Further to Kramer's points on 'the invention of lying', etc.:
From the wiki:
"In satire, truthiness is a "truth" that a person claims to know intuitively "from the gut" without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination, or facts.[1]
American television comedian Stephen Colbert revealed this definition[2] as the subject of a segment called "The Wørd" during the pilot episode of his political satire program The Colbert Report on October 17, 2005. By using this as part of his routine, Colbert satirized the misuse of appeal to emotion and "gut feeling" as a rhetorical device in contemporaneous socio-political discourse.[3] He particularly applied it to U.S. President George W. Bush's nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court and the decision to invade Iraq in 2003.[4] Colbert later ascribed truthiness to other institutions and organizations, including Wikipedia.[5] Colbert has sometimes used a quasi-Latin version of the term, "Veritasiness".[6] For example, in Colbert's "Operation Iraqi Stephen: Going Commando" the word "Veritasiness" can be seen on the banner above the eagle on the operation's seal.
Truthiness, although a "stunt word", was named Word of the Year for 2005 by the American Dialect Society and for 2006 by Merriam-Webster.[7][8] However, linguist and OED consultant Benjamin Zimmer[2][9] pointed out that the word truthiness[10] already had a history in literature and appears in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), as a derivation of truthy, and The Century Dictionary, both of which indicate it as rare or dialectal, and to be defined more straightforwardly as "truthfulness, faithfulness".[2]
Adoption of the term by Colbert
Colbert chose the word truthiness just moments before taping the premiere episode of The Colbert Report on October 17, 2005, after deciding that the originally scripted word – "truth" – was not absolutely ridiculous enough. "We're not talking about truth, we're talking about something that seems like truth – the truth we want to exist", he explained.[11] He introduced his definition in the first segment of the episode, saying: "Now I'm sure some of the 'word police', the 'wordinistas' over at Webster's are gonna say, 'Hey, that's not a word'. Well, anybody who knows me knows I'm no fan of dictionaries or reference books. They're elitist. Constantly telling us what is or isn't true. Or what did or didn't happen."[4]
When asked in an out-of-character interview with The Onion's A.V. Club for his views on "the 'truthiness' imbroglio that's tearing our country apart", Colbert elaborated on the critique he intended to convey with the word:[3]
Truthiness is tearing apart our country, and I don't mean the argument over who came up with the word…
It used to be, everyone was entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts. But that's not the case anymore. Facts matter not at all. Perception is everything. It's certainty. People love the President because he's certain of his choices as a leader, even if the facts that back him up don't seem to exist. It's the fact that he's certain that is very appealing to a certain section of the country. I really feel a dichotomy in the American populace. What is important? What you want to be true, or what is true?…
Truthiness is 'What I say is right, and [nothing] anyone else says could possibly be true.' It's not only that I feel it to be true, but that I feel it to be true. There's not only an emotional quality, but there's a selfish quality.
During an interview on December 8, 2006 with Charlie Rose,[12] Colbert stated:
'I was thinking of the idea of passion and emotion and certainty over information. And what you feel in your gut, (as I said in the first Wørd we did, which was sort of a thesis statement of the whole show – however long it lasts – is that sentence, that one word), that's more important to, I think, the public at large, and not just the people who provide it in prime-time cable, than information.'
On his April 2, 2009 episode of the Colbert Report, Colbert added an addendum to the definition: a word so straight that it drives men wild.
Coverage by news media. After Colbert's introduction to truthiness, it quickly became widely used and recognized. Six days after, CNN's Reliable Sources featured a discussion of The Colbert Report by host Howard Kurtz, who played a clip of Colbert's definition.[13] On the same day, ABC's Nightline also reported on truthiness, prompting Colbert to respond by saying: "You know what was missing from that piece? Me. Stephen Colbert. But I'm not surprised. Nightline's on opposite me…"[14]
Within a few months of its introduction by Colbert, truthiness was discussed in The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Weekly, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Chicago Tribune, Newsweek, CNN, MSNBC, the Associated Press, Editor & Publisher, Salon, The Huffington Post, Chicago Reader, CNET, and on ABC's Nightline, CBS's 60 Minutes, and The Oprah Winfrey Show.
The February 13, 2006 issue of Newsweek featured an article on The Colbert Report titled "The Truthiness Teller", recounting the career of the word truthiness since its popularization by Colbert.[10]
[edit] The New York Times coverage and usage
In its October 25, 2005 issue, eight days after the premiere episode of the Report, The New York Times ran its third article on The Colbert Report, "Bringing Out the Absurdity of the News".[15] The article specifically discussed the segment on "truthiness", although the Times misreported the word as "trustiness". In its November 1, 2005 issue, the Times ran a correction. On the next episode of the Report, Colbert took the Times to task for the error, pointing out, albeit incorrectly, that "trustiness" is "not even a word".[16]
In its December 25, 2005 issue, the New York Times again discussed "truthiness", this time as one of nine words that had captured the year's zeitgeist, in an article titled "2005: In a Word; Truthiness" by Jacques Steinberg. In crediting truthiness, Steinberg said, "the pundit who probably drew the most attention in 2005 was only playing one on TV: Stephen Colbert".[17]
In the January 22, 2006 issue, columnist Frank Rich used the term seven times, with credit to Colbert, in a column titled "Truthiness 101: From Frey to Alito",[18] to discuss Republican portrayals of several issues (including the Samuel Alito nomination, the Bush administration's response to Hurricane Katrina, and Jack Murtha's Vietnam War record). Rich emphasized the extent to which the word had quickly become a cultural fixture, writing, "The mock Comedy Central pundit Stephen Colbert's slinging of the word 'truthiness' caught on instantaneously last year precisely because we live in the age of truthiness." Editor & Publisher reported on Rich's use of "truthiness" in his column, saying he "tackled the growing trend to 'truthiness,' as opposed to truth, in the U.S."[19]
The New York Times published two letters on the 2006 White House Correspondents' Dinner, where Stephen Colbert was the featured guest, in its May 3, 2006 edition, under the headline "Truthiness and Power".[20]
Frank Rich referenced truthiness again in The New York Times in 2008, describing the strategy of John McCain's presidential campaign as being "to envelop the entire presidential race in a thick fog of truthiness."[21] Rich explained that the campaign was based on truthiness because "McCain, Sarah Palin and their surrogates keep repeating the same lies over and over not just to smear their opponents and not just to mask their own record. Their larger aim is to construct a bogus alternative reality so relentless it can overwhelm any haphazard journalistic stabs at puncturing it."[21] Rich also noted, "You know the press is impotent at unmasking this truthiness when the hardest-hitting interrogation McCain has yet faced on television came on 'The View'. Barbara Walters and Joy Behar called him on several falsehoods, including his endlessly repeated fantasy that Palin opposed earmarks for Alaska. Behar used the word “lies” to his face."[21]
Widespread recognition. A church sign stating, "Truthiness and Consequences", taken March 10, 2007, in Cape Coral, FloridaUsage of "truthiness" continued to proliferate in media, politics, and public consciousness. On January 5, 2006, etymology professor Anatoly Liberman began an hour-long program on public radio by discussing truthiness and predicting that it would be included in dictionaries in the next year or two.[22] His prediction seemed to be on track when, the next day, the American Dialect Society announced that "truthiness" was its 2005 Word of the Year, and the website of the Macmillan English Dictionary featured truthiness as its Word of the Week a few weeks later.[23] Truthiness was also selected by The New York Times as one of nine words that captured the spirit of 2005. Global Language Monitor, which tracks trends in languages, named truthiness the top television buzzword of 2006, and another term Colbert coined with reference to truthiness, wikiality, as another of the top ten television buzzwords of 2006, the first time two words from the same show have made the list. [24] [25]
On January 1, 2007, Lake Superior State University in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan released its annual list of words it wants banned from the English language. "Truthiness" was among them, along with other words like "awesome" and celebrity couple portmanteaus like "Brangelina" and "TomKat".[26] In response, on January 8, 2007 Colbert stated that Lake Superior State University was an "attention-seeking second-tier state university".[27] The 2008 List of Banished Words restored "truthiness" to formal usage, in response to the 2007-2008 Writers Guild of America strike.[28]
American Dialect Society's Word of the Year. On January 6, 2006, the American Dialect Society announced that "truthiness" was selected as its 2005 Word of the Year. The Society described its rationale as follows:
In its 16th annual words of the year vote, the American Dialect Society voted truthiness as the word of the year. First heard on The Colbert Report, a satirical mock news show on the Comedy Central television channel, truthiness refers to the quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes or believes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true. As Stephen Colbert put it, "I don't trust books. They're all fact, no heart."[7]
Apparently after realizing that "truthiness" was found in the Oxford English Dictionary, the Society later changed the wording of this press release on their website, from "First heard on The Colbert Report" to "Recently popularized on the Colbert Report".
Merriam-Webster's Word of the Year. On December 10, 2006 the Merriam-Webster Dictionary announced that "truthiness" was selected as its 2006 Word of the Year on Merriam-Webster's Words of the Year, based on a reader poll, by a 5–1 margin over the second-place word google.[8] "We're at a point where what constitutes truth is a question on a lot of people's minds, and truth has become up for grabs", said Merriam-Webster president John Morse. "'Truthiness' is a playful way for us to think about a very important issue."[29] However, despite winning Word of the Year, the word does not appear in the 2006 edition of the Merriam-Webster English Dictionary. In response to this omission, during "The Wørd" segment on December 12, 2006 Colbert issued a new page 1344 for the tenth edition of the Merriam Webster dictionary that featured "truthiness". To make room for the definition of "truthiness," including a portrait of Colbert, the definition for the word "try" was removed with Colbert stating "Sorry, try. Maybe you should have tried harder." He also sarcastically told viewers to 'not' download the new page and 'not' glue it in the new dictionary in libraries and schools.
New York Times crossword puzzle. In the June 14, 2008 edition of The New York Times, the word was featured as 1-across in the crossword puzzle. Colbert mentioned this during the last segment on the June 18 episode of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and declared himself the "King of the Crossword".[30][31]
BBC "portrait of the decade". In December 2009, the BBC online magazine asked its readers to nominate suggestions of things to be included on a poster which would represent important events in the 2000s, divided into five different categories: "People", "Words", "News", "Objects" and "Culture". Suggestions were sent in and a panel of five independent experts shortened each category to what they saw as the 20 most important. Among the nominations selected in the "Words" category was "Truthiness". As a result, the word "Truthiness" appeared in the poster.[32]
Use in political and social commentary. James Frey controversy
The Chicago Tribune published an editorial in its January 16, 2006 issue titled "The Truthiness Hurts", crediting the rise of truthiness as serendipitously providing an apt description of the Oprah Book Club controversy over James Frey's fictionalized "memoir," A Million Little Pieces.[33] Truthiness was also used to describe the controversy over the factual accuracy of Frey's book by USA Today in its January 15, 2006 issue,[34] by several other publications including The New York Times, and by the television news program Nightline on its October 23 and January 26 editions.[35]
Oprah Winfrey also discussed truthiness with Frank Rich on her show, in reference to the Frey controversy and the column "Truthiness 101" Rich had recently published in the New York Times.[36] They also mentioned Colbert's role in making the word "truthiness".[37]
On January 27, MSNBC ran a commentary titled "Oprah strikes a blow for truthiness: Do facts really matter? Ask Winfrey, James Frey or Stephen Colbert", making the case that Winfrey's about-face on Frey's book was a "small (and belated) but bold nudge back out of the proud halls of truthiness", but also opportunistic and too little too late.[38]
In the Canadian Parliament. In 2006, Liberal Party of Canada leadership contender Ken Dryden used truthiness as an extensive theme in a speech in the House of Commons. The speech dealt critically with the current government's Universal Child Care Plan.[39] Dryden defined truthiness as "something that is spoken as if true that one wants others to believe is true, that said often enough with enough voices orchestrated in behind it, might even sound true, but is not true."
The transcript of all debates in the House (Hansard) is made available in both official languages; the translators into French chose to render "truthiness" as fausse vérité ("false truth").[39]
Alleged snubbing by the Associated Press, and Colbert's response
The Associated Press reported on the American Dialect Society's selection of truthiness as the Word of the Year,[40] including the following comments by one of the voting linguists:
Michael Adams, a professor at North Carolina State University who specializes in lexicology, said "truthiness" means "truthy, not facty". "The national argument right now is, one, "Who's got the truth?" and, two, "Who's got the facts?"", he said. "Until we can manage to get the two of them back together again, we're not going to make much progress."
On each of the first four episodes of the Report after the selection of truthiness as Word of the Year, Colbert lamented that news reports neglected to acknowledge him as the source of the word. On the first of these episodes, he added Michael Adams to his "On Notice" board, and Associated Press reporter Heather Clark, the author of the article, to his "Dead to Me" board.[41] On the third of these episodes, he ranked the AP at the top of the "Threat-Down",[42] one of few entries ever to gain the number one spot in place of bears. On the following episode he called Adams and asked for an apology. Though Adams never apologized, Colbert "accepted" his "apology", but failed to take him "off notice".
Associated Press response to Colbert
On January 13, the first day after the four-day run of criticism of the AP on the Report, the AP ran a story about The Colbert Report being upset about being snubbed by the AP, in an article titled "Colbert: AP the biggest threat to America".[43] As he has in the past, Colbert remained in character in an interview for the story, and used it to further the political satire of truthiness; excerpts of the story are:
"…When an AP story about the designation sent coast to coast failed to mention Colbert, he began a tongue-in-cheek crusade, not unlike the kind his muse Bill O'Reilly might lead in all seriousness."
"'It's a sin of omission…' Stephen Colbert told the AP on Thursday….'It's like Shakespeare still being alive and not asking him what Hamlet is about,' he said."
"The Oxford English Dictionary has a definition for 'truthy' dating back to the 1800s….'The fact that they looked it up in a book just shows that they don't get the idea of truthiness at all,' Stephen Colbert said Thursday. 'You don't look up truthiness in a book, you look it up in your gut.'"
"Though slight, the difference of Colbert's definition and the OED's is essential. It's not your typical truth, but, as The New York Times wrote, 'a summation of what [Colbert] sees as the guiding ethos of the loudest commentators on Fox News, MSNBC and CNN.'"
"Colbert, who referred on his program to the AP omission as a 'journalistic travesty,' said Thursday that it was similar to the much-criticized weapons of mass destruction reporting leading up to the Iraq War. 'Except,' he said, 'people got hurt this time.'"
On January 14, Clark herself responded in an article titled "Exclusive 'News'—I'm dead to Stephen Colbert".[44] She furthered the rise of "truthiness" in published English in conceding, "Truthiness be told, I never had seen The Colbert Report until my name graced its 'Dead to Me' board this week….But I will say that I watched Colbert's show for the first time…It was funny. And that's not just truthy. That's a fact."
Arianna Huffington
On January 31, 2006, Arianna Huffington used truthiness on the Huffington Post.[45] Huffington later appeared as a guest on the March 1, 2006, episode of The Colbert Report. She challenged Colbert on his claim that he had invented the word truthiness. During the interview, Colbert declared, "I'm not a truthiness fanatic; I'm truthiness' father." Huffington corrected him, citing Wikipedia, that he had merely "popularized" the term. Regarding her source, Colbert responded: "Fuck Them!"[46]
President George W. Bush
At the 2006 White House Correspondents' Association Dinner, Colbert, the featured guest, described President Bush's thought processes using the definition of truthiness. Editor and Publisher used truthiness to describe Colbert's criticism of Bush, in an article published the same day titled "Colbert Lampoons Bush at White House Correspondents Dinner—President Not Amused?" E&P reported that the "blistering comedy 'tribute' to President Bush… left George and Laura Bush unsmiling at its close" and that many people at the dinner "looked a little uncomfortable at times, perhaps feeling the material was a little too biting—or too much speaking 'truthiness' to power".[47] E&P reported a few days later that its coverage of Colbert at the dinner drew "possibly its highest one-day traffic total ever", and published a letter to the editor asserting that "Colbert brought truth wrapped in truthiness".[48] On the same weekend, The Washington Post and others also referenced this.[49][50][51] Writing six months later in a column titled "Throw The Truthiness Bums Out", New York Times columnist Frank Rich called Colbert's after-dinner speech a "cultural primary" and christened it the "defining moment" of the United States' 2006 midterm elections.[52][53]
Charles Krauthammer
Conservative commentator Charles Krauthammer brought the term up in a discussion about President Obama on the show Fox News All-Stars in June 2010, saying:
What we see here is conditional truthiness. When the administration needs to say, oh, we knew how bad it was, it says it, and when it needs to say we had no idea how bad it was, it says it. It depends when it needs it; it’ll invent a new truth.[54]
[edit] See also
Wikiality – another word coined by Colbert
Doublethink
Newspeak
Rhetoric
Noble lie
Factoid
1.^ Dick Meyer (December 12, 2006). "The Truth of Truthiness". CBS News. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/12/12/opinion/meyer/main2250923.shtml. Retrieved December 14, 2006.
2.^ a b c Zimmer, Benjamin. "Language Log: Truthiness or Trustiness?". http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002586.html. Retrieved June 4, 2006.
3.^ a b Nathan Rabin (January 26, 2006). "Interview: Stephen Colbert". A.V. Club. http://www.avclub.com/content/node/44705. Retrieved June 4, 2006.
4.^ a b "The Colbert Report: Videos: The Word (Truthiness)". October 17, 2005. http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/24039/october-17-2005/the-word---truthiness. Retrieved January 2, 2009.
5.^ The Colbert Report / Comedy Central recording of The WØRD "Wikiality", Comedy Central, July 31, 2006.
6.^ http://firedoglake.com/2006/06/05/a-stop-on-the-veritasiness-tour-2006/
7.^ a b "Truthiness Voted 2005 Word of the Year by American Dialect Society" (PDF). http://www.americandialect.org/Words_of_the_Year_2005.pdf. Retrieved June 4, 2006.
8.^ a b "Merriam-Webster's Words of the Year 2006". Merriam-Webster. http://www.merriam-webster.com/info/06words.htm. Retrieved December 8, 2006.
9.^ "Benjamin Zimmer homepage". http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~bgzimmer/. Retrieved June 4, 2006.
10.^ a b Marc Peyser (February 13, 2006). "The Truthiness Teller". Newsweek. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11182033/site/newsweek/. Retrieved June 4, 2006.
11.^ Adam Sternbergh (October 16, 2006). "Stephen Colbert Has America by the Ballots". New York Magazine. http://nymag.com/news/politics/22322/index1.html. Retrieved October 27, 2007.
12.^ Charlie Rose (December 8, 2006), "A conversation with comedian Stephen Colbert". Retrieved on August 14, 2008.
13.^ . It was also used September 23, 2008 by CNN's American Morning by John Roberts. Howard Kurtz (transcript) (October 23, 2005). "CNN Reliable Sources". CNN. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0510/23/rs.01.html. Retrieved June 4, 2006.
14.^ "[D1RT: stephen colbert on..."]. http://www.iseeseveralflaws.com/dirt/archives/000426.html. Retrieved September 19, 2008.
15.^ Allesandra Stanley (October 25, 2005). "Bringing Out the Absurdity of the News". The New York Times. http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F30A16F83B5B0C768EDDA90994DD404482. Retrieved June 4, 2006.
16.^ Many dictionaries (e.g. American Heritage, Merriam-Webster, New Oxford Dictionary of English, etc.) offer definitions for trustiness.
17.^ Steinberg, Jacques (December 25, 2005). "2005: In a Word: Truthiness". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/25/weekinreview/25track.ready.html?ei=5090&en=0ad1e6ef6392c7da&ex=1293166800&adxnnl=1&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all&adxnnlx=1137484544-pMx4vqbEIRjCInvXH5mFzg. Retrieved June 4, 2006.
18.^ Rich, Frank (January 22, 2006). "Truthiness 101: From Frey to Alito". The New York Times. http://select.nytimes.com/2006/01/22/opinion/22rich.html?_r=1. Retrieved December 26, 2008.
19.^ "'NY Times' Frank Rich Taking Book Leave". January 22, 2006. http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001882874. Retrieved January 23, 2006.
20.^ Gloria D. Howard; William M. Phillian (May 3, 2006). "Truthiness and Power". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/03/opinion/l03colbert.html?ex=1149652800&en=be69d253b7aa626d&ei=5070. Retrieved June 4, 2006.
21.^ a b c Frank Rich (September 21, 2008). "Truthiness Stages a Comeback". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/21/opinion/21rich.html. Retrieved September 21, 2008.
22.^ "Where Words Come From". January 5, 2006. http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/programs/midmorning/listings/mm20060102.shtml. Retrieved June 4, 2006.
23.^ "Word of the Week Archive". http://www.macmillandictionary.com/New-Words/060213-truthiness.htm. Retrieved June 4, 2006.
24.^ ""Truthiness", "Wikiality" named TV words of year". Reuters. August 28, 2006. http://www.tbs.com/stories/story/0,,83376,00.html. Retrieved November 25, 2008.
25.^ "'Truthiness' and 'Wikiality' Named Top Television Buzzwords of 2006 Followed by 'Katrina', 'Katie,' and 'Dr. McDreamy'". Global Language Monitor. August 27, 2006. http://www.languagemonitor.com/Telewords/. Retrieved August 28, 2006.
26.^ Lake Superior State University 2007 List of Banished Words
27.^ Colbert Report Episode 3001 (1/8/2006) overview
28.^ Lake Superior State University 2008 List of Banished Words
29.^ Adam Gorlick (December 8, 2006). "Colbert's 'truthiness' pronounced Word of the Year". AP/Houston Chronicle. http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/chronicle/4389349.html.
30.^ "Daily/Colbert – Crossword Puzzle" (video). Comedy Central. June 18, 2008. http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=174004&title=daily/colbert-crossword-puzzle. Retrieved December 20, 2008.
31.^ Parker, Rex (June 14, 2008). "Saturday, Jun . 14, 2008". Rex Parker does the NYT crossword puzzle (personal blog). http://rexwordpuzzle.blogspot.com/2008/06/saturday-jun-14-2008-brendan-emmett.html. Retrieved June 30, 2008.
32.^ "A portrait of the decade". BBC. December 14, 2009. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8406898.stm. Retrieved December 17, 2009.
33.^ Chicago Tribune editorial board (January 16, 2006). "The Truthiness Hurts". The Chicago Tribune. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0601160188jan16,1,4983997.story?ctrack=1&cset=true. Retrieved February 1, 2006.
34.^ Marco R. della Cava (January 15, 2006). "Truth falls to "Pieces" after suspect memoir". USA Today. http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/news/2006-01-15-truth-debate_x.htm. Retrieved June 4, 2006.
35.^ Frank Rich (January 22, 2006). "Truthiness 101: From Frey to Alito". The New York Times. http://select.nytimes.com/gst/tsc.html?URI=http://select.nytimes.com/2006/01/22/opinion/22rich.html&OQ=_rQ3D1Q26hp&OP=716faa15Q2FJfr@JRGUhhRJaYYXJYlJaaJhsjpjhpJaaUj!Q5D0Q5DR1v. Retrieved June 4, 2006.
36.^ "The Oprah Winfrey Show (transcript)". January 26, 2006. http://www2.oprah.com/tows/slide/200601/20060126/slide_20060126_350_204.jhtml. Retrieved June 4, 2006.
37.^ David Carr (January 30, 2006). "How Oprahness Trumped Truthiness". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/30/business/media/30carr.html. Retrieved June 4, 2006.
38.^ Jon Bonné (January 27, 2006). "Oprah strikes a blow for truthiness". MSNBC. http://msnbc.msn.com/id/11044071/. Retrieved June 4, 2006.
39.^ a b "Hansard". May 4, 2006. http://www2.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication.aspx?Language=E&Mode=1&Parl=39&Ses=1&DocId=2179089#Int-1515982. Retrieved October 16, 2007.
40.^ Heather Clark (January 1, 2006). "Honestly, "truthiness" is selected the word of 2005". The Seattle Times / Associated Press. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002725801_words07.html. Retrieved June 4, 2006.
41.^ "The Colbert Report: Videos: On Notice (A Glaring Omission)". http://www.comedycentral.com/shows/the_colbert_report/videos/notice/index.jhtml. Retrieved June 4, 2006.
42.^ "The Colbert Report: Videos: Threatdown". http://www.comedycentral.com/shows/the_colbert_report/videos/threatdown/index.jhtml. Retrieved June 4, 2006.
43.^ Jake Coyle (January 13, 2006). "Colbert: AP the biggest threat to America". CBS News / Associated Press. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/01/13/ap/entertainment/mainD8F3VNT8E.shtml. Retrieved November 7, 2006.
44.^ "Exclusive "News": I'm Dead to Stephen Colbert". January 14, 2006. http://asap.ap.org/stories/293280.s. Retrieved June 4, 2006.
45.^ "Will America's New Love Affair With the Truth Extend to Bush's SOTU Speech?". January 31, 2006. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/will-americas-new-love-a_b_14809.html. Retrieved June 4, 2006.
46.^ "The Colbert Report: Videos (Arianna Huffington)". March 1, 2006. http://www.comedycentral.com/motherload/index.jhtml?ml_video=59703. Retrieved June 4, 2006.
47.^ E&P Staff (April 29, 2006). "Colbert Lampoons Bush at White House Correspondents Dinner—President Not Amused?". Editor and Publisher. http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002425363. Retrieved May 7, 2006.
48.^ E&P Staff (May 2, 2006). "Tuesday's Letters: Colbert Offensive, Colbert Mediocre, Colbert a Hero, Colbert Vicious, Colbert Brave". http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002426165. Retrieved June 4, 2006.
49.^ "Dept. of Truthiness: The Colbert Rapport". The Washington Post. March 30, 2006. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/29/AR2006042900126.html. Retrieved June 4, 2006.
50.^ Michael Scherer (May 1, 2006). "The truthiness hurts". Salon. http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2006/05/01/colbert/index_np.html. Retrieved June 4, 2006.
51.^ "The Colbert Report: Morley Safer Profiles Comedy Central's "Fake" Newsman". March 30, 2006. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/04/27/60minutes/main1553506.shtml. Retrieved June 4, 2006.
52.^ Rich, Frank (November 5, 2006). "Throw the Truthiness Bums Out". The New York Times. http://select.nytimes.com/2006/11/05/opinion/05rich.html. Retrieved November 22, 2006.
53.^ Froomkin, Dan (November 7, 2006). "Bubble Trouble". The Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2006/11/07/BL2006110700726_5.html. Retrieved November 22, 2006.
54.^ http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OWZlMjhkMzY2ZTE0NDlmZGY3OGY2ZTdiNDk1ZjhlZDc=
[edit] External links
Look up truthiness in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
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Saturday, August 14, 2010
Grice and the Invention of Lying
Kramer concludes his commentary in previous post with:
"the question that prompts "I told the truth" almost always implicates "Did you tell the truth against your/my/our interest?" which is why the answer always implicates "against my/your/our interest," i.e., that the context was one in which lying might make sense."
Excellent.
Yes. I agree. I can think of MOTHER-CHILD exchanges or the story of the "Wolf! Wolf!". Mothers, or parents generally ('the people who are least qualified to have children', Oxford dict. of hum. quotations) seem to be obsessed with 'true' and so I CAN THINK of an 'ethical' survey on a child by a mother:
A: What did you tell them? (+> I hope you did not lie yet again).
B: What happened (+> as I saw it happen -- cfr. "What the butler saw").
A: What did you tell them?
B: The truth (+> as I saw it).
This in connection with Kramer's point betweein 'speak the truth' which can be inadvertent, and 'TELL the truth'.
Enough to want to coin truthiness.
"the question that prompts "I told the truth" almost always implicates "Did you tell the truth against your/my/our interest?" which is why the answer always implicates "against my/your/our interest," i.e., that the context was one in which lying might make sense."
Excellent.
Yes. I agree. I can think of MOTHER-CHILD exchanges or the story of the "Wolf! Wolf!". Mothers, or parents generally ('the people who are least qualified to have children', Oxford dict. of hum. quotations) seem to be obsessed with 'true' and so I CAN THINK of an 'ethical' survey on a child by a mother:
A: What did you tell them? (+> I hope you did not lie yet again).
B: What happened (+> as I saw it happen -- cfr. "What the butler saw").
A: What did you tell them?
B: The truth (+> as I saw it).
This in connection with Kramer's point betweein 'speak the truth' which can be inadvertent, and 'TELL the truth'.
Enough to want to coin truthiness.
Information-Seeking Routines and the Invention of Lying
Vis a vis the two dialogues by Kramer, he comments:
"That same implicature might arise in context where the question implies that the asker wonders whether U told the truth, and in such a case "I told them what happened" is a perhaps meiotic version of "I told the truth against my/your/our interest." But if there is no such implicature in the question, there is no correlative implicature in answering "I told them what happened.""
Excellent point.
A: What did you tell them?
B: i. I told them what happened.
----- A: I knew that! I mean: what exactly did you tell them?
B: Oh! That Smith ate a sandwich.
A: What did you tell them?
B: The truth.
A: Meaning...?
B: That Smith ate a sandwich.
Or something.
At this point one may wonder how UNINFORMATIVE B can be. Dascal, in "Conversational Relevance" has the example:
PRIEST to prisoner: Why did you rob the bank, my son?
PRISONER: 'Cause that's where the dough is.
---
"What did you tell them?", in ordinary circumstances, seem to ask for a specification of the propositional content that both "What happened" and "The truth" fail to do? Or something.
"That same implicature might arise in context where the question implies that the asker wonders whether U told the truth, and in such a case "I told them what happened" is a perhaps meiotic version of "I told the truth against my/your/our interest." But if there is no such implicature in the question, there is no correlative implicature in answering "I told them what happened.""
Excellent point.
A: What did you tell them?
B: i. I told them what happened.
----- A: I knew that! I mean: what exactly did you tell them?
B: Oh! That Smith ate a sandwich.
A: What did you tell them?
B: The truth.
A: Meaning...?
B: That Smith ate a sandwich.
Or something.
At this point one may wonder how UNINFORMATIVE B can be. Dascal, in "Conversational Relevance" has the example:
PRIEST to prisoner: Why did you rob the bank, my son?
PRISONER: 'Cause that's where the dough is.
---
"What did you tell them?", in ordinary circumstances, seem to ask for a specification of the propositional content that both "What happened" and "The truth" fail to do? Or something.
The Invention of Lying: Otiose?
Kramer, in "The Invention of Lying" writes:
"Compare:
Q. What did you tell them?
A. I told them what happened.
--
Q. What did you tell them?
A. I told the truth.
In the second version, there is an implicature that U might have chosen to lie..."
Excellent point -- which reminds me of Frank Plumpton Ramsey.
He thought, as did Strawson later on, and Grice was seduced by this at some point -- that 'true' as Kramer remarks in his capsule of the film under discussion, 'Invention of Lying' HOLDS -- i.e. lying IS a cultural invention, in that in this society that the film portrays there were, Kramer notes, no word for 'true' or 'false'.
This may be behind Ramsey's great insight that 'true' IS redundant. He would play with variants on the dialogues above:
A: What did you tell them
--- What happened.
--- the truth.
--- other.
Grice consider this in a couple of pages (literally -- TWO pages) in WoW, "Truth", in Lecture III ("Further notes on logic and conversation"). As I recall, his example is:
The policeman said that monkeys talked. Or that monkeys could talk.
He wants to stick to a given propositional content, "Monkeys talk", or "Monkeys can talk". In the example by Kramer above, we would have:
"He ate a sandwich"
may do:
A: What did you tell them?
-- i. That Smith ate a sandwich.
This is different from 'what happened'. In that 'what happened happened', but 'what happened was that Smith ate a sandwich.
Now Tarski apparently had a problem with this. Grice discusses this. For Tarski wants to analyse:
"Smith ate a sandwich" is true if Smith ate a sandwich.
--- Hardly illuminating, and unable to account for the predicate 'true' in UNASSERTED contexts, as I think Grice calls them -- precisely Kramer's cases:
"What happened"
"the truth".
----
Grice's example:
"What the policeman said was truth."
Suppose is the Sheriff asking the cop:
Sherrif: What did you tell them?
Police: "Monkeys can talk".
Grice wants to be able to analyse 'true' in unasserted contexts, or where there is no specification of WHAT is supposed to be the case for a true statement to hold.
"What the policeman said was true".
----
This, apparently, is a bother to symbolise formally. And pretty otiose, "If, upon inquiry, I come to learn that what the policeman said was, "Monkeys can talk", I withdraw the statement."
------
Grice seems to be wanting to explore what the grounds are for things like:
"What the policeman said was true"
"Perhaps we work on the assumption that everything that policemen say -- or everything that THIS policeman says -- is true."
---
In any case, back to the Sheriff:
----
Sheriff: So what did you tell them?
Police: That Smith ate a sandwich.
Grice wants to take into account the point by Strawson on the 'implicature' of adding, 'true':
--
Sheriff: And that is the true thing to say.
--- or: It is true that Smith ate a sandwich.
Grice wants to compare the briefer:
i. Smith ate a sandwich (which reports a fact)
and
ii. It is true that Smith ate a sandwich. (first occurrence of 'predicate' "true" with merely an implicatural effect, which is the one pointed out by Kramer at the quote at the beginning of this post).
Ramsey, Strawson, and Grice would want to agree that what 'true' adds is 'implicatural' -- and that strictly, the predicate 'is' otiose. Or something.
"Compare:
Q. What did you tell them?
A. I told them what happened.
--
Q. What did you tell them?
A. I told the truth.
In the second version, there is an implicature that U might have chosen to lie..."
Excellent point -- which reminds me of Frank Plumpton Ramsey.
He thought, as did Strawson later on, and Grice was seduced by this at some point -- that 'true' as Kramer remarks in his capsule of the film under discussion, 'Invention of Lying' HOLDS -- i.e. lying IS a cultural invention, in that in this society that the film portrays there were, Kramer notes, no word for 'true' or 'false'.
This may be behind Ramsey's great insight that 'true' IS redundant. He would play with variants on the dialogues above:
A: What did you tell them
--- What happened.
--- the truth.
--- other.
Grice consider this in a couple of pages (literally -- TWO pages) in WoW, "Truth", in Lecture III ("Further notes on logic and conversation"). As I recall, his example is:
The policeman said that monkeys talked. Or that monkeys could talk.
He wants to stick to a given propositional content, "Monkeys talk", or "Monkeys can talk". In the example by Kramer above, we would have:
"He ate a sandwich"
may do:
A: What did you tell them?
-- i. That Smith ate a sandwich.
This is different from 'what happened'. In that 'what happened happened', but 'what happened was that Smith ate a sandwich.
Now Tarski apparently had a problem with this. Grice discusses this. For Tarski wants to analyse:
"Smith ate a sandwich" is true if Smith ate a sandwich.
--- Hardly illuminating, and unable to account for the predicate 'true' in UNASSERTED contexts, as I think Grice calls them -- precisely Kramer's cases:
"What happened"
"the truth".
----
Grice's example:
"What the policeman said was truth."
Suppose is the Sheriff asking the cop:
Sherrif: What did you tell them?
Police: "Monkeys can talk".
Grice wants to be able to analyse 'true' in unasserted contexts, or where there is no specification of WHAT is supposed to be the case for a true statement to hold.
"What the policeman said was true".
----
This, apparently, is a bother to symbolise formally. And pretty otiose, "If, upon inquiry, I come to learn that what the policeman said was, "Monkeys can talk", I withdraw the statement."
------
Grice seems to be wanting to explore what the grounds are for things like:
"What the policeman said was true"
"Perhaps we work on the assumption that everything that policemen say -- or everything that THIS policeman says -- is true."
---
In any case, back to the Sheriff:
----
Sheriff: So what did you tell them?
Police: That Smith ate a sandwich.
Grice wants to take into account the point by Strawson on the 'implicature' of adding, 'true':
--
Sheriff: And that is the true thing to say.
--- or: It is true that Smith ate a sandwich.
Grice wants to compare the briefer:
i. Smith ate a sandwich (which reports a fact)
and
ii. It is true that Smith ate a sandwich. (first occurrence of 'predicate' "true" with merely an implicatural effect, which is the one pointed out by Kramer at the quote at the beginning of this post).
Ramsey, Strawson, and Grice would want to agree that what 'true' adds is 'implicatural' -- and that strictly, the predicate 'is' otiose. Or something.
Truth-Telling and Make-Believe
Kramer in comment on "Invention of Lying":
"in idiomatic English, one "tells the truth" only when one says what one correctly believes is so in a case where lying is an option."
Excellent piece of what Grice would have as 'linguistic botanising'.
----
Oddly, make-belief is another (piece) there. It seems people, in idiomatic English, use 'make-belief' as in make-believe-WRONG. So we seem to have a case where what perhaps was an 'implicatum' at some point -- of the conversational kind -- became 'conventionalised' or 'idiomatic'. Or something.
"in idiomatic English, one "tells the truth" only when one says what one correctly believes is so in a case where lying is an option."
Excellent piece of what Grice would have as 'linguistic botanising'.
----
Oddly, make-belief is another (piece) there. It seems people, in idiomatic English, use 'make-belief' as in make-believe-WRONG. So we seem to have a case where what perhaps was an 'implicatum' at some point -- of the conversational kind -- became 'conventionalised' or 'idiomatic'. Or something.
Grice and Baker on weakness of the will
Just a note re: the commentary on "Feel free!" as we discuss with J various points about 'disjunctional' thinking, etc. I refer to this study by Grice and Baker (in Hintikka/Vermazen) in that commentary. Cheers!
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Grice's Choice
--- Or Sophie's choice rather.
Suppose that Sophie goes to a brothel (a male brothel). She has to choose the person (male) she finds most attractive, sexually, to have sex with. This is in some exotic country. Sophie is however a bit of a puritan. So for some reason, while she finds A the most sexually attractive, she picks B.
---- I would say that in such a scenario it is difficult to test. I would think that she possibly DOES find B more sexually attractive than A. The very fact that she chose him is all a 'functionalist' cares.
-- There may be less contrived examples.
But in any case, there is a sort of self-defeatist, unverificationist, nature about 'choosing'.
I tend to think that whatever I do, I choose to do. As J notes, "not robbing a bank" is important. A lot of the things we do (or fail to do) is things we choose NOT to do. And we should get a lot of credit for that. They are called omissions. We omit to rob, etc. --
I would like to analyse what actions are "within choice", as it were. A transexual may choose to be a lady (a born male) and succeed, within limits. Or vice versa. So, that's something he (or she) chose.
Liking Mozart is more of a trick. I don't (or rather my mother doesn't) like Mozart. I ask her that she should CHOOSE to like Mozart. She finds the request otiose.
----
Possibly all choices are alternatives. It's always between "A" and "~A". Rather than between A and B and C.
True, in a disjunction, we do get p v q v r ...
But the strict form of a disjunction is
"p v q" -- an alternative.
It may be said that
p v q v r
really stands for
(p v q) v r
----
Grice considers or-thinking at length in Method in philosophical psychology. An eagle lurking as he chooses to kill a rabbit or a mouse is or-thinking. He is about to choose.
----
It is true that the Griceian creature-construction routine SOUNDS behaviouristic, and it may not convince J (who dislikes B. Skinner). But it need not.
---
"decide" and "choose" J prefers to refer to by 'volition'. But I'm not sure.
I would think that the basic block is
--- accepts that ---.
Accepts to have a strong tea, rather than weak tea.
"Weak or strong?"
----
She wills that her tea be strong.
versus she wills that her tea NOT be strong (but weak).
At one point something triggers the 'decision' on her:
"Weak or strong?"
-----
In a way that's a stupid question. "Weak tea" does not really count as 'tea' (but more like a wishy-washy hot liquid) and strong tea can be horrible.
Consider
"Trick or treat?"
Since this is clever, we will simplify that as:
"Trick or not trick?"
----
With that trigger, the agent shows that she wills 'trick'.
Her system created a circumstance such that, one path was 'chosen'. Perhaps she JUST 'said' "trick" without thinking much. A lot of decisions are made on the fact that the formulation is 'tricky' ("Trick or treat?"). A more normal way to ask this, if one thinks of the answers it gets, is "Treat or Trick?".
-----
In fact, it is a conditional:
"If no treat --> trick"
But not that the contraposition does not hold:
"no trick --> no treat"
---
---
Another example of 'choosing' is the marrying ceremony:
"Do you accept this as your man?"
"Yes/No."
----
By uttering Yes, she chooses to become "Mrs. Smith". True, this is loaded in that statistically, "No" answers are not really 'expected'.
----
It's not like she is going to CHOOSE to become Mrs. Smith at THAT time.
----
They say December is the time for choices and resolutions. Usually they should be 10. Ten New Year resolutions for the Grice Club will be issued by Dec. 31.
---- They will be properly formalised in PCI (predicate calculus with identity).
Cheers!
JL
Suppose that Sophie goes to a brothel (a male brothel). She has to choose the person (male) she finds most attractive, sexually, to have sex with. This is in some exotic country. Sophie is however a bit of a puritan. So for some reason, while she finds A the most sexually attractive, she picks B.
---- I would say that in such a scenario it is difficult to test. I would think that she possibly DOES find B more sexually attractive than A. The very fact that she chose him is all a 'functionalist' cares.
-- There may be less contrived examples.
But in any case, there is a sort of self-defeatist, unverificationist, nature about 'choosing'.
I tend to think that whatever I do, I choose to do. As J notes, "not robbing a bank" is important. A lot of the things we do (or fail to do) is things we choose NOT to do. And we should get a lot of credit for that. They are called omissions. We omit to rob, etc. --
I would like to analyse what actions are "within choice", as it were. A transexual may choose to be a lady (a born male) and succeed, within limits. Or vice versa. So, that's something he (or she) chose.
Liking Mozart is more of a trick. I don't (or rather my mother doesn't) like Mozart. I ask her that she should CHOOSE to like Mozart. She finds the request otiose.
----
Possibly all choices are alternatives. It's always between "A" and "~A". Rather than between A and B and C.
True, in a disjunction, we do get p v q v r ...
But the strict form of a disjunction is
"p v q" -- an alternative.
It may be said that
p v q v r
really stands for
(p v q) v r
----
Grice considers or-thinking at length in Method in philosophical psychology. An eagle lurking as he chooses to kill a rabbit or a mouse is or-thinking. He is about to choose.
----
It is true that the Griceian creature-construction routine SOUNDS behaviouristic, and it may not convince J (who dislikes B. Skinner). But it need not.
---
"decide" and "choose" J prefers to refer to by 'volition'. But I'm not sure.
I would think that the basic block is
--- accepts that ---.
Accepts to have a strong tea, rather than weak tea.
"Weak or strong?"
----
She wills that her tea be strong.
versus she wills that her tea NOT be strong (but weak).
At one point something triggers the 'decision' on her:
"Weak or strong?"
-----
In a way that's a stupid question. "Weak tea" does not really count as 'tea' (but more like a wishy-washy hot liquid) and strong tea can be horrible.
Consider
"Trick or treat?"
Since this is clever, we will simplify that as:
"Trick or not trick?"
----
With that trigger, the agent shows that she wills 'trick'.
Her system created a circumstance such that, one path was 'chosen'. Perhaps she JUST 'said' "trick" without thinking much. A lot of decisions are made on the fact that the formulation is 'tricky' ("Trick or treat?"). A more normal way to ask this, if one thinks of the answers it gets, is "Treat or Trick?".
-----
In fact, it is a conditional:
"If no treat --> trick"
But not that the contraposition does not hold:
"no trick --> no treat"
---
---
Another example of 'choosing' is the marrying ceremony:
"Do you accept this as your man?"
"Yes/No."
----
By uttering Yes, she chooses to become "Mrs. Smith". True, this is loaded in that statistically, "No" answers are not really 'expected'.
----
It's not like she is going to CHOOSE to become Mrs. Smith at THAT time.
----
They say December is the time for choices and resolutions. Usually they should be 10. Ten New Year resolutions for the Grice Club will be issued by Dec. 31.
---- They will be properly formalised in PCI (predicate calculus with identity).
Cheers!
JL
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Toby's Choice
I did retrieve part of the Toby story. It relates to what J and I call "Sophie's Choice" (What kind of hamburger). This is from Grice's "Conception of Value" (Appendix). Grice is trying to focus, as J and I do, on '... wills that...' (we assume that 'will' involves 'free' -- and the point is whether a free will is ill will or good will, further). Etc.
1. Toby, the squarrel has nuts in front of him.
---
2. The squarrel is short on squirrel-food
(observed or assumed).
--
3. The squarrel wants (wills, wishes, desires)
squirrel-food (By Psychological Postulate,
connecting 'wish' with intake of nuts)
--
4. The squarrel prehends nuts as in front
(From (1) by Psychological Postulate, if
it is assumed that 'nuts' and 'in front'
are familiar to the squarrel)
---
5. The squarrel joins squirrel-food with gobbling
and nuts and in front (The squirrel judges
gobbling, on nuts, in front, for squarrel-food)
(by Psychological Postulate, with the aid of
prior observation), so by Psychological Law,
from 3, 4, and 5:
________________________________________________
Ergo:
6. The squarrel gobbles, and since nuts _are_
in front of him, gobbles the nuts in front of
him.
H. P. Grice, 'Method in philosophical
psychology: from the banal to the
bizarre', Proceedings of the American
Philosophical Association, Presidential
Address, vol. 48. Repr. in his book,
_The Conception of Value_. Oxford:
Clarendon, p. 137.
Or something.
1. Toby, the squarrel has nuts in front of him.
---
2. The squarrel is short on squirrel-food
(observed or assumed).
--
3. The squarrel wants (wills, wishes, desires)
squirrel-food (By Psychological Postulate,
connecting 'wish' with intake of nuts)
--
4. The squarrel prehends nuts as in front
(From (1) by Psychological Postulate, if
it is assumed that 'nuts' and 'in front'
are familiar to the squarrel)
---
5. The squarrel joins squirrel-food with gobbling
and nuts and in front (The squirrel judges
gobbling, on nuts, in front, for squarrel-food)
(by Psychological Postulate, with the aid of
prior observation), so by Psychological Law,
from 3, 4, and 5:
________________________________________________
Ergo:
6. The squarrel gobbles, and since nuts _are_
in front of him, gobbles the nuts in front of
him.
H. P. Grice, 'Method in philosophical
psychology: from the banal to the
bizarre', Proceedings of the American
Philosophical Association, Presidential
Address, vol. 48. Repr. in his book,
_The Conception of Value_. Oxford:
Clarendon, p. 137.
Or something.
Grice and the Invention of Lying
I should possibly see this film. Kramer has commented on it in Re: Free for lunch.
Indeed, in a word without 'lying' the idea of 'truth' seems otiose, too. I'm not THAT sure, though. Because there is the concept of 'false' that somehow fits in between.
False can be some 'p', where no 'intention' really is operative.
So, one can LIE by telling the truth -- providing what one tells is what one THINKS is false. If it comes out, by accident, to be 'true', then while one IS lying (because one is saying what one thinks is not true) one is still saying what IS true.
----
Honesty is the best policy, and the point about how 'wrong' lying is is interesting, as I see it reported by Kramer re: "The Invention of Lying".
---
In the Romance languages, 'mentire' (to lie) is not too exorbitantly different from 'mentare', to mean. I'm never sure why such a connection. It seems as if 'to lie' (mentire) and 'to mean' (mentare) are in the opposite extremes, but hey.
-----
Grice is clear about this in "Ways of Words". He writes:
"It is much easier, for example, to tell the truth than to invent lies"
(WoW, p. 29).
Of course I'm not sure. Grice's point is 'phylogenetical', or 'ontogenetical' rather. Why do babies lie? When do they START lying.
If a baby wants to pee, he pees. There is no lying about it. Once there is some sort of control over things, a baby can lie.
"Are you hungry?"
"No, I'm not" -- when Baby IS hungry (a lie).
---
It would seem then, that, in primitive (or very young) creatures, they cannot lie. As Sir John Lyons says, 'prevarication' is the signal of language (bees cannot lie as they dance). The absence of 'lying' at the point is 'causal' factive.
"p" ENTAILS 'p'.
If Baby blushes, it means Baby is embarrassed. (You cannot feign, ceteris paribus, a blush).
------
So, when is LYING 'instituted'?
This is Grice"
Why do we not lie?
"A DULL but, no doubt at a certain level, adequate
answer is that it is just a well-recognised
empirical fact that people [do tell the truth]. They
learned to do so in childhood and have not lost
the habit of doing so; and indeed, it would involve
a good deal of effort to make a radical departure
from the habit. It is much easier, for example, to
tell the truth than to invent lies."
-----
Grice is unnecessarily (for our purposes) emphatic when he says, "invent" lies. I'm interested in
"p" "~p"
p is the case
p is not the case.
---
"Are you hungry?"
Yes.
No.
"No" may be a lie -- but it's not much of an invention. Or a big invention.
In a way, it's like IRONY.
"Are you a virgin? (to a well-known prostitute).
"Yes!" (ironically, meaning, NO).
----
Not a lot of invention of irony, there.
---
So, one has to be careful.
In the case of the "Invention of Lying", qua film, I wouldn't know. I wouldn't know how to draw the boundary between immoral and moral cases of lying. In the old days, they used to speak of 'white' lies -- -- which of course Kant opposed.
Grice refers to the absolute prohibition (on the part of Kant) on lying in "Aspects of Reason", and he (Grice) seems NOT to agree with it.
----
Leech quotes an adage, "Honesty is the best policy, says I", but I would need to find the source.
---
The fact that Grice speaks of this under "Qualitas" can only confuse. Truth is NOT at the level of 'quantity' of information. Qualitas, as used by Kant, and Aristotle, referred to 'affirmatio' or 'negatio'. But Grice is trying to be witty and wants to have a special category for this type of level of requirement about our conversational moves. "The category of quality".
When I generalised the categories -- for my PhD, etc -- I used 'trustworthiness', rather than truth. I wanted to generalise to conversational moves which are NOT assertive -- such as:
"Give it to me!"
----
The move, "give it to me" (the ball, as they are playing volley, say) is TRUSTWORTHY if the utterer desires what his or her conversational move 'means' --. I wouldn't say that "Give it to me!" is FALSE if the utterer does not want 'it' be given to the utterer. So we need to generalise.
Luckily, trust and truth ARE cognate, so it's not much of a divergence.
Indeed, in a word without 'lying' the idea of 'truth' seems otiose, too. I'm not THAT sure, though. Because there is the concept of 'false' that somehow fits in between.
False can be some 'p', where no 'intention' really is operative.
So, one can LIE by telling the truth -- providing what one tells is what one THINKS is false. If it comes out, by accident, to be 'true', then while one IS lying (because one is saying what one thinks is not true) one is still saying what IS true.
----
Honesty is the best policy, and the point about how 'wrong' lying is is interesting, as I see it reported by Kramer re: "The Invention of Lying".
---
In the Romance languages, 'mentire' (to lie) is not too exorbitantly different from 'mentare', to mean. I'm never sure why such a connection. It seems as if 'to lie' (mentire) and 'to mean' (mentare) are in the opposite extremes, but hey.
-----
Grice is clear about this in "Ways of Words". He writes:
"It is much easier, for example, to tell the truth than to invent lies"
(WoW, p. 29).
Of course I'm not sure. Grice's point is 'phylogenetical', or 'ontogenetical' rather. Why do babies lie? When do they START lying.
If a baby wants to pee, he pees. There is no lying about it. Once there is some sort of control over things, a baby can lie.
"Are you hungry?"
"No, I'm not" -- when Baby IS hungry (a lie).
---
It would seem then, that, in primitive (or very young) creatures, they cannot lie. As Sir John Lyons says, 'prevarication' is the signal of language (bees cannot lie as they dance). The absence of 'lying' at the point is 'causal' factive.
"p" ENTAILS 'p'.
If Baby blushes, it means Baby is embarrassed. (You cannot feign, ceteris paribus, a blush).
------
So, when is LYING 'instituted'?
This is Grice"
Why do we not lie?
"A DULL but, no doubt at a certain level, adequate
answer is that it is just a well-recognised
empirical fact that people [do tell the truth]. They
learned to do so in childhood and have not lost
the habit of doing so; and indeed, it would involve
a good deal of effort to make a radical departure
from the habit. It is much easier, for example, to
tell the truth than to invent lies."
-----
Grice is unnecessarily (for our purposes) emphatic when he says, "invent" lies. I'm interested in
"p" "~p"
p is the case
p is not the case.
---
"Are you hungry?"
Yes.
No.
"No" may be a lie -- but it's not much of an invention. Or a big invention.
In a way, it's like IRONY.
"Are you a virgin? (to a well-known prostitute).
"Yes!" (ironically, meaning, NO).
----
Not a lot of invention of irony, there.
---
So, one has to be careful.
In the case of the "Invention of Lying", qua film, I wouldn't know. I wouldn't know how to draw the boundary between immoral and moral cases of lying. In the old days, they used to speak of 'white' lies -- -- which of course Kant opposed.
Grice refers to the absolute prohibition (on the part of Kant) on lying in "Aspects of Reason", and he (Grice) seems NOT to agree with it.
----
Leech quotes an adage, "Honesty is the best policy, says I", but I would need to find the source.
---
The fact that Grice speaks of this under "Qualitas" can only confuse. Truth is NOT at the level of 'quantity' of information. Qualitas, as used by Kant, and Aristotle, referred to 'affirmatio' or 'negatio'. But Grice is trying to be witty and wants to have a special category for this type of level of requirement about our conversational moves. "The category of quality".
When I generalised the categories -- for my PhD, etc -- I used 'trustworthiness', rather than truth. I wanted to generalise to conversational moves which are NOT assertive -- such as:
"Give it to me!"
----
The move, "give it to me" (the ball, as they are playing volley, say) is TRUSTWORTHY if the utterer desires what his or her conversational move 'means' --. I wouldn't say that "Give it to me!" is FALSE if the utterer does not want 'it' be given to the utterer. So we need to generalise.
Luckily, trust and truth ARE cognate, so it's not much of a divergence.
Searching the Minutes of the Grice Club
Thanks to L. J. Kramer for input. He notes the search function isn't working. Apparently it does work from my side. I'll check again and report if it doesn't check for me. I'll try to do the search I was suggesting that it be done re: Tobby eating nuts and report.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Free-Wheeling
From wiki, 'Buridan's ass' quoting from Spinoza:
"[I]t may be objected, if man does not act from free will, what will happen if the incentives to action are equally balanced, as in the case of Buridan's ass? [In reply,] I am quite ready to admit, that a man placed in the equilibrium described (namely, as perceiving nothing but hunger and thirst, a certain food and a certain drink, each equally distant from him) would die of hunger and thirst. If I am asked, whether such an one should not rather be considered an ass than a man; I answer, that I do not know, neither do I know how a man should be considered, who hangs himself, or how we should consider children, fools, madmen, &c."
Spinoza Speranza
"[I]t may be objected, if man does not act from free will, what will happen if the incentives to action are equally balanced, as in the case of Buridan's ass? [In reply,] I am quite ready to admit, that a man placed in the equilibrium described (namely, as perceiving nothing but hunger and thirst, a certain food and a certain drink, each equally distant from him) would die of hunger and thirst. If I am asked, whether such an one should not rather be considered an ass than a man; I answer, that I do not know, neither do I know how a man should be considered, who hangs himself, or how we should consider children, fools, madmen, &c."
Spinoza Speranza
Feel Free!
I think J is overstating the point about freedom. J says we need a reincarnation of William James, etc.
Or perhaps a reincarnation of Buridan's ass!
Or perhaps a reincarnation of Buridan's ass!
Free for lunch
Chapman notes (her Palgrave book on Grice, p. 175):
"In a few concluding paragraphs [of 'Actions and Events'] Grice turns to what he sees as the essential link between action and freedom."
"The link is treated briefly and cautiously in this published work, but was in fact a major concern in his thinking about value."
"Grice's notes from the early 1980s show him
applying the familiar techniques of
'linguistic botanising' to the concept
of freedom. He jotted down phrases such as
'alcohol-free', 'free for lunch', 'free-wheeling',
and listed many possible definitions, including
'liberal', 'acting without restriction' and
'frank in conversation' (NOTE)."
"Richard Warner has commented that their
discussions in preparation for the third
Carus lecture were concerned almost exclusively
with freedom as a source of value, and that he
himself encouraged Grice to pursue this
line of inquiry rather than that of
creature construction as being the more
interesting and productive."
----
"Essentially, Grice saw in the nature of
action a means of justifying the problematic
concept of FREEDOM ..."
----
"Some actions are caused by influences
external to a body."
"Next, actions may have causes that
are internal to the body."
"a 'freely-moving' body."
----
"Then there are casuse that are
both internal and independently
motivated".
Willings.
---
"Finally, there is a stage
eclusive of human creatures
at which the creature's conception
of something as being for its
own good is SUFFICIENT to
initiate the creature in
performing an action."
Grice writes: "It is a this stage
that rational activity and intentions
appear on the scene".
----
Chapman notes: "The particular nature of
human action suggests the necessity of
freedom."
Recall that Chapman teaches English at Liverpool, so we can't say this is HER problem. But she guesses VERY RIGHT.
Chapman goes on:
"Humans act for reasons." These reasons "may be FREELY ADOPTED
for their own sake."
---
"In Grice's terms,
the particular type of freedom
demanded by the nature
of human action 'would ensure
that some actions may be represented
as directed to ends which are not merely MINE,
but which are FREELY ADOPTED
or pursued by me'".
----
"A consideration of action suggests the
necessity of freedom."
----
Chapman concludes: "The concept of freedom
may offer another version of the argument
that value exists because valuers exist."
----
"In a few concluding paragraphs [of 'Actions and Events'] Grice turns to what he sees as the essential link between action and freedom."
"The link is treated briefly and cautiously in this published work, but was in fact a major concern in his thinking about value."
"Grice's notes from the early 1980s show him
applying the familiar techniques of
'linguistic botanising' to the concept
of freedom. He jotted down phrases such as
'alcohol-free', 'free for lunch', 'free-wheeling',
and listed many possible definitions, including
'liberal', 'acting without restriction' and
'frank in conversation' (NOTE)."
"Richard Warner has commented that their
discussions in preparation for the third
Carus lecture were concerned almost exclusively
with freedom as a source of value, and that he
himself encouraged Grice to pursue this
line of inquiry rather than that of
creature construction as being the more
interesting and productive."
----
"Essentially, Grice saw in the nature of
action a means of justifying the problematic
concept of FREEDOM ..."
----
"Some actions are caused by influences
external to a body."
"Next, actions may have causes that
are internal to the body."
"a 'freely-moving' body."
----
"Then there are casuse that are
both internal and independently
motivated".
Willings.
---
"Finally, there is a stage
eclusive of human creatures
at which the creature's conception
of something as being for its
own good is SUFFICIENT to
initiate the creature in
performing an action."
Grice writes: "It is a this stage
that rational activity and intentions
appear on the scene".
----
Chapman notes: "The particular nature of
human action suggests the necessity of
freedom."
Recall that Chapman teaches English at Liverpool, so we can't say this is HER problem. But she guesses VERY RIGHT.
Chapman goes on:
"Humans act for reasons." These reasons "may be FREELY ADOPTED
for their own sake."
---
"In Grice's terms,
the particular type of freedom
demanded by the nature
of human action 'would ensure
that some actions may be represented
as directed to ends which are not merely MINE,
but which are FREELY ADOPTED
or pursued by me'".
----
"A consideration of action suggests the
necessity of freedom."
----
Chapman concludes: "The concept of freedom
may offer another version of the argument
that value exists because valuers exist."
----
Alcohol-Free
J makes very good points about 'willing' (free will) in the commentary on "philosophical psychology" and how it 'evolved' from Ryle to Grice.
I agree with J that the ISSUE is in 'deciding'.
Oddly, very few philosophers of Grice's group dwelt on that. Perhaps P. H. Nowell-Smith -- a minor genius, who died last year. And D. F. Pears, another minor genius, who ALSO died last year.
Smith (the Nowell- is artistic) did write on 'free will' early in his career, and his "Ethics" is a gem. Antedating Grice in so many respects. Nowell-Smith would invite us to reconsider talk on 'choosing'.
As J writes, Sue cannot choose between being hungry or not. A taco or a burger maybe. So we need to analyse different types of 'choosing' and the 'mechanist' monster, as it were (i.e. how to make 'choosing' compatible with 'determinism' of some sort -- if at all).
Pears did write on 'predicting and deciding' in his British Academy Lecture, which predated Grice's explorations on this in his "Intention and Uncertainty" (another British Academy Lecture).
Yet, it seems there is a lot of 'behaviourism' in our talk on 'choices'.
"Sophie's Choice". Choice to think? More like choice to act. The idea that I do NOT choose to believe that it is raining (when it is) seems pretty otiose.
----
My sort of defense of behaviourism was meant to show J that I do take behaviourism seriously. Not so much the American variety Watson through Skinner, but Ryle -- which as I say, is the immediate antecessor of the Oxonian group to which Grice belonged.
Let us recall that Grice's group ('the play group') was led by Austin, born in 1911. Nobody could be older than Austin. Ryle, having been born in 1900, did not qualify. So it is EASY to speak of 'schools of Oxford thought' in this regard.
For some reason, Oxford holds a Wilde Readership in the Philosophy of Mind, which has been quite influential for the development of 'philosophical psychology'.
I don't know of any Oxonian cartesian, though. It seems that nobody wanted to dwell on the ghost in the machine.
Let's recall that whatever we find of philosophical substance in cogn-sci comes from the sort of Oxford school -- Dennett was Ryle's student at Oxford, -- and of course Searle was even a younger Rhodes scholar who had Strawson (Grice's tutee) as DPhil supervisor.
So whatever Searle, Dennett, and most American philosophers of mind got, they got from the so-called "School of Ordinary Language Philosophy".
Stich and the Churchlands tried to impose their own different tradition, but I'm not sure they succeeded.
When it comes to Ontology, it is good to be reminded of what Grice calls "Ontological Marxism" (online). "If they work, they exist". He means entities. Odd that this is a stretch from Occam's razor. But not quite. So, he is willing to say that we can transmogrify the correlatum of a psychological predicate (like '... willing that ...'). Grice proposes two variants -- as ways of introducing such entities: Ramsified Naming and Ramsified Descriptions.
So, while not rehabilitating 'dualism', at all, he is playing with the idea of not to be too afraid about postulating entities which are correlata to our psychological talk.
The issue may be 'explanatory'. Do willings and choices EXPLAIN action? We hope so.
Sophie's choice.
She chose between a taco and a burger. She chose the taco.
Her choosing EXPLAINS her eating the taco.
What are the behavioural output of her choosing the taco? Her eating the taco. What are the antecedents of her choosing the taco? Her perceiving that the taco looked more appetising.
Yet, there is a world of difference between saying that all we have is Sophie's perceptual input and her behavioural output, and Grice's functionalist picture (Block, in is influential collection of essays in the philosophy of mind agrees the caracterisation offered here of Grice as a functionalist).
--
The difference is a matter of what is within the scope of an existential quantifier. There is a 'choice' by Sophie. It is this 'choice' or willing that bridges Sophie's perception ('the taco is more appetising than the burger') and behaviour (she eats the taco).
Etc.
I agree with J that the ISSUE is in 'deciding'.
Oddly, very few philosophers of Grice's group dwelt on that. Perhaps P. H. Nowell-Smith -- a minor genius, who died last year. And D. F. Pears, another minor genius, who ALSO died last year.
Smith (the Nowell- is artistic) did write on 'free will' early in his career, and his "Ethics" is a gem. Antedating Grice in so many respects. Nowell-Smith would invite us to reconsider talk on 'choosing'.
As J writes, Sue cannot choose between being hungry or not. A taco or a burger maybe. So we need to analyse different types of 'choosing' and the 'mechanist' monster, as it were (i.e. how to make 'choosing' compatible with 'determinism' of some sort -- if at all).
Pears did write on 'predicting and deciding' in his British Academy Lecture, which predated Grice's explorations on this in his "Intention and Uncertainty" (another British Academy Lecture).
Yet, it seems there is a lot of 'behaviourism' in our talk on 'choices'.
"Sophie's Choice". Choice to think? More like choice to act. The idea that I do NOT choose to believe that it is raining (when it is) seems pretty otiose.
----
My sort of defense of behaviourism was meant to show J that I do take behaviourism seriously. Not so much the American variety Watson through Skinner, but Ryle -- which as I say, is the immediate antecessor of the Oxonian group to which Grice belonged.
Let us recall that Grice's group ('the play group') was led by Austin, born in 1911. Nobody could be older than Austin. Ryle, having been born in 1900, did not qualify. So it is EASY to speak of 'schools of Oxford thought' in this regard.
For some reason, Oxford holds a Wilde Readership in the Philosophy of Mind, which has been quite influential for the development of 'philosophical psychology'.
I don't know of any Oxonian cartesian, though. It seems that nobody wanted to dwell on the ghost in the machine.
Let's recall that whatever we find of philosophical substance in cogn-sci comes from the sort of Oxford school -- Dennett was Ryle's student at Oxford, -- and of course Searle was even a younger Rhodes scholar who had Strawson (Grice's tutee) as DPhil supervisor.
So whatever Searle, Dennett, and most American philosophers of mind got, they got from the so-called "School of Ordinary Language Philosophy".
Stich and the Churchlands tried to impose their own different tradition, but I'm not sure they succeeded.
When it comes to Ontology, it is good to be reminded of what Grice calls "Ontological Marxism" (online). "If they work, they exist". He means entities. Odd that this is a stretch from Occam's razor. But not quite. So, he is willing to say that we can transmogrify the correlatum of a psychological predicate (like '... willing that ...'). Grice proposes two variants -- as ways of introducing such entities: Ramsified Naming and Ramsified Descriptions.
So, while not rehabilitating 'dualism', at all, he is playing with the idea of not to be too afraid about postulating entities which are correlata to our psychological talk.
The issue may be 'explanatory'. Do willings and choices EXPLAIN action? We hope so.
Sophie's choice.
She chose between a taco and a burger. She chose the taco.
Her choosing EXPLAINS her eating the taco.
What are the behavioural output of her choosing the taco? Her eating the taco. What are the antecedents of her choosing the taco? Her perceiving that the taco looked more appetising.
Yet, there is a world of difference between saying that all we have is Sophie's perceptual input and her behavioural output, and Grice's functionalist picture (Block, in is influential collection of essays in the philosophy of mind agrees the caracterisation offered here of Grice as a functionalist).
--
The difference is a matter of what is within the scope of an existential quantifier. There is a 'choice' by Sophie. It is this 'choice' or willing that bridges Sophie's perception ('the taco is more appetising than the burger') and behaviour (she eats the taco).
Etc.
Monday, August 9, 2010
The evolution of 'philosophical psychology': from Ryle to Grice
If you try to study the 'philosophy of mind' (or philosophical psychology, as Grice prefers) of the Oxford Play Group to which Grice belonged (Grice, Austin, Strawson, Hampshire, Hare) you fail --. I do have Pears, "Questions in the philosophy of mind" (He was also a member of the group) and Hamsphire, "Philosophy of mind" volume, and a few others --. The opus magnum by Grice here is "Method in philosophical psychology". But there is nothing really that UNIFIES THEM.
In "Method" Grice refers to Ryle. Ryle, as per "The concept of mind", was labelled a 'behaviourist' or 'analytic behaviourist'. No ghost in the machine, and the rest of it. But what are Grice's criticisms?
Grice's criticisms are subtle. He does not find a good argument FOR 'analytic' behaviourism. It's not that Grice wants to rehabilitate dualism. Rather, Grice proposes to treat 'psychological concepts' as theoretical concepts. His approach follows proposals by D. K. Lewis, and before him, Aristotle ("De anima").
So, the behaviourist (under which label we can also place Wittgenstein, that Grice quotes quite a bit in "Method" -- "no psychological predicate without the behaviour that manifests it" -- from "Philosophical Investigations") is claiming that there is no need to EXPLAIN psychological concepts because there are no such.
Alla Paul, "Is there a problem about sense data?". Is there a problem about 'the concept of mind'. Only if you are confused.
The type of proposal by Grice is labelled 'functionalist', rather, alla D. K. Lewis and Aristotle. It is based on the Turing black box thing. There are
perceptual input ------ i.
and
behavioural output ---- o
In between, there is the black box, which Grice symbolises by
Ψ
---
"Ψ" is a psychological predicate. The logic is dyadic. Sort of. Consider:
"... believes ..."
or as Grice prefers, '... accepts ...' (he wants a concept that is general enough to stand for 'believes' and 'desires').
'... accepts ...' holds between an agent, A,
so that Ψ becomes
ΨA
but that's one argument. If it's dyadic there must be another argument. Here Grice introduces the 'that'-clause. What follows "... acccepts". John accepts that the cat is on the mat.
This yields the form of a psychological ascription (the ascription of a propositional attitude or psychological attitude in Russellian parlance) to be:
ΨAp
But this is the 'propositional' logic level. We need to consider 'predicate logic'. "The cat is on the mat" (Ex)Cx & Mx.
So, the minimal propositional or psychological ascription becomes:
ΨA(Ex)Cx & Mx.
But you knew that!
----
Once we are able to work with these formulae, we see the corollaries. If an utterer utters, "The cat is on the mat" (or the king of France is bald) he presupposes or implicates that he believes there is a cat (or a king of France). So we can play with these sort of 'folk-psychological' laws:
ΨA(Ex)Cx & Mx ---> ΨA(Ex)Cx
and so on.
Or consider
A accepts that p
A accepts that if p, q
Therefore, A accepts q.
The way to go here is via principles of that sort alla Loar, Mind and Meaning, or Harman, Principles of Reasoning -- both Griceans, they.
---
At this point, we see that the larger ontological issue is only of mere academic concern for Grice. His proposal requires that we are able to work with psychological attitudes of a certain rich, or rather fine-grained, type.
Skinner's, or Watson's, or Ryle's type of behaviourism would not foot the bill in that respect.
Grice was enough of a naturalist NOT to be want to disassociate 'mind' from the rest -- so anything like Chomsky's "Cartesian Linguistics" and dualisms as such were a no-no.
By the time Chomsky tried to keep up with philosophers of mind, philosophers of mind were into very convoluted types of type-token identity theories alla Smart -- that Grice also considers. In this respect, Grice comes out as a non-reductionist. And so, his criticisms of Ryle's and other types of behaviourism strikes back with a vengeance.
But Grice's rejection of 'monism' (or behaviourism) remains methodological. He wants to say that if a folk-psychological theory 'instantiates' generalisations where the psi-operator occurs, this means that there IS a level of psychological explanation that is NOT, merely, a physicalist explanation of the type that the behaviourist is committed to.
Grice will also want to say that most behaviourists are NOT physicalist enough. He would mention that most descriptions of 'behaviour' are already 'loaded' with 'psychological' notions. "He approached me". "He moved towards me". -- is one of his examples. From Wittgenstein. Even our 'behaviourist' talk is imbued with psychologis. Or so Grice thought.
The panorama vis a vis Morris, Peirce, and "Unified Science", would perhaps present yet another problem with Grice. And he would ultimately recourse to issues like the ones mentioned by J -- we don't want 'robots'. We need free-willing agents and so on. At this point he would use 'practical arguments' to show that a mechanical reduction is the standard rejection of libertarianism. But we need libertarianism. Practical arguments are for Grice metaphysical arguments. Or rather, metaphysical arguments deal with the practical side of our thought products. Just because we don't want to commit to mechanism, we prove, eschatologically, that mechanism is a sort of minimalism that we need not buy. Supposing they were selling it. Or something.
In "Method" Grice refers to Ryle. Ryle, as per "The concept of mind", was labelled a 'behaviourist' or 'analytic behaviourist'. No ghost in the machine, and the rest of it. But what are Grice's criticisms?
Grice's criticisms are subtle. He does not find a good argument FOR 'analytic' behaviourism. It's not that Grice wants to rehabilitate dualism. Rather, Grice proposes to treat 'psychological concepts' as theoretical concepts. His approach follows proposals by D. K. Lewis, and before him, Aristotle ("De anima").
So, the behaviourist (under which label we can also place Wittgenstein, that Grice quotes quite a bit in "Method" -- "no psychological predicate without the behaviour that manifests it" -- from "Philosophical Investigations") is claiming that there is no need to EXPLAIN psychological concepts because there are no such.
Alla Paul, "Is there a problem about sense data?". Is there a problem about 'the concept of mind'. Only if you are confused.
The type of proposal by Grice is labelled 'functionalist', rather, alla D. K. Lewis and Aristotle. It is based on the Turing black box thing. There are
perceptual input ------ i.
and
behavioural output ---- o
In between, there is the black box, which Grice symbolises by
Ψ
---
"Ψ" is a psychological predicate. The logic is dyadic. Sort of. Consider:
"... believes ..."
or as Grice prefers, '... accepts ...' (he wants a concept that is general enough to stand for 'believes' and 'desires').
'... accepts ...' holds between an agent, A,
so that Ψ becomes
ΨA
but that's one argument. If it's dyadic there must be another argument. Here Grice introduces the 'that'-clause. What follows "... acccepts". John accepts that the cat is on the mat.
This yields the form of a psychological ascription (the ascription of a propositional attitude or psychological attitude in Russellian parlance) to be:
ΨAp
But this is the 'propositional' logic level. We need to consider 'predicate logic'. "The cat is on the mat" (Ex)Cx & Mx.
So, the minimal propositional or psychological ascription becomes:
ΨA(Ex)Cx & Mx.
But you knew that!
----
Once we are able to work with these formulae, we see the corollaries. If an utterer utters, "The cat is on the mat" (or the king of France is bald) he presupposes or implicates that he believes there is a cat (or a king of France). So we can play with these sort of 'folk-psychological' laws:
ΨA(Ex)Cx & Mx ---> ΨA(Ex)Cx
and so on.
Or consider
A accepts that p
A accepts that if p, q
Therefore, A accepts q.
The way to go here is via principles of that sort alla Loar, Mind and Meaning, or Harman, Principles of Reasoning -- both Griceans, they.
---
At this point, we see that the larger ontological issue is only of mere academic concern for Grice. His proposal requires that we are able to work with psychological attitudes of a certain rich, or rather fine-grained, type.
Skinner's, or Watson's, or Ryle's type of behaviourism would not foot the bill in that respect.
Grice was enough of a naturalist NOT to be want to disassociate 'mind' from the rest -- so anything like Chomsky's "Cartesian Linguistics" and dualisms as such were a no-no.
By the time Chomsky tried to keep up with philosophers of mind, philosophers of mind were into very convoluted types of type-token identity theories alla Smart -- that Grice also considers. In this respect, Grice comes out as a non-reductionist. And so, his criticisms of Ryle's and other types of behaviourism strikes back with a vengeance.
But Grice's rejection of 'monism' (or behaviourism) remains methodological. He wants to say that if a folk-psychological theory 'instantiates' generalisations where the psi-operator occurs, this means that there IS a level of psychological explanation that is NOT, merely, a physicalist explanation of the type that the behaviourist is committed to.
Grice will also want to say that most behaviourists are NOT physicalist enough. He would mention that most descriptions of 'behaviour' are already 'loaded' with 'psychological' notions. "He approached me". "He moved towards me". -- is one of his examples. From Wittgenstein. Even our 'behaviourist' talk is imbued with psychologis. Or so Grice thought.
The panorama vis a vis Morris, Peirce, and "Unified Science", would perhaps present yet another problem with Grice. And he would ultimately recourse to issues like the ones mentioned by J -- we don't want 'robots'. We need free-willing agents and so on. At this point he would use 'practical arguments' to show that a mechanical reduction is the standard rejection of libertarianism. But we need libertarianism. Practical arguments are for Grice metaphysical arguments. Or rather, metaphysical arguments deal with the practical side of our thought products. Just because we don't want to commit to mechanism, we prove, eschatologically, that mechanism is a sort of minimalism that we need not buy. Supposing they were selling it. Or something.
The Implicature of Desire: Grice and Freud ("He implicated, "Sex"")
Sigmund Freud would have agreed with Grice's points in "Logic and Conversation". Perhaps he would have had a few extra maxims thrown in.
The problem with Freud is that he never studied philosophy seriously! He was a physician! He tried to look for the 'science' of psychopathological reflections, to echo J's wording.
Surely there is no science for that. The Id knows NO LAWS. At least not the easy laws that Freudians speak about.
Then, Freud confuses between 'intention' and 'meaning' and the rest of them. There may be a sexual pulsion, or instinct, or force, in all we say, but surely,
"I love the way you smile"
does NOT mean anything more than what the U says by uttering it.
Freudian slips abound. We have,
"My mother was a nurse" -- The utterer meant that he is a passive-aggressive type.
"Bonaparte was never defeated" -- means that the utterer is a lunatic.
"I'm a lunatic" means that the utterer is NOT a lunatic (Quinton, "The point about madness is that you cannot conceptualise it").
----
"When he said, 'pipe', he meant 'phallus'".
Lacan is the laughing stock here, because he wants to compose a 'grammar of desire' -- with the "Id" talking to us in a code that only the psycho-analyst handles. So that by having the implicatural reflection via transference the patient gets cured. Baloney! By which Grice means, 'baloney'.
Or not.
The problem with Freud is that he never studied philosophy seriously! He was a physician! He tried to look for the 'science' of psychopathological reflections, to echo J's wording.
Surely there is no science for that. The Id knows NO LAWS. At least not the easy laws that Freudians speak about.
Then, Freud confuses between 'intention' and 'meaning' and the rest of them. There may be a sexual pulsion, or instinct, or force, in all we say, but surely,
"I love the way you smile"
does NOT mean anything more than what the U says by uttering it.
Freudian slips abound. We have,
"My mother was a nurse" -- The utterer meant that he is a passive-aggressive type.
"Bonaparte was never defeated" -- means that the utterer is a lunatic.
"I'm a lunatic" means that the utterer is NOT a lunatic (Quinton, "The point about madness is that you cannot conceptualise it").
----
"When he said, 'pipe', he meant 'phallus'".
Lacan is the laughing stock here, because he wants to compose a 'grammar of desire' -- with the "Id" talking to us in a code that only the psycho-analyst handles. So that by having the implicatural reflection via transference the patient gets cured. Baloney! By which Grice means, 'baloney'.
Or not.
Sade: The Implicatures
J:
"Not "this implicature suggests sadistic impulses," or something."
Well, he does say, "The lady doth protest too much, methinks." Or refudiates too much, shall we say?
"Not "this implicature suggests sadistic impulses," or something."
Well, he does say, "The lady doth protest too much, methinks." Or refudiates too much, shall we say?
The Generality of Implicature
But it would be misleading to think that the divergences of the formal devices and their natural counterparts (as the opening passage of "Logic and Conversation" has it) is the issue of implicature. Implicature was offered as a panacea for philosophical problems in general. Not to much to correct speech. But to correct a PHILOSOPHER's 'philosophical' manoeuvre. Strawson was ARGUING that the 'sense' of "if" is given NOT by the truth-table but by something else. Austin was claiming similar things regarding other locutions. Hare, regarding 'good'. Hart regarding 'carefully'. It's all listed in the Prolegomena to "Logic and Conversation". The fun is that they were ALL Oxonian philosophers of Grice's generation. So it's not like Grice's crusade was against Plato, or Hegel, or Kant. Just his friends, from around the corner!
The Way of Grice's Words
We are considering if Grice's speech is typical of English. After all, 94% of English speakers use 'if' UNLIKE Grice wants us to use it via 'explicature'.
Surely, that's an empirical issue. I would think we may need to consider for each operator:
'and'
'or'
and
'if'
the 'metiers' they are supposed to fulfil. The metier of 'if' extends the truth-table of 'if'. So Grice is willing to say that it's more like a 'division of labour'. We SAY things; we implicate (OTHER) things.
He just got irritated when, of all people, his student, Strawson (as he then was) got into 'what is explicated' part of what Grice thought should rather be left 'implicated'.
When Strawson modified his position and thought the issue imported the 'conversational' vs. 'conventional' implicature fringe, it was too late. Grice was onto other things -- the conception of value.
Surely, that's an empirical issue. I would think we may need to consider for each operator:
'and'
'or'
and
'if'
the 'metiers' they are supposed to fulfil. The metier of 'if' extends the truth-table of 'if'. So Grice is willing to say that it's more like a 'division of labour'. We SAY things; we implicate (OTHER) things.
He just got irritated when, of all people, his student, Strawson (as he then was) got into 'what is explicated' part of what Grice thought should rather be left 'implicated'.
When Strawson modified his position and thought the issue imported the 'conversational' vs. 'conventional' implicature fringe, it was too late. Grice was onto other things -- the conception of value.
The Implicatures of Sex: Bio-Linguistics Revisited
J is right that there is a lot of Freud in Grice.
We have to consider 'language games'. And 'survival'. As Grice notes, to reach the level of 'conversation' we are talking of 'talking pirots' (or parrots). Surely more primitive pirots don't need to "TALK".
So we have to consider the functions of language. For Grice there are two: to express a belief ("The cat is on the mat!") or to express a desire ("clean the mess he did on it!").
There have been various classifications of functions of speeech. Most biological functions do NOT require speech. For Grice, the function is 'exchange of information'. Surely there is a lot of 'phatic' communication going on in places -- like pubs, etc., which is not to be accountable, logically, as 'exchange of information'.
There is a theory of language evolution that compares language to gesture and the 'need' to socialise.
-----
The issue then arises: why implicature. I mean, if communication is exchange of information, why implicate? What bothers me particularly is that implicatures are by definition 'cancellable'.
"There's a garage round the corner -- I said that, but I never meant to suggest that it would be open and with petrol to sell."
----
It seems that when come to grits, language can do WITHOUT implicature. Implicature is a 'touch of class'. Surely Winston Churchill or Chamberlain could not have declared the war on Germany 'by implicature'. This is "Things do do with words" by Austin with a vengeance.
We have to consider 'language games'. And 'survival'. As Grice notes, to reach the level of 'conversation' we are talking of 'talking pirots' (or parrots). Surely more primitive pirots don't need to "TALK".
So we have to consider the functions of language. For Grice there are two: to express a belief ("The cat is on the mat!") or to express a desire ("clean the mess he did on it!").
There have been various classifications of functions of speeech. Most biological functions do NOT require speech. For Grice, the function is 'exchange of information'. Surely there is a lot of 'phatic' communication going on in places -- like pubs, etc., which is not to be accountable, logically, as 'exchange of information'.
There is a theory of language evolution that compares language to gesture and the 'need' to socialise.
-----
The issue then arises: why implicature. I mean, if communication is exchange of information, why implicate? What bothers me particularly is that implicatures are by definition 'cancellable'.
"There's a garage round the corner -- I said that, but I never meant to suggest that it would be open and with petrol to sell."
----
It seems that when come to grits, language can do WITHOUT implicature. Implicature is a 'touch of class'. Surely Winston Churchill or Chamberlain could not have declared the war on Germany 'by implicature'. This is "Things do do with words" by Austin with a vengeance.
Implicatures in Grice's Speech
As J notes, there is a lot of empirical linguistics going on here. Professors tend to be polysyllabic. They, at least, often complain that STUDENTS are not ('you are a monosyllabic utterer', 'one monosyllabic utterer').
In general, there must be a ratio of explicatum/implicatum. Suppose the explicatum is
p & q
the implicatum (let's assume)
p AND THEN q
So there's the ratio
p and then q
--------------
p and q
In general, there must be a balance. If you are going to IMPLICATE, you don't HAVE to say 'then' -- you say, "p and q". Some people prefer to be overexplicit and say "p and THEN q"
But this comes out as gratuitous given the maxim, 'be orderly'.
In fact, the Gricean scheme would predict that you only care to make it explicit if the link is "q" AND THEN "p".
As in Jennifer Lopez's new film,
"Love and Lust"
"What's a girl to do?"
"Fall in love -- marry -- get pregnant -- but not necessarily in that order" runs the catchy billboard.
In general, there must be a ratio of explicatum/implicatum. Suppose the explicatum is
p & q
the implicatum (let's assume)
p AND THEN q
So there's the ratio
p and then q
--------------
p and q
In general, there must be a balance. If you are going to IMPLICATE, you don't HAVE to say 'then' -- you say, "p and q". Some people prefer to be overexplicit and say "p and THEN q"
But this comes out as gratuitous given the maxim, 'be orderly'.
In fact, the Gricean scheme would predict that you only care to make it explicit if the link is "q" AND THEN "p".
As in Jennifer Lopez's new film,
"Love and Lust"
"What's a girl to do?"
"Fall in love -- marry -- get pregnant -- but not necessarily in that order" runs the catchy billboard.
An Implicatural Analysis of Opera Titles
There was a discussion in OPERA-L about translation to English of some Italian operas. I was suggesting that "Cavaleria Rusticana" is ironic in that none of the protagonists is what we would call a 'cavalier'. So, someone pointed out that rather than 'cavalier', we are looking for 'chivalry' here.
This bothers me. I would think that while in general it is a mark of English genius to have a 'doublet' (chivalry, cavalier), in general, it cannot but annoy the Griceaian.
Recall:
"Do not multiply senses beyond necessity".
So, there's 'cavalier' (a cavalier attitude to life) and there's 'chivalry' (a different animal). In a way, different words, different senses. But etymologically, same word (not two words in Italian).
Apply Modified Occam's Razor here and you get that 'cavalier' and 'chivalry' refer to the same Fregean concept.
Or not.
This bothers me. I would think that while in general it is a mark of English genius to have a 'doublet' (chivalry, cavalier), in general, it cannot but annoy the Griceaian.
Recall:
"Do not multiply senses beyond necessity".
So, there's 'cavalier' (a cavalier attitude to life) and there's 'chivalry' (a different animal). In a way, different words, different senses. But etymologically, same word (not two words in Italian).
Apply Modified Occam's Razor here and you get that 'cavalier' and 'chivalry' refer to the same Fregean concept.
Or not.
The Chattering Class: An Implicatural Analysis
J:
"Listen to a CSPAN broadcast of like UK parliament session--very eloquent debates. Even the Labour people (the lay-boor issue as Keynes would say) speak a very refined Queen's anglo."
Right.
In a way, the more you chatter, the less you implicate.
I don't know of many politicians whose claim to fame was 'implicature'. Royalty, perhaps. Not really political-themed. As when Edward VIII was asked about his favourite opera.
"La Boheme"
--- "For its subject-matter or the music?"
"No, because it's the shortest."
"Listen to a CSPAN broadcast of like UK parliament session--very eloquent debates. Even the Labour people (the lay-boor issue as Keynes would say) speak a very refined Queen's anglo."
Right.
In a way, the more you chatter, the less you implicate.
I don't know of many politicians whose claim to fame was 'implicature'. Royalty, perhaps. Not really political-themed. As when Edward VIII was asked about his favourite opera.
"La Boheme"
--- "For its subject-matter or the music?"
"No, because it's the shortest."
The Hegemonic Implicature
J writes:
"Hitchens tries a pseudo-philosophy, sort of machiavelli-lite, at times. The Hegemonic Implicature! And that works the other way of course. Speak like a bumpkin--or even a Palin--and who cares what you say."
OK -- so I'm using 'hegemonic implicature'.
"Hitchens tries a pseudo-philosophy, sort of machiavelli-lite, at times. The Hegemonic Implicature! And that works the other way of course. Speak like a bumpkin--or even a Palin--and who cares what you say."
OK -- so I'm using 'hegemonic implicature'.
Pathological Implicatures -- Cured
J writes:
"In regard to snooty, "British" and/or theatrical language, I am not sure "implicature" is the right word. Connotation? Or "register" as some call it."
Indeed! But YOU Had used the term, 'pathological implicature', and I thought it was cute. Plus, it's a good COLLOCATION, you'll grant. Google 'pathological implicature'.
Surely it's NOT the 'implicature' that's pathological. It's possibly the patient (who is).
"In regard to snooty, "British" and/or theatrical language, I am not sure "implicature" is the right word. Connotation? Or "register" as some call it."
Indeed! But YOU Had used the term, 'pathological implicature', and I thought it was cute. Plus, it's a good COLLOCATION, you'll grant. Google 'pathological implicature'.
Surely it's NOT the 'implicature' that's pathological. It's possibly the patient (who is).
Saturday, August 7, 2010
Palindrone
Someone who 'refudiates' "refudiate"
----
Palindrome: "Refudiate 'refudiate'"
Gricean explanation of the pragmatic contradiction. "Seeing that you are 'refudating' 'refudate', you cannot do it."
Why?
Well, because if you refudiate the neologism, 'refudiate', you are NOT refudiating it.
You can rebut it, refuse it, refute it, or repudiate it, but never refudiate it, at least with a straight face.
Odd.
----
Palindrome: "Refudiate 'refudiate'"
Gricean explanation of the pragmatic contradiction. "Seeing that you are 'refudating' 'refudate', you cannot do it."
Why?
Well, because if you refudiate the neologism, 'refudiate', you are NOT refudiating it.
You can rebut it, refuse it, refute it, or repudiate it, but never refudiate it, at least with a straight face.
Odd.
An Analysis to the Index to Grice's "Studies in the Way of Words" (Harvard, pp. 389-94)
A selection, motivated by J's concern (or 'concern'), and mine, as to what Grice is dealing with.
There are entries for names and subjects -- no separate indexes. That's a good thing (Do not multiply indexes beyond one).
Entries include:
activated belief -- I would have had that under 'belief', though.
adjectives
adverbs
affirmative categorial sentences -- I would have that under 'sentence'?
ambiguity
analogy
analytic/synthetic distinction
"and"
--- or rather "And".
a posteriori
a prioricity
believing
Cartesian circle
Categories -- see conversational maxims
"Cause"
Cephalus, 309
Certainty
cognitive synonymy
common sense
conceptual analysis
conditionals
Conjunction. See "And"
---
Consciousness, as inference, 225
conversational impicature
conversational maxims
cooperative principle
crucial words, 10-11
Definite descriptions
Disjunction. See "Or".
Dreaming
Entilment, 3, 9.
Existential generalisation, 115
Free will, 14-17
"Good", 9
Grice, H. P.: Grice's Paradox; Gricean theses.
Handwaving
Hinting
Humor, 92
Hyperbole
Implying
Intentions
Iota operator
irony
knowledge
Logic
Meaning
Meiosis
Memory
Metaphor
Metaphysics, two kinds of, 304
Moral scepticism
necessary truth
Negation -- (Why Not "See "Not"?)
Neustics
Observation
"or"
Oxford: 8, 10, 12, 171, 181, 182, 183, 184, 2760279, 339-40, 376, 378, 380
----- more entries than "God".
Pain
Perception
phrtsics
Plagroup, the
presupposition
quantifiers
reality
"regret"
reminding
repertoire
saying
seeing
sense (meaning)
sense data
sensesn
sign
signfiication
stress
suggesting
summa general, 30
swearing, 9
tactual properties, 255. See also Touch.
"think", as psychological verb
Time
tone
touch, compared with sight
truth
trying
"uptake"
visual properties
The last entry is
Yog and Zog
There are entries for names and subjects -- no separate indexes. That's a good thing (Do not multiply indexes beyond one).
Entries include:
activated belief -- I would have had that under 'belief', though.
adjectives
adverbs
affirmative categorial sentences -- I would have that under 'sentence'?
ambiguity
analogy
analytic/synthetic distinction
"and"
--- or rather "And".
a posteriori
a prioricity
believing
Cartesian circle
Categories -- see conversational maxims
"Cause"
Cephalus, 309
Certainty
cognitive synonymy
common sense
conceptual analysis
conditionals
Conjunction. See "And"
---
Consciousness, as inference, 225
conversational impicature
conversational maxims
cooperative principle
crucial words, 10-11
Definite descriptions
Disjunction. See "Or".
Dreaming
Entilment, 3, 9.
Existential generalisation, 115
Free will, 14-17
"Good", 9
Grice, H. P.: Grice's Paradox; Gricean theses.
Handwaving
Hinting
Humor, 92
Hyperbole
Implying
Intentions
Iota operator
irony
knowledge
Logic
Meaning
Meiosis
Memory
Metaphor
Metaphysics, two kinds of, 304
Moral scepticism
necessary truth
Negation -- (Why Not "See "Not"?)
Neustics
Observation
"or"
Oxford: 8, 10, 12, 171, 181, 182, 183, 184, 2760279, 339-40, 376, 378, 380
----- more entries than "God".
Pain
Perception
phrtsics
Plagroup, the
presupposition
quantifiers
reality
"regret"
reminding
repertoire
saying
seeing
sense (meaning)
sense data
sensesn
sign
signfiication
stress
suggesting
summa general, 30
swearing, 9
tactual properties, 255. See also Touch.
"think", as psychological verb
Time
tone
touch, compared with sight
truth
trying
"uptake"
visual properties
The last entry is
Yog and Zog
Annoying anti-Griceian tags in Conversations in France
--- A: We saw the Eiffel tower.
--- B: You did!
--- A: Yes, we did! And we had coffee at the top.
--- B: You did! We did, too.
--- A: You did! We did. Lovely.
--- B: Lovely. You did.
--- If you hear conversations, people tend to repeat assertions.
A: How much is the newspaper?
B: 3.
A: 3.
B: 3.
Etc. This may seem like confirmatory. But in casual chitchat, the presence of tags like 'you know', "yes, you did". "You did!". "I didn't". "No, you didn't". Is enough to make you wonder what Grice was having in mind when he thought of his, oh so ever economical, maxims!
--- B: You did!
--- A: Yes, we did! And we had coffee at the top.
--- B: You did! We did, too.
--- A: You did! We did. Lovely.
--- B: Lovely. You did.
--- If you hear conversations, people tend to repeat assertions.
A: How much is the newspaper?
B: 3.
A: 3.
B: 3.
Etc. This may seem like confirmatory. But in casual chitchat, the presence of tags like 'you know', "yes, you did". "You did!". "I didn't". "No, you didn't". Is enough to make you wonder what Grice was having in mind when he thought of his, oh so ever economical, maxims!
Pathological Implicatures
J:
"Repetition seems to be one nearly pathological implicature."
Indeed. Indeed. Indeed. Indeed.
Seriously: I loved your label, "pathological implicature".
There are pet words. Some film stars, I know of, for example, overuse: 'divine'. They use that word every other two. And some socialites too.
In general, they say that to vary one's vocabulary is a mark of 'elaborated' rather than restricted speech -- the type of distinction emphasised by Bernstein when studying London youth. But I disagree. The most sophisticated lots -- alla Coward and Cole Porter, seemed to have used the same phrases ('wonderful', 'marvlz', divine, one and again).
So one wants to see if the pathological implicature is as black as she is painted. Or not.
"Repetition seems to be one nearly pathological implicature."
Indeed. Indeed. Indeed. Indeed.
Seriously: I loved your label, "pathological implicature".
There are pet words. Some film stars, I know of, for example, overuse: 'divine'. They use that word every other two. And some socialites too.
In general, they say that to vary one's vocabulary is a mark of 'elaborated' rather than restricted speech -- the type of distinction emphasised by Bernstein when studying London youth. But I disagree. The most sophisticated lots -- alla Coward and Cole Porter, seemed to have used the same phrases ('wonderful', 'marvlz', divine, one and again).
So one wants to see if the pathological implicature is as black as she is painted. Or not.
How To Record A Griceian Conversation
We are discussing with J the informants. As every student of linguistics knows (I'm not!), you have to RECORD conversations.
People, in general, converse over too silly things.
Grice is no exception. His examples are meant to be funny:
A: I'm out of petrol.
B: There's a garage round the corner.
(His first example of implicature).
Surely B is being a bit irrational. But on the other hand, what is one supposed to comment on A's stupid, careless remark?
There is this idea that if A says something, B has to follow suit. The actual first example by Grice is:
-- A: Smith is getting on quite well in his new bank at the bank, no?
--- B: Well, for all I know, he hasn't been sent to prison yet.
Again, the idea that to some stupid remark like A's, B has to follow suit!
To think that he (Grice) made a name in philosophy for studying this!
But recall his motivation! He was NOT into recorded conversations. He was into analyses in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions of verbs like "try", or connectives like "if". He wanted to show that, GIVEN the conditions that hold for ordinary conversations, most of what previous philosophers have found to be part of the 'sense' of this or that expression, is just an 'understanding', provided those conditions.
----
In general, perhaps guided exchanges -- as a buy-sell exchange, or a dialogue between a prostitute and a prospective client in a bar -- may be more Griceian than they need to.
Do prostitutes KNOW they are following the maxims?
People, in general, converse over too silly things.
Grice is no exception. His examples are meant to be funny:
A: I'm out of petrol.
B: There's a garage round the corner.
(His first example of implicature).
Surely B is being a bit irrational. But on the other hand, what is one supposed to comment on A's stupid, careless remark?
There is this idea that if A says something, B has to follow suit. The actual first example by Grice is:
-- A: Smith is getting on quite well in his new bank at the bank, no?
--- B: Well, for all I know, he hasn't been sent to prison yet.
Again, the idea that to some stupid remark like A's, B has to follow suit!
To think that he (Grice) made a name in philosophy for studying this!
But recall his motivation! He was NOT into recorded conversations. He was into analyses in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions of verbs like "try", or connectives like "if". He wanted to show that, GIVEN the conditions that hold for ordinary conversations, most of what previous philosophers have found to be part of the 'sense' of this or that expression, is just an 'understanding', provided those conditions.
----
In general, perhaps guided exchanges -- as a buy-sell exchange, or a dialogue between a prostitute and a prospective client in a bar -- may be more Griceian than they need to.
Do prostitutes KNOW they are following the maxims?
A Griceian slip
In general, Freud's slips are overrated and overused. Gricean slip seems a better term.
In general, Freud misses the intentional axis. If you smoke a pipe, that's a phallic symbol, etc. If you dream of water, your Oedipus complex is unresolved, etc.
D. F. Pears, in Motivated Irrationalty, has addressed some of the Freudian paradoxes in more or less Gricean terms. But Pears -- I can say this aloud since he died last year -- is a bit of a bore to read. I mean, I loved him.
Pears considers it all boils down to 'self-deception'. The Freudian is self-deceived.
So, if you commit a slip (Freudian, Griceain slip) you MEAN-N (naturally) that p, whereas you go on record as NOT meaning that p. Those slips are then meant to show your 'inner nature', or something like that. You cannot 'feign' a 'slip' -- and so on. But I don't think it's as easy as that.
Freudians HAVE to study slips. They get paid for it. Griceians don't.
In general, Freud misses the intentional axis. If you smoke a pipe, that's a phallic symbol, etc. If you dream of water, your Oedipus complex is unresolved, etc.
D. F. Pears, in Motivated Irrationalty, has addressed some of the Freudian paradoxes in more or less Gricean terms. But Pears -- I can say this aloud since he died last year -- is a bit of a bore to read. I mean, I loved him.
Pears considers it all boils down to 'self-deception'. The Freudian is self-deceived.
So, if you commit a slip (Freudian, Griceain slip) you MEAN-N (naturally) that p, whereas you go on record as NOT meaning that p. Those slips are then meant to show your 'inner nature', or something like that. You cannot 'feign' a 'slip' -- and so on. But I don't think it's as easy as that.
Freudians HAVE to study slips. They get paid for it. Griceians don't.
Implicature in the Mental Asylum
J and I are criticising Greenhall's DPhil on Grice (Oxford, 2006). We think Greenhall underestimates what J and I refer to as "crazy talk".
In many quarters, what people say does NOT follow 'rational guidelines'. People usually underestimate this type of utterers. "They are crazy," they say.
So what?
----
I would distinguish between 'mad' and 'crazy'. I once attended a full seminar on neurolinguistics. It was about Broca, and traumatism in the brain that may lead to loss of speech (if not life).
I was VERY disappointed when they called 'lack of names' -- anomie. Surely that's lack of 'rules' for Durkheim.
---
In general, Gricean guidelines HAVE been applied to "Crazy talk". I forget the author of the book, but it basically deals with schizophrenic discourse. It tends to be repetitive (against Grice, 'be brief', 'don't repeat yourself') or irrelevant.
In general, medicals have to study this, since, hey, they get paid.
I notice that some medics don't know enough of predicate calculus to see if what a schizo has said is a scalar implicatum or merely a clausal implicatum.
I'm NOT being jocular. This IS a SERIOUS topic.
Grice saves the day -- because he is into the very LIMITS of rationality, so surely his model serves to understand deviances from that model.
In many quarters, what people say does NOT follow 'rational guidelines'. People usually underestimate this type of utterers. "They are crazy," they say.
So what?
----
I would distinguish between 'mad' and 'crazy'. I once attended a full seminar on neurolinguistics. It was about Broca, and traumatism in the brain that may lead to loss of speech (if not life).
I was VERY disappointed when they called 'lack of names' -- anomie. Surely that's lack of 'rules' for Durkheim.
---
In general, Gricean guidelines HAVE been applied to "Crazy talk". I forget the author of the book, but it basically deals with schizophrenic discourse. It tends to be repetitive (against Grice, 'be brief', 'don't repeat yourself') or irrelevant.
In general, medicals have to study this, since, hey, they get paid.
I notice that some medics don't know enough of predicate calculus to see if what a schizo has said is a scalar implicatum or merely a clausal implicatum.
I'm NOT being jocular. This IS a SERIOUS topic.
Grice saves the day -- because he is into the very LIMITS of rationality, so surely his model serves to understand deviances from that model.
Sartre, La Nausee, and Grice
J wrote:
"Borges was a medical student, I believe".
I'm glad he never operated on me, I replied. Indeed.
I added, 'indeed', emphatically.
J commented:
"Indeed, overuse of the word "indeed" may indeed become rather nauseating indeed."
I think 'indeed' is a Brisihism. I never heard a Newyorrican, like Dr. Sotomayor, using it.
"Indeed" derives from "in" + deed. Strictly, it should apply to 'deeds'. E.g. "The cavalier saved the damsel in distress". "Indeed", you comment.
But it has been used generally, to cover things which are NOT deeds. Eg. 'rain'.
"Wow. It's raining dogs and cats". "Indeed".
------
And it can be used even for things which are even vaguer in semantic form.
"Piss off!"
"Indeed".
-----
Possibly, the first person who used 'indeed' -- and joined them in just one adverb -- was a clever one. Possibly not, though.
As an emphatic, 'indeed' FLOUTS Grice's maxim, 'be brief', and 'don't overdo it -- don't be overinformative or stuff'.
-----
VALIDATED USES OF 'indeed':
--- A: She is not a virgin.
--- B: Indeed. She is NOT.
In this case, you have to add, 'she is not', because such confirmation, out of the blue, seems strange. It's most likely that someone may oppose such 'refudiation'.
---
A: Are you a virgin?
B: Indeed I am.
This seems a validated usage, although the implicature seems to be, "What d'you think?".
----
There may be other uses which while I consider validated J does not.
"Borges was a medical student, I believe".
I'm glad he never operated on me, I replied. Indeed.
I added, 'indeed', emphatically.
J commented:
"Indeed, overuse of the word "indeed" may indeed become rather nauseating indeed."
I think 'indeed' is a Brisihism. I never heard a Newyorrican, like Dr. Sotomayor, using it.
"Indeed" derives from "in" + deed. Strictly, it should apply to 'deeds'. E.g. "The cavalier saved the damsel in distress". "Indeed", you comment.
But it has been used generally, to cover things which are NOT deeds. Eg. 'rain'.
"Wow. It's raining dogs and cats". "Indeed".
------
And it can be used even for things which are even vaguer in semantic form.
"Piss off!"
"Indeed".
-----
Possibly, the first person who used 'indeed' -- and joined them in just one adverb -- was a clever one. Possibly not, though.
As an emphatic, 'indeed' FLOUTS Grice's maxim, 'be brief', and 'don't overdo it -- don't be overinformative or stuff'.
-----
VALIDATED USES OF 'indeed':
--- A: She is not a virgin.
--- B: Indeed. She is NOT.
In this case, you have to add, 'she is not', because such confirmation, out of the blue, seems strange. It's most likely that someone may oppose such 'refudiation'.
---
A: Are you a virgin?
B: Indeed I am.
This seems a validated usage, although the implicature seems to be, "What d'you think?".
----
There may be other uses which while I consider validated J does not.
"Failed" Words at the OED 'failed-word' room --
From today's World Wide Words, online:
""failed" words: "accordionated", being
able to drive and refold a road map at the same time; "scrax", the
waxy coating that is scratched off an instant lottery ticket;
"pregreening", to creep forwards while waiting for a red light to
change; "precuperate", to prepare for the possibility of being ill;
"optotoxical", a look that could kill, normally from a parent or
spouse; "headset jockey", a telephone call centre worker. You may
now have a smidgen of "xenolexica", a grave confusion when faced
with unusual words, but it doesn't take a lot of "lexpionage", the
sleuthing of words and phrases, to work out that the words haven't
failed, but that the evidence to date suggests they aren't used
enough to meet the criteria for inclusion."
""failed" words: "accordionated", being
able to drive and refold a road map at the same time; "scrax", the
waxy coating that is scratched off an instant lottery ticket;
"pregreening", to creep forwards while waiting for a red light to
change; "precuperate", to prepare for the possibility of being ill;
"optotoxical", a look that could kill, normally from a parent or
spouse; "headset jockey", a telephone call centre worker. You may
now have a smidgen of "xenolexica", a grave confusion when faced
with unusual words, but it doesn't take a lot of "lexpionage", the
sleuthing of words and phrases, to work out that the words haven't
failed, but that the evidence to date suggests they aren't used
enough to meet the criteria for inclusion."
Friday, August 6, 2010
Greenhall's defense of Grice (DPhil, Oxon, 2006): What Oxford is For
What's the good of a uni like Oxford if they are not going to defend someone who taught there, successfully, for years!?
Bravo, Greenhall!
Tinyurl.com link: http://tinyurl.com/68k5ak
ORA Thesis: "pragmatics distinction: a defence of Grice"
Member of collection Oxford Theses
Reference:
Owen F. R. Greenhall , (2006). The semantics/pragmatics distinction: a defence of Grice . DPhil, Oxford University, UK
Link to this archived copy: http://ora.ouls.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:00db9bdd-143d-4900-b564-3af9d002f1ea
Title: The semantics/pragmatics distinction: a defence of Grice
Abstract:
The historical development of Morris’ tripartite distinction between syntax, semantics and pragmatics does not follow a smooth path. Examining definitions of the terms ‘semantic’ and ‘pragmatic’ and the phenomena they have been used to describe, provides insight into alternative approaches to the semantics/pragmatics distinction. Paul Grice’s work receives particular attention and taxonomy of philosophical positions, roughly divisible into content minimalist and maximalist groups, is set up. Grice’s often neglected theory of conventional implicature is defended from objections, various tests for the presence of conventional implicature are assessed and the linguistic properties of conventional implicature defined. Once rehabilitated, the theoretical utility of conventional implicature is demonstrated via a case study of the semantic import of the gender and number of pronouns in English. The better-known theory of conversational implicature is also examined and refined. New linguistic tests for such implicatures are devised and the refined theory is applied to scalar terms. A pragmatic approach to scalar implicatures is proposed and shown to fare better than alternatives presented by Uli Sauerland, Stephen Levinson and Gennaro Chierchia. With the details of the theory conversational implicature established, the use made of Grice’s tool in the work of several philosophers is critically evaluated. Kent Bach’s minimalist approach to quantifier domain restriction is examined and criticised. Also, the linguistic evidence for semantic minimalism provided by Herman Cappelen and Ernie Lepore is found wanting. Finally, a content maximalist approach to quantifier domain restriction is proposed. The approach differs from other context maximalist theories, such as Jason Stanley’s, in relying on semantically unarticulated constituents. Stanley’s arguments against such theories are examined. Further applications of the approach are briefly surveyed.
Type of Award: DPhil
Level of Award: Doctoral
Awarding Institution: Oxford University, UK
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Institution
University of Oxford
Faculty/Department
Humanities Division - Philosophy Faculty
Oxford College
New College
Funding
AHRC
Grant Number
104622
Dr Owen F. R. Greenhall
Copyright Holder: Owen Greenhall - Rights Ownership: Sole authorship 3rd-party copyright status: No Third Party copyright
Supervisor: Prof Timothy Williamson (born in Stockholm).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Otherformat:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
•Digital Origin : Born digital
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Keywords/phrases:
•semantics
•pragmatics
•philosophy of language
•theoretical linguistics
•Grice
•implicature
•meaning
•communication
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subjects:
•Philosophy
•Logic
•Linguistics
•Computational Linguistics
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Issue Date: 2006
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Notes: The full thesis is not currently available in ORA. Relationships for "pragmatics distinction: a defence of Grice":
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•HTML Full
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THESIS02.pdf Abstract and table of contents
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The copyright of this item rests with the author and/or other copyright holder(s).
Bravo, Greenhall!
Tinyurl.com link: http://tinyurl.com/68k5ak
ORA Thesis: "pragmatics distinction: a defence of Grice"
Member of collection Oxford Theses
Reference:
Owen F. R. Greenhall , (2006). The semantics/pragmatics distinction: a defence of Grice . DPhil, Oxford University, UK
Link to this archived copy: http://ora.ouls.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:00db9bdd-143d-4900-b564-3af9d002f1ea
Title: The semantics/pragmatics distinction: a defence of Grice
Abstract:
The historical development of Morris’ tripartite distinction between syntax, semantics and pragmatics does not follow a smooth path. Examining definitions of the terms ‘semantic’ and ‘pragmatic’ and the phenomena they have been used to describe, provides insight into alternative approaches to the semantics/pragmatics distinction. Paul Grice’s work receives particular attention and taxonomy of philosophical positions, roughly divisible into content minimalist and maximalist groups, is set up. Grice’s often neglected theory of conventional implicature is defended from objections, various tests for the presence of conventional implicature are assessed and the linguistic properties of conventional implicature defined. Once rehabilitated, the theoretical utility of conventional implicature is demonstrated via a case study of the semantic import of the gender and number of pronouns in English. The better-known theory of conversational implicature is also examined and refined. New linguistic tests for such implicatures are devised and the refined theory is applied to scalar terms. A pragmatic approach to scalar implicatures is proposed and shown to fare better than alternatives presented by Uli Sauerland, Stephen Levinson and Gennaro Chierchia. With the details of the theory conversational implicature established, the use made of Grice’s tool in the work of several philosophers is critically evaluated. Kent Bach’s minimalist approach to quantifier domain restriction is examined and criticised. Also, the linguistic evidence for semantic minimalism provided by Herman Cappelen and Ernie Lepore is found wanting. Finally, a content maximalist approach to quantifier domain restriction is proposed. The approach differs from other context maximalist theories, such as Jason Stanley’s, in relying on semantically unarticulated constituents. Stanley’s arguments against such theories are examined. Further applications of the approach are briefly surveyed.
Type of Award: DPhil
Level of Award: Doctoral
Awarding Institution: Oxford University, UK
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Institution
University of Oxford
Faculty/Department
Humanities Division - Philosophy Faculty
Oxford College
New College
Funding
AHRC
Grant Number
104622
Dr Owen F. R. Greenhall
Copyright Holder: Owen Greenhall - Rights Ownership: Sole authorship 3rd-party copyright status: No Third Party copyright
Supervisor: Prof Timothy Williamson (born in Stockholm).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Otherformat:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
•Digital Origin : Born digital
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Keywords/phrases:
•semantics
•pragmatics
•philosophy of language
•theoretical linguistics
•Grice
•implicature
•meaning
•communication
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subjects:
•Philosophy
•Logic
•Linguistics
•Computational Linguistics
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Issue Date: 2006
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Notes: The full thesis is not currently available in ORA. Relationships for "pragmatics distinction: a defence of Grice":
View full list as RDF in format:
•HTML Lite
•HTML Full
•RDF/XML
•N-Triples
•N3
•Turtle
Downloads
THESIS02.pdf Abstract and table of contents
Download record information as
•CSV
•JSON
(beta service)
Link to this page:
(What is a QR code?)
Terms of Use
The copyright of this item rests with the author and/or other copyright holder(s).
More Griceian than Grice
From an online source:
AN EXPANSION OF GRICEAN CONVERSATIONAL IMPLICATURE
Jonathan P.K. Hallemeier, Department of Philosophy, Valparaiso University, Valparaiso, IN 46383.
Conversational implicature refers to the non-literal meaning of an utterance. Irony, metaphor, and hyperbole are all examples of speech acts that require implicature. We regularly rely on implicature in everyday conversation, using it to augment literal meanings. H. P. Grice gives a characterization of conversational implicature based on the idea that the purpose of conversation is maximally effective information exchange. Grice's characterization is problematic in two important ways. First, it is too reliant on the speaker's perception of the audience, not covering situations in which the speaker wrongly believes the audience will not understand a certain implied meaning. Second, there is too much emphasis on the speaker's own perception of an utterance, consequently allowing implicature to be irrational. Based instead on a conception of the purpose of conversation as successful communication, I attempt to modify Grice's theory to better deal with these flaws. I stipulate that the speaker must believe that the implicature is generally intelligible to some possible audience, not requiring anything from the actual audience or the speaker's perception of the actual audience. Also, instead of the simply requiring that the speaker believe that the implicature is intelligible, I require that the implicature in fact be intelligible. To gauge intelligibility, I introduce the idea of an ideal hearer, who has necessary language skills and background knowledge. For implicature to exist, the intended implied meaning must be rational and understandable by this ideal hearer. In addition, I introduce the idea of strong and weak implicature. Implicature that demands commonly held knowledge is strong, and thus has a high chance of being understood and resulting in successful communication. Implicature that requires very obscure or idiosyncratic beliefs and background knowledge is weak, with a low chance of communication success. Strength of implicature is audience relative, and thus explains why a particular hearer might grasp an implication while another hearer remains confused.
AN EXPANSION OF GRICEAN CONVERSATIONAL IMPLICATURE
Jonathan P.K. Hallemeier, Department of Philosophy, Valparaiso University, Valparaiso, IN 46383.
Conversational implicature refers to the non-literal meaning of an utterance. Irony, metaphor, and hyperbole are all examples of speech acts that require implicature. We regularly rely on implicature in everyday conversation, using it to augment literal meanings. H. P. Grice gives a characterization of conversational implicature based on the idea that the purpose of conversation is maximally effective information exchange. Grice's characterization is problematic in two important ways. First, it is too reliant on the speaker's perception of the audience, not covering situations in which the speaker wrongly believes the audience will not understand a certain implied meaning. Second, there is too much emphasis on the speaker's own perception of an utterance, consequently allowing implicature to be irrational. Based instead on a conception of the purpose of conversation as successful communication, I attempt to modify Grice's theory to better deal with these flaws. I stipulate that the speaker must believe that the implicature is generally intelligible to some possible audience, not requiring anything from the actual audience or the speaker's perception of the actual audience. Also, instead of the simply requiring that the speaker believe that the implicature is intelligible, I require that the implicature in fact be intelligible. To gauge intelligibility, I introduce the idea of an ideal hearer, who has necessary language skills and background knowledge. For implicature to exist, the intended implied meaning must be rational and understandable by this ideal hearer. In addition, I introduce the idea of strong and weak implicature. Implicature that demands commonly held knowledge is strong, and thus has a high chance of being understood and resulting in successful communication. Implicature that requires very obscure or idiosyncratic beliefs and background knowledge is weak, with a low chance of communication success. Strength of implicature is audience relative, and thus explains why a particular hearer might grasp an implication while another hearer remains confused.
Disimply, Disimplicate
This below from an online source.
Chapman notes that Grice was reluctant to work on 'disimplicature', but he did coin the word, and tried to generalise some principles on 'disimplicature' (or entail-dropping for short). So it's not surprising that lawyers, rather than logicians, had been talking about the simpler 'disimply'. So the question is, in which way disimply and disimplicate differ? (A search on disimplicature in the annals of the Grice Club may help)
---
Professor Joel Seligman has written a thoughtful Comment 1 on my recent article, Disimplying Private Rights of Action Under the Federal Securities Laws: The Commission's Authority ("Disimplying"). 2 The thesis of Disimplying is that the Securities and Exchange Commission can amend judicially implied Rule 10b-5 private rights of action. The debate over securities litigation reform is therefore not Congress's exclusive province, because the Commission can also shape private Rule 10b-5 rights of action. Professor Seligman has "no quarrel" with this argument. 3
Although Professor Seligman and I agree on the Commission's authority to disimply, 4 we part company on the normative implications of that authority. Professor Seligman reviews testimony presented in recent congressional hearings 5 and concludes that "[i]f there is a case for significant changes in the federal securities class action law, it simply has not been presented to date." 6 He further concludes that courts already have the tools necessary to address the threat of abusive litigation and that, despite a barrage of criticism, "the merits do matter" in settling securities fraud actions. 7
The data are not, however, as settled as Professor Seligman suggests, and courts deny that they are the appropriate forum for resolution of the securities class action policy debate. 8 While Professor Seligman properly criticizes extreme claims voiced by critics of securities class actions, he incorrectly concludes that the available evidence provides neither cause for further inquiry nor reason to entertain proposals for reform.
Chapman notes that Grice was reluctant to work on 'disimplicature', but he did coin the word, and tried to generalise some principles on 'disimplicature' (or entail-dropping for short). So it's not surprising that lawyers, rather than logicians, had been talking about the simpler 'disimply'. So the question is, in which way disimply and disimplicate differ? (A search on disimplicature in the annals of the Grice Club may help)
---
Professor Joel Seligman has written a thoughtful Comment 1 on my recent article, Disimplying Private Rights of Action Under the Federal Securities Laws: The Commission's Authority ("Disimplying"). 2 The thesis of Disimplying is that the Securities and Exchange Commission can amend judicially implied Rule 10b-5 private rights of action. The debate over securities litigation reform is therefore not Congress's exclusive province, because the Commission can also shape private Rule 10b-5 rights of action. Professor Seligman has "no quarrel" with this argument. 3
Although Professor Seligman and I agree on the Commission's authority to disimply, 4 we part company on the normative implications of that authority. Professor Seligman reviews testimony presented in recent congressional hearings 5 and concludes that "[i]f there is a case for significant changes in the federal securities class action law, it simply has not been presented to date." 6 He further concludes that courts already have the tools necessary to address the threat of abusive litigation and that, despite a barrage of criticism, "the merits do matter" in settling securities fraud actions. 7
The data are not, however, as settled as Professor Seligman suggests, and courts deny that they are the appropriate forum for resolution of the securities class action policy debate. 8 While Professor Seligman properly criticizes extreme claims voiced by critics of securities class actions, he incorrectly concludes that the available evidence provides neither cause for further inquiry nor reason to entertain proposals for reform.
Implicatureness
[PDF] A Study of Japanese Adverbial Particles in Montague Grammar - Formato de archivo: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - by S Kubo - issue of conventional-implicatureness, i.e., the properties by which an implica ... implicatureness, i.e., the set of properties by which we can identify an ...
dspace.wul.waseda.ac.jp/dspace/bitstream/2065/.../KOREA82-445-462.pdf
dspace.wul.waseda.ac.jp/dspace/bitstream/2065/.../KOREA82-445-462.pdf
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Grice and Borges at Harvard, 1967
J was talking about Borges. So I must just as well join.
J mentions that Borges was a medical student at a time. From what I read in his biography (e.g. Woodall, Williamson), Borges was just a bachelor -- in the sense of bachelor of arts. He was a high school graduate. He graduated from the school which Calvin attended in Switzerland, from what I recall.
When he was in Buenos Aires, during his high-school years, Woodall makes fun of Borges's mother's desire to dress Borges as an Eton scholar -- which attracted all the scorn from his schoolmates.
Because of his father's infirmities, they were forced to travel to Europe, and the Great War found them there. So Borges attended the high school in Geneva (he is actually buried in Geneva) -- where French was the language of education. Matter of fact, he never got very good grades because French was not his native language -- and a few of his school mates would make a point with the teachers that they should be more generous with Borges on the grades front because, hey, he was no Frenchman.
-----
I counted like 6 visits by Borges to England. I reviewed them when I reviewed this bio by Woodall. The first he was fascinated with London, which he called a 'red labyrinth'. It was a brief visit. He would late return, notably at the expenses of the British Council. On one he payed respects to the grave of his ancestors in Hanley, Staffordshire.
----
He never published much, if you can believe this. When I was writing my "mise en abyme" essay (on Borges and Grice) I had to research on first publication dates, and most of his stuff came out in local periodicals, dailies, and stuff -- but not as book themselves. So in this he was a bit like Grice. Borges's books were mainly compilations from stuff he had published in the dailies or weeklies, 1930s-1940s.
---
Yes, there's possibly a philosophical idea behind EACH of his stories. E.g. Book of Sand -- or Library of Babel, etc. And J is right: Borges was possibly a sceptic. He would say he was an agnostic (but this as it relates knowledge of the eschatology or the existence of God -- agnostic vs. atheist, say).
I would think his Spanish was ornate. I have his bilingual editions -- published by Penguin, actually. There is a one-volume of his poetical works, which is bilingual, and a one volume of his Fictions, and a one volume of his non-fictions. He seems to be less ornate than other Spanish-language writers. I tend to think his prose resembles British prose -- it seems like he is THINKING 'English'.
He loved etymologies -- and just to contradict the mainstream intelligentsia, he went in, in 1955, for the study of "Anglo-Saxon". Woodall reports that when Borges was in Oxford (at the Randolph, where I also stayed!) and a literary gathering organised in his honour (with Murdoch, and company) he would rather, socially shy as he was, rather remained in his room with one R. Hamer, a Student of Christ Church, whom Borges knew via Hamer's Faber collection of Anglo-Saxon verse. Hamer, who was interviewed by Woodall, recalls that they basically spoke about the metrics of Beowulf.
----
Borgesiana has grown, and there are anecdotes around his personality for each occasion. He had a sort of dry sense of humour -- and he was best, apparently, in interviews, as kept in the dailies or as having to do with his opposition to fascism and such. He then was usually hunted by journalists for the odd interview. On Garcia Marquez's winning the Nobel Prize for "Hundred Years of Solitude", Borges was asked his opinion. "Fifty years too long", I think his reply was.
---
Philosophically, he did not know much. He would quote from BERKELEY -- his favourite of the trio of British empiricists. And naturally so, because Berkeley turns empiricism into a work of art. Borges was fascinated by the consequences of empiricism -- the esse est percipi for example. He also liked, like his father had, the Locke theory of memory and personal identity. He also liked Condillac -- in his "Book of Imaginary Beings" there is an entry for "Condillac's statue" which may have a connection with what Grice is writing on in "Some remarks about the senses".
My mentor in philosophy, E. A. Rabossi, wrote, for example, on Borges's theory of proper names in "Funes the memorious one". A few philosophers (E. Olaso, as I recall, and Balderston) have tried to identify the different philosophical sources in Borges's writing. But he was NEVER a systematic writer, or reader. He would read as it pleased him.
He would keep notes on his books. While he was stoic about it, the fact that he did become blind in 1955 must have been literal hell for him. He had been director of a library, and he regretted most of all not being able to _read_.
Oddly, when interviewed what book he'd take to a desert island, he said, "The Encyclopedia Britannica", which is a bit of a joke, since this is 24 volumes, I would think. He only cared for the 11th Edition -- complete with illustrations.
When I was doing the "Mise en Abyme" research, I had to research into what books he had actually read as a child. Most of his books were English editions, and they belonged to his father: Encyclopedia Britannica -- world literature in English only, too, English poetry. His father discouraged non-English literature. There is a BBC documentary on this, called "Borges and I" -- and in fact, when in Harvard in 1967 (with Grice, but different departments -- same campus: Grice at Emerson Hall, and Borges at the Classics Hall) -- he would reminisce the lines of English verse he had learned from his father.
Oddly, if Grice's lectures in Harvard in 1967 were copied and circulated, Borges's less substantial lectures were never even transcribed. It was only ages later that a Rumanian, working in Harvard, found the tapes and did the transcription work. The result: This Craft of Verse. Like Grice's "Studies in the Way of Words", the (c) of Borges's "This craft of verse" remains with Harvard College and both pieces are published by H. U. P. -- but that's the end of an almost minimal intersection.
J mentions that Borges was a medical student at a time. From what I read in his biography (e.g. Woodall, Williamson), Borges was just a bachelor -- in the sense of bachelor of arts. He was a high school graduate. He graduated from the school which Calvin attended in Switzerland, from what I recall.
When he was in Buenos Aires, during his high-school years, Woodall makes fun of Borges's mother's desire to dress Borges as an Eton scholar -- which attracted all the scorn from his schoolmates.
Because of his father's infirmities, they were forced to travel to Europe, and the Great War found them there. So Borges attended the high school in Geneva (he is actually buried in Geneva) -- where French was the language of education. Matter of fact, he never got very good grades because French was not his native language -- and a few of his school mates would make a point with the teachers that they should be more generous with Borges on the grades front because, hey, he was no Frenchman.
-----
I counted like 6 visits by Borges to England. I reviewed them when I reviewed this bio by Woodall. The first he was fascinated with London, which he called a 'red labyrinth'. It was a brief visit. He would late return, notably at the expenses of the British Council. On one he payed respects to the grave of his ancestors in Hanley, Staffordshire.
----
He never published much, if you can believe this. When I was writing my "mise en abyme" essay (on Borges and Grice) I had to research on first publication dates, and most of his stuff came out in local periodicals, dailies, and stuff -- but not as book themselves. So in this he was a bit like Grice. Borges's books were mainly compilations from stuff he had published in the dailies or weeklies, 1930s-1940s.
---
Yes, there's possibly a philosophical idea behind EACH of his stories. E.g. Book of Sand -- or Library of Babel, etc. And J is right: Borges was possibly a sceptic. He would say he was an agnostic (but this as it relates knowledge of the eschatology or the existence of God -- agnostic vs. atheist, say).
I would think his Spanish was ornate. I have his bilingual editions -- published by Penguin, actually. There is a one-volume of his poetical works, which is bilingual, and a one volume of his Fictions, and a one volume of his non-fictions. He seems to be less ornate than other Spanish-language writers. I tend to think his prose resembles British prose -- it seems like he is THINKING 'English'.
He loved etymologies -- and just to contradict the mainstream intelligentsia, he went in, in 1955, for the study of "Anglo-Saxon". Woodall reports that when Borges was in Oxford (at the Randolph, where I also stayed!) and a literary gathering organised in his honour (with Murdoch, and company) he would rather, socially shy as he was, rather remained in his room with one R. Hamer, a Student of Christ Church, whom Borges knew via Hamer's Faber collection of Anglo-Saxon verse. Hamer, who was interviewed by Woodall, recalls that they basically spoke about the metrics of Beowulf.
----
Borgesiana has grown, and there are anecdotes around his personality for each occasion. He had a sort of dry sense of humour -- and he was best, apparently, in interviews, as kept in the dailies or as having to do with his opposition to fascism and such. He then was usually hunted by journalists for the odd interview. On Garcia Marquez's winning the Nobel Prize for "Hundred Years of Solitude", Borges was asked his opinion. "Fifty years too long", I think his reply was.
---
Philosophically, he did not know much. He would quote from BERKELEY -- his favourite of the trio of British empiricists. And naturally so, because Berkeley turns empiricism into a work of art. Borges was fascinated by the consequences of empiricism -- the esse est percipi for example. He also liked, like his father had, the Locke theory of memory and personal identity. He also liked Condillac -- in his "Book of Imaginary Beings" there is an entry for "Condillac's statue" which may have a connection with what Grice is writing on in "Some remarks about the senses".
My mentor in philosophy, E. A. Rabossi, wrote, for example, on Borges's theory of proper names in "Funes the memorious one". A few philosophers (E. Olaso, as I recall, and Balderston) have tried to identify the different philosophical sources in Borges's writing. But he was NEVER a systematic writer, or reader. He would read as it pleased him.
He would keep notes on his books. While he was stoic about it, the fact that he did become blind in 1955 must have been literal hell for him. He had been director of a library, and he regretted most of all not being able to _read_.
Oddly, when interviewed what book he'd take to a desert island, he said, "The Encyclopedia Britannica", which is a bit of a joke, since this is 24 volumes, I would think. He only cared for the 11th Edition -- complete with illustrations.
When I was doing the "Mise en Abyme" research, I had to research into what books he had actually read as a child. Most of his books were English editions, and they belonged to his father: Encyclopedia Britannica -- world literature in English only, too, English poetry. His father discouraged non-English literature. There is a BBC documentary on this, called "Borges and I" -- and in fact, when in Harvard in 1967 (with Grice, but different departments -- same campus: Grice at Emerson Hall, and Borges at the Classics Hall) -- he would reminisce the lines of English verse he had learned from his father.
Oddly, if Grice's lectures in Harvard in 1967 were copied and circulated, Borges's less substantial lectures were never even transcribed. It was only ages later that a Rumanian, working in Harvard, found the tapes and did the transcription work. The result: This Craft of Verse. Like Grice's "Studies in the Way of Words", the (c) of Borges's "This craft of verse" remains with Harvard College and both pieces are published by H. U. P. -- but that's the end of an almost minimal intersection.
The Objects of the Five Senses
We were talking about Grice (a nonblind man) and Borges (a blindman) with J.
I would like to consider in what respect the 'sense' of 'vision' differs from the others. Urmson wrote a paper (actually a Brit. Academy lecture) with the traditional title, "The object of the five senses". Surely there is nothing scientific about the senses having to be 'five' -- but let's assume they ARE five.
As a philosopher I cannot place ONE sense over the other. They all seem equivalent to me.
They all contribute to phenomenalist statements:
a seems phi.
b seems phi'.
Etc. There is a PERCEPTUAL modus -- if it's a 'visum', etc. "Visum" is Grice's and Warnock's technicism.
"We saw a visum of a cow on the way in".
-----
So, I wouldn't think that there is a priority of vision, philosophically, at all.
What J says is about 'perception', observation, the senses, in general. But we may want to mediate in what way a verb like 'see' behaves differently than a verb like 'smell'.
"I smelled John".
"I saw John".
They seem to behave differently, in terms of factivity. For Grice, if you saw John, John was there to be seen. Thus Macbeth cannot have seen Banquo, for example. Only 'seen' -- a loose use of 'see' which disimplicates that what you see is what you got.
With "I smelled a rat" (or "I smell a rat") there is possible a similar factivity. I don't know.
Surely you cannot smell a sweet rose ("a rose by any other name would smell as sweet") unless there IS a sweet rose in front of your nose.
Similarly with other senses.
Oddly, Aristotle thought that TOUCH was different. He is discussing weakness of the will, and some form of incontinence. Suppose a man sees a naked woman and wants to TOUCH her. Without permission, etc, that would be an incontinent action. For surely a man can CONTROL what he touches. But Aristotle says that if a man SEES a naked woman, etc., he is not being incontinent. "Seeing" (or vision) does not make a man incontinent. (I forget where Aristotle said this, though).
The sense of 'taste' as opposed to 'touch' is possible a distinction to be refudiated. I haven't checked the etymologies, but 'taste' seems like 'touch'. Isn't 'taste' to touch with your tongue?
Surely, to smell is possible to TOUCH, too, with your nose -- via particles in the air, etc. And for Boyle and other theoreticians in the age of Locke, it was all corpuscular. I.e. to SEE was to touch.
This had Locke thinking, rightly, that the only primary quality (not a mere epiphenomenal secondary quality) was bulk.
-----
But surely it requires a lot of analysis to reduce, "This rose smells very sweet" to bulkiness. Or perhaps it doesn't.
Patricia Churchland thinks that sensual qualia are redundant anyway.
My friend McEvoy says that the only good thing about Austin's Sense and Sensibilia is the title -- a pun on Austen. And Austen WAS into something. Sense and Sensitivity. In what ways are these different.
I was reading the life of Caruso and how his voice turned from 'sensously appealing' to something else: people were starting to detect the 'acting' qualities of his voice. So there is this further use of 'sense' as in sensuousness, sensual, and sensuality.
"Sense and Sensuality", or the life and times of Anna Nicole Smith?
I would like to consider in what respect the 'sense' of 'vision' differs from the others. Urmson wrote a paper (actually a Brit. Academy lecture) with the traditional title, "The object of the five senses". Surely there is nothing scientific about the senses having to be 'five' -- but let's assume they ARE five.
As a philosopher I cannot place ONE sense over the other. They all seem equivalent to me.
They all contribute to phenomenalist statements:
a seems phi.
b seems phi'.
Etc. There is a PERCEPTUAL modus -- if it's a 'visum', etc. "Visum" is Grice's and Warnock's technicism.
"We saw a visum of a cow on the way in".
-----
So, I wouldn't think that there is a priority of vision, philosophically, at all.
What J says is about 'perception', observation, the senses, in general. But we may want to mediate in what way a verb like 'see' behaves differently than a verb like 'smell'.
"I smelled John".
"I saw John".
They seem to behave differently, in terms of factivity. For Grice, if you saw John, John was there to be seen. Thus Macbeth cannot have seen Banquo, for example. Only 'seen' -- a loose use of 'see' which disimplicates that what you see is what you got.
With "I smelled a rat" (or "I smell a rat") there is possible a similar factivity. I don't know.
Surely you cannot smell a sweet rose ("a rose by any other name would smell as sweet") unless there IS a sweet rose in front of your nose.
Similarly with other senses.
Oddly, Aristotle thought that TOUCH was different. He is discussing weakness of the will, and some form of incontinence. Suppose a man sees a naked woman and wants to TOUCH her. Without permission, etc, that would be an incontinent action. For surely a man can CONTROL what he touches. But Aristotle says that if a man SEES a naked woman, etc., he is not being incontinent. "Seeing" (or vision) does not make a man incontinent. (I forget where Aristotle said this, though).
The sense of 'taste' as opposed to 'touch' is possible a distinction to be refudiated. I haven't checked the etymologies, but 'taste' seems like 'touch'. Isn't 'taste' to touch with your tongue?
Surely, to smell is possible to TOUCH, too, with your nose -- via particles in the air, etc. And for Boyle and other theoreticians in the age of Locke, it was all corpuscular. I.e. to SEE was to touch.
This had Locke thinking, rightly, that the only primary quality (not a mere epiphenomenal secondary quality) was bulk.
-----
But surely it requires a lot of analysis to reduce, "This rose smells very sweet" to bulkiness. Or perhaps it doesn't.
Patricia Churchland thinks that sensual qualia are redundant anyway.
My friend McEvoy says that the only good thing about Austin's Sense and Sensibilia is the title -- a pun on Austen. And Austen WAS into something. Sense and Sensitivity. In what ways are these different.
I was reading the life of Caruso and how his voice turned from 'sensously appealing' to something else: people were starting to detect the 'acting' qualities of his voice. So there is this further use of 'sense' as in sensuousness, sensual, and sensuality.
"Sense and Sensuality", or the life and times of Anna Nicole Smith?
Borges and Grice
I often say they were my two mentors -- but I keep having different mentors. I suppose it's more original to have Borges as a mentor -- because I don't know anybody else who does!
I inherited the love for Borges from my milieu and my parents. I would read his essays, more often than his short-stories. His short stories bored me -- but his essays were kind of alright. This was before my serious study of philosophy. So I got to learn about Berkeley (Borges was obsessed with an account of personal identity in terms of mnemic states) and stuff before the usual course of Greek philosophy.
Borges used to say that he chose philosophical doctrines (to dwell on) on account of their 'aesthetic' value. His philosophical sympathies he inherited totally from his father, who was a true empiricist. Borges Senior lectured on William James's psychology at a local institute. More than an anglophile, he was half-English himself, Borges's father.
Borges collected books, as everybody knows. I once reviewed his bio, by Woodall, which is pretty good. It's in a paperback edition. A more reverential biography is by Williamson, whom I met -- somewhere. This Wiliamson edition is hardback and doubt it will ever be paperbacked.
Borges was the first lecturer of the J. L. Borges Memorial Lectures, which are held annually at the Anglo-Argentine Society, in Canning House, in posh Belgravia. A. S. Byatt, G. Greene, P. D. James, etc. were among the Borges lectures. I have all the proceedings which were edited by Borges's translator, T. Di Giovanni.
I have met many Borgesian scholars. Balderston seems to be my favourite. He wrote a couple of books ON Borges. One is about Strawsonian lack of reference in Borges's supposedly 'realistic' stories (At least Balderston quotes from Strawson).
But there are zillion of lit. crit. books on Borges --. Perhaps one too many.
Etc.
Compared with Grice's, Borges's philosophy of language was VERY simplistic. He only has ONE commentary, in his huge oeuvre, about what language is about -- "a system of conventional signs" -- hardly original, and wrong! --
Borges would have NOTHING to do with the group Grice belonged to, and vice versa, Grice would have nothing to do with Borges's pretentious stories (Grice rather quoted from William Golding).
Borges was a reactionary, and since he lacked a university education, he despised universities -- such as Oxford. Strangely, he is Lit. Dr. from Oxford, 'honorary' of course. I have his photography (from a book) of Borges coming out of the Sheldonian Theatre for the occasion -- it's in a book I have.
He prefered London, but in general disliked academics, and would rather talk about poets. Etc.
I inherited the love for Borges from my milieu and my parents. I would read his essays, more often than his short-stories. His short stories bored me -- but his essays were kind of alright. This was before my serious study of philosophy. So I got to learn about Berkeley (Borges was obsessed with an account of personal identity in terms of mnemic states) and stuff before the usual course of Greek philosophy.
Borges used to say that he chose philosophical doctrines (to dwell on) on account of their 'aesthetic' value. His philosophical sympathies he inherited totally from his father, who was a true empiricist. Borges Senior lectured on William James's psychology at a local institute. More than an anglophile, he was half-English himself, Borges's father.
Borges collected books, as everybody knows. I once reviewed his bio, by Woodall, which is pretty good. It's in a paperback edition. A more reverential biography is by Williamson, whom I met -- somewhere. This Wiliamson edition is hardback and doubt it will ever be paperbacked.
Borges was the first lecturer of the J. L. Borges Memorial Lectures, which are held annually at the Anglo-Argentine Society, in Canning House, in posh Belgravia. A. S. Byatt, G. Greene, P. D. James, etc. were among the Borges lectures. I have all the proceedings which were edited by Borges's translator, T. Di Giovanni.
I have met many Borgesian scholars. Balderston seems to be my favourite. He wrote a couple of books ON Borges. One is about Strawsonian lack of reference in Borges's supposedly 'realistic' stories (At least Balderston quotes from Strawson).
But there are zillion of lit. crit. books on Borges --. Perhaps one too many.
Etc.
Compared with Grice's, Borges's philosophy of language was VERY simplistic. He only has ONE commentary, in his huge oeuvre, about what language is about -- "a system of conventional signs" -- hardly original, and wrong! --
Borges would have NOTHING to do with the group Grice belonged to, and vice versa, Grice would have nothing to do with Borges's pretentious stories (Grice rather quoted from William Golding).
Borges was a reactionary, and since he lacked a university education, he despised universities -- such as Oxford. Strangely, he is Lit. Dr. from Oxford, 'honorary' of course. I have his photography (from a book) of Borges coming out of the Sheldonian Theatre for the occasion -- it's in a book I have.
He prefered London, but in general disliked academics, and would rather talk about poets. Etc.
Grice and Borges on mise-en-abyme
When I was somewhere, I was asked to deliver a lecture on Cervantes! I managed to do that, and the thing came out in the proceedings. It has "mise en abyme" in the title (a term used by Andre Gide) and it's all about Borges -- and Grice. One day I shall pdf and upload for the sake of it. It has page references, too!
Observation, Observational -- and Grice
We are discussing the priority of observation, sensation, and empiricism -- and the problem with Kant and Grice.
I agree with J that it all begins with perception.
"Nihil in intellectu quod prius non fuerit in sensu".
-----
Which is back to 'number three', which started the discussion -- vide platonistic philosophy of mathematics.
Unlike "rotten" -- 'three' is a different adjective as applied to, say, 'eggs':
--- There were ROTTEN eggs in the basket. I could smell them.
--- There were THREE eggs in the basket. I could see them.
---
It seems that while the superficial logic is similar, a formalisation of (ii) requires what Quine calls a numeric quantifier. His example, in Methods of Logic, was:
--- The twelve apostles were drunk.
--
This he formalised as (Ex12)Dx.
Clever, eh?
I agree with J that it all begins with perception.
"Nihil in intellectu quod prius non fuerit in sensu".
-----
Which is back to 'number three', which started the discussion -- vide platonistic philosophy of mathematics.
Unlike "rotten" -- 'three' is a different adjective as applied to, say, 'eggs':
--- There were ROTTEN eggs in the basket. I could smell them.
--- There were THREE eggs in the basket. I could see them.
---
It seems that while the superficial logic is similar, a formalisation of (ii) requires what Quine calls a numeric quantifier. His example, in Methods of Logic, was:
--- The twelve apostles were drunk.
--
This he formalised as (Ex12)Dx.
Clever, eh?
<----> and >----< -- and Grice's casual theory of perception
By JLS for the GC
This lady, in this article in Newsweek last week, was referring to
<-------->
>--------<
and how the lower line is perceived as being longer than the higher.
Now -- apply Grice's Causal Theory of Perception compleat with 'implicature'.
Let's call the lower line (a) and the higher line (b).
So we say:
a seems longer than b.
--- To Grice, this indeed 'implicates': a IS not longer than b.
NOw, this lady was saying that in the East (especially pretty primitive folks who live on hunting and fishing and need to perceive longitudes pretty exactly) it is not the case so that
She was writing
"a is perceived as being (correctly) the same length as b"
That struck me as something impossible to represent in Griceanism.
----
It seems to me that if you stick to 'seems-to-me' statements you never can get AWAY from 'seems-to-me' statements.
I mean, what's the good of saying that a = b. Even if THAT HELD, it still needs to be the case that a seems equal to b. Which destroys the purpose of attempting to go beyond perception. Etc.
This is of course the stuff of Austin, Sense and Sensibilia.
As R. Paul has recently reminded me, G. A. Paul thought, rightly, in "Is there a problem about sense data?", that, since there are no sense data, there cannot be a problem about (allegedly) them. Or something.
This lady, in this article in Newsweek last week, was referring to
<-------->
>--------<
and how the lower line is perceived as being longer than the higher.
Now -- apply Grice's Causal Theory of Perception compleat with 'implicature'.
Let's call the lower line (a) and the higher line (b).
So we say:
a seems longer than b.
--- To Grice, this indeed 'implicates': a IS not longer than b.
NOw, this lady was saying that in the East (especially pretty primitive folks who live on hunting and fishing and need to perceive longitudes pretty exactly) it is not the case so that
She was writing
"a is perceived as being (correctly) the same length as b"
That struck me as something impossible to represent in Griceanism.
----
It seems to me that if you stick to 'seems-to-me' statements you never can get AWAY from 'seems-to-me' statements.
I mean, what's the good of saying that a = b. Even if THAT HELD, it still needs to be the case that a seems equal to b. Which destroys the purpose of attempting to go beyond perception. Etc.
This is of course the stuff of Austin, Sense and Sensibilia.
As R. Paul has recently reminded me, G. A. Paul thought, rightly, in "Is there a problem about sense data?", that, since there are no sense data, there cannot be a problem about (allegedly) them. Or something.
Grice on Theory-Theory
Grice, as a good Grecian, overregarded 'theoria' as the greatest intellectual achie
vement of humanity (at least Greek humanity). Vision was overrated by the Greeks. And later, the Romans, but they also liked a blood-and-sand fight in the colisseum.
Too many of our current idioms involve vision even when they shouldn't.
"I see you are not singing it", Alice remarked.
Humpty retorted: "Then you have better eyes than most."
vement of humanity (at least Greek humanity). Vision was overrated by the Greeks. And later, the Romans, but they also liked a blood-and-sand fight in the colisseum.
Too many of our current idioms involve vision even when they shouldn't.
"I see you are not singing it", Alice remarked.
Humpty retorted: "Then you have better eyes than most."
"What the Eye no Longer Sees": Grice's casual theory of perception, revisited
-- the heart no longer grieves for.
It may be argued that most of our percepts are visual. Try to imagine "cruelty" in non-visual terms!
It may be argued that most of our percepts are visual. Try to imagine "cruelty" in non-visual terms!
Grice on the psychology of the Eye
The other day I was reading this Newsweek, and in this essay on WEIRD (W. E. I. R. D., I forget what the acronym stands for) the lady was saying that
<----->
>-----<
is seen differently in the West and in the East. She says in the West, undergraduates see the higher line as LONGER. I enjoyed her way of putting how things go in the East. "In the East they see the lower line (correctly) as the same length."
It struck me as Griceista.
For Grice, a line looks the lenghth it has? Not necessarily.
This in connection with J's remarks about Socrates on Meno -- and the way he liked to take the mickey out of his rather obtuse students (Socrates's).
<----->
>-----<
is seen differently in the West and in the East. She says in the West, undergraduates see the higher line as LONGER. I enjoyed her way of putting how things go in the East. "In the East they see the lower line (correctly) as the same length."
It struck me as Griceista.
For Grice, a line looks the lenghth it has? Not necessarily.
This in connection with J's remarks about Socrates on Meno -- and the way he liked to take the mickey out of his rather obtuse students (Socrates's).
Gricy
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www.springerlink.com/index/g52715600u1236u3.pdf - Similar
No good Gricean can accept this line of thought, for it is a central tenet of Griceanism that speaker meaning explains conventional meaning. ...
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Grice's (Brand Of) Griceanism
[PDF]Signal to Act
the Gricean Programme is thus to make pragmatic inference amenable to .... 1.1.3 Brands of Griceanism. To say that Grice's contribution was heavily ...
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the Gricean Programme is thus to make pragmatic inference amenable to .... 1.1.3 Brands of Griceanism. To say that Grice's contribution was heavily ...
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Griceanism: For and Against
[PDF]ConditionalsConditionals ...
Although Jackson upholds a version of the Gricean 'equivalence' theory, there is a ..... and most subtle defence of Griceanism thus far available. ...
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A Gricean orgasm -- literally
[PDF]Sex, Breakfast, And Descriptus Interruptus
Griceanism which fails to acknowledge this distinction can be adequate, on ..... knowledge and the intervention of roughly Gricean considerations like ...
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Griceanism depuis la lettre
Language and Thought: Annotated Bibliography
His late-blooming Griceanism emerges briefly but very strikingly. .... Schiffer's disavowal of the Gricean program, bound up with doubts about the ...
host.uniroma3.it/progetti/kant/field/latbiblio.htm - Similar
His late-blooming Griceanism emerges briefly but very strikingly. .... Schiffer's disavowal of the Gricean program, bound up with doubts about the ...
host.uniroma3.it/progetti/kant/field/latbiblio.htm - Similar
The General Reads Grice
[PDF]There Is No Special Problem About Scientific Representation
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---
Cfr. Garcia Marques, Nobody writes to the General.
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---
Cfr. Garcia Marques, Nobody writes to the General.
Grice and Griceanism
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nature of these intentions, sometimes called the Gricean reflex or Gricean circle. ...... however, is not to assess possible strategies to save Griceanism, ...
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Rampant Griceanism
[PDF]Review
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Griceanism
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"pls refudiate" -- when?
It has been pointed out that "refud-" is indeed a Latin root. From refundo, to cast down, destroy. So when is she planning to do this to the mosque?
Grice's "mark of stupidity"
Not his own!
Anyway, J was referring to the prevailing anti-humanist view in the philosophy of mathematics: platonism. As opposed to Platonism. I agree. I mean, I agree that's the prevailing mind set. Does a materialist have a mind set, incidentally?
Anyway, this is Grice on Quine -- last page of his opus magnum, Way of Words:
p. 385:
"The proper view will be that
analytic propositions are among
the inventions of theorists
[griceist theoreticians, rather]
who are seeking, in one way or
another, to organise and systematise
an initially undifferentiated corpus
of human knowledge"
-- so-called.
Grice goes on:
"Success in this area is a matter of
INTELLECTUAL VISION, not of good
eyesight. As Plato once remarked,
the ability to see horses without
seeing horseness is a mark
of stupidity."
----
But then, pls refudiate stoopid.
Anyway, J was referring to the prevailing anti-humanist view in the philosophy of mathematics: platonism. As opposed to Platonism. I agree. I mean, I agree that's the prevailing mind set. Does a materialist have a mind set, incidentally?
Anyway, this is Grice on Quine -- last page of his opus magnum, Way of Words:
p. 385:
"The proper view will be that
analytic propositions are among
the inventions of theorists
[griceist theoreticians, rather]
who are seeking, in one way or
another, to organise and systematise
an initially undifferentiated corpus
of human knowledge"
-- so-called.
Grice goes on:
"Success in this area is a matter of
INTELLECTUAL VISION, not of good
eyesight. As Plato once remarked,
the ability to see horses without
seeing horseness is a mark
of stupidity."
----
But then, pls refudiate stoopid.
griceista
J:
"there appears to be a difference between Platonism with big, upper case P , and platonism, lower case p. It would probably take a Hillary Putnam to point out the subtle differences"
Oddly, in most romance languages, there is no difference between, say, Romance and romance, platonic and Platonic, or for that matter, Aristotelian and aristotelian. Even the days of the weeks they refuse to capitalise: monday, tuesday, wednesday. Ditto for the names of the months.
I suppose this is revenge from the old days of the Roman Empire where EVERYTHING WAS CAPITALISED as anyone who's seen those lugubre Roman inscriptions in Rome may testify:
"LASCIATE OGNI SPERANZA VOI CH'ENTRATE" and stuff.
---
So, if you read Abbagnano on Grice, say, in "Storia della filosofia moderna", you may find things like:
"Followers of Grice are called griceistas. It has to be noted that griceanism is not in itself perverse even if their followers are."
"there appears to be a difference between Platonism with big, upper case P , and platonism, lower case p. It would probably take a Hillary Putnam to point out the subtle differences"
Oddly, in most romance languages, there is no difference between, say, Romance and romance, platonic and Platonic, or for that matter, Aristotelian and aristotelian. Even the days of the weeks they refuse to capitalise: monday, tuesday, wednesday. Ditto for the names of the months.
I suppose this is revenge from the old days of the Roman Empire where EVERYTHING WAS CAPITALISED as anyone who's seen those lugubre Roman inscriptions in Rome may testify:
"LASCIATE OGNI SPERANZA VOI CH'ENTRATE" and stuff.
---
So, if you read Abbagnano on Grice, say, in "Storia della filosofia moderna", you may find things like:
"Followers of Grice are called griceistas. It has to be noted that griceanism is not in itself perverse even if their followers are."
Grice, Ariskant and Kantotle
While J is right that Grice is no platonist but Kantian at most, let us be reminded that when J. Bennett reviewed Grandy/Warner's PGRICE ('a worse job by Clarendon Press, editorialwise, has seldom been seen', he remarks bitterly) he entitled it, "In the tradition of Kantotle". Chapman notes that archival material at the Bancroft has Grice speaking of "Ariskant", too.
Did Jesus follow Jesus: Is Grice a Gricean
Of course, the topic is implicatural.
When I was doing 'identity' in the OED, I noted a quote: "if you say that A is LIKE B, then, surely if A = A, we can say that A is like A", or something. I agree.
I would say that Grice is like Grice (Surely, Grice IS Grice).
So, a platonic statement is a platonist statement. Because if YOU _are_ Plato, you adhere to Plato's doctrines. So, what you say is "Platonistic".
Mutatis mutandis Griceista.
When I was doing 'identity' in the OED, I noted a quote: "if you say that A is LIKE B, then, surely if A = A, we can say that A is like A", or something. I agree.
I would say that Grice is like Grice (Surely, Grice IS Grice).
So, a platonic statement is a platonist statement. Because if YOU _are_ Plato, you adhere to Plato's doctrines. So, what you say is "Platonistic".
Mutatis mutandis Griceista.
Grice, A Griceian
I would follow Jones here.
As he notes, 'platonic' is best used to describe something related to Plato. "Platonist", a bit of a moutful (given the shorter 'platonic') should rather be restricted, as Jones suggests, to "a follower of Plato".
---- cfr. Plotinus's Neo-Platonism. Platonist, but not platonic.
---
Now, the issue regarding "Grice" (an Oxford philosopher -- judged by some to be a 'minor figure' in the philosophical firmament -- not me!).
Surely it would have been pedantic of Grice to use "Gricean". I don't think he ever used that word. But surely by the time he died (1988) he must have been aware that a few linguists (mainly) were using the adjective to terrorist extremes ("Gricean maxims", the most hateful collocation).
---
So I propose NOT to use "Gricean" -- if you are Grice, or to refer to Grice's views. We have "Grice" for that.
In Buenos Ayres, Borges objected to the use of "borgeano", which is the adjective used in Buenos Aires, to describe "related to Borges". "What happened to my '-es'?", he would complain. "Borgesian" seems a better adjective. He blamed the French who were apparently using 'borgeen'.
So, I would restrict "Gricean" to a 'follower of Grice'. I was so bored by this, especially after Attalardo (who I love) asked about the distinction between post-Gricean and neo-Gricean elsewhere, that I coined 'paleo-Gricean' (or palaeo-Gricean, if you must).
I did not venture to say that Grice was a palaeo-Gricean. No. ARISTOTLE was a palaeo-Gricean.
On the whole, I would think that neo-Griceans are right, and post-Griceans are wrong.
---- The implicature of 'post-' is a bad one. As when we say, "post-Christian". I.e. after the death of Jesus.
Note that Kant's followers in the early twentieth-century (Dilthey, etc.) were called NEO-Kantians, never post-Kantians.
Surely, the point -- marketing point, if you must -- of 'post-Griceanism' is to try to trade on this slight undermisestimation by Grice on this and that.
In general, in Oxford (which is the place that counts), I haven't heard "post-Gricean" much. But then I haven't heard "Gricean" much. They are so old fashioned there, that if you hear "Millian" you are lucky.
As he notes, 'platonic' is best used to describe something related to Plato. "Platonist", a bit of a moutful (given the shorter 'platonic') should rather be restricted, as Jones suggests, to "a follower of Plato".
---- cfr. Plotinus's Neo-Platonism. Platonist, but not platonic.
---
Now, the issue regarding "Grice" (an Oxford philosopher -- judged by some to be a 'minor figure' in the philosophical firmament -- not me!).
Surely it would have been pedantic of Grice to use "Gricean". I don't think he ever used that word. But surely by the time he died (1988) he must have been aware that a few linguists (mainly) were using the adjective to terrorist extremes ("Gricean maxims", the most hateful collocation).
---
So I propose NOT to use "Gricean" -- if you are Grice, or to refer to Grice's views. We have "Grice" for that.
In Buenos Ayres, Borges objected to the use of "borgeano", which is the adjective used in Buenos Aires, to describe "related to Borges". "What happened to my '-es'?", he would complain. "Borgesian" seems a better adjective. He blamed the French who were apparently using 'borgeen'.
So, I would restrict "Gricean" to a 'follower of Grice'. I was so bored by this, especially after Attalardo (who I love) asked about the distinction between post-Gricean and neo-Gricean elsewhere, that I coined 'paleo-Gricean' (or palaeo-Gricean, if you must).
I did not venture to say that Grice was a palaeo-Gricean. No. ARISTOTLE was a palaeo-Gricean.
On the whole, I would think that neo-Griceans are right, and post-Griceans are wrong.
---- The implicature of 'post-' is a bad one. As when we say, "post-Christian". I.e. after the death of Jesus.
Note that Kant's followers in the early twentieth-century (Dilthey, etc.) were called NEO-Kantians, never post-Kantians.
Surely, the point -- marketing point, if you must -- of 'post-Griceanism' is to try to trade on this slight undermisestimation by Grice on this and that.
In general, in Oxford (which is the place that counts), I haven't heard "post-Gricean" much. But then I haven't heard "Gricean" much. They are so old fashioned there, that if you hear "Millian" you are lucky.
Is Grice Gricean?
I should tell J that I use "Grice-ian" (Griceian) rather than the more standard "Gricean" after J. Kennedy (Jason Kennedy) used it in this blog, and it stuck with me. Surely there is no need to MURDER a surname, and a fine one, such as
---- G R I C E
---
by having it next to '-an', a rather ugly suffix (and yielding 'Grice-an', Gricean). Surely it's better manners to leave the sound of "Grice" as such /grais/ and THEN add an extra 'i', so that THEN you can add that ugly suffix, 'an'
G R I C E - I - AN
So I propose "Griceian" to be pronounced /graisian/
While "Gricean" is pronounced differently according to your idiolect (Palin pronounces it "Grishn").
--- (Would you like to play scrabble with Palin?)
-
---- G R I C E
---
by having it next to '-an', a rather ugly suffix (and yielding 'Grice-an', Gricean). Surely it's better manners to leave the sound of "Grice" as such /grais/ and THEN add an extra 'i', so that THEN you can add that ugly suffix, 'an'
G R I C E - I - AN
So I propose "Griceian" to be pronounced /graisian/
While "Gricean" is pronounced differently according to your idiolect (Palin pronounces it "Grishn").
--- (Would you like to play scrabble with Palin?)
-
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Platonistic and minimalism
By Roger Bishop Jones, for The Grice Club
Thanks JL for your copious responses to my suspicions about these words which it seems are unfounded.
My conclusion is that Platonic is an adjective attributing something to Plato and Platonistic to the followers of Plato.
Minimalism is a technical term probably used differently by different authors, but not necessarily (and probably not often) meaning minimism.
In the wake of this is a small re-interpretation of the issue between Grice and Carnap on the Betes Noires.
I had previously thought to reconcile the two by allowing that Carnap is some kind of minimalist but suggesting that Grice. in his heart, is only opposed to something I called `dogmatic minimalism' of which I absolved Carnap.
Now that I see minimalism as a technical term, potentially distinct from minimisms, I could talk about the difference by having it that Grice in talking about minimalisms means (as his writings suggest) that a minimalist is not only one who strives (at times) to manage with little, but who aims to deprive others of their more commodious preferences.
Of this latter I will hold Carnap to be either innocent, or a minor offender (in his maturity), and admit that he still seeks utility in various minimisations for pragmatic gain.
RBJ
Thanks JL for your copious responses to my suspicions about these words which it seems are unfounded.
My conclusion is that Platonic is an adjective attributing something to Plato and Platonistic to the followers of Plato.
Minimalism is a technical term probably used differently by different authors, but not necessarily (and probably not often) meaning minimism.
In the wake of this is a small re-interpretation of the issue between Grice and Carnap on the Betes Noires.
I had previously thought to reconcile the two by allowing that Carnap is some kind of minimalist but suggesting that Grice. in his heart, is only opposed to something I called `dogmatic minimalism' of which I absolved Carnap.
Now that I see minimalism as a technical term, potentially distinct from minimisms, I could talk about the difference by having it that Grice in talking about minimalisms means (as his writings suggest) that a minimalist is not only one who strives (at times) to manage with little, but who aims to deprive others of their more commodious preferences.
Of this latter I will hold Carnap to be either innocent, or a minor offender (in his maturity), and admit that he still seeks utility in various minimisations for pragmatic gain.
RBJ
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