"We Agree To Disagree" in the Grice Club

---- By J. L. Speranza
------ for the Grice Club.

In "The Taxon", THIS BLOG, I wrote, "Dengler has it (then why wouldn't he) right." In this post I will elaborate on the witty analysis provided by Kramer in his commentary. It touches on larger issues, which are a delight to consider. We are assuming two types of arguments, which I will sketch here briefly

----- WE AGREE TO DISAGREE ---
(or not). Let's have a conversation

EPAGOGE ----------- DIAGOGE

p --------------------- p

--- -----

c COUNTER-EX. c POSITIVE Evidence


In Kramer it is all, rightly, about U's disabusing a notion with the U. As per the above, I have discussed those elsewhere vis a vis R. B. Jones's types of dialectic in "Carnap and Grice" (c) Jones and Speranza. The idea is that conversations can fit the mould of 'epagoge', where a counter-example is counter-evidence to a claim by U, as provided by A. Diagoge, which brings, Grice says, an 'eirenic' or peaceful effect, is when only positive evidence is presented for claims. Kramer focuses on a strict Gricean analysis of "A(ddressee) has it, as he should, right". The utterer who utters that, Kramer submits, is 'clumsy' because he is "cancel[ing] one implicature of [one of his utterances] that is already canceled by another [of his utterances]." To argue like that, Kramer provides the affirmative, "not"-free version, and wonders if (i), implicates (a) and (b) below.

(i) A has it right.
+> (a)
i.e. [A] may believe that [A] has it wrong, but [A] has it right.
+> (b)
i.e. [A] may believe that U believes that [A] has it wrong, but [U] believes that [A] has it right.

Kramer notes: "If (i) implicates either (a) or (b), does U (then why wouldn't he) negate whichever it is? And is it necessary, or when no one has expressly raised the possibility that A is wrong, does (i) have no such implicature?
Or, can we say that (i) always implies that A thinks that A has it wrong, because, otherwise, saying (i) is otiose, and we can't have that."

The question is openly and clearly posited by Kramer: "Can we," then, "say that a statement violates "Be relevant" if it doesn't at least potentially in U's mind disabuse A of something?" (emphasis in bold type mine. JLS)

He continues: "If so, then for (i) not to violate that maxim, it's "first-order" (generalized?) implicature"

NB. I think the idea of a first-order implicature is Geary's own! (vide his "Buckley and Co." -- but I will have to revise the context to see if he took that from someone else).

"is that someone will (or may) be disabused by the utterance. Now U wants to cancel that implicature, so he says "(but then, why wouldn't he?),"
raising the question of whether that addition is otiose. Is the cancellation necessary in the conversational context of no one having raised a doubt?"

What if it's in U's own thoughts? -- but see below as to doubts as to whether 'rhetorical questions' are aptly so named. Plus, what is "it" that Dengler is never doubted as having it wrong?

Kramer: "After all, if someone had raised a doubt, we'd know why A would have it wrong, and it would be absurd to suggest by the rhetorical question that there is no reason to think A has it wrong."

INTERLUDE:

("I seem to recall an early thread - the ladder [Langlish lift] thingy? - putting implicatures in order of control, as lawyers do when we say that the specific controls the general.")

Kramer continues:

"In this case, I would think that the implicature raised by the lack of expressed doubt (again, we need to think of silence as information)"

A good notion here is, I propose,
∅-infomation
Cfr. ∅-tolerance

("He ∅-informed me that he disliked the dress." "He did?". "Well, he didn't compliment it, either". Cfr. (-)-informed, "mis-informed", etc).

Kramer continues:

"cancels the implicature raised by saying "A has it right. Would Grice agree that if
a generalized implicature can be canceled, a conversational implicature of the same sentence can do the cancelling? And if that's the case, does (but then, why wouldn't he?) becomes unnecessary absent a reason to have to disabuse A of the notion that "A" might be wrong?" (bold types, mine. JLS)

AN ALTERNATIVE tag.

Kramer writes: "I thought a bit about"

(ii) I agree with A.

"as an alternative to (i). But the two are different, and the [tag]

(iii) But then why not?

"cancellation points to the difference. Both version imply self-importance (but then, why shouldn't an important person imply his own importance?) but in different ways. [Uttering] (i) suggests that U is an authority on the subject;"

--- Cfr. Grice on "Deutero-Esperanto". "I can invent a rigmarole of a lingo that nobody else speaks. That makes me the authority". (cfr. Humpty Dumpty on who the master is).

Kramer continues:

"[uttering][the less stronger, less presumptuous. JLS] (ii) suggests that one's opinion is of interest, but is, still, only
an opinion."

So it's the 'factuality' vs. 'non-factuality' implicature -- versus the total counterfactuality of "A has 'it' wrong. If A has it wrong, then 'it' is not as A has it, because, strictly A has it _not_. It's like saying the Russians before the Cold War had all of Locke's liberal manifesto for political liberalism wrong, no?

Kramer goes on: "The difference comes clear when we try to cancel the implicature with [the] (iii) [tag]. We get (iv) and (v)."

(iv) A is (but why would not A be?) right.
(v) U agrees (but why would he not) with A.

As Kramer notes, the less strong, less presumptuous move, (v), "leaves it unclear whether the notion of which A needs to be disabused is that the A may be wrong, or [perish the thought, god forbid. JLS] that U may be wrong"

Kramer concludes a disabuse should be avoided. Or an abuse, I'm confused now. "But, I would still submit that if the question is not rhetorical,
its answer is already known"

I would part sides (is that the expression? Not take, the opposite). I don't think I meant it as rhetorical. In fact, perhaps I was expecting, "Of course I'm wrong, JL."
In fact, in his commentary, which I have not replied, since I'm having as a self-imposed rule that when there's more than 2 commenters in a thread I'll let the order proceed numerically. Dengler rigthly (surely it would be odd that the does it 'wrongly') points to the 'it'. The 'it' is perhaps key, too, because I never said what 'it' was. This is Alice-in-Wonderland, but I won't expect the incident in the new Johnny Depp film which I have not yet seen. EXCURSUS. The "it" of the Duck, from Alice in Wonderland, ch. iii:

“Edwin and Morcar, the earls of Mercia and Northumbria, declared for him: and even Stigand, the patriotic archbishop of Canterbury, found it advisable—”’‘Found what?’ said the Duck. ‘Found it’ the Mouse replied rather crossly: ‘of course you know what 'it' means.’ ‘I know what 'it' means well enough, when I find a thing,’ said the Duck: ‘it’s generally a frog or a worm. The question is, what did the archbishop find?’ The Mouse did not notice this question, but hurriedly went on, ‘”—found it advisable to go with Edgar Atheling to meet William and offer him the crown."

So one is never _clear_ what Dengler has, let alone if he has "it" right (or alternatively, wrong). Note that Dengler in comment to thread has the 'it', properly, in 'scare quotes', cfr. Elizabeth Hurley, the 'it' girl. Of course the Alice is a red-herring, because the 'it' is NOT anticipatory in the tag we are examining. ("You have it right when you say that..."-- END OF EXCURSUS. Kramer finalises his brilliant commentary:

"; so it must be rhetorical, but if it's rhetorical, it's otiose."

There are keys or clues to suggest it might be rhetorical by the introduction, "but then." I find that 'but then' is USUALLY rhetoric. "But" is a rhetorical particle. "And then" is NEVER rhetorical. "But then" usually is. "And then, why wouldn't you" In this commentary above, in a sort of draft, I have turned the Dengler references, clumsily, to "A" addressee references, making the point pretty moot and silly, because all of Kramer's apt comments make sense when A ≠ "he" in "but then why wouldn't he?", but for clarification purposes I want to complicate the picture. It seems otiose in more than one respect in that one cannot 'flaunt' one's own having it wrong, etc. But will come back to this, I hope.

But the idea of abuse and disabuse are very Gricean, thanks to L. J. Kramer for bringing them to the forum with such insight and wit.