honesty like that makes one wonder.”“Vitters: this is a Cockney song! You’re
reading too much into it!”“Cockney? And why the citty feller, then – aren’t
Cockneys citty fellers. I would rather, sir, think it is what Sharp would call
a ‘sharp’ folk, sir, song, sir.’ The fourth and last test Grice imposes on his
examples is to ask whether we would be inclined to regard the fact that the
appropriate (or corresponding, since they are hardly appropriate – either of
them! – Grice changes the tune as many Oxford philosophers of ordinary language
do when some female joins the Union) implication is present as being a matter
of the, if we may be metabolic and animistic, ‘meaning’ of some particular word
or phrase occurring in the sentences in question. Grice is aware and thus
grants that this may not be always a very clear or easy question to answer.Nevertheless,
Grice risks the assertion that we would be fairly happy and contented to say
that, as regards ‘poor but honest,’ the fact that the implication obtains is a
matter of the ‘meaning’ of 'but ' – i. e. what Oxonians usually mean when they
‘but.’So far as “he has not ceased from…’ is concerned we should have at least
some inclination to say that the presence of the implication is a matter of
the, metabolically, ‘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. Well, it’s semantics. Why did Roman
think that it was a good thing to create a lexeme, ‘cease.’“Cease” means
“stop,” or ‘leave off.”It is not a natural verb, like ‘eat.’A rational creature
felt the need to have this concept: ‘stop,’ ‘leave off,’ ‘cease.’The
communication-function it serves is to indicate that SOMETHING has been taken
place, and then this is no longer the case.“The fire ceased,” one caveman said
to his wife.The wife snaps back – this is the Iron Age:“Have you ceased eating
iron, by the way, daa:ling?”“I never started!”So it’s the ‘cease’ locution that
does the trick – or equivalents, i.e. communication devices by which this or
that emissor explicitly convey more or less the same thing: a halting of some
activity.Surely the implication has nothing to do with the ‘beat’ and the
‘wife.’After third example (‘beautiful handwriting) introduced, Grice goes back
to IDEA OR TEST No. 1 (the truth-value thing). Grice notes that it is plain
that there is no case at all for regarding the truth of what is implied here (“Strawson
is hopeless at philosophy”) as a pre-condition of the truth or falsity of what
the tutor has 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 ‘beautiful
handwring’ is much closer to ‘poor but honest’ than ‘cease eating iron’ in this
respect. Next, as for the vehicle we have the at least four options and
possible combinations.The emissor, the tutor, could certainly be said to have
implied that Strawson is hopeless (provided that this is what the tutor
intended to ‘get across’) and the emissor’s, the tutor’s explicitly saying that
(at any rate the emissor’s saying that and no more) is also certainly a vehicle
of implication. On the other hand the emissor’s words and what the emissor
explicitly conveys are, Grice thinks, not naturally here characterised as the
‘vehicle’ of implication. “Beautiful handwriting” thus differs from BOTH “don’t
cease eating iron” and “poor but honest” – so the idea is to have a table alla
distinctive features, with YES/NO questions answered for each of the four
implication, and the answers they get.As for the third twin, the result is as
expected: The implication is cancellable but not detachable. And it looks as if
Grice created the examples JUST to exemplify those criteria.If the tutor adds, 'I
do not of course mean to imply that Strawson is no good at philosophy” the
whole utterance is intelligible and linguistically impeccable, even though it
may be extraordinary tutorial behaviour – at the other place, not Oxford --.The
tutor can no longer be said to have, or be made responsible for having implied
that Strawson was no good, even though perhaps that is what Grice’s colleagues
might conclude to be the case if Grice 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.“His
calligraphy is splendid and he is on time.”“Calligraphy splendid,” Ryle
objected. “That’s slightly oxymoronic, Grice – ‘kallos agathos’”Finally, for
TEST No. 4, ‘meaning’ of expression? The fact that the implication holds is surely
NOT a matter of any particular word or phrase within the sentence which I have
uttered.It is just the whole sentence. Had he gone tacit and say,“Beautiful
handwriting!”Rather than“He has beautiful handwriting.”The implication SEEMS to
be a matter of two particular words: the handwriting word, viz. ‘handwriting.’
And the ‘beautiful’ word, i. e. ‘beautiful.’Any lexeme expressing same concept,
‘Calligraphy unique!’would do the trick because this is damn by faint praise,
or suggestio falsi, suppressio veri. So in this respect “Beautiful handwring”
is certainly different from “Poor but honest” and, possibly different from
“Don’t cease to eat iron!”One obvious fact should be mentioned before one
passes to the fourth example (“kitchen or bedroom”).This case of implication is
unlike the others in that the utterance of the sentence "Strawson has
beautiful handwriting" does not really STANDARDLY involve the implication
here attributed to it (but cf. “We should have lunch together sometime” meaning
“Get lost” – as Grice said, “At Oxford, that’s the standard – that’s what the
‘expression’ “means”); it requires a special context (that it should be uttered
at Collections) to attach the implication to its utterance. More generally: it
requires a special scenario (one should avoid the structuralist Derrideian
‘context’ cf. Grice, “The general theory of context”). If back in the house,
Mrs. Grice asks, “He has beautiful handwriting,” while not at Collections, the implicaturum
would hold. Similarly at the “Lamb and Flag,” or “Bird and Baby.”But one gets
Grice’s point. The scenario is one where Strawson is being assessed or
evaluated AS A PHILOSOPHER. Spinoza’s handwriting was, Stuart Hampshire said,
“terrible – which made me wonder at first whether I should actually waste my
time with him.”After fourth and last example is introduced (“kitchen or
bedroom”): in the case of the Test No. I (at least four possible vehicles) one can
produce a strong argument in favour of holding that the fulfllment of the
implication of the speaker's ignorance (or that he is introducing “or” on
grounds other than Whitehead’s and Russell’s truth-functional ones) is not a
precaution (or precondition) of the truth or falsity of the disjunctive
statement. Suppose that the emissor KNOWS that his wife IS in the KITCHEN, that
the house has only two rooms, and no passages. Even though the utterer knows that
his wife is in the kitchen (as per given), the utterer can certainly still say
truly (or rather truthfully) "She is IN THE HOUSE.”SCENARIOA: Where is
your wife? ii. Where in your house is your wife?B: i. In the kitchen. ii. In
the bedroom. iiia. She’s in the house, don’t worry – she’s in the house, last
time I checked. iii. In the HOUSE (but inappropriate if mentioned in the
question – unless answered: She’s not. iv. In the kitchen or in the bedroom (if
it is common ground that the house only has two rooms there are more options)
vi. v. I’m a bachelor. vi. If she’s not
in the bedroom, she is in the kitchen. vii. If she’s not in the kitchen, she’s
in the bedroom. viii. Verbose but informative: “If she’s not in the bedroom
she’s in the kitchen, and she’s not in the kitchen” Or consider By uttering
“She is in the house,” the utterer is answering in a way that he is merely not
being as informative as he could bc if need arose. But the true proposition [cf. ‘propositional
complex’] that his wife is IN THE HOUSE together with the true proposition that
‘THE HOUSE’ consists entirely of a ‘kitchen’ and a ‘bedroom,’ ENTAIL or yield
the proposition that his wife is in the kitchen or in the bedroom. But IF to express
the proposition p (“My wife is in the house, that much I can tell”) in certain
circumstances (a house consisting entirely of a kitchen and a bedroom – an
outback bathroom which actually belongs to the neighbour – cf. Blenheim) would
be to speak truly, and p (“My wife is, do not worry, in the house”) togelher with
another true proposition – assumed to be common ground, that the house consists
entirely of a kitchen and a bedroom -- entails q (“My wife is in the kitchen OR
in the bedroom”), surely to express what is entailed (“My wife is in the
kitchen or in the bedroom”) in the same circvmstances must be, has to be to
speak truly. So we have to take it that
the disjunctive statement – “kitchen or bedroom” -- does not fail to be TRUE or
FALSE if the implied ignorance (or the implied consideration that the utterer
is uttering ‘or’ on grounds other than the truth-functional ones that
‘introduce’ “or” for Gentzen) is in fact not realized, i. e. it is false. Secondly,
as for Test No. 2 (the four or combo vehicles), Grice thinks it is fairly clear
that in this case, as in the case of “beautiful handwriting”, we could say that
the emissor had implies that he did not know (or that his ground is other than
truth-functional – assuming that he takes the questioner to be interested in
the specific location – i. e. to mean, “where IN THE HOUSE is your wife?”) and
also that his conveying explicilty that (or his conveying explicitly that
rather than something else, viz, in which room or where in the house she is, or
‘upstairs,’ or ‘downstairs,’ or ‘in the basement,’ or ‘in the attic,’ ‘went
shopping,’ ‘at the greengrocer’ – ‘she’s been missing for three weeks’) implied
that he did not know in which one of the two selected rooms his wife is
‘resident’ (and that he has grounds other than Gentzen’s truth-functional ones for
the introduction of ‘or.’). Thirdly, the implication (‘kitchen or bedroom’) is
in a way non-detachable, in that if in a given context the utterance of the
disjunctive sentence would involve the implication that the emissor did not
know in which room his his wife was (or strictly, that the emissor is
proceeding along non-truth-functional grounds for the introduction of ‘or,’ or
even more strictly still, that the emissor has grounds other than
truth-functional for the uttering of the disjunction), this implication would
also be involved in the utterance of any other form of words which would make
the same disjunctive assertion (e.g., "Look, knowing her, the alternatives
are she is either preparing some meal in the kitchen or snoozing in the
bedroom;” “One of the following things is the case, I’m pretty confident. First
thing: she is in the kitchen, since she enjoys watching the birds from the
kitchen window. Second thing: she is in the bedroom, since she enjoys watching birds
from the bedroom window.” Etymologically, “or” is short for ‘other,’ meaning
second. So a third possibility: “I will be Anglo-Saxon: First, she is the
kitchen. Second, she is in the bedroom.” “She is in the kitchen UNLESS she is
in the bedroom”“She is in the kitchen IF SHE IS NOT in the bedroom.”“Well, it
is not the case that she is in the KITCHEN *AND* in the bedroom, De Morgan!” She
is in the kitchen, provided she is not in the bedroom” “If she is not in the kitchen,
she is in the bedroom” “Bedroom, kitchen; one of the two.” “Kitchen, bedroom;
check both just in case.”“Sleeping; alternatively, cooking – you do the maths.”“The
choices are: bedroom and kitchen.”“My choices would be: bedroom and kitchen.”“I
would think: bedroom? … kitchen?”“Disjunctively, bedroom – kitchen – kitchen –
bedroom.”“In alternation: kitchen, bedroom, bedroom, kitchen – who cares?”“Exclusively,
bedroom, kitchen.”ln another possible way, however, the implication could
perhaps bc said to BE indeed detachable: for there will be some contexts of
utterance (as Firth calls them) in which the ‘normal’ implication (that the
utterer has grounds other than truth-functional for the utterance of a
disjunction) will not hold.Here, for the first time, Grice brings a different
scenario for ‘or’:“Thc Secretary of the Aristotelian Society, announcing ‘Our
coming symposium will be in Oxford OR not take place at all” perhaps does not
imply that he is has grounds other than truth-functional for the utterance of
the disjunction. He is just being wicked, and making a bad-taste joke. This totally
extraneous scenario points to the fact that the implication of a disjunction is
cancellable.Once we re-apply it to the ‘Where in the hell in your house your
wife is? I hear the noise, but can’t figure!’ Mutatis mutandi with the
Secretary to The Aristotelian Socieety, a man could say, “My wife is in the
kitchen or in the bedroorn.”in circumstances in which the implication (that the
man has grounds other than truth-functional for the uttering of the
disjunction) would normally be present, but he is not being co-operative –
since one doesn’t HAVE to be co-operative (This may be odd, that one appeals to
helpfulness everywhere but when it comes to the annulation!).So the man goes
on, “Mind you, I am not saying that I do not know which.”This is why we love
Grice. Why I love Grice. One would never think of finding that sort of wicked
English humour in, say Strawson. Strawson yet says that Grice should ‘let go.’
But to many, Grice is ALWAYS humorous, and making philosophy fun, into the
bargain, if that’s not the same thing. Everybody else at the Play Group
(notably the ones Grice opposed to: Strawson, Austin, Hare, Hampshire, and
Hart) would never play with him. Pears, Warnock, and Thomson would!“Mind you, I
am not saying that I do not know which.”A: Where in the house is your wife? I
need to talk to her.B: She is in the kitchen – or in the bedroom. I know where
she is – but since you usually bring trouble, I will make you decide so that
perhaps like Buridan’s ass, you find the choice impossible and refrain from
‘talking’ (i. e. bringing bad news) to her.A: Where is your wife? B: In the
kitchen or in the bedroom. I know where she is. But I also know you are always
saying that you know my wife so well. So, calculate, by the time of the day –
it’s 4 a.m – where she could be. A: Where is your wife? B: In the bedroom or in
the kitchen. I know where she is – but remember we were reading Heidegger
yesterday? He says that a kitchen is where one cooks, and a bedroom is where
one sleeps. So I’ll let you decide if Heidegger has been refuted, should you
find her sleeping in the kitchen, or cooking in the bedroom.A: Where is your
wife? B: In the kitchen or the bedroom. I know where she is. What you may NOT
know, is that we demolished the separating wall. We have a loft now. So all I’ll
say is that she may be in both! All this
might be unfriendly, unocooperative, and perhaps ungrammatical for Austen
[Grice pronounced the surname so that the Aristotelian Society members might
have a doubt] – if not Vitters, but, on the other hand, it would be a perfectly
intelligible thing for a (married) man to say. We may not even GO to bachelors.
Finally, the fact that the utterance of the disjunctive sentence normally or
standardly or caeteris paribus involves the implication of the emissor's ignorance
of the truth-values of the disjuncts (or more strictly, the implication of the
emissor’s having grounds other than truth-functional for the uttering of the
disjunctive) is, I should like to say, to be ‘explained’ – and Grice is being
serious here, since Austin never cared to ‘explain,’ even if he could -- by
reference to a general principle governing – or if that’s not too strong,
guiding – conversation, at least of the cooperative kind the virtues of which
we are supposed to be exulting to our tuttees. Exactly what this principle we
should not go there. To explain why the implicaturum that the emissor is having
grounds other than truth-functional ones for the utterance of a disjunction one
may appeal to the emissor being rational, assuming his emissee to be rational,
and abiding by something that Grice does NOT state in the imperative form, but
using what he calls a Hampshire modal (Grice divides the modals as Hampshire:
‘should,’ the weakest, ‘ought’ the Hare modal, the medium, and ‘must,’ Grice,
the stronges)"One, a man, a rational man, should not make conversational
move communicating ‘p’ which may be characterised (in strict terms of
entailment) as weaker (i.e. poor at conversational fortitude) rather than a
stronger (better at conversational fortitude) one unless there is a good reason
for so doing." So Gentzen is being crazey-basey if he thinks:p; therefore,
p or q.For who will proceed like that?“Or” is complicated, but so is ‘if.’ The
Gentzen differs from the evaluation assignemt:‘p or q’ is 1 iff p is 1 or q is
1. When we speak of ‘truth-functional’ grounds it is this assignment above we
are referring to.Of courseif p, p or q [a formulation of the Gentzen
introduction]is a TAUTOLOGY [which is what makes the introduction a rule of
inference].In terms of entailment P Or Q (independently) Is stronger than ‘p v q’ In that either p or q
entail ‘p or q’ but the reverse is not true. Grice says that he first thought
of the pragmatic rule in terms of the theory of perception, and Strawson hints
at this when he says in the footnote to “Introduction to Logical theory” that
the rule was pointed out by his tutor in the Logic Paper, Grice, “in a
different connection.” The logic paper took place before the war, so this is
early enough in Grice’s career – so the ghosts of Whitehead and Russell were
there! We can call the above ‘the principle of conversational fortitude.’ This
is certainly not an adequate formulation but will perhaps be good enough for
Grice’s purpose in “Causal.” On the assumption that such a principle as this is
of general application, one can DRAW or infer or explain the conclusion that
the utterance of a disjunctive sentence would imply that the emissor has
grounds other than truth-functional for the uttering of a disjunctum, given
that, first, the obvious reason for not making a statemcnt which there is some
call on one to make VALIDLY is that one is not in a position (or entitled) to
make it, and given, second, the logical ‘fact’ that each disjunct entails the
disjunctive, but not vice versa; which being so, each disjunct is stronger (bears
more conversational ‘fortitude’) than the disjunctive. If the outline just
given is on the right lines, Grice would wish to say, we have a reason for
REFUSING (as Strawson would not!) in the case of “kitchen or bedroom” to regard
the implication of the emissor having grounds other than truth-functional for
the uttering of the disjunctive as being part of the ‘meaning’ (whatever that
‘means’) of 'or' – but I should doublecheck with O. P. Wood – he’s our man in
‘or’ – A man who knows about the logical relation between a disjunction and
each disjunct, i. e. a man who has at least BROWSED Whitehead and Russell – and
diregards Bradley’s exclusivist account -- and who also ‘knew,’ qua Kantian
rational agent, about the alleged general principle or guiding conversational,
could work out for hirnself, surely, that a disjunctive utterance would involve
the implication which it does in fact involve. Grice insists, however, that his
aim in discussing this last point – about the principle of conversational
fortitude EXPLAING the generation of the implicaturum -- has been merelyto
indicate the position I would wish to take up, and not to argue scriously in
favour of it. Grice’s main purpose in the excursus on implication was to introduce
four ideas or catalysts, or tesets – TEST No. I: truth-value; TEST No. 2:
Vehicle out of four; Test No. 3/Twin Test: Annulation and Non-Detachment (is
there a positive way to express this – non-detached twins as opposed to
CONJOINT twins), and Test No. 4 – ‘Meaning’ of expression? -- of which Grice
then goes to make some use re: the pillar box seeming red.; and to provide some
conception of the ways in which each of the four tests apply or fail to apply
to various types of implication. By the numbering of it, it seems that by the
time of Essay II he has, typically, added an extra. It’s FIVE catalysts now,
but actually, since he has two of the previous tests all rolled up in one, it
is SIX CATALSTS. He’ll go back to them in Essay IV (“Indicative conditionals”
with regard to ‘if’), and in Presupposition and Conversational (with regard to
Example I here: “You have not ceased eating iron”). Implicaturum.He needs those
catalysts. Why? It seems like he is always thinking that someone will challenge
him! This is Grice: “We can now show that, it having been stipulated as being
what it is, a conversational implicaturum must possess certain distinctive
features, they are six. By using distinctive feature Grice is serious. He wants
each of the six catalysts to apply to each type of ‘implicaturum’, so that a
table can be constructed. With answers yes/no. Or rather here are some catalyst
ideas which will help us to determine or individuate. Six tests for implicaturum
as it were. SO THESE FEATURES – six of them – apply to three of the examples –
not the ‘poor but honest’ – but the “you have not ceased eating iron,”
“Beautiful handwriting,” and “Kitchen or bedroom.”First test – nothing about
the ‘twin’ – it’s ANNULATION or CANCELLABILITY – as noted in “Causal Theory” –
for two of the examples (‘beautiful handwriting’ and ‘kitchen or bedroom’ and
NEGATIVE version of “You don’t cease to eat iron”) and the one of the pillar
box – He adds a qualifier now: the annulation should best be IMPLICIT. But for
the fastidious philosopher, he allows for an EXPLICITATION which may not sound
grammatical enough to Austen (pronounced to rhyme with the playgroup master, or
the kindergarten’s master). To assume the presence of a conversational implicaturum,
the philosopher (and emissee) has to assume that the principle of
conversational co-operation (and not just conversational fortitude) is being
observed.However, it is mighty possible to opt out of this and most things at
Oxford, i. e. the observation of this principle of conversational cooperation
(or the earlier principle of conversational fortitude).It follows then that now
we CAN EXPLAIN WHY CANCELLABILITY IS A DISTINCTIVE FEATURE. He left it to be
understood in “Causal.”It follows then, deductively, that an implicaturum can
be canceled (or annulled) in a particular case. The conversational implicaturum
may be, drearily – but if that’s what the fastidious philosopher axes -- explicitly
canceled, if need there be, by the addition of a clause by which the utterer
states or implies that he opts out (e. g. “The pillar box seems red but it is.”
“Where is your wife?” “My lips are sealed”). Then again the conversational implicaturum
may be contextually (or implicitly) canceled, as Grice prefers (e. g. to a very
honest person, who knows I disbelieve the examiner exists, “The loyalty
examiner won’t be summoning you at any rate”). The utterance that usually would
carry an implicaturum is used on an occasion that makes it clear or obvious
that the utterer IS opting out without having to bore his addressee by making
this obviousness explicit. SECOND DISTINCTIVE FEATURE: CONJOINING, i.e.
non-detachability.There is a second litmus test or catalyst idea.Insofar as the
calculation that a implicaturum is present requires, besides contextual and
background information only an intuitive rational knowledge or understanding or
processing of what has been explicitly conveyed (‘are you playing squash? B
shows bandaged leg) (or the, shall we say, ‘conventional’ ‘arbitrary’
‘commitment’ of the utterance), and insofar as the manner or style, of FORM,
rather than MATTER, of expression should play at best absolutely no role in the
calculation, it is NOT possible to find another way of explicitly conveying or
putting forward the same thing, the same so-and-so (say that q follows from p)
which simply ‘lacks’ the unnecessary implicaturum in question -- except [will
his excluders never end?] where some special feature of the substituted version
[this other way which he says is not conceivable] is itself relevant to the determination
of the implicaturum (in virtue of this or that conversational maxims pertaining
to the category of conversational mode. THIS BIG CAVEAT makes you wonder that
Grice regretted making fun of Kant. By adopting jocularly the four
conversational categories, he now finds himself in having to give an excuse or
exception for those implicatura generated by a flout to what he earlier
referred to as the ‘desideratum of conversational clarity,’ and which he
jocularly rephrased as a self-defeating maxim, ‘be perspicuous [sic], never
mind perspicacious!’If we call this feature, as Grice does in “Causal Theory,”
‘non-detachability’ (or conjoining)– in that the implicaturum cannot be
detached or disjointed from any alternative expression that makes the same
point -- one may expect the implicaturum carried by this or that locution to
have a high degree of non-detachability. ALTERNATIVES FOR “NOT” Not, it is not
the case, it is false that. There’s nothing unique about ‘not’.ALTERNATIVES FOR
“AND” and, nothing, furthermore, but. There isnothing unique about
‘and’ALTERNATIVES FOR “OR”: One of the following is true. There is nothing
unique about ‘or’ALTERNATIVES FOR “IF” Provided. ‘There is nothing unique about
‘if’ALTERNATIVES FOR “THE” – There is at least one and at most one. And it
exists. (existence and uniqueness). There is nothing unique about ‘the’.THIS
COVERS STRAWSON’S first problem.What about the other English
philosophers?AUSTIN – on ‘voluntarily’ ALTERNATIVES to ‘voluntarily,’ with the
will, willingly, intentionally. Nothing unique about ‘voluntarily.’STRAWSON on
‘true’ – it is the case, redundance theory, nothing. Nothing unique about
‘true’HART ON good. To say that ‘x is commendable’ is to recommend x. Nothing
unique about ‘good.’HART on ‘carefully.’ Da Vinci painted Mona Lisa carefully,
with caution, with precaution. Nothing unique about ‘carefully.’THIRD LITMUS
TEST or idea and ATTENDING THIRD DISTINCTIVE
FEATURE. THIRD DISTINCTIVE FEATURE is in the protasis of the conditional.The implicaturum
depends on the explicatum or explicitum, and a fortiori, the implicaturum
cannot INVOLVE anything that the explicatum involves – There is nothing about
what an emissor explicitly conveys about “or” or a disjunctum in general, which
has to do with the emissor having grounds other than truth-functional for the
utterance of a disjunctum.The calculation of the presence of an implicaturum
presupposes an initial knowledge, or grasping, or understanding, or taking into
account of the ‘conventional’ force (not in Austin’s sense, but translating
Latin ‘vis’) of the expression the utterance of which carries the implicaturum.A
conversational implicaturum will be a condition (but not a truth-condition), i.
e. a condition that is NOT, be definition, on risk of circularity of otiosity,
included in what the emissor explicitly conveys, i. e. the original
specification of the expression's ‘conventional’ or arbitrary forceIf I’m
saying that ‘seems’ INVOLVES, as per conventional force, ‘doubt or
denial,’what’s my point? If Strawson is right that ‘if’ has the conventional
force of conventionally committing the utterer with the belief that q follows
from p, why bother? And if that were so, how come the implicaturum is still
cancellable?Though it may not be impossible for what starts life, so to speak,
as a conversational implicaturum to become conventionalized, to suppose that
this is so in a given case would require special justification. (Asking Lewis).
So, initially at least, a conversational implicaturum is, by definition and
stipulation, not part of the sense, truth-condition, conventional force, or
part of what is explicitly conveyed or put forward, or ‘meaning’ of the
expression to the employment of which the impicatum attaches. FOURTH LITMUS
TEST or catalyst idea. Mentioned in “Causal theory” YIELDS THE FOUTH DISICTINVE
FEATURE and the FIFTH distinctive feature.FOURTH DISTINCTIVE FEATURE: in the
protasis of the conditional – truth value.The alethic value – conjoined with
the test about the VEHICLE --. He has these as two different tests – and
correspondingly two distinctive features in “Causal”. The truth of a
conversational implicaturum is not required by (is not a condition for) the
truth of what is said or explicitly conveyed (what is said or explicated – the
explicatum or explicitum, or what is explicitly conveyed or communicated) may
be true -- what is implicated may be false – that he has beautiful handwriting,
that q follows from p, that the utterer is ENDORSING what someone else said,
that the utterer is recommending x, that the person who is said to act
carefully has taken precaution), FIFTH DISTINCTIVE FEATURE: vehicle – this is
the FOURTH vehicle of the four he mentions in “Causal”: ‘what the emissor
explicitly conveys,’ ‘the emissor himself,’ the emissor’s utterance, and
fourth, the emissor’s explicitly conveying, or explicitly conveying it that way
--. The apodosis of the conditional – or inferrability schema, since he uses
‘since,’ rather than ‘if,’ i. e. ‘GIVEN THAT p, q. Or ‘p; therefore, q’. The implicaturum
is NOT carried by what is said or the EXPLICATUM or EXPLICITUM, or is
explicitly conveyed, but only by the ‘saying’ or EXPLICATING or EXPLICITING of
what is said or of the explicatum or explicitum, or by 'putting it that way.’The
fifth and last litmus test or catalyst idea YIELDS A SIXTH DISTINCTIVE FEATURE:Note
that he never uses ‘first, second, etc.’ just the numerals, which in a lecture
format, are not visible!SIXTH DISTINCTIVE FEATURE: INDETERMINACY. Due to the
open character of the reasoning – and the choices available to fill the gap of
the content of the propositional attitude that makes the conversational
rational:“He is potentially dishonest.” “His colleagues are treacherous”Both implicatura
possible for “He hasn’t been to prison at his new job at the bank – yet.”Since,
to calculate a conversational implicaturum is to calculate what has to be
supposed in order to preserve the supposition that the utterer is a rational,
benevolent, altruist agent, and that the principle of conversational
cooperation is being observed, and since there may be various possible specific
explanations or alternatives that fill the gap here – as to what is the content
of the psychological attitude to be ascribed to the utterer, a list of which
may be open, or open-ended, the conversational implicaturum in such cases will
technically be an open-ended disjunction of all such specific explanations,
which may well be infinitely non-numerable. Since the list of these IS open,
the implicaturum will have just the kind of INDETERMINACY or lack of determinacy
that an implicaturum appears in most cases to possess. indeterminacy of
translation, a pair of theses derived, originally, from a thought experiment
regarding radical translation first propounded by Quine in Word and Object
(1960) and developed in his Ontological Relativity (1969), Theories and Things
(1981), and Pursuit of Truth (1990). Radical translation is an imaginary
context in which a field linguist is faced with the challenge of translating a
hitherto unknown language. Furthermore, it is stipulated that the linguist has
no access to bilinguals and that the language to be translated is historically
unrelated to that of the linguist. Presumably, the only data the linguist has
to go on are the observable behaviors of incompleteness indeterminacy of
translation 422 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 422 native speakers amid
the publicly observable objects of their environment. (1) The strong thesis of
indeterminacy, indeterminacy of translation of theoretical sentences as wholes,
is the claim that in the context of radical translation a linguist (or
linguists) could construct a number of manuals for translating the (natives’)
source language into the (linguists’) target language such that each manual
could be consistent with all possible behavior data and yet the manuals could
diverge with one another in countless places in assigning different
target-language sentences (holophrastically construed) as translations of the
same source-language sentences (holophrastically construed), diverge even to the
point where the sentences assigned have conflicting truth-values; and no
further data, physical or mental, could single out one such translation manual
as being the uniquely correct one. All such manuals, which are consistent with
all the possible behavioral data, are correct. (2) The weak thesis of
indeterminacy, indeterminacy of reference (or inscrutability of reference), is
the claim that given all possible behavior data, divergent target-language
interpretations of words within a source-language sentence could offset one
another so as to sustain different targetlanguage translations of the same
source-language sentence; and no further data, physical or mental, could single
out one such interpretation as the uniquely correct one. All such interpretations,
which are consistent with all the possible behavioral data, are correct. This
weaker sort of indeterminacy takes two forms: an ontic form and a syntactic
form. Quine’s famous example where the source-language term ‘gavagai’ could be
construed either as ‘rabbit’, ‘undetached rabbit part’, ‘rabbithood’, etc. (see
Word and Object), and his proxy function argument where different ontologies
could be mapped onto one another (see Ontological Relativity, Theories and
Things, and Pursuit of Truth), both exemplify the ontic form of indeterminacy
of reference. On the other hand, his example of the Japanese classifier, where
a particular three-word construction of Japanese can be translated into English
such that the third word of the construction can be construed with equal
justification either as a term of divided reference or as a mass term (see
Ontological Relativity and Pursuit of Truth), exemplifies the syntactic form of
indeterminacy of reference.
indexical: Bradley’s
thisness, and whatness – “Grice is improving on Scotus: Aristotle’s tode ti is
exactly Bradley’s thisness whatness – and more familiar to the English ear than
Scotus feminine ‘haecceitas.’” “Russell, being pretentious, call Bradley’s
“thisness” and “thatness,” but not “whatness” – as a class of the ‘egocentric
particular’ -- a type of expression
whose semantic value is in part determined by features of the context of
utterance, and hence may vary with that context. Among indexicals are the
personal pronouns, such as ‘I’, ‘you’, ‘he’, ‘she’, and ‘it’; demonstratives,
such as ‘this’ and ‘that’; temporal expressions, such as ‘now’, ‘today’,
‘yesterday’; and locative expressions, such as ‘here’, ‘there’, etc. Although
classical logic ignored indexicality, many recent practitioners, following
Richard Montague, have provided rigorous theories of indexicals in the context
of formal semantics. Perhaps the most plausible and thorough treatment of
indexicals is by David Kaplan, a prominent philosopher of language and logic
whose long-unpublished “Demonstratives” was especially influential; it
eventually appeared in J. Almog, J. Perry, and H. Wettstein, eds., Themes from
Kaplan. Kaplan argues persuasively that indexical singular terms are directly
referential and a species of rigid designator. He also forcefully brings out a
crucial lesson to be learned from indexicals, namely, that there are two types
of meaning, which Kaplan calls “content” and “character.” A sentence containing
an indexical, such as ‘I am hungry’, can be used to say different things in different
contexts, in part because of the different semantic contributions made by ‘I’
in these contexts. Kaplan calls a term’s contribution to what is said in a
context the term’s content. Though the content of an indexical like ‘I’ varies
with its context, it will nevertheless have a single meaning in the language,
which Kaplan calls the indexical’s character. This character may be conceived
as a rule of function that assigns different contents to the indexical in
different contexts.
implicaturum: in his Oxford
seminars. Grice: “I distinguish between the ‘implicaturum’ and the
‘implicaturum.’” “The ‘implicaturum’ corresponds to Moore’s entailment.” “For
the ‘pragmatic-type’ of thing, one should use ‘implicaturum.’” “The –aturum’
form is what at Clifton I learned as the future, and a ‘future’ twist it has,
since it refers to the future.” “ ‘Implicaturum esse’ is, strictly, the
infinitivum futurum, made out of the ‘esse’ plus the ‘indicaturum.’ We loved
these things at Clifton!”
indicatum. “oριστική,” “oristike,” – The Roman ‘indicatum’ is a
composite of ‘in’ plus ‘dicatum.’ The Romans were never sure about this.
Literally for the Greeks it’s the ‘definitive’ – ‘horistike’ klesis, inclinatio
or modus animae affectationem demonstrans indefinitivus – While indefinitivus
is the transliteration, the Romans also used ‘finitivus’ ‘finitus,’ and
‘indicativus’ and ‘pronuntiativus’. ‘Grice distinguishes between the indicative
mode and the informational mode. One can hardly inform oneself. Yet one can
utter an utterance in the indicative mode without it being in what he calls the
informational sub-mode. It’s interesting that Grice thinks he has to
distinguish between the ‘informational’ and the mere ‘indicative.’ Oddly when
he sets the goal to which ‘co-operation’ leads, it’s the informing/being
informed, influencing/being influenced. Surely he could have simplified that
by, as he later will, psi-transmission, whatever. So the emissor INDICATES,
even in an imperative utterance, what his will is. All moves are primarily ‘exhibitive,’
(and the function of the mode is to EXPRESS the corresponding attitude). Only
some moves are ‘protreptic.’ Grice was well aware, if perhaps not TOO aware,
since Austin was so secretive, about Austin on the ‘perlocution.’ Because
Austin wanted to deprieve the act from the cause of the act. Thus, Austin’s
communicative act may have a causal intention, leading to this or that effect –
but that would NOT be part of the philosopher’s interest. Suppose !p; whether
the order is successful and Smith does get a job he is promised, it hardly
matters to Kant, Austin, or Grice. Interestingly, ‘indicatum’ has the same root
as ‘dic-‘, to say – but surely you don’t need to say to indicate, as in Grice’s
favourite indicative mood: a hand wave signaling that the emissor knows the
route or is about to leave the emissee.
directum.
“Searle
thought he was being witty when adapting my implicaturum to what he called an
Indirect Austinian thing. Holdcroft was less obvious!” – Grice. – indirectum --
indirect discourse, also called oratio obliqua, the use of words to report what
others say, but without direct quotation. When one says “John said, ‘Not every
doctor is honest,’ “ one uses the words in one’s quotation directly – one uses
direct discourseto make an assertion about what John said. Accurate direct
discourse must get the exact words. But in indirect discourse one can use other
words than John does to report what he said, e.g., “John said that some
physicians are not honest.” The words quoted here capture the sense of John’s
assertion (the proposition he asserted). By extension, ‘indirect discourse’
designates the use of words in reporting beliefs. One uses words to
characterize the proposition believed rather than to make a direct assertion.
When Alice says, “John believes that some doctors are not honest,” she uses the
words ‘some doctors are not honest’ to present the proposition that John
believes. She does not assert the proposition. By contrast, direct discourse,
also called oratio recta, is the ordinary use of words to make assertions. Grice
struggled for years as to what the ‘fundamentum distinctionis’ is between the
central and the peripheric communicatum. He played with first-ground versus
second-ground. He played with two different crtieria: formal/material, and
dictive-non-dictive. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Holdcroft on direct and indirect communication.”
discernibile – “There’s the
discernible and the indiscernible, and Leibniz was a bit of a genius in
focusing on the second!” – Grice. indiscernibility: of identicals, the
principle that if A and B are identical, there is no difference between A and
B: everything true of A is true of B, and everything true of B is true of A; A
and B have just the same properties; there is no property such that A has it
while B lacks it, or B has it while A lacks it. A tempting formulation of this
principle, ‘Any two things that are identical have all their properties in
common’, verges on nonsense; for two things are never identical. ‘A is
numerically identical with B’ means that A and B are one and the same. A and B
have just the same properties because A, that is, B, has just the properties
that it has. This principle is sometimes called Leibniz’s law. It should be
distinguished from its converse, Leibniz’s more controversial principle of the
identity of indiscernibles. A contraposed form of the indiscernibility of
identicals – call it the distinctness of discernibles – reveals its point in
philosophic dialectic. If something is true of A that is not true of B, or (to
say the same thing differently) if something is true of B that is not true of
A, then A and B are not identical; they are distinct. One uses this principle
to attack identity claims. Classical arguments for dualism attempt to find
something true of the mind that is not true of anything physical. For example,
the mind, unlike everything physical, is indivisible. Also, the existence of
the mind, unlike the existence of everything physical, cannot be doubted. This
last argument shows that the distinctness of discernibles requires great care
of application in intentional contexts. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Definite
descriptions in Leibniz and in the vernacular.”
individuum: versus the
dividuum – or divisum. Cicero’s attempt to translate ‘a-tomon.’ In metaphysics,
a process whereby a universal, e.g., cat, becomes instantiated in an individual
– also called a particular e.g., Minina; (2) in epistemology, a process whereby
a knower discerns an individual, e.g., someone discerns Minina. The double
understanding of individuation raises two distinct problems: identifying the
causes of metaphysical individuation, and of epistemological individuation. In
both cases the causes are referred to as the principle of individuation.
Attempts to settle the metaphysical and epistemological problems of
individuation presuppose an understanding of the nature of individuality.
Individuality has been variously interpreted as involving one or more of the
following: indivisibility, difference, division within a species, identity
through time, impredicability, and non-instantiability. In general, theories of
individuation try to account variously for one or more of these. Individuation
may apply to both substances (e.g., Minina) and their features (e.g., Minina’s
fur color), generating two different sorts of theories. The theories of the
metaphysical individuation of substances most often proposed identify six types
of principles: a bundle of features (Russell); space and/or time (Boethius);
matter (Aristotle); form (Averroes); a decharacterized, sui generis component
called bare particular (Bergmann) or haecceity (Duns Scotus); and existence
(Avicenna). Sometimes several principles are combined. For example, for Aquinas
the principle of individuation is matter under dimensions (materia signata).
Two sorts of objections are often brought against these views of the
metaphysical individuation of substances. One points out that some of these
theories violate the principle of acquaintance,since they identify as
individuators entities for which there is no empirical evidence. The second
argues that some of these theories explain the individuation of substances in
terms of accidents, thus contradicting the ontological precedence of substance
over accident. The two most common theories of the epistemological individuation
of substances identify spatiotemporal location and/or the features of
substances as their individuators; we know a thing as an individual by its
location in space and time or by its features. The objections that are brought
to bear against these theories are generally based on the ineffectiveness of
those principles in all situations to account for the discernment of all types
of individuals. The theories of the metaphysical individuation of the features
of substances fall into two groups. Some identify the substance itself as the
principle of individuation; others identify some feature(s) of the substance as
individuator(s). Most accounts of the epistemological individuation of the
features of substances are similar to these views. The most common objections
to the metaphysical theories of the individuation of features attempt to show
that these theories are either incomplete or circular. It is argued, e.g., that
an account of the individuation of features in terms of substance is incomplete
because the individuation of the substance must also be accounted for: How
would one know what tree one sees, apart from its features? However, if the
substance is individuated by its features, one falls into a vicious circle.
Similar points are made with respect to the epistemological theories of the
individuation of features. Apart from the views mentioned, some philosophers
hold that individuals are individual essentially (per se), and therefore that
they do not undergo individuation. Under those conditions either there is no
need for a metaphysical principle of individuation (Ockham), or else the
principle of individuation is identified as the individual entity itself
(Suárez).
inductum: in the narrow
sense, inference to a generalization from its instances; (2) in the broad
sense, any ampliative inference – i.e., any inference where the claim made by
the conclusion goes beyond the claim jointly made by the premises. Induction in
the broad sense includes, as cases of particular interest: argument by analogy,
predictive inference, inference to causes from signs and symptoms, and
confirmation of scientific laws and theories. The narrow sense covers one
extreme case that is not ampliative. That is the case of mathematical
induction, where the premises of the argument necessarily imply the
generalization that is its conclusion. Inductive logic can be conceived most
generally as the theory of the evaluation of ampliative inference. In this
sense, much of probability theory, theoretical statistics, and the theory of computability
are parts of inductive logic. In addition, studies of scientific method can be
seen as addressing in a less formal way the question of the logic of inductive
inference. The name ‘inductive logic’ has also, however, become associated with
a specific approach to these issues deriving from the work of Bayes, Laplace,
De Morgan, and Carnap. On this approach, one’s prior probabilities in a state
of ignorance are determined or constrained by some principle for the
quantification of ignorance and one learns by conditioning on the evidence. A
recurrent difficulty with this line of attack is that the way in which
ignorance is quantified depends on how the problem is described, with different
logically equivalent descriptions leading to different prior probabilities.
Carnap laid down as a postulate for the application of his inductive logic that
one should always condition on one’s total evidence. This rule of total
evidence is usually taken for granted, but what justification is there for it?
Good pointed out that the standard Bayesian analysis of the expected value of
new information provides such a justification. Pure cost-free information
always has non-negative expected value, and if there is positive probability
that it will affect a decision, its expected value is positive. Ramsey made the
same point in an unpublished manuscript. The proof generalizes to various
models of learning uncertain evidence. A deductive account is sometimes
presented indubitability induction 425 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 425
where induction proceeds by elimination of possibilities that would make the
conclusion false. Thus Mill’s methods of experimental inquiry are sometimes
analyzed as proceeding by elimination of alternative possibilities. In a more
general setting, the hypothetico-deductive account of science holds that
theories are confirmed by their observational consequences – i.e., by
elimination of the possibilities that this experiment or that observation
falsifies the theory. Induction by elimination is sometimes put forth as an
alternative to probabilistic accounts of induction, but at least one version of
it is consistent with – and indeed a consequence of – probabilistic accounts.
It is an elementary fact of probability that if F, the potential falsifier, is
inconsistent with T and both have probability strictly between 0 and 1, then
the probability of T conditional on not-F is higher than the unconditional
probability of T. In a certain sense, inductive support of a universal
generalization by its instances may be a special case of the foregoing, but
this point must be treated with some care. In the first place, the universal
generalization must have positive prior probability. (It is worth noting that
Carnap’s systems of inductive logic do not satisfy this condition, although
systems of Hintikka and Niiniluoto do.) In the second place, the notion of
instance must be construed so the “instances” of a universal generalization are
in fact logical consequences of it. Thus ‘If A is a swan then A is white’ is an
instance of ‘All swans are white’ in the appropriate sense, but ‘A is a white
swan’ is not. The latter statement is logically stronger than ‘If A is a swan
then A is white’ and a complete report on species, weight, color, sex, etc., of
individual A would be stronger still. Such statements are not logical
consequences of the universal generalization, and the theorem does not hold for
them. For example, the report of a man 7 feet 11¾ inches tall might actually
reduce the probability of the generalization that all men are under 8 feet
tall. Residual queasiness about the foregoing may be dispelled by a point made
by Carnap apropos of Hempel’s discussion of paradoxes of confirmation.
‘Confirmation’ is ambiguous. ‘E confirms H’ may mean that the probability of H
conditional on E is greater than the unconditional probability of H, in which
case deductive consequences of H confirm H under the conditions set forth
above. Or ‘E confirms H’ may mean that the probability of H conditional on E is
high (e.g., greater than .95), in which case if E confirms H, then E confirms
every logical consequence of H. Conflation of the two senses can lead one to
the paradoxical conclusion that E confirms E & P and thus P for any
statement, P.
inductivism: “A philosophy of science
invented by Popper and P. K. Feyerabend as a foil for their own views. Why, I
must just have well invented ‘sensism’ as a foil for my theory of implicaturum!”
-- According to inductivism, a unique a priori inductive logic enables one to
construct an algorithm that will compute from any input of data the best
scientific theory accounting for that data.
inductum: Not deductum, --
nor abductum -- epapoge, Grecian term for ‘induction’. Especially in the logic
of Aristotle, epagoge is opposed to argument by syllogism. Aristotle describes
it as “a move from particulars to the universal.” E.g., premises that the
skilled navigator is the best navigator, the skilled charioteer the best
charioteer, and the skilled philosopher the best philosopher may support the
conclusion by epagoge that those skilled in something are usually the best at
it. Aristotle thought it more persuasive and clearer than the syllogistic
method, since it relies on the senses and is available to all humans. The term
was later applied to dialectical arguments intended to trap opponents. R.C.
epicheirema, a polysyllogism in which each premise represents an enthymematic
argument; e.g., ‘A lie creates disbelief, because it is an assertion that does
not correspond to truth; flattery is a lie, because it is a conscious
distortion of truth; therefore, flattery creates disbelief’. Each premise
constitutes an enthymematic syllogism. Thus, the first premise could be
expanded into the following full-fledged syllogism: ‘Every assertion that does
not correspond to truth creates disbelief; a lie is an assertion that does not
correspond to truth; therefore a lie creates disbelief’. We could likewise
expand the second premise and offer a complete argument for it. Epicheirema can
thus be a powerful tool in oral polemics, especially when one argues
regressively, first stating the conclusion with a sketch of support in terms of
enthymemes, and then if challenged to do
so expanding any or all of these
enthymemes into standard categorical syllogisms.
illatum: A form of the conjugation Grice
enjoyed was “inferentia,” cf essentia,
sententia, prudentia, etc.. – see illatum -- Cf. illatio. Consequentia.
Implicatio. Grice’s implicaturum and what the emissor implicates as a variation
on the logical usage.
infima species (Latin, ‘lowest species’),
a species that is not a genus of any other species. According to the theory of
classification, division, and definition that is part of traditional or
Aristotelian logic, every individual is a specimen of some infima species. An
infima species is a member of a genus that may in turn be a species of a more
inclusive genus, and so on, until one reaches a summum genus, a genus that is
not a species of a more inclusive genus. Socrates and Plato are specimens of
the infima specis human being (mortal rational animal), which is a species of
the genus rational animal, which is a species of the genus animal, and so on,
up to the summum genus substance. Whereas two specimens of animal – e.g., an
individual human and an individual horse – can differ partly in their essential
characteristics, no two specimens of the infima species human being can differ
in essence.
infinite-off
predicament, or ∞-off predicament.
infinitum: “What is not
finite.” “I know that there are infinitely many stars” – an example of a stupid
thing to say by the man in the street. apeiron, Grecian term meaning ‘the
boundless’ or ‘the unlimited’, which evolved to signify ‘the infinite’.
Anaximander introduced the term to philosophy by saying that the source of all
things was apeiron. There is some disagreement about whether he meant by this
the spatially antinomy apeiron unbounded, the temporally unbounded, or the
qualitatively indeterminate. It seems likely that he intended the term to
convey the first meaning, but the other two senses also happen to apply to the
spatially unbounded. After Anaximander, Anaximenes declared as his first
principle that air is boundless, and Xenophanes made his flat earth extend
downward without bounds, and probably outward horizontally without limit as
well. Rejecting the tradition of boundless principles, Parmenides argued that
“what-is” must be held within determinate boundaries. But his follower Melissus
again argued that what-is must be boundless
in both time and space for it can
have no beginning or end. Another follower of Parmenides, Zeno of Elea, argued
that if there are many substances, antinomies arise, including the consequences
that substances are both limited and unlimited apeira in number, and that they
are so small as not to have size and so large as to be unlimited in size.
Rejecting monism, Anaxagoras argued for an indefinite number of elements that
are each unlimited in size, and the Pythagorean Philolaus made limiters
perainonta and unlimiteds apeira the principles from which all things are
composed. The atomists Leucippus and Democritus conceived of a boundless
universe, partly full of an infinite number of atoms and partly void; and in
the universe are countless apeiroi worlds. Finally Aristotle arrived at an
abstract understanding of the apeiron as “the infinite,” claiming to settle
paradoxes about the boundless by allowing for real quantities to be infinitely
divisible potentially, but not actually Physics III.48. The development of the
notion of the apeiron shows how Grecian philosophers evolved ever more abstract
philosophical ideas from relatively concrete conceptions. Infinity -- Grice thougth that “There are
infinitely many stars” was a stupid thing to say -- diagonal procedure, a
method, originated by Cantor, for showing that there are infinite sets that
cannot be put in one-to-one correspondence with the set of natural numbers
i.e., enumerated. For example, the method can be used to show that the set of
real numbers x in the interval 0 ‹ x m 1 is not enumerable. Suppose x0, x1, x2,
. . . were such an enumeration x0 is the real correlated with 0; x1, the real
correlated with 1; and so on. Then consider the list formed by replacing each
real in the enumeration with the unique non-terminating decimal fraction
representing it: The first decimal fraction represents x0; the second, x1; and
so on. By diagonalization we select the decimal fraction shown by the arrows:
and change each digit xnn, taking care to avoid a terminating decimal. This
fraction is not on our list. For it differs from the first in the tenths place,
from the second in the hundredths place, and from the third in the thousandths
place, and so on. Thus the real it represents is not in the supposed
enumeration. This contradicts the original assumption. The idea can be put more
elegantly. Let f be any function such that, for each natural number n, fn is a
set of natural numbers. Then there is a set S of natural numbers such that n 1
S S n 2 fn. It is obvious that, for each n, fn & S. Infinity -- eternal return, the doctrine that
the same events, occurring in the same sequence and involving the same things,
have occurred infinitely many times in the past and will occur infinitely many
times in the future. Attributed most notably to the Stoics and Nietzsche, the
doctrine is antithetical to philosophical and religious viewpoints that claim
that the world order is unique, contingent in part, and directed toward some
goal. The Stoics interpret eternal return as the consequence of perpetual
divine activity imposing exceptionless causal principles on the world in a
supremely rational, providential way. The world, being the best possible, can
only be repeated endlessly. The Stoics do not explain why the best world cannot
be everlasting, making repetition unnecessary. It is not clear whether
Nietzsche asserted eternal return as a cosmological doctrine or only as a
thought experiment designed to confront one with the authenticity of one’s
life: would one affirm that life even if one were consigned to live it over
again without end? On either interpretation, Nietzsche’s version, like the
Stoic version, stresses the inexorability and necessary interconnectedness of
all things and events, although unlike the Stoic version, it rejects divine
providence. infinitary logic, the logic
of expressions of infinite length. Quine has advanced the claim that firstorder
logic (FOL) is the language of science, a position accepted by many of his
followers. Howinferential justification infinitary logic 428 4065h-l.qxd
08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 428 ever, many important notions of mathematics and
science are not expressible in FOL. The notion of finiteness, e.g., is central
in mathematics but cannot be expressed within FOL. There is no way to express
such a simple, precise claim as ‘There are only finitely many stars’ in FOL.
This and related expressive limitations in FOL seriously hamper its
applicability to the study of mathematics and have led to the study of stronger
logics. There have been various approaches to getting around the limitations by
the study of so-called strong logics, including second-order logic (where one
quantifies over sets or properties, not just individuals), generalized
quantifiers (where one adds quantifiers in addition to the usual ‘for all’ and
‘there exists’), and branching quantifiers (where notions of independence of
variables is introduced). One of the most fruitful methods has been the
introduction of idealized “infinitely long” statements. For example, the above
statement about the stars would be formalized as an infinite disjunction: there
is at most one star, or there are at most two stars, or there are at most three
stars, etc. Each of these disjuncts is expressible in FOL. The expressive
limitations in FOL are closely linked with Gödel’s famous completeness and
incompleteness theorems. These results show, among other things, that any
attempt to systematize the laws of logic is going to be inadequate, one way or
another. Either it will be confined to a language with expressive limitations,
so that these notions cannot even be expressed, or else, if they can be
expressed, then an attempt at giving an effective listing of axioms and rules
of inference for the language will fall short. In infinitary logic, the rules
of inference can have infinitely many premises, and so are not effectively
presentable. Early work in infinitary logic used cardinality as a guide:
whether or not a disjunction, conjunction, or quantifier string was permitted
had to do only with the cardinality of the set in question. It turned out that
the most fruitful of these logics was the language with countable conjunctions
and finite strings of first-order quantifiers. This language had further
refinements to socalled admissible languages, where more refined set-theoretic
considerations play a role in determining what counts as a formula. Infinitary
languages are also connected with strong axioms of infinity, statements that do
not follow from the usual axioms of set theory but for which one has other
evidence that they might well be true, or at least consistent. In particular,
compact cardinals are infinite cardinal numbers where the analogue of the
compactness theorem of FOL generalizes to the associated infinitary language.
These cardinals have proven to be very important in modern set theory. During
the 1990s, some infinitary logics played a surprising role in computer science.
By allowing arbitrarily long conjunctions and disjunctions, but only finitely
many variables (free or bound) in any formula, languages with attractive
closure properties were found that allowed the kinds of inductive procedures of
computer science, procedures not expressible in FOL. -- infinite regress
argument, a distinctively philosophical kind of argument purporting to show
that a thesis is defective because it generates an infinite series when either
(form A) no such series exists or (form B) were it to exist, the thesis would
lack the role (e.g., of justification) that it is supposed to play. The mere
generation of an infinite series is not objectionable. It is misleading therefore
to use ‘infinite regress’ (or ‘regress’) and ‘infinite series’ equivalently.
For instance, both of the following claims generate an infinite series: (1)
every natural number has a successor that itself is a natural number, and (2)
every event has a causal predecessor that itself is an event. Yet (1) is true
(arguably, necessarily true), and (2) may be true for all that logic can say
about the matter. Likewise, there is nothing contrary to logic about any of the
infinite series generated by the suppositions that (3) every free act is the
consequence of a free act of choice; (4) every intelligent operation is the
result of an intelligent mental operation; (5) whenever individuals x and y
share a property F there exists a third individual z which paradigmatically has
F and to which x and y are somehow related (as copies, by participation, or
whatnot); or (6) every generalization from experience is inductively inferable
from experience by appeal to some other generalization from experience. What
Locke (in the Essay concerning Human Understanding) objects to about the theory
of free will embodied in (3) and Ryle (in The Concept of Mind) objects to about
the “intellectualist leginfinite, actual infinite regress argument 429
4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 429 end” embodied in (4) can therefore be
only that it is just plain false as a matter of fact that we perform an
infinite number of acts of choice or operations of the requisite kinds. In
effect their infinite regress arguments are of form A: they argue that the
theories concerned must be rejected because they falsely imply that such
infinite series exist. Arguably the infinite regress arguments employed by
Plato (in the Parmenides) regarding his own theory of Forms and by Popper (in
the Logic of Scientific Discovery) regarding the principle of induction
proposed by Mill, are best construed as having form B, their objections being
less to (5) or (6) than to their epistemic versions: (5*) that we can
understand how x and y can share a property F only if we understand that there
exists a third individual (the “Form” z) which paradigmatically has F and to
which x and y are related; and (6*) that since the principle of induction must
itself be a generalization from experience, we are justified in accepting it
only if it can be inferred from experience by appeal to a higherorder, and
justified, inductive principle. They are arguing that because the series
generated by (5) and (6) are infinite, the epistemic enlightenment promised by
(5*) and (6*) will forever elude us. When successful, infinite regress
arguments can show us that certain sorts of explanation, understanding, or
justification are will-o’-thewisps. As Passmore has observed (in Philosophical
Reasoning) there is an important sense of ‘explain’ in which it is impossible
to explain predication. We cannot explain x’s and y’s possession of the common
property F by saying that they are called by the same name (nominalism) or fall
under the same concept (conceptualism) any more than we can by saying that they
are related to the same form (Platonic realism), since each of these is itself
a property that x and y are supposed to have in common. Likewise, it makes no
sense to try to explain why anything at all exists by invoking the existence of
something else (such as the theist’s God). The general truths that things
exist, and that things may have properties in common, are “brute facts” about
the way the world is. Some infinite regress objections fail because they are
directed at “straw men.” Bradley’s regress argument against the pluralist’s
“arrangement of given facts into relations and qualities,” from which he
concludes that monism is true, is a case in point. He correctly argues that if
one posits the existence of two or more things, then there must be relations of
some sort between them, and then (given his covert assumption that these
relations are things) concludes that there must be further relations between
these relations ad infinitum. Bradley’s regress misfires because a pluralist
would reject his assumption. Again, some regress arguments fail because they
presume that any infinite series is vicious. Aquinas’s regress objection to an
infinite series of movers, from which he concludes that there must be a prime
mover, involves this sort of confusion. -- infinity, in set theory, the
property of a set whereby it has a proper subset whose members can be placed in
one-to-one correspondence with all the members of the set, as the even integers
can be so arranged in respect to the natural numbers by the function f(x) =
x/2, namely: Devised by Richard Dedekind in defiance of the age-old intuition
that no part of a thing can be as large as the thing, this set-theoretical
definition of ‘infinity’, having been much acclaimed by philosophers like
Russell as a model of conceptual analysis that philosophers were urged to
emulate, can elucidate the putative infinity of space, time, and even God, his
power, wisdom, etc. If a set’s being denumerable – i.e., capable of having its
members placed in one-to-one correspondence with the natural numbers – can well
appear to define much more simply what the infinity of an infinite set is,
Cantor exhibited the real numbers (as expressed by unending decimal expansions)
as a counterexample, showing them to be indenumerable by means of his famous
diagonal argument. Suppose all the real numbers between 0 and 1 are placed in
one-to-one correspondence with the natural numbers, thus: Going down the
principal diagonal, we can construct a new real number, e.g., .954 . . . , not
found in the infinite “square array.” The most important result in set theory,
Cantor’s theorem, is denied its full force by the maverick followers infinity
infinity 430 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 430 of Skolem, who appeal to
the fact that, though the real numbers constructible in any standard axiomatic
system will be indenumerable relative to the resources of the system, they can
be seen to be denumerable when viewed from outside it. Refusing to accept the
absolute indenumerability of any set, the Skolemites, in relativizing the
notion to some system, provide one further instance of the allure of
relativism. More radical still are the nominalists who, rejecting all abstract
entities and sets in particular, might be supposed to have no use for Cantor’s
theorem. Not so. Assume with Democritus that there are infinitely many of his
atoms, made of adamant. Corresponding to each infinite subset of these atoms
will be their mereological sum or “fusion,” namely a certain quantity of
adamant. Concrete entities acceptable to the nominalist, these quantities can
be readily shown to be indenumerable. Whether Cantor’s still higher infinities
beyond F1 admit of any such nominalistic realization remains a largely
unexplored area. Aleph-zero or F0 being taken to be the transfinite number of
the natural numbers, there are then F1 real numbers (assuming the continuum
hypothesis), while the power set of the reals has F2 members, and the power set
of that F3 members, etc. In general, K2 will be said to have a greater number
(finite or transfinite) of members than K1 provided the members of K1 can be
put in one-to-one correspondence with some proper subset of K2 but not vice
versa. Skepticism regarding the higher infinities can trickle down even to F0,
and if both Aristotle and Kant, the former in his critique of Zeno’s paradoxes,
the latter in his treatment of cosmological antinomies, reject any actual, i.e.
completed, infinite, in our time Dummett’s return to verificationism, as
associated with the mathematical intuitionism of Brouwer, poses the keenest
challenge. Recognition-transcendent sentences like ‘The total number of stars
is infinite’ are charged with violating the intersubjective conditions required
for a speaker of a language to manifest a grasp of their meaning. Strawson,
or Grice’s favourite informalist: THE INFORMALISTS – A Group under which Grice
situated his post-generational Strawson and his pre-generational Ryle. informal
fallacy, an error of reasoning or tactic of argument that can be used to
persuade someone with whom you are reasoning that your argument is correct when
really it is not. The standard treatment of the informal fallacies in logic
textbooks draws heavily on Aristotle’s list, but there are many variants, and
new fallacies have often been added, some of which have gained strong footholds
in the textbooks. The word ‘informal’ indicates that these fallacies are not
simply localized faults or failures in the given propositions (premises and
conclusion) of an argument to conform to a standard of semantic correctness (like
that of deductive logic), but are misuses of the argument in relation to a
context of reasoning or type of dialogue that an arguer is supposed to be
engaged in. Informal logic is the subfield of logical inquiry that deals with
these fallacies. Typically, informal fallacies have a pragmatic (practical)
aspect relating to how an argument is being used, and also a dialectical
aspect, pertaining to a context of dialogue – normally an exchange between two
participants in a discussion. Both aspects are major concerns of informal
logic. Logic textbooks classify informal fallacies in various ways, but no
clear and widely accepted system of classification has yet become established.
Some textbooks are very inventive and prolific, citing many different fallacies,
including novel and exotic ones. Others are more conservative, sticking with
the twenty or so mainly featured in or derived from Aristotle’s original
treatment, with a few widely accepted additions. The paragraphs below cover
most of these “major” or widely featured fallacies, the ones most likely to be
encountered by name in the language of everyday educated conversation. The
genetic fallacy is the error of drawing an inappropriate conclusion about the
goodness or badness of some property of a thing from the goodness or badness of
some property of the origin of that thing. For example, ‘This medication was
derived from a plant that is poisonous; therefore, even though my physician
advises me to take it, I conclude that it would be very bad for me if I took
it.’ The error is inappropriately arguing from the origin of the medication to
the conclusion that it must be poisonous in any form or situation. The genetic
fallacy is often construed very broadly making it coextensive with the personal
attack type of argument (see the description of argumentum ad hominem below)
that condemns a prior argument by condemning its source or proponent.
Argumentum ad populum (argument to the people) is a kind of argument that uses
appeal to popular sentiments to support a conclusion. Sometimes called “appeal
to the gallery” or “appeal to popular pieties” or even “mob appeal,” this kind
of argument has traditionally been portrayed as fallacious. However, there
infinity, axiom of informal fallacy 431 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 431
need be nothing wrong with appealing to popular sentiments in argument, so long
as their evidential value is not exaggerated. Even so, such a tactic can be
fallacious when the attempt to arouse mass enthusiasms is used as a substitute
to cover for a failure to bring forward the kind of evidence that is properly
required to support one’s conclusion. Argumentum ad misericordiam (argument to
pity) is a kind of argument that uses an appeal to pity, sympathy, or
compassion to support its conclusion. Such arguments can have a legitimate
place in some discussions – e.g., in appeals for charitable donations. But they
can also put emotional pressure on a respondent in argument to try to cover up
a weak case. For example, a student who does not have a legitimate reason for a
late assignment might argue that if he doesn’t get a high grade, his
disappointed mother might have a heart attack. The fallacy of composition is
the error of arguing from a property of parts of a whole to a property of the
whole – e.g., ‘The important parts of this machine are light; therefore this
machine is light.’ But a property of the parts cannot always be transferred to
the whole. In some cases, examples of the fallacy of composition are arguments
from all the parts to a whole, e.g. ‘Everybody in the country pays her debts.
Therefore the country pays its debts.’ The fallacy of division is the converse
of that of composition: the error of arguing from a property of the whole to a
property of its parts – e.g., ‘This machine is heavy; therefore all the parts
of this machine are heavy.’ The problem is that the property possessed by the
whole need not transfer to the parts. The fallacy of false cause, sometimes
called post hoc, ergo propter hoc (after this, therefore because of this), is the
error of arguing that because two events are correlated with one another,
especially when they vary together, the one is the cause of the other. For
example, there might be a genuine correlation between the stork population in
certain areas of Europe and the human birth rate. But it would be an error to
conclude, on that basis alone, that the presence of storks causes babies to be
born. In general, however, correlation is good, if sometimes weak, evidence for
causation. The problem comes in when the evidential strength of the correlation
is exaggerated as causal evidence. The apparent connection could just be
coincidence, or due to other factors that have not been taken into account,
e.g., some third factor that causes both the events that are correlated with
each other. The fallacy of secundum quid (neglecting qualifications) occurs
where someone is arguing from a general rule to a particular case, or vice
versa. One version of it is arguing from a general rule while overlooking or
suppressing legitimate exceptions. This kind of error has also often been
called the fallacy of accident. An example would be the argument ‘Everyone has
the right to freedom of speech; therefore it is my right to shout “Fire” in
this crowded theater if I want to.’ The other version of secundum quid,
sometimes also called the fallacy of converse accident, or the fallacy of hasty
generalization, is the error of trying to argue from a particular case to a
general rule that does not properly fit that case. An example would be the argument
‘Tweetie [an ostrich] is a bird that does not fly; therefore birds do not fly’.
The fault is the failure to recognize or acknowledge that Tweetie is not a
typical bird with respect to flying. Argumentum consensus gentium (argument
from the consensus of the nations) is a kind that appeals to the common consent
of mankind to support a conclusion. Numerous philosophers and theologians in
the past have appealed to this kind of argument to support conclusions like the
existence of God and the binding character of moral principles. For example,
‘Belief in God is practically universal among human beings past and present;
therefore there is a practical weight of presumption in favor of the truth of
the proposition that God exists’. A version of the consensus gentium argument
represented by this example has sometimes been put forward in logic textbooks
as an instance of the argumentum ad populum (described above) called the
argument from popularity: ‘Everybody believes (accepts) P as true; therefore P
is true’. If interpreted as applicable in all cases, the argument from
popularity is not generally sound, and may be regarded as a fallacy. However,
if regarded as a presumptive inference that only applies in some cases, and as
subject to withdrawal where evidence to the contrary exists, it can sometimes
be regarded as a weak but plausible argument, useful to serve as a provisional
guide to prudent action or reasoned commitment. Argumentum ad hominem
(literally, argument against the man) is a kind of argument that uses a
personal attack against an arguer to refute her argument. In the abusive or
personal variant, the character of the arguer (especially character for
veracity) is attacked; e.g., ‘You can’t believe what Smith says – he is a
liar’. In evaluating testimony (e.g., in legal cross-examination), attacking an
arguer’s character can be legitimate in some cases. Also in political debate,
character can be a legitimate issue. However, ad hominem arguinformal fallacy
informal fallacy 432 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 432 ments are commonly
used fallaciously in attacking an opponent unfairly – e.g., where the attack is
not merited, or where it is used to distract an audience from more relevant
lines of argument. In the circumstantial variant, an arguer’s personal
circumstances are claimed to be in conflict with his argument, implying that
the arguer is either confused or insincere; e.g., ‘You don’t practice what you
preach’. For example, a politician who has once advocated not raising taxes may
be accused of “flip-flopping” if he himself subsequently favors legislation to
raise taxes. This type of argument is not inherently fallacious, but it can go
badly wrong, or be used in a fallacious way, for example if circumstances
changed, or if the alleged conflict was less serious than the attacker claimed.
Another variant is the “poisoning the well” type of ad hominem argument, where
an arguer is said to have shown no regard for the truth, the implication being
that nothing he says henceforth can ever be trusted as reliable. Yet another
variant of the ad hominem argument often cited in logic textbooks is the tu
quoque (you-too reply), where the arguer attacked by an ad hominem argument
turns around and says, “What about you? Haven’t you ever lied before? You’re
just as bad.” Still another variant is the bias type of ad hominem argument,
where one party in an argument charges the other with not being honest or
impartial or with having hidden motivations or personal interests at stake.
Argumentum ad baculum (argument to the club) is a kind of argument that appeals
to a threat or to fear in order to support a conclusion, or to intimidate a
respondent into accepting it. Ad baculum arguments often take an indirect form;
e.g., ‘If you don’t do this, harmful consequences to you might follow’. In such
cases the utterance can often be taken as a threat. Ad baculum arguments are
not inherently fallacious, because appeals to threatening or fearsome sanctions
– e.g., harsh penalties for drunken driving – are not necessarily failures of critical
argumentation. But because ad baculum arguments are powerful in eliciting
emotions, they are often used persuasively as sophistical tactics in
argumentation to avoid fulfilling the proper requirements of a burden of proof.
Argument from authority is a kind of argument that uses expert opinion (de
facto authority) or the pronouncement of someone invested with an institutional
office or title (de jure authority) to support a conclusion. As a practical but
fallible method of steering discussion toward a presumptive conclusion, the
argument from authority can be a reasonable way of shifting a burden of proof.
However, if pressed too hard in a discussion or portrayed as a better
justification for a conclusion than the evidence warrants, it can become a fallacious
argumentum ad verecundiam (see below). It should be noted, however, that
arguments based on expert opinions are widely accepted both in artificial
intelligence and everyday argumentation as legitimate and sound under the right
conditions. Although arguments from authority have been strongly condemned
during some historical periods as inherently fallacious, the current climate of
opinion is to think of them as acceptable in some cases, even if they are
fallible arguments that can easily go wrong or be misused by sophistical
persuaders. Argumentum ad judicium represents a kind of knowledge-based
argumentation that is empirical, as opposed to being based on an arguer’s
personal opinion or viewpoint. In modern terminology, it apparently refers to
an argument based on objective evidence, as opposed to somebody’s subjective
opinion. The term appears to have been invented by Locke to contrast three
commonly used kinds of arguments and a fourth special type of argument. The
first three types of argument are based on premises that the respondent of the
argument is taken to have already accepted. Thus these can all be called
“personal” in nature. The fourth kind of argument – argumentum ad judicium –
does not have to be based on what some person accepts, and so could perhaps be
called “impersonal.” Locke writes that the first three kinds of arguments can
dispose a person for the reception of truth, but cannot help that person to the
truth. Only the argumentum ad judicium can do that. The first three types of arguments
come from “my shamefacedness, ignorance or error,” whereas the argumentum ad
judicium “comes from proofs and arguments and light arising from the nature of
things themselves.” The first three types of arguments have only a preparatory
function in finding the truth of a matter, whereas the argumentum ad judicium
is more directly instrumental in helping us to find the truth. Argumentum ad
verecundiam (argument to reverence or respect) is the fallacious use of expert
opinion in argumentation to try to persuade someone to accept a conclusion. In
the Essay concerning Human Understanding (1690) Locke describes such arguments
as tactics of trying to prevail on the assent of someone by portraying him as
irreverent or immodest if he does not readily yield to the authority of some
learned informal fallacy informal fallacy 433 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM
Page 433 opinion cited. Locke does not claim, however, that all appeals to
expert authority in argument are fallacious. They can be reasonable if used
judiciously. Argumentum ad ignorantiam (argument to ignorance) takes the
following form: a proposition a is not known or proved to be true (false);
therefore A is false (true). It is a negative type of knowledge-based or
presumptive reasoning, generally not conclusive, but it is nevertheless often
non-fallacious in balance-of-consideration cases where the evidence is
inconclusive to resolve a disputed question. In such cases it is a kind of
presumption-based argumentation used to advocate adopting a conclusion provisionally,
in the absence of hard knowledge that would determine whether the conclusion is
true or false. An example would be: Smith has not been heard from for over
seven years, and there is no evidence that he is alive; therefore it may be
presumed (for the purpose of settling Smith’s estate) that he is dead.
Arguments from ignorance ought not to be pressed too hard or used with too
strong a degree of confidence. An example comes from the U.S. Senate hearings
in 1950, in which Senator Joseph McCarthy used case histories to argue that
certain persons in the State Department should be considered Communists. Of one
case he said, “I do not have much information on this except the general
statement of the agency that there is nothing in the files to disprove his
Communist connections.” The strength of any argument from ignorance depends on
the thoroughness of the search made. The argument from ignorance can be used to
shift a burden of proof merely on the basis of rumor, innuendo, or false
accusations, instead of real evidence. Ignoratio elenchi (ignorance of
refutation) is the traditional name, following Aristotle, for the fault of
failing to keep to the point in an argument. The fallacy is also called
irrelevant conclusion or missing the point. Such a failure of relevance is
essentially a failure to keep closely enough to the issue under discussion.
Suppose that during a criminal trial, the prosecutor displays the victim’s
bloody shirt and argues at length that murder is a horrible crime. The
digression may be ruled irrelevant to the question at issue of whether the
defendant is guilty of murder. Alleged failures of this type in argumentation
are sometimes quite difficult to judge fairly, and a ruling should depend on
the type of discussion the participants are supposed to be engaged in. In some
cases, conventions or institutional rules of procedure – e.g. in a criminal
trial – are aids to determining whether a line of argumentation should be
judged relevant or not. Petitio principii (asking to be granted the “principle”
or issue of the discussion to be proved), also called begging the question, is
the fallacy of improperly arguing in a circle. Circular reasoning should not be
presumed to be inherently fallacious, but can be fallacious where the circular
argument has been used to disguise or cover up a failure to fulfill a burden of
proof. The problem arises where the conclusion that was supposed to be proved
is presumed within the premises to be granted by the respondent of the
argument. Suppose I ask you to prove that this bicycle (the ownership of which
is subject to dispute) belongs to Hector, and you reply, “All the bicycles
around here belong to Hector.” The problem is that without independent evidence
that shows otherwise, the premise that all the bicycles belong to Hector takes
for granted that this bicycle belongs to Hector, instead of proving it by
properly fulfilling the burden of proof. The fallacy of many questions (also
called the fallacy of complex question) is the tactic of packing unwarranted
presuppositions into a question so that any direct answer given by the
respondent will trap her into conceding these presuppositions. The classical
case is the question, “Have you stopped beating your spouse?” No matter how the
respondent answers, yes or no, she concedes the presuppositions that (a) she
has a spouse, and (b) she has beaten that spouse at some time. Where one or
both of these presumptions are unwarranted in the given case, the use of this
question is an instance of the fallacy of many questions. The fallacy of
equivocation occurs where an ambiguous word has been used more than once in an
argument in such a way that it is plausible to interpret it in one way in one
instance of its use and in another way in another instance. Such an argument
may seem persuasive if the shift in the context of use of the word makes these
differing interpretations plausible. Equivocation, however, is generally
seriously deceptive only in longer sequences of argument where the meaning of a
word or phrase shifts subtly but significantly. A simplistic example will
illustrate the gist of the fallacy: ‘The news media should present all the
facts on anything that is in the public interest; the public interest in lives
of movie stars is intense; therefore the news media should present all the
facts on the private lives of movie stars’. This argument goes from plausible
premises to an implausible conclusion by trading on the ambiguity of ‘public
interest’. In one sense informal fallacy informal fallacy 434 4065h-l.qxd
08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 434 it means ‘public benefit’ while in another sense it
refers to something more akin to curiosity. Amphiboly (double arrangement) is a
type of traditional fallacy (derived from Aristotle’s list of fallacies) that
refers to the use of syntactically ambiguous sentences like ‘Save soap and
waste paper’. Although the logic textbooks often cite examples of such
sentences as fallacies, they have never made clear how they could be used to
deceive in a serious discussion. Indeed, the example cited is not even an
argument, but simply an ambiguous sentence. In cases of some advertisements
like ‘Two pizzas for one special price’, however, one can see how the amphiboly
seriously misleads readers into thinking they are being offered two pizzas for
the regular price of one. Accent is the use of shifting stress or emphasis in
speech as a means of deception. For example, if a speaker puts stress on the
word ‘created’ in ‘All men were created equal’ it suggests (by implicaturum)
the opposite proposition to ‘All men are equal’, namely ‘Not all men are (now)
equal’. The oral stress allows the speaker to covertly suggest an inference the
hearer is likely to draw, and to escape commitment to the conclusion suggested
by later denying he said it. The slippery slope argument, in one form, counsels
against some contemplated action (or inaction) on the ground that, once taken,
it will be a first step in a sequence of events that will be difficult to
resist and will (or may or must) lead to some dangerous (or undesirable or disastrous)
outcome in the end. It is often argued, e.g., that once you allow euthanasia in
any form, such as the withdrawal of heroic treatments of dying patients in
hospitals, then (through erosion of respect for human life), you will
eventually wind up with a totalitarian state where old, feeble, or politically
troublesome individuals are routinely eliminated. Some slippery slope arguments
can be reasonable, but they should not be put forward in an exaggerated way,
supported with insufficient evidence, or used as a scare tactic.
informal logic: Grice preferred ‘material’
logic – “What Strawson means by ‘informal logic’ is best expressed by
‘ordinary-language logic,’ drawing on Bergmann’s distinction between the
ordinary and the ideal.” Also called practical logic, the use of logic to
identify, analyze, and evaluate arguments as they occur in contexts of
discourse in everyday conversations. In informal logic, arguments are assessed
on a case-by-case basis, relative to how the argument was used in a given context
to persuade someone to accept the conclusion, or at least to give some reason
relevant to accepting the conclusion.
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