Grice's Logical Corpuscularism

Speranza

Was Grice a logical corpuscularian? It seems so.  After all, he  wrote  an essay, "Definite descriptions in Russell and in the   vernacular", by vernacular meaning Strawson; and while Grice agrees that   both Russell and Strawson make a 'common mistake', Grice feels he has a foot on each camp
(Russell's and Strawson's).

Grice's manoeuvre is to re-interpret what Russell saw as an entailment (and Strawson ignored)  as  an implicature.

When Myro  published  (rather posthumously published)  his "Logic" he makes much of the atomic-molecular distinction as applied  to propositions, and it's noteworthy  that Grice's claim to fame (among  logicians) was his implicatural analysis of  two-place operators, that make  up for  MOLECULAR propositions.

So a purist could  say that Grice was the greatest molecularist of all.

But surely a  molecule is composed of  corpuscules, too.

Why did Russell describe his   philosophy as a kind  of "logical atomism" and not the more correct   'corpuscularism'?

After all,  Russell just meant to endorse both a   metaphysical view and a certain  methodology for doing philosophy.

The  metaphysical view amounts to the  claim that the world consists  of a plurality of  independently existing  things exhibiting qualities and standing in relations.

But as Grice says, every school boy (at least at Clifton, which he attended) knows that.

 "There must be  more to Russell's logical  atomism."

According to logical atomism, all truths are ultimately  dependent upon a layer of atomic facts, which consist either of a simple particular exhibiting a quality, or multiple simple particulars standing in a  relation.

The  methodological view  recommends a process of conceptual  analysis, whereby one attempts to  define or reconstruct more complex notions or vocabularies in terms of simpler ones.

According to Russell, at least early on  during his  logical atomist phase, such an analysis could eventually   result in a  language containing only words representing simple  particulars, the  simple  properties and relations thereof, and  logical constants, which, despite   this limited vocabulary,
could  adequately capture all truths. Russell's   logical atomism had a profound influence on analytic philosophy,   including  Grice, if  only to criticise it.

Ideed, it is arguable that the  very name   “analytic philosophy” derives from Russell's defense of the  method of  analysis.

And while Austin used to say

i. Some like  Witters,  but Moore's MY man.

Grice could have said:

ii. Some like Witters, but Russell's MY man.

Trust Ayer, who was an 'enfant  terrible'  to attempt to trump both:

iii. Some like Witters, but  Moore and Russell  are MY men.

(vide Ayer: Russell and Moore: the  anaytical heritage"). 

Russell introduced the phrase “logical atomism” to  describe his philosophy  in  1911.

Russell's logical atomism is  perhaps best described as partly a  methodological viewpoint, and partly a  metaphysical  theory.  

Methodologically, logical atomism can be seen  as endorsement of  conceptual  analysis, understood as a two-step  process in which one attempts to   identify, for a given domain of  inquiry, set of beliefs or scientific  theory,  the minimum and  most basic concepts and vocabulary in which  the other concepts and  vocabulary of that domain can be defined or recast,  and the most general  and  basic principles from which the remainder of the  truths of the domain can be  derived or reconstructed.

Metaphysically,  logical  atomism is the view  that the world consists in a plurality of   independent and discrete entities,  which by coming together   form  facts.

According to Russell, a fact is  a  kind of complex, and  depends for its existence on the simpler  entities making it  up.

The  simplest sort of complex, an atomic fact,  was thought to consist  either of  a single individual
exhibiting a  simple quality, or of multiple    individuals standing in a simple relation.

The methodological and   metaphysical elements of  logical atomism come together in postulating the   theoretical, if not  the practical, realizability of  a fully analyzed  language,  in  which all truths could in principle be expressed in a  perspicuous  manner.

Such a “logically ideal language”, as Russell at times  called it,  would, besides logical constants,
consist only of words representing  the  constituents  of atomic facts.

And Grice says Russell is "okay" only   he misses to even THINK such a logically ideal language should invite this  or  that implicature.

Russell impertinently responded:

"Implicature  happens, so?"

In such a language, the simplest sort of  complete  sentence would  be what Russell called an “atomic  proposition”, containing a  single  predicate or verb representing  a quality or relation along with the   appropriate number of  proper names, each representing an individual. 

The  truth or  falsity of an atomic proposition would depend entirely on  a   corresponding atomic fact.

The other sentences of such a  language  would  be derived either by combining atomic propositions using   truth-functional  connectives, yielding molecular propositions, or  by  replacing constituents of a  simpler proposition by variables,  and  prefixing a universal or existential  quantifier, resulting
in general and  existential propositions. According  to the  stronger form of logical  atomism Russell at times adopted, he held  that  in such a language, "g]iven  all true atomic propositions,  together with the fact that they are all,  every other true  proposition can  theoretically be deduced by  logical   methods".

This puts the truth or falsity of atomic propositions   at  the core of
Russell's theory of truth, and hence, puts atomic facts  at the   center of
Russell's metaphysics.

Russell himself  dated his first   acceptance of logical atomism to the
vintage  year of 1899 (what Grice called  "that year of Grice") when he and
Moore 
rejected the  main tenets of the  dominant school of philosophy in  Oxford
at the time -- oddly,  since both  were at Cambridge --  (and to which both
had previously been  adherents),  the tradition  of neo-Hegelian Idealism
exemplified in works of F.H.   Bradley,  and adopted instead a  fairly
strong form
of realism. Of   their  break with idealism, Russell wrote that "Moore led
the way, but  I  followed  closely in his footsteps".

**************** WHY  NEITHER  RUSSELL NOR GRICE LIKED BRADLEY -- "MUCH"
------

Moore  published an essay  entitled “The  Nature of Judgment”, in which he

outlined his main reasons  for accepting the new  realism. It  begins with
a 
discussion of a  distinction made by Bradley  between  different notions of
idea. According  to Bradley, the  notion of idea  understood as a mental
state or mental  occurrence  is not the notion of “idea”  relevant to
logic or
to truth   understood as a relationship between our ideas and  reality.
Instead,  the  relevant notion of idea is that of a sign or symbol 
representing 
something  other than itself, or an idea understood as possessing  
meaning.
Bradley  understood meaning in terms of  "a part of the  content of an idea
cut
off,  fixed by the mind, and  considered  apart from the existence of the
sign".  Moore agreed with  Bradley  that it is not the mental occurrence
that
is  important to logic.   However, with regard to Bradley's second notion
of  “
idea”, Moore  accused  Bradley of conflating the symbol with the 
symbolized,  and rejected Bradley's view that what is symbolized is itself
a part  of 
the idea and dependent upon it. 

Moore introduces the  term  "concept" for the meaning of a symbol; for 
Moore, what it  is for different  ideas to have a common content is for
them to   
represent the same  concept. However, the concept itself is independent  of
the ideas. When we   make a judgment, typically, it is not our  ideas, or
parts of our ideas,  which  our judgment is about.  According to Moore, if
I
make an assertion,  what  I assert is  nothing about my ideas or my mental
states, but a certain   "connexion  of concepts". Moore went on to
introduce the
term  “proposition”  for  complexes of concepts such as that which would
be 
involved in a belief  or  judgment. While propositions represent  the
content
of judgments,   according to Moore,
they and their  constituents are entirely independent  from  the judging  
mind. Some propositions are true, some are not. 

For   Moore, however, truth is not a correspondence relationship  between 
propositions  and reality, as there is no difference between a  
proposition — 
understood as a  mind-independent complex — and  that  which would make it
true. The facts of the world then consist of  true  propositions,
themselves 
understood as complexes of  concepts. According to  Moore, something 
"becomes intelligible  first when it is analyzed into its  constituent 
concepts". 
Moore's "The Nature of Judgment" had a profound  influence on   Russell,
who
later heralded it as the first account of the  “new  philosophy” to  which
he
and Moore subscribed. For his own part,   Russell often described  his
dissatisfaction with the   dominant  Idealist (and largely monist)
tradition as 
primarily  having to do   with the nature and existence of relations. 

In  particular, Russell  took issue with the claim found in  Bradley and
others, that  the notion of  a fundamental relation  between two distinct
entities  is  incoherent.  Russell  diagnosed this belief as stemming from
a
widespread   logical   doctrine to the effect that every proposition is
logically 
of  subject-predicate  form. Russell was an ardent opponent of a  position
known  as the “doctrine of  internal relations”, which  Russell stated as
the
view  that  "every relation is   grounded in the natures of the related 
terms". Perhaps most  charitably  interpreted, this amounts to the claim 
that a's 
bearing relation R to b is  always reducible to properties held  by  a and
b
individually, or to a property  held by the complex  formed of a and  b. In
the period leading up to his  own  abandonment of idealism, Russell  was
already pursuing a research  program  involving the foundations of 
arithmetic.
This work,  along with his  earlier work on the foundations of  geometry,
had 
convinced him of the importance  of relations for  mathematics.  However,
Russell found that one category of relations, viz.,    asymmetrical
transitive
relations, resisted any such reduction to the   properties  of the relata
or
the whole formed of them. These  relations  are  especially important in
mathematics, as they are  the
sort that  generates series. 

Consider the relation of  being taller than, and  consider the fact that

iv. Shaquille O'Neal  is taller than Michael  Jordan.

It might be thought that this  relation between O'Neal and Jordan  can be
reduced to properties of  each. O'Neal has the property of being  7'2'' 
tall,
and Jordan  has the property  of being 6'6'' tall, and the  taller than  
relation in this case is reducible to their possession of  these 
properties. 
The problem, according to Russell, is that for this   reduction to hold, 
there
must be a certain relation between the  properties  themselves. This 
relation would account for the  ordering of the various  height
properties,  putting the property  of being-6'8''-tall in between  that of
being-7'2''-tall and  that  of being-6'6''-tall. This relation among  the
properties would   itself be an asymmetrical and transitive relation,  and
so the
analysis  has not  rid us of the need for taking relations as  ultimate. 
Another hypothesis  would be that there is such an entity as the   whole
composed of O'Neal and  Jordan, and that the relation between the  two  men
is
reducible to some property  of this whole. Russell's  complaint was  that
since
the whole composed of  O'Neal and Jordan  is the same as the  whole
composed of
Jordan and O'Neal, this   approach has no way to explain  what the
difference would be between  O'Neal's  being taller than Jordan and 
Jordan's being
taller than  O'Neal, as both would  seem to be reduced to the  same
composite 
entity bearing the same  quality. Russell's rejection of the   doctrine of
internal relations is  very  important for  understanding  the development
of
his atomistic doctrines in  more  than
one respect. 

Certain advocates of the claim that a  relation  must always be  grounded
in
the nature of its relata  hold that in virtue of a  relating to  b, a must 
have a  complex nature that includes its relatedness to b.   Since every 
entity presumably bears some relation to any other, the nature of  any 
entity
could arguably be described as having the same complexity as  the  universe
as
a whole (if indeed, it even makes sense on such a  picture   to  divide the
world into distinct entities at all,  as many denied).   Moreover,
according
to some within this  tradition, when we consider a,   obviously we do not
consider all  its relations to every entity, and hence grasp  a in a way
that 
falsifies the whole of what a is. This led some to the   claim  that “
analysis
is falsification”, and even to  hold that when we   judge that  a is the
father of b, and judge that a is the  son of  c,  the a in the first 
judgment is
not strictly speaking the same  a as  involved in the second judgment; 
instead, in the first we  deal only  with  a-quâ-father-of-b in the first,
and  
a-quâ-son-of-c in the  second. In contradistinction to these  views, 
Russell
adopted what he  called “the  doctrine of  external relations”, which he 
claimed “may  be expressed by 
saying that

A) relatedness does not  imply any   corresponding complexity in the relata.

B) any given entity is   a  constituent of many different complexes.

This position on  relations   allowed Russell to adopt a pluralism in which
the  world is conceived as   composed of many distinct, independent 
entities,
each of which can be  considered  in isolation from its  relations to other

things, or its  relation to the mind.   Russell claimed that this doctrine
was the  fundamental doctrine of his  realistic position, and it represents
perhaps the  most important  turning point in the development of his
logical
atomism.  Russell's  first published  account of his newfound realism came
in
the   classic The Principles of  Mathematics. Part I is dedicated largely
to a 
philosophical inquiry into  the nature of  propositions. Russell  took 
over from Moore the conception  of propositions as   mind-independent 
complexes; a true proposition was then  simply  identified by Russell  
with a fact.
However, Moore's   characterization of a proposition as a  complex of 
concepts was  largely in  keeping with traditional  Aristotelian logic in
which  all 
judgments were thought  to involve a  subject concept,  copula and
predicate
concept. Russell,  owing in  part to his own  views on relations, and in
part from his adopting  certain   doctrines stemming from Peano's symbolic
logic, sought to refine  and   improve upon this characterization. In the
terminology  introduced by   Russell, constituents of a proposition  occur 
either as
term or as  concept.  An entity occurs as term when it  can be replaced by
any other  entity and   the result would  still be a proposition, and when
it
is  one of the subjects   of  the proposition, i.e., something the 
proposition is about. An  entity  occurs as concept when it occurs 
predicatively,
i.e.,  only as part of the  assertion made about the things  occurring as 
term.
In the proposition

v. Russell is human (versus  "Russell  is humane"?)

the person Russell (the man himself) occurs as  term,  but humanity occurs
as concept.  In the proposition

vi.   Strawson orbits Grice.

Strawson and Grice occur as term, and  the   relation of orbiting occurs as
concept. Russell used  "concept" for all   those entities capable of
occurring as   concept — chiefly relations and  other  universals — and
"thing" for 
those entities such as Socrates,  Callisto and  Jupiter, that can  only
occur
as term.  While Russell  thought that only certain  entities were capable
of
occurring  as concept,  at the time, he  believed that every entity was
capable of  occurring   as  term in a proposition. In the proposition

vii. Gluttony is a big   vice.

the concept gluttony occurs as term. His argument that this  held 
generally
was that if there were some entity, E, that could not  occur as  term,
there  would  have to be a fact, i.e., a true  proposition, to  this
effect.
However, in the proposition E cannot  occur as term in a  proposition, E 
occurs
as term. Russell's  account of propositions as  complexes of  entities was
in
many  ways in keeping with his views as the  nature of complexes  and facts

during the core logical atomist period. In  particular, at both   stages he
would regard the simple truth that an  individual a stands in  the  simple
relation R to an individual b as a  complex   consisting of the individuals
a
and b and the relation  R.   However, there are a number of positions 
Russell
held in 1903   that were
abandoned in this later period; some of the more   important  were these.
He
is committed to a special kind of  propositional  constituent  called a “
denoting concept”, involved  in descriptive and quantified   propositions.
He
believes that  there was such a complex, i.e., a   proposition, consisting 
of 
a, b and R even when it is not true that a  bears  relation R to  b. He
also
believes in the reality of classes,  understood  as  aggregate  objects,
which could be constituents of  propositions.  In each case,  it is worth,
at least briefly, discussing   Russell's change of  heart. Russell
expressed
the view that grammar is  a  useful guide in  understanding  the make-up of
a  proposition, and even  that in many cases, the  make-up of  a 
proposition
corresponding to a  sentence can be understood by   determining,  for each
word of the  sentence, what entity in the  proposition is  meant by the
word.
Perhaps in  part because such  phrases as "all dogs",  "some numbers" and 
"the   queen"appear as a grammatical unit, Russell came to the  conclusion
that
they made a unified contribution to the corresponding    proposition.  B
ecause Russell believed it impossible for a finite  mind  to  grasp a
proposition of infinite complexity, however,  Russell  rejected a view 
according to
which the (false)  proposition designated  by

viii. All  numbers are  odd.

actually contains all numbers.  Similarly,  although  Russell admitted that
such a proposition as that  is  equivalent  to a  formal implication, i.e.,
a
quantified  conditional of the 
form:

ix. (x)(x  is a number ⊃ x is  odd)

Russell  held that they are nevertheless distinct  propositions.  This was 
perhaps in part due to the difference in  grammatical   structure,  and
perhaps also because the former appears only to  be   about numbers, 
whereas the
latter is about all things,  whether numbers or  not.  Instead, Russell
thought that the  proposition corresponding to the  above   contains as a 
constituent the denoting concept all numbers.  Russell  explained  denoting
concepts
as entities which, whenever they occur 
in  a  proposition, the proposition is not about them but about   other 
entities to which  they bear a special relation. So when  the  denoting
concept
all numbers  occurs in a proposition,  the   proposition is not about the
denoting concept, but   instead about 1 and 2  and 3,  etc. Russell
abandons this
theory  in favour  of his celebrated  theory of definite and indefinite 
descriptions. What  precisely lead  Russell to become dissatisfied  with
his
earlier  theory, and the   precise nature of the  argument he gave against
denoting concepts  (and  similar   entities such as Frege's senses), are a
matter
of great    controversy, and have  given rise to a large body of secondary 
literature.  It can merely be  noted that Russell professed an  inability
to 
understand  the logical form of  propositions  about denoting concepts 
themselves, as in  the claim that  "The  present King of France is a 
denoting
concept". According to  the new  theory adopted, the proposition  expressed
by the
above  was now identified with  that expressed by a  quantified conditional

such  as the formalised version.  Similarly,  the proposition  designated by

x. Some number is odd.

was  identified with the  existentially quantified conjunction  represented

by

xi.  (∃x)(x is a number & x is odd)

Perhaps most   notoriously,  Russell argued that a proposition involving a
definite   description,  e.g.,

xii. The King of France is not  bald.

was  to be understood as  having the structure of a  certain kind of  
existential statement, in this   case:

xiii. (∃x)(x is King of France  & (y)(y is King of France  ⊃ x =  y) & x
is
not  bald)

Russell cited in favor of  these theories that  they provided  an elegant
solution to certain  philosophical puzzles. One  involves how it  is that a
proposition  can be meaningful even if it involves a  description  or other

denoting phrase that does not denote anything. Given the above account   of
the
structure of the proposition expressed by  "the King of France  is  bald",
while France and the relation of being King of   are   constituents, there
is no
constituent directly corresponding  to the  whole  phrase  "the King of
France".  The  proposition in question is false,  since there  is no value
of x 
which  would make it true. One is not  committed to a   nonexistent entity
such as the King of France  simply  in order to  understand the  make-up of
the
proposition.  Russell's   theory provides an answer to how  it is that
certain  identity   statements can be both true and informative.  On the 
above
theory, the  proposition corresponding to:

xiv. The   author of Waverly =  Scott

would be understood as having the  following   structure:

xv. (∃x)(x authored Waverly & (y)(y  authored Waverly ⊃ x  =  y) & x =
Scott)

If instead,  the proposition corresponding to  the  above was simply a  
complex consisting of the relation of  identity, Scott, and  the  author of
Waverly  himself, since the author  of Waverly simply is  Scott, the 
proposition
would  be the same as the   uninformative proposition

xvi.  Scott = Scott.

(but,  as  Grice said, "What conversational POINT could THAT have?")  By 
showing that  the actual structure of the proposition is quite a  bit 
different
from what  it appears from the grammar of the  sentence

xiv. The author of Waverly =  Scott.

Russell  believed he had shown how it might be more informative (or 
'stronger'  as Grice prefers -- The Causal Theory of Perception, 1961,
repr.   in  
WoW, Way of Words) than a trivial instance of the law  of  identity, which 

intelligent people like Grice or  Russell are  supposed to KNOW  already.
The
theory did away with  Russell's temptation to  regard grammar  as a very 
reliable  guide towards understanding the  structure or make-up of a   
proposition.  Especially important in  this regard is the notion  of an  “
incomplete
symbol”, by which Russell  understood an  expression that can be 
meaningful
in the context of its use   within a sentence, but does not by itself 
correspond to  a   constituent or unified part of the corresponding
proposition.  
According to  Russell's theory, phrases such as "the King of France,"  or 
"the
author of  the Waverly novels" were to be understood as  incomplete symbols

in this  way. The general notion of an  incomplete symbol was applied by 
Russell in  ways  beyond  the theory of descriptions, and perhaps most 
importantly,  to his  understanding of classes. Russell postulates two
types  of  
composite entities: unities and aggregates. By a unity Russell meant   a 
complex entity in which the constituent parts are arranged with  a 
definite 
structure.  A proposition was understood to be a  unity in  this sense.  By
an
aggregate, Russell means an entity  such as a class  whose  identity
conditions
are governed entirely  by what members or parts  it has, and  not by  any 
relationships between the parts. By the time  of the  publication,  with
Whitehead, of Principia Mathematica Russell's  views about  both  types of
composite entities had changed    drastically.Russell  fundamentally
conceived of a
class as the  extension of  a concept,  or as the  extension of a 
propositional function. Indeed,  in The Principles of  Mathematics  he
claims that a
class may be   defined as all the terms  satisfying  some propositional
function.
However,  Russell was  aware already at the  time of POM that the
supposition    there is always a class, understood as an  individual
entity, as  the  
extension of every propositional function, leads to   certain logical 
paradoxes. Perhaps the most famous, now called  Russell's  paradox, derived
from 
consideration of the  class, w, of all classes not members  of  themselves.

The  class w would be a member of itself if it satisfied   its  defining 
condition, i.e., if it were not a member of  itself.   (Grice was to joke
on this
calling Austin's Play Group,  to which he    belonged, as "the class of
tutors that have no  other class"). Similarly,  w  would not be a member of
itself
if  it did not satisfy its defining  condition,  i.e., if it were a member 
of itself.  Hence, both the  assumption that it is a member of  itself, and
the  assumption that it is  not, are impossible.   Another related paradox
Russell often discussed in  this regard has  since   come to be called
Cantor's
paradox. Cantor had   proven that if a class  had n members, that the
number
of   sub-classes  that can be taken from that class  is 2n, and also that 
2n >
n, even 
when n is infinite. It follows from  this  that the number of subclasses 
of
the class of all individuals, i.e.,  the  number of different classes of 
individuals, is greater   than the number of  individuals. 

Russell took this as strong  evidence that a class of individuals  could
not itself be  considered an individual. Likewise, the  number of 
subclasses
of  the class of all classes is greater  than the number of   members  in
the
class of all classes.  This Russell took to be   evidence  that there is
some
ambiguity in the notion of a class so that  the  subclasses of  the class
of
all classes would not   themselves be among  its members, as it would 
seem.
Russell spent  some time searching for a  philosophically motivated 
solution
to  such paradoxes. He tried  solutions of various sorts.  However, after 
the discovery of the theory of  descriptions, Russell  becomes  convinced
that
an expression for a class is  an incomplete symbol,  i.e.,   that while
such
an expression can occur  as part of a  meaningful sentence, it  should not
be regarded as  representing a  single entity in the corresponding 
proposition.   Russell  dubbed this approach the no-classes theory of 
classes  
because,  while it allows discourse about classes to be  meaningful,  it 
does not
posit  classes as among the  fundamental ontological  furniture of the 
world.
The precise  nature of Russell's no-classes  theory underwent  significant 

changes.

However, in the version  adopted in the first  edition  of Principia 
Mathematica, Whitehead and  Russell  believed that a statement  apparently
about a 
class could   always be reconstructed, using higher-order  quantification,
in   terms  of a statement involving its defining propositional  function. 
Russell  believed that whenever a class term of the form 

xv.   {z|ψz}

appeared in some sentence, the sentence as  a whole could be   regarded as
defined as follows:

xvi.  f({z|ψz})     =df   (∃φ)((x)(φ!x ≡ ψx) &  f(φ))

The above view can  be  paraphrased, somewhat crudely, as  the claim that
any  truth  seemingly about a  class can be  reduced to a claim about some
or
all   of its members. It   follows from this contextual definition of class
terms that the   statement to the  effect that one class A is a subset of 
another  class B is  equivalent to the  claim that whatever satisfies  the 
defining propositional  function of A also  satisfies the  defining 
propositional
function of B. Russell also  sometimes  described this as the  view that
classes are logical   constructions, not  part of the real  world, but only
the
world of  logic  (This irritated Grice -- and   Hart, "A logician's fairy 
tale"). Another way Russell expressed himself  is  by saying that  a class
is a 
logical FICTION, an expression he borrowed   from  Bentham, but never
returned. While it may seem that a class  term  is  representative of an
entity,
according to Russell, class  terms are  meaningful in  a different way. 
Classes are not  among the basic stuff  of the world; yet  it is possible
to
make  use of class terms in  significant speech, as if there  were such 
things  as classes. 

A class is thus portrayed by Russell  as a  mere façon de parler, or 
convenient way of speaking about  all or some of the  entities satisfying 
some 
propositional  function. During the period in  which Russell was  working
on 
Principia Mathematica,
Russell also radically  revised his   former realism about propositions 
understood as mind  independent   complexes. The motivations for the change
are
a  matter of some   controversy, but there  are at least two  possible
sources. The first  is  that in addition to the logical  paradoxes
concerning the  
existence of classes,  Russell was  aware of certain paradoxes stemming
from 
the  assumption  that  propositions could be understood as individual  
entities.  By Cantor's  theorem, there must be more classes  of 
propositions than
propositions.  However, for every class  of  propositions, m, it is
possible to generate  a distinct  proposition, such  as the proposition
that every
proposition in m  is  true, in violation of  Cantor's theorem.

Unlike the other  paradoxes  mentioned above, a  version of this paradox
can
be  reformulated even if talk of  classes  is replaced by talk of  their 
defining propositional functions.  

Russell  was also aware of certain contingent paradoxes involving 
propositions,  such as the Liar paradox formulated involving a person S, 
whose  only 
assertion at time t is the proposition All propositions  asserted by S  at 
time t are false. Given the success of the rejection of   classes as 
ultimate
entities in resolving the paradoxes of  classes,  Russell was motivated  to
see if a similar solution to  these paradoxes  could be had by rejecting 
propositions as  singular entities. Another set  of considerations pushing 
Russell  towards the rejection of his former view  of propositions is more 

straightforwardly metaphysical. According to his  earlier view, and  that 
of
Moore, a proposition was understood as a mind   independent complex.

The constituents of the complex are the  actual  entities involved, and 
hence, as we have seen, when a  proposition is true,  it is the same entity
as a
fact or state of  affairs. However, because some  propositions are false,
this view of  propositions   posits objective  falsehoods. The false 
proposition that

xvii. Venus orbits  Neptune.

is thought  to be a complex containing Venus and Neptune the  planets, as
well as  the relation of orbiting, with the relation occurring as a 
relation, 
i.e., as relating Venus to Neptune. However, it seems natural to   suppose
that the relation of orbiting could  only unite Venus and  Neptune  into a
complex, if in fact, Venus orbits Neptune.  

Hence, the  presence of such falsehoods is itself out of sorts  with 
common
sense. 

Worse, as Russell explained, positing  the existence of objective 
falsehoods in addition to objective truths  makes the difference between
truth  and
falsehood  inexplicable,  as both become irreducible properties of 
propositions, and we  are  left without an explanation for the privileged  
metaphysical 
status of truth over  falsehood. Whatever his  primary  motivation, Russell
abandons any  commitment to objective  falsehoods, and  restructured his
ontology of facts, and  adopted  a new Tarski-type  correspondence theory
of
truth (also endorsed by  Grice  just to oppose  Strawson's naive
performative
'ditto'  theory of 'true').

In the  terminology of the new theory,  "proposition" was used not for an
objective  metaphysical complex, but  simply for an interpreted declarative

sentence,  an item of  language. Propositions are thought to be true or
false
depending on   their correspondence, or lack thereof, with facts. In the
Introduction  to   Principia Mathematica, as part of his explanation of
ramified 
type-theory,   Whitehead Russell described various notions of  truth
applicable to  different  types of propositions of different  complexity.

Grice  made fun of this when he used the  example

xviii. My neighbour's  three-year-old child understands  Russell's Theory
of

Types.

("Unbelievable, but hardly  logically contradictory" -- the  implicature 
was that only  Russell understood his own theory of types). The  simplest
propositions  in the language of Principia Mathematica are what Russell 
there
called  “elementary propositions”, which take forms such as “a has  
quality  q”
, “a has relation [in intension] R to b”, or “a and b and c stand   in 
relation S”. Such propositions consist of a simple  predicate,  
representing
either a  quality or a relation,  and a number of proper names. 

According to Russell, such a  proposition is true when there is a  
corresponding fact or  complex, composed of the entities named by the 
predicate  and 
proper names related to each other in the appropriate way.  E.g., 

xix. a has relation R to b.

is true if there exists a   corresponding complex in which the entity a is
related by the relation R to  the  entity b. If there is no corresponding
complex, then the  proposition is   false. Russell dubbed the notion of
truth 
applicable to elementary   propositions
first truth. This  notion of truth serves as the ground for a  hierarchy of
different  notions of truth applicable to different types of  propositions 
depending on   their complexity. A proposition such as  

xx. (x)(x has quality q).

which involves a first-order   quantifier, has (or lacks) second truth 
depending on whether its  instances  have first truth.

In this case

xx. (x)(x has  quality  q)

would be true if every proposition got by replacing the  "x" in "x  has 
quality q" with the proper name of an individual  has first  truth.

A  proposition involving the simplest kind of  second-order  quantifier,
i.e., a  quantifier using a variable for  predicative  propositional
functions of
the  lowest type,  would have or lack third  truth depending on whether its

allowable  substitution instances have  second or lower truth. 

Because any statement apparently about a class of  individuals  involves
this
sort of higher-order quantification, the truth or   falsity of such a
proposition  will ultimately depend on the truth  or  falsity of various
elementary 
propositions about  its  members.

Although Russell did not use "logical  atomism"  in the  Introduction to
Principia Mathematica, in many ways it   represents the  first work of
Whitehead's
and Russell's atomist  period.

Whitehead  and Russell there explicitly endorsed the view  that the
universe

consists of objects having various qualities  and standing in various  
relations.

Propositions that  assert that an object has a quality, or  that  multiple
objects  stand in a certain relation, were given a  privileged place in 
the 
theory, and explanation was given as to how  more complicated  truths, 
including
truths about classes, depend on the  truth  of such simple propositions.

Russell's work over the next two   decades consisted largely in refining
and

expanding upon this  picture  of the world.

Although Russell changed his  mind on a  great number  of philosophical
issues throughout his career, one of  the  most stable  elements in his
views is
the endorsement of  a certain methodology  for  approaching philosophy.

Indeed, it  could be argued to be the most  continuous and unifying feature
 
of Russell's philosophical  work.

Russell employed the  methodology self-consciously, and gave only  slightly

differing  descriptions of this methodology in works  throughout his  
career.

Understanding this methodology is  particularly important  for 
understanding
his logical atomism, as well  as what he  meant by  “analysis”.

The methodology consists of a two  phase  process.

The  first phase is dubbed the analytic phase   (although it should be
noted
that  sometimes Russell used  "analysis”  for the whole procedure.

One begins with a certain  theory, doctrine or  collection of beliefs which

is taken to be  more or less correct, but  is taken to be in certain
regards

vague,  imprecise, disunified, overly  complex or in some other way
confused 
or  puzzling.

The aim in  the first phase is to work  backwards from these beliefs, taken

as a  kind of data”, to a  certain minimal stock of undefined concepts and 
general   principles which might be thought to underlie the original  body
of 
knowledge. 

The second phase, which Russell described  as  the constructive or 
synthetic
phase, consists in rebuilding  or  reconstructing the original body of 
knowledge in terms of the  results  of the first phase.

More specifically, in the synthetic  phase, one  defines those elements of 
the original conceptual  framework and  vocabulary of the discipline in
terms of
the minimum  vocabulary  identified in the first phrase, and derives or 
deduces  the main tenets  of the original theory from the basic  principles
or
general  truths one  arrives at after  analysis.

As a result of such a process, the   system of  beliefs with which one
began
takes on a new form in which   connections  between various concepts it
uses
are made clear, the   logical interrelations  between various theses of the
theory are   clarified, and vague or unclear aspects  of the original 
terminology 
are eliminated.

Moreover, the procedure also  provides opportunities  for the application
of

Occam's razor, as it  calls for the elimination  of unnecessary or
redundant

aspects of a  theory.

Concepts or  assumptions giving rise to paradoxes or  conundrums or other 
problems  within a theory are often found to  be wholly unnecessary or
capable
of   being supplanted by  something less problematic.

Another advantage is  that the  procedure arranges its results as a
deductive
system, and hence   invites and facilitates the discovery of new  results.

Examples  of  this general procedure can be found throughout  Russell's 
writings, and  Russell also credits others with having achieved  similar 
successes. 

Russell's work in mathematical logic  provides perhaps the  most  obvious
example of his utilization of  such a procedure. It is also an   excellent
example of Russell's  contention that analysis proceeds in stages. 

Russell saw his own  work as the next step is a series of successes  
beginning with  the work of Cantor, Dedekind and Weierstrass.

Prior  to the work of  these figures, mathematics employed a number of  
concepts,number,  magnitude, series, limit, infinity, function, continuity,

etc.,  
without a full understanding of the precise definition of each   concept,
nor
how  they related to one another.

By  introducing  precise definitions of such  notions, these thinkers 
exposed 
ambiguities (e.g., such as with the word   "infinite"), revealed 
interrelations between certain of them, and  eliminated  dubious notions 
that had
previously caused  confusion and paradoxes (such as  those  involved with
the notion 
of an infinitesimal).

Russell saw the next  step forward in the  analysis of mathematics in the 
work of Peano and  his associates,  who not only attempted to explain how
many  
mathematical  notions could be arithmetized, i.e., defined and proven in 
terms  of  arithmetic, but had also identified, in the case of  arithmetic,

three
basic  concepts (zero, successor, and natural number)   and five basic
principles (the  Peano axioms), from which the rest  of  arithmetic was
thought to be
derivable.

Russell  described the next  advance as taking place in the work  of Frege.


According to the  conception of number found in Frege, a  number  can be
regarded as an  equivalence class consisting of  those classes whose 
members can
be put  in 1-1 correspondence  with any other member of the class.

According to  Russell, this  conception allowed the primitives of Peano's 
analysis to  be  defined fully in terms of the notion of a class, along
with 
other   logical notions such as identity, quantification, negation  and the

conditional. 

Similarly, Frege's work showed how  the basic  principles of Peano's 
analysis could be derived from  logical axioms  alone.

However, Frege's analysis was not in all  ways successful, as the  notion
of

a class or the extension of a  concept which Frege included  as a logically

primitive notion  lead to certain contradictions. 

In this regard, Russell saw his  own analysis of mathematics  (largely 
developed independently  from Frege) as an improvement, with  its more
austere  
analysis that eliminates even the notion of a class  as a primitive  idea,
and 
thereby eliminates the  contradictions.

When Grice delivered his lecture, "Definte descriptions in Russell and in 
the vernacular" he was being polemical. He knew that he was regarded as the 
'head' (as it were) of Oxford ordinary language philosophy, and Russell was
in  the "Antipodes" (metaphorically). So, Grice's point was that even if
you are an  Oxford ordinary philosopher (as his tutee Strawson was) you can be
wrong. And  Grice's place in the history of philosophy was, he thought, to
identify this  manoeuvre that simply ignored the distinction (which he
thought crucial) between  implication and implicature. This he did via 'analysis'
of the conceptual type. 

It was clearly a part of Russell's view in that in  conducting an  analysis

of a domain such as mathematics (for it is clear that  definite
descriptions also occur elsewhere), and reducing  its primitive  conceptual
apparatus  and unproven premises to a minimum,  one is  not merely reducing
the
vocabulary of  a certain theory, but   also showing a way of reducing the
metaphysical  commitments of  the  theory.

In first showing that numbers such as 1, 2, etc.,  could be  defined in
terms

of classes of like cardinality, and then  showing how  apparent discourse
about  “classes” could be replaced  by higher-order  quantification,
Russell
made it  possible to  see how it is that there  could be truths of
arithmetic 
without  presupposing that the numbers  constitute a special  category of
abstract entity.

Numbers are placed  in the  category of “logical fictions” or “logical 
constructions” along   with all other classes.

Russell's work from the  period after  the  publication with Whitehead of
Principia Mathematica shows   applications  of this general philosophical
approach to  non-mathematical domains. 

In particular, his work over the next  two decades shows concern with  the 
attempt to provide analyses  of the notions of knowledge, space,  time, 
experience, matter and  causation.

When Russell applied  his analytic methodology to  sciences such as
physics,

again the goal  was to arrive at a  minimum vocabulary required for the
science in   question, as well  as a set of basic premises and general
truths from
which  the   rest of the science can be derived.

However, according to the   views developed by Russell in the mid-1910s, 
many of the  fundamental  notions in physics were thought to be analyzable
in  
terms of  particular sensations: i.e., bits of colour (Russell predates 
the
idea   of 'fifty shades of grey' -- even though he implicates  that 'grey'
is "no 
colour") auditory notes, or other simple parts  of sensation, and their 
qualities  and relations.

Russell  called such sensations, when  actually experienced, “sense”. In  
particular, Russell believed that  the notion of a physical thing could  be

replaced, or analyzed in terms  of, the notion of a series of  classes of
sensible  particulars each  bearing to one another  certain relations of
continuity, 
resemblance,  and perhaps  certain other relations relevant to the
formulation of  the  laws  of physics.

Other physical notions such as that of a point of    space, or an instance
of
time, could be conceived in terms of  classes  of  sensible particulars and
their spatial and  temporal  relations.

Later,  after abandoning the view that  perception is  fundamentally
relational, and  accepting a form of  William James's  neutral monism,
Russell
similarly came to   believe that the notion of a  conscious mind could be
analyzed in 
terms of  various percepts,  experiences and sensations related to  each
other by  psychological  laws.

Hence, Russell came to  the view point, matter,  instant, mind,  and the
like
could be  discarded from the minimum vocabulary  needed for  physics or 
psychology.

Instead, such words could be systematically   translated into a language
only
containing words representing  certain  qualities and relations between
sensible    particulars.

Throughout these analyses, Russell put into practice  a   slogan he stated
as
follows.

Wherever possible,  logical constructions  are to be substituted for
inferred 
entities.

Rival philosophies that  postulate an ego or mind as  an entity distinct 
from its mental states  involve inferring the  existence of an entity that
cannot
directly be found  in  experience.

Something similar can be said about philosophies that   take matter to be
an

entity distinct from sensible appearances,  lying  behind them and inferred
from  them.

Combining  Russell's  suggestions that talk of minds or physical objects is
 
to be analyzed  in terms of classes of sensible particulars with his 
general
view  that  classes are logical fictions, results in  the view that minds
and 
physical  objects too are logical  fictions, or not parts of the basic 
building blocks of  reality.  Instead, all truths about such purported 
entities
turn out instead  to  be analyzable as truths about sensible  particulars
and 
their relations to one  another.

This is in  keeping with  the general metaphysical outlook of logical 
atomism. 

We  also have here a fairly severe application of Occam's razor.   

The slogan was applied within his analyses in mathematics as  well.  
Noting
that sometimes a series of rational numbers  converges towards a  limit 
which
is not itself specifiable as  a rational, some philosophers  of mathematics

thought that one  should postulate an irrational number  as a limit.

Russell claimed  that rather than postulating entities in  such a case, an 

irrational number should simply be defined as a class  of rational  numbers

without a rational upper bound. Russell preferred  to  reconstruct talk of 
irrationals this way rather than infer or   postulate the existence of a
new

species of mathematical entity  not  already known to exist.

Complaining that the method of  postulating what  we want has the
advantages

of theft over honest  toil.

In  conducting an analysis of mathematics, or  indeed, of  any other domain

of thought, Russell was clear that although the   results of analysis  can
be
regarded as logical premises from which  the original  body of  knowledge
can
in principle be derived,  epistemologically speaking, the   pre-analyzed
beliefs are more  fundamental.

For example, in  mathematics, a belief such as 

xxi. 2 + 2 = 4.

is  epistemologically more certain, and  psychologically easier to
understand
and  accept, than many of the  logical premises from which it is derived.  

Indeed, Russell  believed that the results obtained through the  process 
of 
analysis obtain their epistemic warrant inductively from  the evident 
truth
of  their logical consequences.

The reason for   accepting an axiom, as for accepting any other 
proposition,
is  always  largely inductive, namely that many propositions which  are 
nearly  indubitable can be deduced from it, and that no equally  plausible
way  is 
known by which these propositions could be  true if the axiom were false,
and 
nothing which is plausibly false  can be deduced from it.

It is  perhaps for these reasons that  Russell believed that the process of


philosophical analysis should  always begin with beliefs the truth of which

are  not in  question, i.e., which are nearly indubitable.

When  Russell  spoke  about the general philosophical methodology described
 
here, he usually had in  mind applying the process of analysis to  an 
entire
body of knowledge or set of  data (Cfr. Paul, "Is  there a  problem about
sense
data" and its attending   implicature: "No, in spite  of Russell -- Grice
suggests that the  implicature is  "RUSSELL is the  problem.").

In fact, Russell  advocated usually to begin with the  uncontroversial 
doctrine of  a certain science, such as mathematics or  physics, largely 
because 
he held that these theories are the most  likely to  be true, or at least
nearly  true, and hence make the most   appropriate place to begin the
process of 
analysis.

Russell  did  on occasion also speak of analyzing a particular  proposition

of  ordinary life. One example he gave is “There are a number of   people
in

this room at this moment”.

In this case, the truth or  falsity   of this statement may seem obvious,
but
exactly what  its truth would involve  is  rather obscure.

The process of  analysis in this case would  consist in attempting to make 
the  proposition clear by defining what  it is for something to be a room, 
for 
something to be a person, for a  person to be in a room,  what a moment is,
etc.

In this case, it  might seem that the  ordinary language statement is 
sufficiently vague  that there is  likely no one precise or unambiguous 
proposition
that   represents the correct analysis of the proposition.

In a way, this  is  right.

However, this does not mean that analysis would be  worthless. 

Russell was explicit that the goal of analysis is not  to unpack what  is 
psychologically intended by an ordinary  statement such as the  previous
example,  nor what a person would  be thinking when he or she  utters it.

The point rather is simply  to begin with a certain obvious,  but rough and

vague statement,  and find a replacement for it in a more  precise,
unified,
and   minimal idiom.

On Russell's view,  vagueness is a feature of  language, not  of the world.
In vague  language, there is no  one-one relation between  propositions and
facts,  so that a vague  statement could be considered verified  by any one
of a 
range  of different facts.

However, in a properly analyzed  proposition,  there is a clear isomorphism

between the structure of the   proposition and the structure of the fact
that 
would make it   true.

Hence a precise and analyzed proposition is capable of being  true  in one 
and only one way.

In analyzing a proposition  such as 

xxii. There are a number of people in this room at  this  moment.

one might obtain a precise statement which would  require for its  truth
that
there is a certain class of sensible  particulars related to each  other in
a very  definite way  constituting the presence of a room, and  certain
other
classes  of  sensible particulars related to each other in  ways 
constituting
people, and that  the sensible particulars in  the  latter classes bear
certain definite relations  to those in  the first  class of particulars.

Obviously, nothing like this is  clearly in the  mind of a person who would

ordinarily use the  original expression. 

It is clear to see in this case that a very  specific state of things  is 
required for the truth of the  analyzed proposition, and hence the  truth
of
it 
will be far  more doubtful than the truth of the vague  assertion with
which 
one  began the process.

As Russell put the  point, the  point of philosophy is  to start with
something so simple as  not  to seem worth stating, and to end with 
something so 
paradoxical  that no one will believe it.

As we have seen,   the primary  metaphysical thesis of Russell's atomism is
the view that  the world   consists of many independent entities that
exhibit 
qualities and stand  in  relations to one another.

On this  picture, the simplest sort of  fact or  complex consists either of

a
single individual or particular  bearing a quality,  or a  number of
individuals bearing a relation to  one another. 

Relations can be divided into various categories depending  on how  many 
relata they involve: a binary or dyadic relation involves   two relata
(e.g., a
is  to the left of b); a triadic relation  (e.g., a  is between b and c)
involves  three relata and so on. 

Russell  at times used the word “relation” in a broad sense so as  to
include   qualities, which could be considered as monadic  relations, i.e.,
relations  that  only involve one relatum. 

The quality of being white,  involved, e.g., in the fact that a is  white, 
could then, in this  broader sense, also be considered a  relation.

At the  time of  Principia Mathematica, complexes in  Russell's and
Whitehead's ontology   were all described as taking  the form of n
individuals entering
into an  n-adic  relation. 

We will give, they write, the name of a complex  to any such object  as "a
in
the relation R to b" or "a having the quality q"  or "a  and b and c
standing in  relation S."

Broadly speaking, a   complex is anything which occurs in the universe and
is
not   simple.

Russell believes that an elementary proposition consisting of  a  single 
predicate representing an n-place relation along with n  names  of
individuals is
true if it corresponds to a complex. 

An elementary  proposition is false if there is no corresponding  complex.

Russell there  gave no indication that he believed in any  other sorts of 
complexes or  truth-makers for any other sorts of  propositions.

Indeed, he held that a  quantified proposition is  made true not by a
single

complex, but by  many.

If φx is an  elementary judgment it is true when it points to  a  correspond
ing  complex.

But (x).φx does not point to a single  corresponding  complex.

Te corresponding complexes are as numerous as the  possible  values of  x.

Soon after Principia Mathematica, Russell  became  convinced that this 
picture -- which he shared with Whitehead  --  was "too simplistic" ("to me

if not
to Whitehead, an otherwise  very  smart professor").

Thus, in the “Philosophy of Logical  Atomism” lectures  Russell  described
a
more complicated  framework.

In the new  terminology, an atomic fact is was  introduced for the simplest

kind of  fact, i.e., one in which n  particulars enter into an n-adic 
relation. 

Russell uses  "atomic proposition" for a proposition  consisting  only of a

predicate for an n-place relation, along with n proper  names  for 
particulars.

Hence, such propositions could take such forms   as 

“F(a)”, “R(a, b)”, “S(a, b, c)”

An atomic  proposition  is true  when it corresponds to a positive atomic 
fact. 

However, Russell no  longer conceived of falsity as  simply lacking  a
corresponding fact.

Russell now believes that  some facts are  negative, i.e., that if “R(a, b)”

is false, there is  such a fact as a's not  bearing relation R to b.

Since  the  proposition “R(a, b)” is  affirmative, and the corresponding
fact  is  negative, “R(a, b)” is  false, and, equivalently, its negation  “
not-R(a, b)” is  true. 

Russell's rationale for endorsing  negative facts was somewhat  
complicated.

However, one might  object that on his earlier view,  according to which  “
R(a, b)” is  false because it lacks a corresponding  complex, is only 
plausible 
if you suppose that it must be a fact that  there  is not such a complex,
and
such  a fact would itself seem to be  a  negative fact.

Russell later abandoned  the view that  qualities and  relations can occur
in
a complex as themselves  the  relata to another  relation, as in priority
implies  diversity.

Russell  now held  the view that whenever a  proposition apparently
involves
a relation or   quality occurring  as logical subject, it is capable of
being
analyzed into  a   form in which the relation or quality occurs
predicatively. 

For  example,

xxiii. Prriority implies  diversity.

might be analyzed  as:

xxiv. (x)(y)(x is prior to  y ⊃ x is not  y)

Russell uses  "molecular proposition" for  those propositions that are 
compounded  using truth-function  operators.

Examples would   include:

F(a) & R(a,  b)” and “R(a, b) ∨ R(b, a)

According  to  Russell, it is  unnecessary to suppose that there exists any
special  sort of  fact  corresponding to molecular propositions.

The  truth-value  of a molecular proposition could be entirely derivative
on

the  truth-values of its constituents.

Hence, if

xxv. F(a)   &  R(a,b)

is true, ultimately it is made true by two  atomic  facts, the fact  that a
has property F and the fact that a  bears R to  b, and not by a single 
conjunctive  fact.

However Russell's  attitude with regard to quantified   propositions had
changed. 

He no longer believed that the truth  of a  general proposition  could be
reduced simply to the facts or  complexes making its  instances  true.

Russell argued that the  truth of the general proposition   “(x).R(x, b)”
could not consist  entirely of the various atomic facts that  a  bears R to
b, b 
bears R to b,c bears R to b, ….

It also  requires the   truth that there are no other individuals besides
a,
b,  c, etc., i.e.,  no other  atomic facts of the relevant form.

Hence,  Russell  concluded that there  is a special category of facts he
calls   general facts that account for the truth  of quantified 
propositions, 
although he admitted a certain amount of  uncertainty  as to their  precise
nature.

Likewise, Russell  also posited existence  facts,  those facts
corresponding
to the  truth of existentially quantified   propositions, such as 

xxvi. (∃x)R(x, b)

In the case of general  and existence  facts, Russell did not think it 
coherent to make  distinctions  between positive and negative facts. 

Indeed, a  negative  general fact could simply be described as an 
existence
fact,  and  a negative existence fact could be described as a general 
fact. 


For example, the falsity of the general proposition

xxvii.  All  birds fly.

amounts to the fact that there exist birds that do  not fly,  and the
falsity
of the existential proposition 

xxviii. There are  unicorns.

amounts to the general fact  that everything is not a unicorn. 

Obviously, however, the truth or  falsity of a general or existence  
proposition is not wholly  independent of its instances.

In addition  to  the sorts of  facts discussed above, Russell raised the
question as  to whether  a  special sort of fact is required corresponding
to  
propositions that report a  belief, desire or other propositional  
attitude.

Russell's views on this matter changed over different  periods,  as his own

views regarding the nature of judgment,  belief and  representation
matured.

Moreover, in some works he left  it as a open  question as to whether one 
need presuppose a  distinct kind of logical  form in these cases.

At times,   however, Russell believed that the  fact that S believes that a
bears R  to b  amounts to the holding of a  multiple relation in which S,
a, 
R
and b are all  relata.

At  other points, he  considered more complicated analyses in which 
beliefs

amount to  the possession of certain psychological states bearing  causal 
or 
other relationships to the objects they are about, or the  tendencies  of 
believers to behave in certain ways.

Depending on  how  such phenomena are  analyzed, it is certainly not clear
that they   require any new species of  fact.

Russell's use of "atomic  fact",  and indeed the very title of  “logical
atomism” suggest  that the  constituents of atomic facts, the logical 
atoms, 
Russell spoke of,  must be regarded as utterly simple and devoid  of 
complexity.

In  that case, the particulars, qualities  and relations  making up atomic 
facts constitute the fundamental  level of reality to which all  other 
aspects
of reality are  ultimately reducible.

This attitude is  confirmed especially in  Russell's early logical atomist 
writings. 

"The  philosophy I espouse is analytic, because it claims that  one  must 
discover the simple elements of which complexes are composed, and   that 
complexes presuppose simples, whereas simples do not   presuppose 
complexes."

"I believe there are simple beings in  the  universe, and that these beings

have relations in virtue of  which  complex beings are composed."

"Any time a bears the relation  R to b there  is a complex "a in relation R

to b.""

"You  will note that this  philosophy is the philosophy of logical  
atomism."

"Every simple  entity is an atom."

Elsewhere  Russell speaks of  “logical atomism”  as involving the view
that 
you can get down in theory, if not  in  practice, to ultimate  simples, out
of
which the world is built, and  that  those  simples have a kind of reality
not belonging to anything   else.

However, it has been questioned whether Russell had   sufficient 
argumentation for thinking that there are such simple   beings.

In the  abstract, there are two sorts of arguments  Russell  could have
given
for the  existence of simples, a  priori arguments, or  empirical arguments
(cf. Pears  1985, 4ff). 

An a priori  argument might proceed from the very   understanding of
complexity: what  is complex presupposes parts. 

Russell wrote: "I confess it seems obvious  to me (as it did  Leibniz) that

what is complex must be composed of  simples,  though the number of
constituents  may be   infinite."

However, if construed as an argument, this does not seem  very  convincing.

It seems at least logically possible that while a  complex  may have parts,

its parts might themselves be complex,  and their parts  might also be
complex,  and so on, ad infinitum. 

Indeed,  Russell himself later came to admit that one could not  know
simply

on  the basis of something being complex that it must  be composed of  
simples.

Another sort of a priori argument  might stem from  conceptions  regarding
the nature of analysis. 

As analysis  proceeds, one reaches more primitive notions, and it  might be

thought  that the process must terminate at a stage in  which the remaining


vocabulary is indefinable because the entities  involved are absolutely 
simple,  and hence, cannot be construed  as logical constructions built 
out
of
anything  more  primitive.

Russell did at some points  describe his logical atoms  as reached at "the 
limit of analysis" or  "the final residue in  analysis".

However, even during the height of his  logical atomist  period, Russell 
admitted that it is possible that  "analysis  could go on forever", and
that

complex things might be  capable of  analysis "ad infinitum". Grice liked
that 
when he thought  he  would write: "From Genesis to Revelations: a new
foundations  for   metaphysics". Unfortunately, it remained an
unpublication.

One   might  argue for simples as the basis of an empirical argument; i.e.,
 
one might claim  to have completed the process of analysis and to  have 
reduced all sorts of  truths down to certain entities that  can be known 
in
some
way or another to be  simple. Russell is  sometimes interpreted  as having
reasoned in this way.  

According to Russell's well  known principle of acquaintance  in 
epistemology, in order to  understand a proposition, one must  be
acquainted
with  the
meaning of  every simple symbol making  it up.

Russell at times suggested that we are  only directly  acquainted with
sense

data, and their properties and  relations,  and perhaps with our own 
selves.

It might be thought  that  these entities are simple, and must  constitute
the terminus of   analysis.

However, Russell was explicit that sense data can  themselves  be complex, 
and that he knew of no reason to suppose  that we cannot be  acquainted
with
a 
complex without being  aware that it is complex and  without being
acquainted
with   its constituents.

Indeed, Russell  eventually came to the conclusion  that nothing can ever
be

known to be  simple.

While there is  significant evidence that Russell did   believe in the
existence  of simple entities in the early phases of his  logical  atomist 
period,
it is possible that, uncharacteristically, he  held this  belief  without
argumentation. In admitting that it is  possible  that analysis could go 
on
ad
infinitum, Russell claimed that   "I do not think it is true, but it is a 
thing
that one might  argue,  certainly".

In “Logical Atomism”, Russell  admits that  "by greater  logical skill,
the
need for assuming them, i.e.  simples,  can be  avoided.

This attitude may explain in part  why it is that at the   outset of his
1918
lectures on logical  atomism, he claimed that the   things he is going to
say
in  those lectures are mainly "my own   personal opinions and I do not 
claim
that they are more than that". (He  knew  most people  thought the opinions
were Witters's).

It may  have been  that  Russell was interested not so much in establishing
 
definitively that there are  any absolutely simple entities, but  rather 
in
combating the widespread arguments  of others that the  notion of a 
simple,
independent entity is incoherent, and  only  the whole of the  universe is
fundamentally real.

According to  Russell, such attitudes  are customarily traced to a wrong
view 
about relations.

In arguing  for the doctrine of "external  relations",  Russell was
attempting  simply to render a world of  simple entities coherent  again.

As his  career progressed,  Russell becomes more and more prone to 
emphasize 
that what  is important for his philosophical outlook is not absolute   
simplicity, but only relative simplicity.

Thus, in response to   criticism about his notion of simplicity, Russell 
writes: "as  for  “abstract analysis in search of the simple’ and
elemental, 
that  is a  more important matter."

To begin with, "simple"  must NOT be taken in an  absolute way.

"Simpler" would be a better  word.

Of course,  Russell should be glad  to reach the  absolutely simple, but he
did not  believe that that is within   his capacity.

What he did maintain is  that, whenever anything is  complex, out 
knowledge
is advanced by  discovering constituents  of it, even if these 
constituents
themselves  are still complex. 

According to Russell, analysis proceeds in  stages. 

When analysis shows the terminology and presuppositions of one   stage of 
analysis to be definable, or logically constructible,  in  terms of simpler
and 
more basic notions, this is a  philosophical  advance, even if these
notions
are  themselves  further analyzable. 

As Russell says, the only drawback to a  language which is not yet  fully 
analyzed is that in it, one  cannot speak of anything more  fundamental
than
those  objects,  properties or relations that are named  at that level.

Russell   summarized his position as  follows:

If the world is composed of  simples —  i.e., of things,  qualities and
relations that are  devoid of structure — not only  all  our knowledge but
all that 
of omniscience could be expressed by means  of  words denoting  these
simples.

We could distinguish in the world  a stuff   (to use William James's word)
and a structure.

The  stuff would  consist of all the simples denoted by names, while the  
structure  would depend on relations and qualities for which our  minimum  
vocabulary would have words.

This conception can be  applied  without assuming that there is anything 
absolutely simple.  

We can define as relatively simple whatever we do not  know to  be 
complex.

Results obtained using the concept of relative   simplicity  will still be
true if complexity is afterward found,  provided we have   abstained from
asserting absolute  simplicity.

At a given stage  of  analysis, a certain class of  sentences may be
labeled
as "atomic",  even if the  facts  corresponding to them cannot be regarded
as
built of   fundamental  ontological atoms.

Thus, Russell's logical atomism is  a  mere commitment  to conceptual
analysis as a method coupled  with a  rejection of idealistic  monism,
rather than a 
pretense to have  discovered the genuine metaphysical atoms  (or 
corpuscules,
since they  are divisible) making up the world of  facts, or even  the
belief
that  such a discovery is  possible.

Indeed, Russell continued  to use  "logical atomism"  to describe his
philosophy in later years of his   career, during  the period in which he
stressed
relative, not absolute    simplicity.

Another important issue often discussed in connection   with  logical
atomism
worth discussing in greater detail is  the  supposition that  atomic
propositions are logically  independent of each  other, or that the truth 
or falsity
of  any one atomic proposition does  not logically imply or necessitate  
the
truth or falsity of any other  atomic proposition.

Russell  writes: 

Perhaps one atomic  fact may sometimes be capable of  being inferred from 
another, though  Russell did not believe this  to be the case; but in any
case
it  cannot  be inferred from  premises no one of which is an atomic fact.

Thus   Russell  expresses doubt about the existence of any relations of 
logical   dependence between atomic propositions, but the fact that he 
left
it  as
a open  possibility makes it seem that he would not consider   it a
defining
feature of an  atomic proposition that it must be   independent from all
others, or a central  tenet of logical  atomism  generally that atomic
facts
are
independent from  one   another.

Russell does often speak about the constituents  of atomic  facts  as
independently existing entities.

He  writes for  example that each particular has its being independently 
of 
any other  and does not depend upon anything else for the  logical
possibility
of   its existence.

One possible  interpretation would be to take Russell  as  holding that any

atomic fact involving a certain group of  particulars is   logically
independent of an atomic fact involving a  distinct group  of  particulars,
even if the
two facts involve the same   quality or  relation.

To use an example favoured by Grice (he  used  to ask his  children's
playmates):

Can a sweater be  green and  red all over? No  stripes allowed.

He was amused by  how  anti-corpuscularian his children's  playmates could 
be.

The  propositions

xxix. a is red.

xxx. a is  green.

do not seem  to be independent from one another: from the  truth of one the

falsity  of the other can seemingly be inferred. 

However, the weakened version of  the independence principle, on  which
only

atomic facts involving  different particulars are  independent, does not
entail  that it is  possible that "a is red"  and "a is green" may both be 
true.

Russell  saw himself as  denying the view that when a bears R to b,  there
is 
some  part of a's nature as an entity that involves its relatedness to   b.


It might be thought that Russell's doctrine of external relations  
committed
him at least to certain principles regarding the modal status  of  atomic
facts  (if not the independence principle). 

According to  certain ways of  defining the phrase, what it  means for a
relation to  be internal is that it is a  relation  that its relata could
not fail
to  have; an external relation is  one its  relata could possibly not have.


Russell then might  be seen as committed to the view that atomic facts 
(all

of which  involve particulars standing in relations, in the broad  sense 
above)  are always contingent.

While this does not   directly bear on the question  of their independence,
it would   nevertheless commit Russell to certain tenets  regarding the 
modal 
features of atomic facts.

Atomic propositions are  of  the  simplest possible forms, and there is
certainly nothing  in their forms  that  would suggest any logical
connection to, 
or incompatibility with,  other atomic   propositions.

Perhaps the most illuminating remarks to  be found  in  Russell's work that
would lead one to expect complete  logical  independence among  ATOMIC
propositions involve the claims he   made about how it is that one 
recognizes a
certain class of  purported  entities as “logical constructions”, and  the

recommendations he gives  about analyzing propositions involving  them. 

Prior to conceptual  analysis, two propositions may  appear to be 
logically
incompatible  atomic propositions. 

However, Russell explains  that the  logical  necessities involved in cases such as these are due to the   nature of  material objects, points and instants as logical  constructions.

At a certain point in time, a physical object  might be regarded as  a class of sensible particulars bearing certain  resemblance relations  to one another occupying a continuous region  of space.

It is  therefore  impossible by  definition for the same physical object to occupy wholly distinct   locations at the same time.

When  analyzed, such propositions   as:

xxxi. O1 is located at p1 at  t1.

are revealed as having  a much  more complicated logical form,  and hence may have logical  consequences not  evident before conceptual  analysis.

We do not have here any reason to  think that  truly  atomic propositions, those containing names of genuine   particulars and  their relations, are not always  independent.

Russell's  logical  atomism  had significant influence on the works of the logical  positivist   tradition, as exemplified in the works of Ayer, whom Grice  calls an  'infant  terrible of Oxford philosophy'.

Grice   confessed that, having been born "on the wrong side of the tracks" was  never invited to the All Souls Play Group meetings on Thursday evenings  that  Ayer and Austin attended, and where they discussed  "Russell and cricket" ("not  necessarily in that order").

Especially, the  notion of a “logical   construction” was important for how such thinkers  conceived of the nature  of  ordinary objects, see, e.g., Ayer, or when  Grice said:

xxxii. The self is a logical construction.

While much of the work of the so-called “ordinary language” school of philosophy   centered in Oxford in the 1940s and 1950s and beyond can also been  seen  largely as a critical response to views of Russell (see, e.g., Austin,  'Sense and Sensibilia', Warnock, 'Metaphysics in Logic',   Urmson,
'Philosophical  analysis), trust Grice to be an Oxonian   dissident who loved Russell ("in  parts").
Abstracting away  from Russell's  particular examples of proposed  analyses in terms of  sensible  particulars, the general framework of Russell's corpuscular  picture  of the world, which consists of a plurality of entities that have qualities and enter into relations, remains one to which many philosophers  are attracted.


REFERENCES:

Bostock,  D.   Logical Atomism, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Grice, H. P.    Definite descriptions in Russell and in the vernacular.

Hochberg, H.   Thought, Fact and Reference: The Origins and Ontology of Logical Atomism,  Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Landini,  Gregory, Russell's Hidden  Substitutional Theory, Oxford: Oxford University Press --

Linsky,  Bernard, The Metaphysics of Logical   Atomism.

Livingston, P. Russellian  Atomism, Philosophical Investigations, 24

Lycan, William, Logical Atomism and Ontological  Atoms, Synthese, 46.

Pears, D. F., Introduction to  B.  Russell,  The Philosophy of Logical Atomism, Chicago: Open Court.
Simons, P.  Logical Atomism.

Skyrms, B. Logical Atoms and  Combinatorial  Possibility, The Journal of Philosophy, 90 --

Urmson,  J. O., Philosophical Analysis: Its  Development Between the Two World Wars, Oxford:  Clarendon Press.

Warnock,  G.J., "Metaphysics in  Logic, Proceedings  of the Aristotelian Society, 51.

Was Grice a Corpuscularian?

Speranza

Atomism is the doctrine that stuff is composed of atoms. Boyle found that irritating: he would rather say that stuff is composed of 'corpuscules'. This gave rise to Corpuscularianism.

When Lord Russell delivered his lectures on "The Philosophy of Logical Atomism," he could have entitled his lectures "The Philosophy of Logical Corpuscularianism," since nobody was listening anyways (He wasn't a Lord yet).

Grice has Corpuscularian tendencies: he is always looking to analyse the way of words into smaller and smaller particles: the neustic and the phrastic and the tropic and the clistic, and the radix and the propositional complex, compounded out of a set of various items each of which we can call a 'simplex'.

But coincidentally, ATOMISM is said to have had mainly three adherents: Russell, his student (or was the other way round?) Witters (of Grice's "Some like Witters but Moore's MY man") *AND* Carnap.

And so there is some interface there!

Grice: Sentences and Prose Style

Speranza

It might (but then again it might not) argued that philosophy, for Grice, was a branch of stylistics. His style became pretty barroque, but then, once a barroque always a barroque.

His very first essay, "Negation", is barroque enough, and a proof of this is that he manages to quote from Bradley and Bosanquet!

Grice: Sentences in Sequence

Speranza

Grice thought that 'and' was otiose.

It is raining. It is cold.

Why bother with 'and'? Mere succession seems to do!

For Witters,

It is raining AND it is cold.

was enough to give him a claim to fame, as inventor of the truth-tables!

Grice: Master Sentences

Speranza

Grice recollects all he learned from Wilson (or Cook Wilson, to be more precise). He was fascinated by once hearing Wilson (or Cook Wilson) utter a 'master sentence':

i. What we know, we know.

Grice uses the Oxford comma, but when this master sentence travelled to Cambridge it lost it!

ii. What we know we know.

Grice: Balanced Series and Serial Balances

Speranza

Grice thought, with Cook Wilson (his surname was Wilson but everybody at Oxford referred to him as Cook Wilson, for some reason -- was he a closet cook?), that there is balance and order in the introduction of connectives.

The Sheffer stroke is hardly balanced!

Grice: the rhythm of threes

Speranza

Grice once considered the example:

James is between Tom and Jerry.

He was wondering if 'between' should have two different SENSES here. Suppose we are talking of height.

But suppose we are talking of MORAL height.

He concludes that 'between' has only ONE sense even if the utterance can be used to mean one thing and implicate the other!

Grice: The rhythm of twos

Speranza

Comparisons come usually in twos. You compare A with B.

Grice: Balanced Sentences and Balanced Forms

Speranza

Grice was fascinated by the phrase, "logical form", and he found that a sentence, as Lord Russell said, more or less reflects pretty transparently its own logical form. In other words, syntax is a fairly good guide to logical form.

When it came to 'connectives', Grice did discuss the Sheffer stroke, but he found it not too balanced!

Grice: Prefab Patterns of Suspense

Speranza

Degrees of suspensiveness is a Fregeian notion: but then there are prefab patterns of suspense, which are more Griceian in nature.

Grice: The Mechanics of Delay

Speranza

"Delay" is almost like a 'Fregeian' notion, like 'degrees of suspensiveness'. If you are going to CONCLUDE that Q, say, why bother to state the premise P from which Q follows?

This troubled Robin Talmach, who said that one should not really mind about one's Ps and Qs!

Grice: Degrees of Suspensiveness

Speranza


"Suspense" is almost a Fregeian notion, like 'colour'. So is 'suspensiveness'. In Grice's case it is a case when an implicature is 'triggered', or as Stephen Yablo would prefer, when 'implicature happens', because, implicature, like sh*t, happens!

Others, like Zwicky, would prefer to speak of an inference or an implicature being INVITED: some uninvited guest!

Grice: Cumulative Syntax to Create Suspense

Speranza

"Suspense" is a Fregean notion, almost, like 'colour'. Grice would prefer: 'cumulative syntax to trigger an implicature'.

Sherlock Holmes was good at detecting them, as the film with Ian McKellen testifies!

Grice: The riddle of prose rhythm

Speranza

Grice was of course not into prosody itself, but he found that there are two points:

i. John knew it.
ii. John KNEW it, and not merely believed it.

So, there is an implicature to a suprasegmental.

More importantly, he found that the FLOW of speech should follow the FLOW of meaning which should follow the FLOW of thought!

This he does in his last William James lecture, to the fascination of those who attended it!

Grice: Prompts of Explanation

Speranza

Grice was fascinated by the misuse, by people (rather than chimps -- cfr. "Chimps can talk"), of 'because'.

The bridge collapsed because...

In his John Locke lectures, Grice distinguishes between justificatory and explanatory reasons. He then finds that he is not explaining or justifying his distinction too well and grants that there may be justificatory-cum-explanatory reasons, too!

The John Locke lectures audience was delighted!

Grice: Prompts of Comparison

Speranza

Grice does not deal with similes, but with metaphors directly.

You, I tell you, are the cream in my coffee.

This is of course TOTALLY different from

You, I tell you, are LIKE the cream in my coffee.

But since the former is a categorial mistake and obviously a FALSE thing to say, it's best to see the logical form of metaphor as involving a 'prompt of comparison'.

"Shakespeare used a lot of these prompts," but then he was an actor!

Grice: Subordinate and Mixed Cumulatives

Speranza

The house that Grice built.

This is the stairs to the house that Grice built.

Matter of fact, he never built it. But when he became professor at Berkeley, he found this lovely 'mansion' (he called it 'cottage') and full of garden stairways it was, too!

But the prize was the lovely view of the bay!

Grice: Coordinate Cumulative Sentences

Speranza

This is almost like the house that Grice built. Only he never touched a stab!

Grice: Coordinate, Subordinate, and Mixed Patterns

Speranza

Grice was fascinated, and irritated, by some of L. J. Cohen's criticism (The fact that Cohen was an Oxonian irritated Grice even more).

Cohen's criticism has to do with implicatures in suboordination.

Cohen failed to explain the problem, but Grice found a solution!

Grice: Direction of Modification

Speranza

Grice deals with this:

-- French professor

a professor who is French
a professor who teaches french.

Cfr. "French poem"

There may be an implicature to the effect that "French poem" is a poem written by a Frenchman, say, in Arabic!

Grice: The rhythm of cumulative syntax

Speranza

Grice thought, rightly, that there is an ORDER in which connectives have to be introduced:

First come conjunction.

Then disjunction.

And then 'if'.

He was so fascinated (and irritated) by what Strawson (his tutee, of all people) had said, wrongly, about 'inferrability' and 'if' that when he (Grice) had to entitle his fourth William James lecture he chose, "Indicative Conditionals"!

Grice: Adjectival Steps

Speranza

Grice was fascinated by adjectives. His examples don't proliferate, though!

-- The dog is shaggy

was his example.

He chose 'shaggy' after that idiom, 'a shaggy-dog story'.

He formulates adjectives in "Way of Words" as "beta". Thus, "The dog is shaggy" becomes, rightly,

"The alpha is beta".

Grice: How Sentences Grow

Speranza

Grice is a compositionalist, but one has to be careful! It's utterer's meaning that's basic, not expression meaning!

Grice: Propositions and Meaning

Speranza

Why was Grice against 'propositions' and preferred 'propositional complexes' isntead? I know!

Grice: Grammar and Rhetoric

Speranza

A fascinating area to explore!

Grice: A Sequence of Words

Speranza

Fifty Shades Of Grice

Speranza

Grice was once asked if his surname was Scots (In Scots, 'grice' means 'pig'). He was offended (about the denotatum of the alleged derivation of his surname). "Hardly: it's Anglo-Norman: it means 'grey'" -- as implicating, 'as in fifty shades of Grice,' you know.

Kaarlo Jaakko Juhani Hintikka and Herbert Paul Grice: Implicature as a Game

Speranza

Hintikka has written a delightful 'intellectual autobiography' for the 
Schilpp volume series.

Was he (Hintikka, not Schilpp) jealous of his  wife's previous lovers?

He doesn't think so. The thing was remote. But  interesting from a
philosophical point of view:

Jane Merrill Bristow (she  later dropped the "Jane") was studying
philosophy and considered herself a  "follower of Sartre’s thoughts".

When an influential Senator from  Massachusetts, New England, visited
Bristow's college, he took part in a  discussion with students. Jane Merrill
Bristow was selected.

During the  conversation, Bristow took the Massachusetts senator by
surprise with  her knowledge of the notorious trade union Teamsters.

Afterwards the senator's press secretary, invites Jane to a one-on-one 
meeting with the senator.

At first, Bristow thought that the senator wanted to hear more about 
Teamsters but he had other things in mind.

As a (not logical) consequence, the pair became what Americans call 
"lovers".

Bristow kept the affair a secret, only telling Hintikka some time later 
(when she had chosen the name "Merrill Hintikka").

Merrill Hintikka told Hintikka: He [the senator] cried almost every time 
after we had made love."

(Recall they were what Americans call 'lovers', and "lovers make love" is 
analytic a priori).

Hintikka was frequently asked of his feelings on being  compared with such
a well-known ladies’ man as the senator for Massachussets  was.

Hintikka held a distinct belief: "Their affair was in the distant past  by
that time. So there was no jealousy on my part but of course you had to 
wonder if you were found wanting in that contest. But this is something I 
touched upon in my book."

The book was selected by the Helsinki book club which meets weekly.

Grice was married once, and at one point he discusses the 'evidence' for a 
belief versus the 'acceptance' for a belief. Grice holds that certain
beliefs  (or other attitudes) are accepted notably NOT on the basis of their
evidence (in  this he may contrast with Popper but most notably with the
Inductivists). He  gives just one example: the belief in one's fideltity to one's
wife.

The case with Hintikka's first wife -- not Merrill Hintikka -- was an 
interesting one to discuss in this respect since as Hintikka suggests in  his
"Intellectual Autobiography", there is evidence for belief and acceptance of 
belief other than based on evidence.

When Hintikka met for a second time Merrill Provence (Jane Merrill Bristow 
the "Jane" and married Provence) at the Statler Hilton Hotel in New York,
she  "was going through a divorce", while Hintikka himself was married to
Soili  Hintikka -- "happily as far as [he knew]."

A conversation with Merrill Provence ended in Hintikka’s room at the Hilton
"and finally in his bed where Hintikka and Provence make love "tenderly,
albeit  clumsily"".

It may be interesting to study the scenarios in terms of what Dennett calls
'hintikkas':

hintikka, n. A measure of belief, the smallest logically discernible 
difference between beliefs. "He argued with me all night, but did not alter my 
beliefs one hintikka."

Hintikka's third wife wrote her dissertation on what she calls a formal 
theory of the will; so we have to broaden Dennett's definition to cover the 
measure of ANY PROPOSITIONAL ATTITUDE [and not those only accepted on their 
basis of their evidence], to wit: "the smallest logically discernible
difference  between" propositional attitudes.

Witters thought that some attitudes were not propositional, and not merely 
Italian! [Witters was insisting that a proposition and that which it describes must
have the same 'logical form', the same 'logical multiplicity'. Sraffa [the
Torino son of Angelo Sraffa and Irma Sraffa (née Tivoli), a wealthy 
couple] made a gesture, familiar to Neapolitans [although Sraffa was from 
Torino] as meaning something like disgust or contempt, of brushing the  underneath
of his chin with an outward sweep of the finger-tips of one hand. And  he
asked: 'What is the logical form of that?' The implicature was that some 
attitudes are not propositional _in nature_.]

Dennett's example: "He argued with me all night, but did not alter my 
beliefs one hintikka". This sort of scenario led to a development in epistemics,
doxastics, boulemaics, and denotics based on the idea of CHANGE in one's
tableau  of such attitudes.

Hintikka and Grice: Implicature as a Game

KAARLO JAAKKO JUHANI HINTIKKA and HERBERT PAUL GRICE: Implicature as Game

Speranza

Some say that if you are going to write an essay for a festschrift, you should state that you don't allow any reprint of that essay elsewhere: to reprint a festschrift essay elsewhere kills the point of the festchrift. Yet. Strawson re-published his "if and -->' elsewhere, as did Hintikka his essay on the logic of conversation (in Kasher, Pragmatics). Both were intended for the Grice festschrift.

For the record, a commentary on the volume in the "Library of Living 
Philosophers" series on Hintikka.


THE PHILOSOPHY OF JAAKO HINTIKKA
This is VOLUME 30.

While his full name was K. J. J. H., Hintikka went most of the time by 
Jaakko.

Hintikka is recognized as one of the handful of most creative, 
comprehensive, and rigorous philosophical minds.

His major contributions to philosophy range over a very wide area, most 
conspicuously:

-- logic
-- epistemology
-- philosophy of science
-- history of philosophy.

In this celebration, twenty-seven philosophers expound and criticise 
aspects of Hintikka's though, and he responds directly to each one of them with 
elegance and precision.

The volume also contains Hintikka's intellectual autobiography, as well as 
a comprehensive, up-to-date bibliography of all his published work.


TABLE OF CONTENTS

Jaako Hintikka: Intellectual Autobiography


ESSAY I:

Simo Knuuttila: Hintikka's View of the History of Philosophy

---- What are Hintikka's views on the history of philosophy? He seems to 
have had a fascination (via his mentor, von Wright, for Witters, but he also 
liked Aristotle, and always enjoyed the work of Grice who was the cynosure
of  everyone while Hintikka was at Harvard.

ESSAY II:

Gabriel Motzkin: Hintikka's Ideas About the History of Ideas

"The History of Ideas" is a chair in Oxford once held by Berlin. By "Ideas"
we mean "Ideology". Not any idea does. "It was Joe's idea to do it" does
not  form part of the history of ideas, but Jefferson's views were.

ESSAY III:

Juliet Floyd:

On the Use and Abuse of Logic in Philosophy: Kant, Frege, and Hintikka on 
the Verb "To Be"

--- This relates to the essay by Grice on "Aristotle on the multiplicity of
being". Grice, against G. E. L. Owen ("The snares of ontology") thinks
that 'be'  is uniguous. But Grice distinguishes between:

(a) Socrates izz rational.

and

(b) Socrates hazz a flat nose.

Both come up as 'is' in Aristotle, but they shouldn't!

ESSAY IV: Judson C. Webb: Hintikka on Aristotelian Constructions, Kantian 
Intuitions, and Peircean Theorems

This is a comprehensive view of Hintikka's take on Aristotle, Kant and 
Peirce. I think he preferred Aristotle of all, and his last volume of Selected 
Papers is dedicated to Aristotle.

ESSAY V:

R.M. Dancy: Hintikka, Aristotle, and Existence

This overlaps a bit with Essay III. "Existentia" is not a word Aristotle 
would use. He would use 'ousia'. Hintikka distinguishes between 'existence'
(not  a predicate for Kant) and essence.

ESSAY VI:

Aaron Garrett: The Method of the Analyst

Hintikka is, like Grice, an analytic philosopher; but unlike Grice, 
Hintikka skips 'linguistic botanising' and goes straight to formalism.

ESSAY VII:

Karl-Otto Apel: Speculative-Hermeneutic Remarks on Hintikka's  Performatory
Interpretation of Descartes's Cogito, Ergo Sum

By 'performatory', Apel means 'performative' which is a lexical item J. L. 
Austin borrowed (but never returned from Scots law: 'operative'). The idea
is  that when Descartes said what he did in French he was doing things with
words.  Some have argued, wrongly, that performatives are neither true nor
false, and  Hintikka thinks this may shed light on what Descartes actually
DID with his  words.

ESSAY VIII:


Dagfinn Follesdal: Hintikka On Phenomenology

Phenomenology is not supposed to be analytic philosophy, but continental 
philosophy. The fat that Follesdal, who taught with Hintikka at Stanford,
thinks  that what Hintikka (an analytic philosopher) says about phenomenology
(a branch  of continental philosophy) is important goes to show how arbitrary
(contra Woody  Allen's recent film, "Irrational man", after book by
Barrett) can be.

ESSAY IX:

David Pears: Private Language

D. F. Pears with collaborator with H. P. Grice on work in the philosophy of
action. A student at Christ Church (the most prestigious college in
Oxford),  Pears knows what he is saying. Robinson Crusoe did have a private
language,  UNTIL HE MET FRIDAY.

ESSAY X

Mathieu Marion: Phenomenological Language, Thoughts, and Operations in  the
Tractatus

Hintikka had, via von Wright, a fascination for the three Witters: the 
first Witters of the Tractatus, the middle Witters, and the latter Witters. 
Operations is a key concept in the early Witters as Marion shows, and he
learned  this from Hintikka.

Essay XI:

Raymond M. Smullyan: A Logical Miscellany

By 'miscellany', Smullyan means a mischmasch. He learned this from 
Hintikka.

ESSAY XII:

Solomon Feferman: What Kind of Logic Is "Independence Friendly"  Logic?

We speak of X-friendly figuratively. Logic is not friendly, since only 
persons are friendly. A logician may be friendy. So a logician who is 
independence-friendly is possibly revolutionary, so beware! (Hintikka was  one!)

ESSAY XIII:

Johan Van Benthem: The Epistemic Logic of IF Games

Grice laughed at Strawson's account of 'if', for Strawson thought that he 
was doing first-rate ordinary language philosophy (in "Introduction to
Logical  Theory") and laughed at the fact that logicians's 'if' has NOTHING to do
with  HIS use of 'if'. Hintikka underestimates this polemic and bases his
games on  'if' -- as a background for his epistemic logic.

ESSAY XIV

Wilfrid Hodges: The Logic of Quantifiers

Hodges wrote a nice little volume on Logic for Penguin. Hintikka was 
obsessed with quantifiers: any, each, all. He noted that they can NOT all be 
symbolised, as Grice thinks, by (x). "Each clown can be funny". But this does 
not implicate that "ALL" clows are funny, let alone that "any clown is
funny" or  "every clown is funny". In fact, it may well be that NO clown is funny.

ESSAY XV:

Gabriel Sandu: Hintikka and the Fallacies of the New Theory of  Reference

By the New Theory of Reference we mean Ruth Barcan Marcus and Saul Kripke. 
Hintikka thought it was plagued with fallacies. This gave Dennett the idea
to  coin 'hintikka': "We discussed all night, but that did not lead me to
change ONE  hintikka about stuff".

ESSAY XVI

James Higginbotham: The Scope Hypothesis

This is a very important philosopher. Some say that Higginbotham is no 
philosopher, but a linguist, but Hintikka sometimes felt himself honoured that 
he was being treated seriously be linguists! The scope hypothesis
fascinated  Grice. He developed two theories to deal with it: the subscript device,
in  "Vacuous Names" (in Davidson/Hintikka, "Words and Objections) and the 
square-bracket device: e.g. "[The king of France] is not bald." IMPLICATES
there  is a king of France and we write that between square bracket and thus
make it  immune to criticism: a presupposition alla Collingwood. This allows
Grice to  avoid problems with truth-value gaps.

ESSAY XVII

Hans Sluga: Jaakko Hintikka (and Others) on Truth

Sluga is credited by Grice in "Presupposition and Conversational 
Implicature" for his help in analysing "the king of France is bald". Sluga,  unlike
Hintikka, was Oxonian-educated.

ESSAY XVIII:

Pascal Engel: Is Truth Effable?

Engel is playing on Witters for whom truth like the naming of cats is 
ineffable.

Engel (not to be confused with the plural Engels, a dangerous philosopher) 
betwen:

i. truth is effable.
ii. truth is ineffable
iii. truth is effanineffable.

Witters would have thought that truth was effanineffable, but G. E. M. 
Anscombe found that hard to translate.

ESSAY XIX:

Jan Wolenski: Tarskian and Post-Tarskian Truth

If Popper learned from Tarksi while seating on a bench in Vienna, Hintikka 
didn't.

ESSAY XX:

Philippe De Rouilhan and Serge Bozon: The Truth of IF: Has Hintikka  Really
Exorcised Tarski's Curse?

D. M. S. Edginton, once professor of metaphysical philosophy at Oxford, 
held that 'if' sentences do not have truth values. Tarski was known to curse
in  Polish (his native language). You make the connections. For the
exorcising of  curses vide Geary, "Secret Papers".

Essay XXI

Martin Kusch: Hintikka on Heidegger and the Universality of  Language

For Heidegger German was a universal language; for Hintikka Finnish was a 
universal language. For Kusch both were!

ESSAY XXII

Patrick Suppes: Hintikka's Generalizations of Logic and their Relation  to
Science

Suppes taught with Hinitkka at Stanford. Logic ain't science and science 
ain't logic. Logicians play with silly examples like "All ravens are black". 
Scientists, unless you are a biologist (and play with "Some ravens are
albino"),  don't.


ESSAY XXIII

Isaac Levi: Induction, Abduction, and Oracles

Hintikka delivered the second von Wright lecture on induction. Ab-duction 
was of course a coinage by Peirce. Oracles were heard at Delphi. Levi makes
all  the proper connections in connection with the War of the Peloponnesus.

ESSAY XXIV

Risto Hilpinen: Jaakko Hintikka on Epistemic Logic and  Epistemology

Perhaps the most quoted essay by Hintikka is his essay on knowledge, for 
which he uses the symbol "K", as in KAP, KKAP. The second reads that A knows 
that he knows that p.

Epistemology, for Hintikka, is epistemics, i.e. epistemic logic. And right 
he is!

ESSAY XV

Matti Sintonen: From the Logic of Questions to the Logic of  Inquiry

Questions and inquiry have been related since Hobbes. For Hobbes, the 
scientist asks questions to Nature, and Nature never lies.

ESSAY XVI

Theo A.F. Kuipers: Inductive Aspects of Confirmation, Information, and 
Content

Hintikka, unlike Popper, was stuck with induction. But also with 
confirmation, information, and content. He was so much into content that Dennett 
coined 'hintikka' to refer to a belief that varies infinitesimally from 
another.

ESSAY XVII

Michael Meyer: Questioning Art

The sad thing is that it's artist (notably Andy Warhol) who first and 
foremost question art, when they should just sell it!

The volume concludes with a Bibliography of the Writings of Jaakko  Hintikka

Cheers,

Speranza



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Hintikka and Grice: Impicature as Game

Speranza

Kaarlo Jaakko Juhani Hintikka and Herbert Paul Grice: Implicature as Game

Speranza

So, Paul Grice and Rogers Albritton, and K. J. J. Hintikka were at the 
Harvard cafeteria. S. Bernadette turns up, and doesn't seem to be understanding
what Albritton and Grice are discussing. "Free will," Hintikka's curt
answer  was.

For the record, the contents of Hintikka's "Selected Papers", in six 
volumes.

Vol. 1: "Ludwig Wittgenstein: Half-Truths and  One-and-a-Half-Truths"

Because of his legendary impatience, Witters's published books are focused 
on his solutions to his latest problems and consequently often fail to
explain  not only his earlier solutions but also his problem situation.

In the essays collected the first volume of Hintikka's selected  essays, he
counteracts the difficulty which this peculiarity of Witters''s  poses to
his readers by analysing in depth the crucial stages of Witters's 
philosophical career and the relation of his ideas to those of other  philosophers,
especially Russell, Carnap and Husserl, with sometimes surprising  results.

(Incidentally, Husserl is cited in Woody Allen's latest, "Irrational man" *
now playing * -- "We'll deal with Husserl's phenomenology tomorrow, so I
hope  you get the reading done by then. I realise it can be difficult").

Vol. 2: Lingua Universalis vs. Calculus Ratiocinator

Twentieth-century philosophy has tacitly been dominated by a deep contrast 
between universalist and model-theoretical visions of language.

The role of this contrast is studied here in Peirce, Frege, Witters, 
Carnap, Quine, Husserl, Heidegger and in the development of logical theory.

Hintikka also develops a new approach to truth-definitions which strongly 
supports the model-theoretical view.

Vol. 3: Language, Truth and Logic in Mathematics.

The foundations of mathematics are examined by reference to such  crucial
concepts as the informational independence of quantifiers, the 
standard-nonstandard distinction, completeness, computability, parallel  processing and
the extremality of models.

Vol. 4: Paradigms for Language Theory and Other Essays

Several of the basic ideas of current language theory are subjected to 
critical scrutiny and found wanting, including the concept of scope, the 
hegemony of generative syntax, the Frege-Russell claim that verbs like `is' are 
ambiguous [cfr. Grice, "Aristotle on the multiplicity of being], and the 
assumptions underlying the so-called New Theory of Reference. In their stead, 
new constructive ideas are proposed.

Vol. 5: Inquiry as Inquiry: A Logic of Scientific Discovery

In the essays collected here, Hintikka both defends and outlines a  genuine
logic of scientific discovery, the logic of questions and answers.

Thus inquiry in the sense of knowledge-seeking becomes inquiry in the sense
of interrogation.

Using this new logic, Hintikka establishes a result that will undoubtedly 
be considered the fundamental theorem of all epistemology, viz., the virtual
identity of optimal strategies of pure discovery with optimal deductive 
strategies.

Vol. 6: Analyses of Aristotle

This collection comprises several striking interpretations of  Aristotle's
logic and methodology that Hintikka has put forward over the years, 
constituting a challenge not only to Aristotelian scholars and historians of 
ideas, but to everyone interested in logic, epistemology or metaphysics and in 
their history.

Incidentally, both Hintikka's second and third wives were philosophers. His
second philosophical wife is Ghita Holmström.

Her work includes:

"A Formal Theory of Will", Licentiate Thesis. Department of Philosophy, 
University of Helsinki.
"Wills, Purposes and Actions" in Ghita Holmström and Andrew J.I. Jones 
(eds.), Action, Logic and Social Theory, Acta Philosophica.

Cheers,

Speranza

Kaarlo Jaakko Juhani Hintikka and Herbert Paul Grice: Implicature as a Game -- Both were John Locke Lecturers, Oxford and Kant Lectures, Stanford.

Speranza

Kaarlo Jaakko Juhani Hintikka was born in Vantaa, Finland. He was educated at the Kerava High School, Kerava and Helsinki University and Williams College, America (as an exchange student). He held a Cand. Phil. (Helsinki), Lic. Phil. (Helsinki), Dr. Phil. (Helsinki). He was Junior Fellow of the Society of Fellows, Harvard University, Professor of "Practical Philosophy", University of Helsinki, Professor of Philosophy, Stanford University, Research Professor, The Academy of Finland, Professor of Philosophy, Florida, Professor of Philosophy, Boston. Docent in Philosophy, University of Helsinki, Visiting Professor, Brown University, Visiting Professor, University of California, Berkeley, Assistant Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Helsinki, Fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral Sciences, Visiting Professor, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Courtesy Professor, Department of Computer Science, Florida. American Philosophical Association (APA). Vice-President of the Pacific Division, President of the Division, Member of the committee for International Co-operation, International Union of of History and Philosophy of Science, Vice-President of the Division of Logic, Methodology, and Philosophy of Science (LMPS), President, Chairman of the Program Committee for the Fifth International Congress of LMPS, Chairman of the Joint Commission, Association for Symbolic Logic, Vice-President, Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Philosophy of Science Association, Member of the Governing Board, Fellow of the Institut International de Philosophie,  Vice-President, Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie, Member of the Comité Directeur, Member of the Finance Committee of the same, Chair of the Committee, Co-chair of the American Organizing committee for the Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy, Scientific Advisor and Foreign member of the Internationales Forschungszentrum Salzburg (Salzburg, Austria), Member of the Academy of Science and Letters of Finland, Member of the Council, Fellow of Societas Scientiarum Fennica,  Council for Philosophical Studies,  Member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters,  Ernst Lindelöf Prize, University of Helsinki, The John Locke Lectures, Oxford University, W. T. Jones Lectures, Pomona College, Wihuri International Prize, Guggenheim Fellow, Phi Beta Kappa (honorary), Williams College chapter, Hägerström Lectures, University of Uppsala, Honorary Doctorate, University of Liége.Immanuel Kant Lectures, Stanford University, Florida State University Foundation Professor,  (renamed McKenzie Professor), Commander of the Order of the Lion of Finland, First Class, E. J. Nyström Prize of the Societas Scientiarum Fennica, Erik Ahlman Lecture, University of Jyväskylä, The Grand Prize of Suomen Kulttuurirahasto, Finland, Honorary Doctorate, Jagiellonian University of Krakow, Editor-in-Chief, international journal Synthese (Dordrecht), Senior Advisory Editor, Synthese, Editor, Synthese Library (Dordrecht), Managing Editor, Synthese Library, Managing Co-editor, Synthese Language Library (Dordrecht), Editor, Acta Philosophica Fennica, Consulting Editor of over ten journals or series.

Areas of Interest (Research, Teaching, and/or Advising):  

-- Philosophy of Language and Theoretical Linguistics:

game-theoretical semantics

methodology of linguistics

logic and semantics of questions and of question-based dialogues

semantic information and its varieties

the analytic-synthetic distinction

possible-worlds semantics, etc.).

• Foundations of Cognitive Science (interrogative model of inquiry, differences between information-processing by humans and computers, knowledge representation and reasoning about knowledge, the psychology of reasoning, mental models, etc.
• Philosophical Logic (semantics of intensional logics, game-theoretical semantics, independence-friendly logics, non=standard interpretations of logic, problems of individuation and identification, nature of reasoning, urn models, deductive information, etc.).
• Mathematical Logic and Foundations of Mathematics (distributive normal forms, independence-friendly logic, definability, infinitely deep languages, extremality assumptions in mathematical theories, etc.).
• Philosophy of Science (interrogative models of scientific inquiry, the concepts of experiment and induction, why-questions and explanation, inductive logic, decision-theoretical approaches to theory choice, information as utility, identifiability problems in science, theory structure and the different ingredients of an empirical theory, interplay between history of science and philosophy of science, etc.).
• History of Philosophy and History of Ideas (Aristotle, the general assumptions of Greek philosophy, modal concepts in mediaeval philosophy, Descartes, Leibniz, Kant, the history of the method of analysis, the "principle of plenitude" in the history of philosophy, methodology of the history of ideas, etc.).
• Interpretations of Recent and Contemporary Philosophy (Frege, Peirce, Russell, the Bloomsbury Group, Wittgenstein, Husserl, Carnap, Quine, etc.).
• Philosophy of Education (models of instruction, the role of questions and answers in education, etc.).
• Aesthetics (problems of pictorial representation, philosophy and literature, intentionalty and artistic creation, etc.).

What are Grice and Albritton talking about? -- "Free will".

Speranza

"Which would you prefer, to be good or nice?" -- Grice. "Good" -- Grice: "Really?"

Speranza

Grice, the cynosure of everyone

Speranza

Hintikka and Grice

Kaarlo Jaakko Juhani Hintikka and Herbert Paul Grice: Implicature as a Game

Speranza

"Logic of Conversation as a Logic of Dialogue" is K. Jaakko J. Hintikka's 
contribution to the Grice festschrift, in P.G.R.I.C.E., Philosophhical
Grounds  of Rationality: Intentions, Categories, Ends.

In this celebratory essay, Hintikka -- whose affiliations to the Oxonian 
school of philosophy to which Grice belonged were minimal -- compliments
Grice  on a body of work.

However, Hintikka singles out “Logic and Conversation” to criticize --
i.e.  the second lecture at Harvard, where Hintikka was a fellow. It should be 
reminded that this was just ONE out of a series of lectures that Grice gave
at  Harvard, as he tried to combine his interests in implicature
(introduced as a  coinage -- but cfr. Sidonius, "implicatura", Lewis/Short, Latin
Dictionary) and  meaning.

Hintikka believes that the Gricean maxims "are not, and cannot be, the rock
bottom of a satisfactory analysis of the logic of conversation" (Hintikka
1986,  273). 

Hintikka is using 'rock bottom' figuratively. Figures are tricky. Grice's 
example is

i. You are the cream in my coffee.

which is literally false as it involves a categorial mistake, unless we 
suppose that one's addressee -- cream -- has ears to understand what Utterer
is  saying.

Similarly, a maxim is not a rock bottom.

Kant knew this, and by using "maxim", Grice is merely, and jocularly (such 
was his obscure sense of humour) referring to Kant (as does Joaquin Phoenix
in  the recent "Irrational man" when he discusses Kant's categorical
imperative and  Kant's universal prohibition on lying).

One of the reasons Hintikka thinks this -- that a maxim is not a rock 
bottom -- is his belief that, “when the time comes to conceptualize the results 
of […] discourse-theoretical observations Grice often seems to retreat back
to  formulations that pertain to utterances taken one by one rather than to
the  interplay of different utterances in discourse".

Which is of course an OVER-SIMPLIFICATION.

In the original OXFORD (*not* Harvard) lectures on implicature, Grice 
tortured his students ALWAYS with dialogues, between whom Grice called "A" and 
"B". Perhaps his most famous example is:

A: I'm out of petrol.
B: There's a garage round the corner. (Implicature: Which is open and with 
petrol to sell).

Grice is considering co-operativeness (or helpfulness) and you cannot have 
THAT with a single utterance, unless you are God ("Let there be light!").

Hintikka is interested in a "different, more flexible framework in which 
the dynamics of discourse are spelt out more explicitly."

The use of 'discourse' is vague. Grice prefers the more conversational 
adjective, 'conversational' and its corresponding noun, 'conversation'.

First-order predicate logic is clearly not the logic of dialogue. 

This point, as Hintikka wants to explore, leads to a fundamental difference
between propositions and the utterances of dialogue. 

The new strategy for understanding conversation Hintikka wants to employ is
explained as follows.

Grice says that one of his ‘avowed aims is to see talking as a special 
case or variety of purposive, indeed rational, behaviour’.

If so, the bag of conceptual tools one can profitably use in studying 
conversational "logic" (although Grice never used this phrase) should be a 
special case, or variety, of the conceptual tools one uses in studying the 
rationality of human behaviour in general.  One such tool is game  theory.

This had been tried before Hintikka, and at Harvard, too, by D. K. Lewis in
his dissertation under Quine. Lewis was thinking that co-operation is 
conventional and that conventions invite a game-theoretical approach.

Thus, Hintikka argues that the framework for studying dialogue needs to  be
shifted from formal logic to game theory. 

Game theory is geared toward better understanding which appropriate 
strategies one ought to use in given situations, or games. 

The use of 'strategy' is vague. Strictly, for Grice, there are no 
strategies, since he knew Greek, and 'strategy' comes from a Greek word meaning 
'general' -- as in military. And a military person KNOWS that his strategies 
have to be SECRETIVE. But Grice wants all ABOVE-BOARD. So we need another
term  to categorise what is going one when, to use S. Yablo's phrase,
'implicature  happens'.

Hintikka sketches a simple schema in which conversations can be viewed 
game theoretically.

He writes, “Utterer 1 and Utterer 2 make ‘moves’  alternately. 

There are four different kinds of moves for Hintikka.

-- The phrase 'conversational move' and 'conversational game' and 
'conversational rule' DO APPEAR in Grice's "Logic and Conversation", so it's not 
like Hintikka is being 100% original --

(a) Assertoric moves. 
----- as in "We've been having some delightful weather this summer, no?" --
This implicating: "You've just committed a social gaffe: what about
changing the  topic?")
(b) Interrogative moves. 
----- Humpty Dumpty: How old did you say you were?
----- Alice: Seven years and six months.
----- Humpty Dumpty: Wrong! You never said a word like it!

(c) Deductive moves.
---- as in what Grice calls trivial reasoning:
-------------------- A: You have two hands, right?
-------------------- B: Yes.
---------------------A: Well, if I had THREE more hands, you  would have 5
hands.
---------------------B: And if I were permitted to double that, I  would
have 10 hands.
---------------------A: Exactly: But If four of your hands were  removed,
you would still remain with six hands.
---------------------B: Exactly, and I would still have four more  hands
than I have now.
---------------------A: Brilliant.

(d) Definitory moves, as in
-------------------A: All swans are black.
-------------------B: You never ventured outside Australia, right?

Hintikka then explains how each of these steps work. 

First, a "player" must make an assertoric move -- as in "The weather has 
been delightful this summer, no?" --  in which he or she “puts forward a  new
proposition (a new ‘thesis’)".

An interrogative move is a questioning move, the answer (if one can be 
given) to which "is then added to the list of the answerer’s theses".

The deductive moves are pretty straightforward, it is comprised of "a 
logical conclusion from the totality of his/her opponent’s theses," and previous
conclusions obtained by the same means.

Finally, definitory moves are when one "introduces a new non-logical symbol
by and appropriate explicit definition".

These four conversational moves in the conversational game are used to 
prove all the players’ theses, but according to Hintikka the goals can be 
varied. 

Hintikka believes that the Gricean maxims can be incorporated  into this
model. Had he attended Grice's original implicature lectures at  Oxford, he
would have known Grice had already done that!

In referring to maxims enjoining 'strength' or 'informativeness' of 
conversational moves, Hintikka notes, while Grice remarks that one ought not 
violate these maxims for fear of confusing one's co-conversationalist, for 
Hintikka there "is nevertheless operative,… in ordinary discourse, a different 
pressure against extra information.  Everything a player of my dialogical 
games says can be used against him (or her) by the opponent".

Here, the player will want his discourse to be as weak as possible.

Thus, requiring him to prove less by the rules of the game. 

This is a fundamentally different reason to act in accordance with the 
maxims enjoining strength or informativeness. However the "end result" is  the
same. 

The same result will be found regarding the maxims of  quality, enjoining
trustworthiness.

Recall that Grice uses 'quality/quantity/relation/mode' just to tease  Kant!

Because one only gets a payoff by proving the maximum amount of statements 
in the dialogue, one will only want to propose things that he or she may be
able  to show to be true. 

Surprisingly, the maxims enjoining trustworthiness are also satisfied  by
this game. 

Hintikka writes: "iif my opponent gives true answers to my question, if the
opponent is fairly well-informed, and if the effects of my own answers can
be  discounted, then it is ceteris paribus in my own best interest to put
forward  true theses".

Modus, unlike quantity, quality, and relevance, is not of interest to 
Hintikka. 

He states that it "is different in kind from the first three" -- which 
shows that Hintikka does NOT share Grice's obscure sense of humour. What is the
point of poking fun of Kant if you are not going to accept the FOUR 
'categories'. Note that in an outburst of humour, Grice calls these the 
'conversational categories' -- in his critique of conversational reason, of  course!

This should become apparent, as arguments to this affect will be made 
later. 

Relation, however, must be addressed and is actually reworded to state that
it is a move within the rules to increase one’s pay-off. 

This Hintikka must explain.

He states: "For instead of the relevance of the several utterances in a 
dialogue I could collectively speak of the coherence of the dialogue".

Hintikka refers to a Sherlock Holmes story (now played by Ian  McKellen) in
which Holmes solves a mystery about a prize race horse by  asking a
shepherd an apparently irrelevant question about the recent status of  his sheep.

However, this question, as is often the case with the solutions to 
intricate puzzles, was the crucial link between a series of facts that  ultimately
achieved the goal of solving this mystery. 

This shows that Hintikka read the novels of Sherlock Holmes, as did Grice, 
and Grice's mother.

From all this, one can see that Hintikka has crafted a formal game that 
models the Griceian maxims. 

This game does not however require a Cooperative Principle, which was 
another outburst of humour on Grice's part. In his Oxford lectures on 
implicature, he had spoken of desiderata of candour, benevolence, clarity, and 
self-interest, to account for the same phenomena! He wasn't literally wedded to 
calling his desiderata, principles, maxims or stuff THIS or THAT!

For Hintikka, in fact, this becomes a competition between the players of 
the game. 

Still, there are clearly some problematic results of this account. 

For example, intuitions of conversation stray far from this schema. 

Conversations are certainly not games in which one must prove, or at least 
hope to prove, all the propositions that one puts forward. 

Still, the idea of conversation as a goal oriented game, with pay-offs and 
costs, is certainly an idea which has not been explored, and may have some 
benefits. 

The primary significance of Hintikka's Griceian exegesis, however, may  be
his alternative approach to the theory of conversation, which is based  on
rationality theory in a way that explores Grice's ideas under a different 
light.

Oxonians prefer Grice's Oxonian light, though -- any night!

Hintikka and Grice: Implicature as a Game

Speranza

Hintikka is known as the main architect of game-theoretical semantics and of the interrogative approach to inquiry, and also as one of the architects of distributive normal forms, possible-worlds semantics, tree methods, infinitely deep logics, and the present-day theory of inductive generalization. 

He has authored or co-authored lots of essays that have appeared in many languages. 

Five volumes of his "Selected Papers" were published by Kluwer.

Jaakko Hintikka has edited or co-edited a lot of volumes and authored or co-authored a lot of essays.

A comprehensive examination of his thought appeared as the volume The Philosophy of Jaakko Hintikka in the series "The Library of Living Philosophers."

Hintikka and Grice

Kaarlo Jaakko Juhani Hintikka and Herbert Paul Grice: Implicature as a Game

Speranza

The difference between obituaries and Wikipedia is that Wikipedia, like 
Popper's W3 GROWS. So let's provide a running commentary on the ever-growing 
entry for Hintikka.

Hintikka was baptised Kaarlo Jaakko Juhani Hintikka.

So, strictly, his initials go:

Hintikka, K. J. J.

In this he is superior to

Grice, H. P. -- who only has TWO Christian names.

Hintikka was "a Finnish philosopher and logician."

This implicates that logicians are not philosophers. Similarly, Bartlett's 
Dictionary's entry for Grice is "British logician", which WRONGLY
implicates he  was not a philosopher. In fact he was not a logician but a philosopher
of logic  or philosophical logician if you must.

Hintikka was born in Helsingin maalaiskunta (now Vantaa).

The 'now' Vanta is important and interesting. Similarly, Baron Russell was 
born English (or Welsh) because that part of England (or Wales) where he
had his  family seat was then part of England (or Wales) to later become part
of Wales  (or England). So we can say that Russell was Welsh or English (if
not  both).

After teaching for a number of years at Florida, Stanford, Helsinki, and 
the Academy of Finland, K. J. J. Hintikka became a Professor of Philosophy at
Boston.

He was familiar with the area since he had been a Harvard fellow earlier in
his career.

He lived in Marlborough, a charming little New England borough.

The prolific author or co-author of lots of books and essays, Hintikka 
contributed to

-- mathematical logic (his first love: recall his tutors were one 
philosopher -- von Wright -- and one mathematical logician).

-- philosophical logic

-- the philosophy of mathematics

-- epistemology -- or 'epistemics' and 'doxastics', as he preferred)

-- language theory

-- and the philosophy of science.

His works have appeared in over nine languages, that is 10.

Hintikka is regarded as the founder of formal epistemic logic and of  game
semantics for logic.

"Game-theoretical" semantics, as Geary reminds us, 'is no game'. The word 
'game' is used figuratively, after Witters used the example of 'game' to 
disprove the idea of a family resemblance ("Do I have a family resemblance
with  other members of the aristocratic Witters family?").

Early in his career, K. J. J. Hintikka devised a semantics of modal  logic
essentially analogous to Saul Kripke's frame semantics.

Kripke later got into a fight with Ruth Barcan Marcus about who invented 
stuff first.

-- No such polemic arose between Hintikka and Kripke.

K. J. J. Hintikka discovered the now widely taught semantic tableau, 
independently of Evert Willem Beth.

The word 'independently' is interesting from a Popperian point of view: 
'semantic tableaux' are part of W3, but there are different rigid-designators
to  Hintikka and Beth attached to them.

Later, K. J. J. Hintikka worked mainly on game semantics, and on 
independence-friendly logic, known for its "branching quantifiers", which he 
believed do better justice to our intuitions about quantifiers than does 
conventional first-order logic.

Grice also had doubts about the correctness of the 'classical logic' about 
quantifiers and he developed special quantifiers to deal with slogans like 
"Every nice girl loves a sailor": One-at-a-time-sailor and 
altogether-sailor.

Hintikka did important exegetical work on Aristotle, Immanuel Kant, Ludwig 
Wittgenstein, and Charles Sanders Peirce and he provided at least ONE
exegesis  of Grice's logic of conversation in Philosophical Grounds of
Rationality:  Intentions, Categories, Ends (P. G. R. I. C. E. for short). Grice was
supposed  to provide a reply to Hintikka's contribution, but he changed his
mind (Changing  one's mind is accounted by K. J. J. Hintikka in terms of
'semantic tableaux':  Grice's tableau changed from one where he wanted to provide
a reply to one where  he did not).

Hintikka's work can be seen as a continuation of the analytic tendency in 
philosophy founded by Franz Brentano and Peirce, advanced by Gottlob Frege
and  Bertrand Russell, and continued by Rudolf Carnap, Willard Van Orman
Quine, and  by Hintikka's teacher Georg Henrik von Wright.

Von Wright brilliantly coined 'alethic' that Grice overuses in "Aspects of 

Reason". In Finnish, 'Wright' is pronounced /rixt/.

Hintikka wrote "The Principles of Mathematics Revisited", which takes  an
exploratory stance comparable to that Russell made with his "The Principles 
of Mathematics" in 1903.

"The Principles of Mathematics Revisited" has been compared (by Geary) to 
Evelyn Waugh's "Brideshead Revisited" -- "only it's not fictional," he  adds.

Hintikka edited the academic journal "Synthese" and was a consultant 
editor for more than ten journals -- perhaps eleven.

Hintikka was the first vice-president of the Fédération Internationale  des
Sociétés de Philosophie, the Vice-President of the Institut International
de  Philosophie, as well as a member of the American Philosophical
Association, the  International Union of History and Philosophy of Science,
Association for  Symbolic Logic, and a member of the governing board of the Philosophy
of Science  Association.

Hintikka won the Rolf Schock prize in logic and philosophy "for his 
pioneering contributions to the logical analysis of modal concepts, in  particular
the concepts of knowledge and belief".

Some say that Rolf Schock was a genius.

Hintikka was president of the Florida Philosophical Association, based in 
Florida -- the 'sunshine state'.

Hintikka was a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and  Letters.

-- where "Letters" is "Humanities". Snow develops the distinction between 
"Science" and "Letters" in his "Two Cultures". The Norwegian Academy is
supposed  to refute Snow.


A pretty complete bibliography of Hintikka is to be found in Auxier and 
Hahn.

Hintikka's essays include:

Knowledge and Belief – An Introduction to the Logic of the Two  Notions.

-- Popper possibly criticised this as it sees 'knowledge' as JTB (justified
true belief).

Models for Modalities: Selected Essays

The intentions of intentionality and other new models for modalities 

The semantics of questions and the questions of semantics: case studies in 
the interrelations of logic, semantics, and syntax

The Logic of Epistemology and the Epistemology of Logic

Ludwig Wittgenstein: Half-Truths and One-and-a-Half-Truths

Lingua Universalis vs Calculus Ratiocinator

The Principles of Mathematics Revisited

Paradigms for Language Theory and Other Essays

Language, Truth and Logic in Mathematics

Inquiry as Inquiry: A Logic of Scientific Discovery  -- an echo of 
Popper's more rotund, "THE logic of scientific discovery".

Analyses of Aristotle

Socratic Epistemology: Explorations of Knowledge-Seeking by Questioning

Secondary:

Auxier, R.E., and Hahn, L., eds., The Philosophy of Jaakko Hintikka  (The
Library of Living Philosophers).
Open Court. Includes a complete bibliography of Hintikka's publications.

Bogdan, Radu, ed., Jaakko Hintikka, Kluwer Academic Publishers

Daniel Kolak, On Hintikka, Wadsworth -- there is a volume on Grice in this 
series.

Daniel Kolak and John Symons, eds., Quantifiers, Questions and Quantum 
Physics: Essays on the Philosophy of Jaakko Hintikka Springer.

See also: Rudolf Carnap, Saul Kripke, Charles Sanders Peirce, Willard  Van
Orman Quine, Alfred Tarski, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Doxastic logic

Speranza

References:

Gruppe 3: Idéfag" (in Norwegian). Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.

Philosopher Jaakko Hintikka reveals love affair between his wife and  JFK
Analytic philosophy
Notable logicians
Philosophy of  language
Philosophy of science
Rolf Schock Prize laureates
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philosophers Finnish  philosophers Florida University faculty Game theorists
Guggenheim Fellows  Logicians Members of the Norwegian Academy of Science and
Letters Foreign  Members of the Russian Academy of Sciences Modal
logiciansPeople from  VantaaPhilosophers of language Philosophers of mathematics Rolf
Schock Prize  laureates

Kaarlo Jaakko Juhani Hintikka and Herbert Paul Grice: Implicature as a Game

Speranza

Kaarl Jaakko Juhani Hintikka was born in Vantaa, Helsinki, Finland.

Hintikka studied mathematics with Rolf Nevanlinna and philosophy with 
Georg Henrik von Wright at the University of Helsinki where defended his 
doctoral dissertation on distributive normal forms.

So we see the cross-reference mathematics -- as per mathematics logic, that
today, for example, is taught at Oxford not within the Sub-Faculty of
Philosophy  but across the street, so that people enrolled in disciplines other
than  Philosophy can attend. The chair is called "Mathematical logic" -- and
philosophy.

Grice loved Wright and he borrowed from him (but never returned) the word 
'alethic'. That Hintikka was inspired by these two people (and these two
fields:  mathematical logic and philosophy -- moral theory --) to write his
essay on  'distributive normal forms' is interesting.

Geary commented: "A distributive normal form is not as normal as it 
seems," and adds with sarcasm: "especially if you catch it  undistributed!".

After his Ph.D. studies Hintikka worked as junior fellow at Harvard  and
became (independently of Stig Kanger) the founder of possible world 
semantics. 

The keyterm is Leibniz, as in Leibniz's world: the best of all possible 
worlds. Woody Allen (who wrote "Irrational man") and Barrett (who wrote 
"Irrational man") have something to say about this, because Leibniz is concerned 
with the "best" (morally best) of all possible worlds and Lucas (the
character  in Allen's film fallaciously thinks he has discovered it!). Hintikka's
treatment  is more abstract: he uses subindexes w1 w2 w3 wn to represent
each world.  Thus

"All man is rational"

is true in all possible worlds if for any world n, man is rational.

Hintikka published his groundbreaking work "Knowledge and Belief" on 
epistemic logic -- the semantics of which is 'possible-worlds'. He uses now two 
dyadic operators:

B(A, p)

and

K(A, p)

to represent that A believes and knows that p respectively. He liked to 
play with 'paradoxes' like

K(A, p) --> KK(A, p)

i.e. if you know that God exists, you know that you know that God  exists.

Hintikka was appointed professor of Practical Philosophy at Helsinki -- 
which was a good thing since, having been born there, he never got lost! In 
fact, he moved not far from the house where he had been born. And a nice
house  it was, too!

Hintikka later became professor of philosophy at Stanford -- which is  a
bit away from Helsinki, if just more or less at the same distance from the 
beach (different beaches, admittedly).

Stanford, with Hintikka, Patrick Suppes and Dagfinn Föllesdal, and the 
programme initiated by Grice "Hands across the Bay" from across the Bay in 
UC/Berkeley -- became one of the leading centres of philosophy of science and 
philosophical logic, if not conceptual analysis: Urmson and S. N. Hampshire 
also taught there.

Hintikka’s new interests included inductive logic and semantic information.
He would say, "What's the good of a philosopher if you don't have a new 
interest?"

He shared his time between Stanford and Helsinki for a while.

Later Hintikka started his work with D. Reidel’s Publishing Company (later 
Kluwer Academic Publishers) in Holland as the editor-in-chief of the
journal  "Synthese" and the book series "The Synthese Library" -- which Geary
calls  "hardly synthetic".

This activity made Hintikka the most influential editor of philosophical 
works. In fact, he was co-editor of a festschrift, as it were, for Quine, who
had written "Words and Objections". This came out in Reidel as Words and 
ObjectIONS -- what's the good of a philosophical theory if you are not going
to  criticise it, as Joaquin Phoenix says in "Irrational man"? -- and they
invited  H. P. Grice to contribute. Grice took his time -- which delayed the
publication  of the thing -- and Hintikka was strict with deadlines -- but
eventually the  thing came out with Grice's "Vacuous Names" in it, and a
short reply by Quine  crediting Grice's brilliancy.

Hintikka was appointed to a Research Professorship in the Academy of 
Finland which allowed him to establish a research group of Finnish scholars 
working mainly in logic, philosophy of science, philosophy of language, and 
history of philosophy.

The Academy of Finland owes its name to the Academy of Athens founded by 
Plato. Most countries have Academies: Greece first, then Rome, then Italy,
then  France. Then Finland. Even Britain has its academy and Grice was
appointed FBA  in 1966 but he delayed the deliverance of his philosophical lecture
for the  British Academy to 1971, when he came up with "Intention and
Uncertanity": a  parody on Hart and Hampshire's 'slightly ridiculous' claims in
their joint essay  for "Mind" on intention and certainty.

As a teacher and supervisor, Hintikka was highly influential though the 
richness of his new ideas and research initiatives.

Many of the former students of Hintikka have been appointed to chairs in 
philosophy. To wit: Risto Hilpinen, Raimo Tuomela, Juhani Pietarinen, Ilkka 
Niiniluoto, Simo Knuuttila, Veikko Rantala, Juha Manninen, Lauri Carlson,
Esa  Saarinen, Matti Sintonen, Gabriel Sandu.

Lauri Carlson wrote a Synthese Library essay on "Dialogue games" -- the 
ideas will be later developed by Hintikka himself in his contribution to P. G.
R. I. C. E., the Grice festschrift edited by Grandy and Warner.

Hintikka divorced his first wife Soili.

Hintikka married Merrill Bristow Provence -- Mrs. Hintikka willl later 
co-edit with Vermazen a festschrift for Davidson and they invited H. P. Grice
to  contribute. He did with a brilliant essay on 'akrasia'.

Hintikka and Provence were appointed at Tallahassee, Florida.

Hintikka married Ghita Holmström.

Hintikka became philosophy professor at Boston -- not far from where  he
had been a fellow in the next town -- when he was in Harvard, Massachussets 
-- He would walk from Boston to Cambridge, and back, as he seemed to prefer
the  bookshops in Cambridge than those in Boston.

During his Boston pewriod, Hintikka resided in a 'cottage' (as 
non-New-Englanders call them) at Marlborough.

Marlborough was not named after the person -- via rigid designation -- but 
after the borough.

Hintikka retired from Boston and moved back to Finland.

Besides his activities in research, teaching, and publication, Hintikka 
served in many important positions in international organizations, among
others  vice president of The Association for Symbolic Logic, vice-president and
later  president of the Division of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of
Science  of the International Union of History and Philosophy of Science
(DLMPS/IUHPS),  president of the Charles S. Peirce Society -- D. Ritchie was
mentioning this  genial philosopher recently -- and the chairman of the
organizing committee of  the Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy.

As a proof of the appreciation of Hintikka’s work, a volume dedicated to 
him in "The Library of Living Philosophers" was published.

Hintikka’s publications cover an exceptionally wide range of topics.

During his career he published lots of books or monographs, edited lots of 
books, and authored lots of essays in international journals or 
collections.

His main works deal with:

-- mathematical logic (proof theory, infinitary logics,  IF-logic)
-- intensional logic and propositional attitudes
-- philosophy of logic and mathematics
-- philosophy of language (game-theoretical semantics, quantifiers, 
anaphora)
-- philosophy of science (interrogative model of inquiry)
-- epistemology, and
-- history of philosophy (Aristotle, Descartes, Kant, Peirce, Frege, 
Wittgenstein, Grice -- in the P. G. R. I. C. E. festschrift).

A genius.

Kaarlo Jaakko Juhani Hintikka and Herbert Paul Grice: IMPLICATURE AS A GAME

Speranza

For the record, J. Hintikka contributed a piece on the logic of 
conversation to Grandy/Warner, "P. G. R. I. C. E.", short for "Philosophical  Grounds
of Rationality: Categories, Intentions, Ends. (*)

Most say that Hintikka was a genius.

Oops, another -iana!

The volume was meant as a festschrift for P. Grice, but The Clarendon 
Press said that they would not publish anything with "P. Grice" in the
title, as  it would decrease sales. So Grandy and Warner came up with the
acronym. Grice  was supposed to answer individually to each contribution (as Popper
does in his  festschrift that McEvoy often quotes) but changed his mind --
implicating: he  didn't. But the ultimate implicature seems to be that
"Yeah, I like Hintikka's  piece!" (only Grice would rather be seen dead than
uttering "Yeah").

How Grice met his wife

Speranza
                           
It had been a rough day, so when I walked into the party I was very
chalant, despite my efforts to appear gruntled and consolate.
 
I was furling my wieldy umbrella for the coat check when I saw her
standing alone in a corner.  She was a descript person, a woman in a
state of total array.  Her hair was kempt, her clothing shevelled, and
she moved in a gainly way.
 
I wanted desperately to meet her, but I knew I'd have to make bones
about it since I was travelling cognito.  Beknownst to me, the
hostess, whom I could see both hide and hair of, was very proper, so
it would be skin off my nose if anything bad happened.  And even
though I had only swerving loyalty to her, my manners couldn't be
peccable.  Only toward and heard-of behavior would do.
 
Fortunately, the embarrassment that my maculate appearance might cause
was evitable.  There were two ways about it, but the chances that
someone as flappable as I would be ept enough to become persona grata
or a sung hero were slim.  I was, after all, something to sneeze at,
someone you could easily hold a candle to, someone who usually aroused
bridled passion.
 
So I decided not to risk it.  But then, all at once, for some apparent
reason, she looked in my direction and smiled in a way that I could
make heads and tails of.
 
I was plussed.  It was concerting to see that she was communicado, and
it nerved me that she was interested in a pareil like me, sight seen.
Normally, I had a domitable spirit, but, being corrigible, I felt
capacitated---as if this were something I was great shakes at---and
forgot that I had succeeded in situations like this only a told number
of times.  So, after a terminable delay, I acted with mitigated gall
and made my way through the ruly crowd with strong givings.
 
Nevertheless, since this was all new hat to me and I had no time to
prepare a promptu speech, I was petuous.  Wanting to make only
called-for remarks, I started talking about the hors d'oeuvres, trying
to abuse her of the notion that I was sipid, and perhaps even bunk a
few myths about myself.
 
She responded well, and I was mayed that she considered me a savory
character who was up to some good.  She told me who she was.  "What a
perfect nomer," I said, advertently.  The conversation became more and
more choate, and we spoke at length to much avail.  But I was
defatigable, so I had to leave at a godly hour.  I asked if she wanted
to come with me.  To my delight, she was committal.  We left the party
together and have been together ever since.  I have given her my
love, and she has requited it.

(c) Grice/Baker

Speranza

Back in the early 1980s, when Grandy and Warner (Richard and Richard, or Richards, as Grice said) were compiling Grice's list of UNpublications, they came with what they called 'book-length' ones! And a few would be (c) Grice/Baker! 

 

There is the VERY publication, their contribution to the Davidson festschrift, on weakness of the will (ed. by Hintikka and Vermazen).

 

Most of the collaboration (c) Grice/Baker came from the fact that Grice and Baker taught MORAL philosophy seminars for graduate students at UC/Berkeley (Grice never dealt with undergrads!) hence Grice's increasing interest in taking Kant seriously, since Baker has been contributing to "Kant Studies" -- more than she did to Aristotle studies!

I would think it was via Baker's more 'academic' interest in Kant that Grice got to read Kant in the vernacular, that is the Koenigsberg dialect on which Kant (or "Cant" as I prefer to spell his name) wrote. Of course, the "Metaphysics of Morals" being mandatory (even Kantianly mandatory) reading for those seminars!

Oddly, Hacking (who calls Baker "Jude", as in "Hey Jude") manages to quote from Grice in his "Why does language matter to philosophy"! -- and a good reference to him it is too, as Hacking compares him to Hobbes!

 

Someone SHOULD compile a list of all the (c) Grice/Baker, just for the record!  

One of the things that especially FASCINATED me about the (c) Grice/Baker is formalistic. Suppose we want to formalise that agent A has a goal G towards the fulfilment of the proposition "p" -- e.g.

i. Grice does not smoke.

I.e. Grice's goal is to stop smoking.

There's

GAp

Now, there may be another goal -- to fulfil that goal: in symbols:

GA(GAp)

It seems to have been Baker's idea (which she shared with Grice) -- "Must our motives be pure?" -- that this should proceed ad infinitum. Only if 

G...GA(GAp)

proceeds indefinitely should we arrive at Grice's motto: 'obligation cashes out in desire'! No more, no less!

When Baker was writing her PhD dissertation, Grice took the problems of such dissertation SO SERIOUSLY that he had problems sleeping!

Ah, those were the philosophers that were!

LOADS of unpublications (c) Grice & Baker

Speranza

Some at the Grice Collection, UC/Berkeley; others at Glendon.

How Grice met Baker

Speranza

Via her being his graduate student.

"Jude" – as her husband Ian Hacking was prone to call her – was no doubt more obscure than she deserved to be, given the brilliance of her thought.

But she was – from her profuse work with H. P. Grice (who loved her) through to her late work with Philip Clark – a quintessentially collaborative philosopher. 

But then so was Grice. He would joke that his conversations with Sir Peter Strawson were so minimal than nobody ELSE understood them!

Clark presented some of their joint work at the annual meeting of the Canadian Philosophical Association.

One can glimpse something of the character of Baker’s mind in her frequently cited “Trust and Rationality” for Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 1987 -- the same publication that had Grice airing his views on "Actions and Events" and "Aristotle and the multiplicity of being".  

But it was in interpersonal dialogue that Baker's brilliance shone through.

Baker was a marvelous interlocutor, always willing to consider another’s work on its own terms.

Interestingly, she learned that from Grice! She admired Grice for putting in Baker's shoes (metaphorically) when writing her dissertation. And it was Baker who awoke in Grice a new view of MORAL philosophy alla Kantotle.

A sharp but sympathetic critic Baker was, and an imaginative source of vivid and realistic examples (which, according to Grice, as we say, enlivened his own interest in ethics in his later years). 


Baker was above all an amazing friend, one who never failed to ask attentively after the troubles of those who visited her bedside.  

Such virtues are difficult to quantify and but should never be overlooked. 

But we should take care not to overlook these who would not – not even on their death beds – let others be overlooked.

THE UNPUBLICATIONS OF GRICE AND BAKER

Speranza

Loads of them -- some at the Grice Collection, Bancroft, UC/Berkeley.

GRICE AND BAKER ON WEAKNESS OF THE WILL

Speranza

A very complex essay!