Abstract for Perry & Korta (2009)

"Classical Gricean pragmatics is usually conceived as

dealing with far-side pragmatics, aimed at computing

implicatures. It involves reasoning about why what

was said, was said. Near-side pragmatics, on

the other hand, is pragmatics in the service of

determining, together with the semantical properties

of the words used, what was said. But this raises

the [spectre] of 'the pragmatic circle.' If Gricean

pragmatics seeks explanations for why someone said what

they [sic] did, how can there be Gricean pragmatics

on the near-side? Gricean reasoning seems to require

what is said to get started. But then if Gricean reasoning

is needed to get to what is said, we have a circle."

--- which was, for Plato, the perfect figure.