Speranza
Philosophical debate about the meaning of normative terms has long been pulled in two directions by the apparently competing ideas: (i) ‘ought’s do not describe what is actually the case but rather prescribe possible action, thought, or feeling, (ii) all declarative sentences deserve the same general semantic treatment, e.g. in terms of compositionally specified truth conditions.
Grice pursues a resolution of this tension by rehearsing the case for a relatively standard truth-conditionalist semantics for ‘ought’ conceived as a necessity modal and proposing a revision to it motivated by the distinctively prescriptive character of some deontic modals. In Grice's view, this puts pressure on a popular conception of one of the core debates of metanormative theory between realists and antirealists. To make good on this claim, Grice goes on to explore two very general ways we might interpret the results of compositional semantics—“representationalism” and “inferentialism”—in order to argue that, contrary to what is generally assumed, both can capture the special prescriptivity of ‘ought’ and both can countenance compositionally specified and informative truth-conditions for ought-sentences. Hence, Grice's main thesis is that the deciding factor between them should not be which of ideas (i) and (ii) we are more impressed by but rather what we think of the relative merits of how representationalism and inferentialism respect these ideas.
Grice is inclined to favor an antirealist form of inferentialism, but the task Grice has set himself here is mainly to articulate the view in the context of metanormative theory and the semantics of deontic modals rather than try to defend it fully.
To this purpose, towards the end Grice compares and contrasts inferentialism with a third “ideationalist” metasemantic view, which may be an attractive home for some sophisticated versions of metanormative expressivism. Depending on how expressivism is worked out, it may be completely compatible with and so perhaps usefully combined with inferentialism or it may offer a competing way to respect ideas (i) and (ii).
Thursday, February 15, 2018
Disimplicature
Speranza
Grice develops a framework for compositional semantics, and begins illustrating its fruitfulness by applying it to certain core linguistic data. The key move is to introduce object-language variables for assignment functions into the syntax; semantic values are treated systematically in terms of sets of assignments, now included in the model. The framework provides an alternative to traditional “context-index”-style frameworks descending from Kamp/Kaplan/Lewis/Stalnaker.
A principal feature of the account is that it systematizes a range of seemingly disparate linguistic “shifting” phenomena, such as with quantifiers, intensionality, and context-sensitivity under modals and attitude verbs. The treatment of the syntax/semantics provides an elegant standardization of quantification across domains (individuals, worlds, assignments), via a generalized (type-flexible, cross-categorial) binder-index resulting from type-driven movement. The account affords a unified analysis of the context-sensitivity of expressions such as pronouns, epistemic modals, etc., in the spirit of contextualist theories, while compositionally deriving certain distinctive shifting/binding phenomena and providing a framework for theorizing about differences in tendencies for local/global readings. Extensions to questions, conditionals, and relative clauses are explored. I show how independently motivated syntactic analyses can be implemented in an assignment-variable-based compositional semantics: Interrogative sentences denote a partition of possible answers, with answers conceived as sets of assignments (possibilities). ‘If ’-clauses are treated as free relatives/correlatives, interpreted as plural definite descriptions of assignments. Headed restrictive relative clauses are treated as complements of the matrix determiner, which introduces quantification over assignments. A unified analysis of wh-words, relative determiners, and indefinites as choice-function pronouns is provided. Various additional linguistic shifting phenomena are compositionally derived, e.g. concerning “interrogative flip,” indexical shift, information-sensitivity, and donkey anaphora.
The accounts avoid introducing additional interpretive principles and composition rules such as for quantification, binding, movement (e.g. Predicate Abstraction, Predicate Modification, Trace Conversion).
The semantics is fully compositional; all semantic composition proceeds via function
Grice develops a framework for compositional semantics, and begins illustrating its fruitfulness by applying it to certain core linguistic data. The key move is to introduce object-language variables for assignment functions into the syntax; semantic values are treated systematically in terms of sets of assignments, now included in the model. The framework provides an alternative to traditional “context-index”-style frameworks descending from Kamp/Kaplan/Lewis/Stalnaker.
A principal feature of the account is that it systematizes a range of seemingly disparate linguistic “shifting” phenomena, such as with quantifiers, intensionality, and context-sensitivity under modals and attitude verbs. The treatment of the syntax/semantics provides an elegant standardization of quantification across domains (individuals, worlds, assignments), via a generalized (type-flexible, cross-categorial) binder-index resulting from type-driven movement. The account affords a unified analysis of the context-sensitivity of expressions such as pronouns, epistemic modals, etc., in the spirit of contextualist theories, while compositionally deriving certain distinctive shifting/binding phenomena and providing a framework for theorizing about differences in tendencies for local/global readings. Extensions to questions, conditionals, and relative clauses are explored. I show how independently motivated syntactic analyses can be implemented in an assignment-variable-based compositional semantics: Interrogative sentences denote a partition of possible answers, with answers conceived as sets of assignments (possibilities). ‘If ’-clauses are treated as free relatives/correlatives, interpreted as plural definite descriptions of assignments. Headed restrictive relative clauses are treated as complements of the matrix determiner, which introduces quantification over assignments. A unified analysis of wh-words, relative determiners, and indefinites as choice-function pronouns is provided. Various additional linguistic shifting phenomena are compositionally derived, e.g. concerning “interrogative flip,” indexical shift, information-sensitivity, and donkey anaphora.
The accounts avoid introducing additional interpretive principles and composition rules such as for quantification, binding, movement (e.g. Predicate Abstraction, Predicate Modification, Trace Conversion).
The semantics is fully compositional; all semantic composition proceeds via function
Disimplicature
Speranza
Grice provides an objection to an argument targeting the claim that epistemic modality concerns what is possible or necessary given what is known. The argument centers around uses of epistemic modals that co-occur with adjuncts of the form 'according to X', those in which the content of some reported information is at issue.
Grice argues that such contexts do not license us to reach the sort of conclusion that the argument aims to reach!
Grice provides an objection to an argument targeting the claim that epistemic modality concerns what is possible or necessary given what is known. The argument centers around uses of epistemic modals that co-occur with adjuncts of the form 'according to X', those in which the content of some reported information is at issue.
Grice argues that such contexts do not license us to reach the sort of conclusion that the argument aims to reach!
Disimplicature
Speranza
Some have argued for a division of epistemic labor in which mathematicians supply truths and philosophers supply their necessity. We argue that this is wrong: mathematics is committed to its own necessity.
Counterfactuals play a starring role -- and Grice knew it!
Some have argued for a division of epistemic labor in which mathematicians supply truths and philosophers supply their necessity. We argue that this is wrong: mathematics is committed to its own necessity.
Counterfactuals play a starring role -- and Grice knew it!
Disimplicature
Speranza
Grice presents a sound and complete Fitch-style natural deduction system for an S5 modal logic containing an actuality operator, a diagonal necessity operator, and a diagonal possibility operator.
The logic is two-dimensional, where we evaluate sentences with respect to both an actual world (first dimension) and a world of evaluation (second dimension). The diagonal necessity operator behaves as a quantifier over every point on the diagonal between actual worlds and worlds of evaluation, while the diagonal possibility quantifies over some point on the diagonal.
Thus, they are just like the epistemic operators for apriority and its dual. We take this extension of Fitch’s familiar derivation system to be a very natural one, since the new rules and labeled lines hereby introduced preserve the structure of Fitch’s own rules for the modal case.
Grice presents a sound and complete Fitch-style natural deduction system for an S5 modal logic containing an actuality operator, a diagonal necessity operator, and a diagonal possibility operator.
The logic is two-dimensional, where we evaluate sentences with respect to both an actual world (first dimension) and a world of evaluation (second dimension). The diagonal necessity operator behaves as a quantifier over every point on the diagonal between actual worlds and worlds of evaluation, while the diagonal possibility quantifies over some point on the diagonal.
Thus, they are just like the epistemic operators for apriority and its dual. We take this extension of Fitch’s familiar derivation system to be a very natural one, since the new rules and labeled lines hereby introduced preserve the structure of Fitch’s own rules for the modal case.
Disimplicature
Speranza
A common account of the distinction between analytic and synthetic truths is that while the former are true solely in virtue of meaning, the latter are true also in virtue of the way of the world.
Quine famously disputed this characterization, and his skepticism over the analytic/synthetic distinction has cast a long shadow.
Against this skepticism, Grice argues that the common account comes close to the truth, and that truthmaker theory in particular offers the resources for providing a compelling account of the distinction that preserves the basic ideas behind it, and avoids the standard criticisms facing the distinction.
In particular, Grice argues that analytic truths are truths that ontologically depend in no way whatsoever upon what exists.
A common account of the distinction between analytic and synthetic truths is that while the former are true solely in virtue of meaning, the latter are true also in virtue of the way of the world.
Quine famously disputed this characterization, and his skepticism over the analytic/synthetic distinction has cast a long shadow.
Against this skepticism, Grice argues that the common account comes close to the truth, and that truthmaker theory in particular offers the resources for providing a compelling account of the distinction that preserves the basic ideas behind it, and avoids the standard criticisms facing the distinction.
In particular, Grice argues that analytic truths are truths that ontologically depend in no way whatsoever upon what exists.
Disimplicature
Speranza
Ontologies are being used increasingly to promote the reusability of scientific information by allowing heterogeneous data to be integrated under a common, normalized representation.
Definitions play a central role in the use of ontologies both by humans and by computers.
Textual definitions allow ontologists and data curators to understand the intended meaning of ontology terms and to use these terms in a consistent fashion across contexts. Logical definitions allow machines to check the integrity of ontologies and reason over data annotated with ontology terms to make inferences that promote knowledge discovery.
Therefore, it is important not only to include in ontologies multiple types of definitions in both formal and in natural languages, but also to ensure that these definitions meet good quality standards so they are useful.
While tools such as Protégé can assist in creating well-formed logical definitions, producing good definitions in a natural language is still to a large extent a matter of human ingenuity supported at best by just a small number of general principles. For lack of more precise guidelines, definition authors are often left to their own personal devices.
Grice aims to fill this gap by providing the ontology community with a set of principles and conventions to assist in definition writing, editing, and validation, by drawing on existing definition writing principles and guidelines in lexicography, terminology, and logic.
Ontologies are being used increasingly to promote the reusability of scientific information by allowing heterogeneous data to be integrated under a common, normalized representation.
Definitions play a central role in the use of ontologies both by humans and by computers.
Textual definitions allow ontologists and data curators to understand the intended meaning of ontology terms and to use these terms in a consistent fashion across contexts. Logical definitions allow machines to check the integrity of ontologies and reason over data annotated with ontology terms to make inferences that promote knowledge discovery.
Therefore, it is important not only to include in ontologies multiple types of definitions in both formal and in natural languages, but also to ensure that these definitions meet good quality standards so they are useful.
While tools such as Protégé can assist in creating well-formed logical definitions, producing good definitions in a natural language is still to a large extent a matter of human ingenuity supported at best by just a small number of general principles. For lack of more precise guidelines, definition authors are often left to their own personal devices.
Grice aims to fill this gap by providing the ontology community with a set of principles and conventions to assist in definition writing, editing, and validation, by drawing on existing definition writing principles and guidelines in lexicography, terminology, and logic.
Disimplicature
Speranza
Several theists, including Linda Zagzebski, have claimed that theism is somehow committed to nonvacuism about counterpossibles.
Grice was a non-conformist who could not comform to the 39 thesis of the C. of E.
Even though Zagzebski herself has rejected vacuism, she has offered an argument in favour of it, which Edward Wierenga has defended as providing strong support for vacuism that is independent of the orthodox semantics for counterfactuals, mainly developed by David Lewis and Robert Stalnaker.
Grice shows that argument to be sound only relative to the orthodox semantics, which entails vacuism, and give an example of a semantics for counterfactuals countenancing impossible worlds for which it fails.
Several theists, including Linda Zagzebski, have claimed that theism is somehow committed to nonvacuism about counterpossibles.
Grice was a non-conformist who could not comform to the 39 thesis of the C. of E.
Even though Zagzebski herself has rejected vacuism, she has offered an argument in favour of it, which Edward Wierenga has defended as providing strong support for vacuism that is independent of the orthodox semantics for counterfactuals, mainly developed by David Lewis and Robert Stalnaker.
Grice shows that argument to be sound only relative to the orthodox semantics, which entails vacuism, and give an example of a semantics for counterfactuals countenancing impossible worlds for which it fails.
Disimplicature
Speranza
Alfred Tarski’s refinement of an account of truth into a formal system that turns on the acceptance of Convention-T has had a lasting impact on philosophical logic, especially work concerning truth, meaning, and other semantic notions.
Grice knew this, as he makes slight fun of Tarski in "Logic and Conversation" -- section on "Truth".
In a series of studies completed from the 1930s to the 1960s, Arne Næss (he of Diana Ross connection) collected and analysed intuitive responses from non-philosophers to questions concerning truth, synonymy, certainty, and probability.
Among the formulations of truth studied by Næss were practical variants of expressions of the form “p’ is true if and only if p’. This paper calls attention to a series of experimental results Næss overlooked in his original study.
These data collectively suggest that acceptance of expressions of the form “p’ is true if and only if p’ varies according to what kind of statement p is.
Alfred Tarski’s refinement of an account of truth into a formal system that turns on the acceptance of Convention-T has had a lasting impact on philosophical logic, especially work concerning truth, meaning, and other semantic notions.
Grice knew this, as he makes slight fun of Tarski in "Logic and Conversation" -- section on "Truth".
In a series of studies completed from the 1930s to the 1960s, Arne Næss (he of Diana Ross connection) collected and analysed intuitive responses from non-philosophers to questions concerning truth, synonymy, certainty, and probability.
Among the formulations of truth studied by Næss were practical variants of expressions of the form “p’ is true if and only if p’. This paper calls attention to a series of experimental results Næss overlooked in his original study.
These data collectively suggest that acceptance of expressions of the form “p’ is true if and only if p’ varies according to what kind of statement p is.
And the implicature is...?
Disimplicature
Speranza
Grice discusses the so-called problem of creeping minimalism, the problem of distinguishing metaethical expressivism from its rivals once expressivists start accepting minimalist theories about truth, representation, belief, and similar concepts.
Grice argues that Dreier’s ‘explanation’ explanation is almost correct, but by critically examining it we not only get a better solution, but also draw out some interesting results about expressivism and non-representationalist theories of meaning more generally.
Grice discusses the so-called problem of creeping minimalism, the problem of distinguishing metaethical expressivism from its rivals once expressivists start accepting minimalist theories about truth, representation, belief, and similar concepts.
Grice argues that Dreier’s ‘explanation’ explanation is almost correct, but by critically examining it we not only get a better solution, but also draw out some interesting results about expressivism and non-representationalist theories of meaning more generally.
Disimplicature
Speranza
It is fairly widely accepted that Saul Kripke, Keith Donnellan, and Grice showed that proper names, in particular uses by speakers, can refer to things free of anything like the epistemic requirements posited by Gottlob Frege and Bertrand Russell.
Grice separates two aspects of the Frege-Russell view of name reference:
(i) the metaphysical thesis that names in particular uses refer to things in virtue of speakers thinking of those things and
(ii) the epistemic thesis that thinking of things requires a means of determining (in the sense of figuring out or identifying) which thing one is thinking of.
Grice's question is whether the Kripke-Donnellan challenge should lead us to reject (i), (ii), or both.
Contrary to a popular line of thinking that sees practices or conventions, rather than singular thinking, as determinative of linguistic reference, Grice's answer is that we should reject only the epistemic thesis, not the metaphysical one.
It is fairly widely accepted that Saul Kripke, Keith Donnellan, and Grice showed that proper names, in particular uses by speakers, can refer to things free of anything like the epistemic requirements posited by Gottlob Frege and Bertrand Russell.
Grice separates two aspects of the Frege-Russell view of name reference:
(i) the metaphysical thesis that names in particular uses refer to things in virtue of speakers thinking of those things and
(ii) the epistemic thesis that thinking of things requires a means of determining (in the sense of figuring out or identifying) which thing one is thinking of.
Grice's question is whether the Kripke-Donnellan challenge should lead us to reject (i), (ii), or both.
Contrary to a popular line of thinking that sees practices or conventions, rather than singular thinking, as determinative of linguistic reference, Grice's answer is that we should reject only the epistemic thesis, not the metaphysical one.
Disimplicature
Speranza
Compare the following conditionals:
Compare the following conditionals:
Bad: #If John is not in Paris, he is in France. Good: If John is in France, he is not in Paris.
Good sounds entirely natural, whereas Bad sounds quite strange. This contrast is puzzling, because Bad and Good have the same structure at a certain level of logical abstraction:
(1) If ¬p+, then p.
Grice argue that existing theories of informational oddness do not distinguish between Bad and Good. We do not have an account of the divergence in judgments about the two, but we think this is a fascinating puzzle which we pose here in the hope others will be able to solve it.
Disimplicature
Speranza
Is the basic mechanism behind presupposition projection fundamentally asymmetric or symmetric?
This is a basic question for the theory of presupposition, which also bears on broader issues concerning the source of asymmetries observed in natural language: are these simply rooted in superficial asymmetries of language use— language use unfolds in time, which we experience as fundamentally asymmetric— or can they be, at least in part, directly referenced in linguistic knowledge and representations?
Grice aims to make progress on these questions by exploring presupposition projection across conjunction, which has typically been taken as a central piece of evidence that presupposition projection is asymmetric.
As a number of authors have recently pointed out, however, whether or not this conclusion is warranted is not clear once we take into account independent issues of redundancy. Building on previous work by Chemla & Schlenker and Schwarz, Grice approaches this question experimentally by using an inference task which controls for redundancy and presupposition suspension. We find strong evidence for left-to-right filtering across conjunctions, but no evidence for right-to-left filtering, suggesting that, at least as a default, presupposition projection across conjunction is indeed asymmetric.
Is the basic mechanism behind presupposition projection fundamentally asymmetric or symmetric?
This is a basic question for the theory of presupposition, which also bears on broader issues concerning the source of asymmetries observed in natural language: are these simply rooted in superficial asymmetries of language use— language use unfolds in time, which we experience as fundamentally asymmetric— or can they be, at least in part, directly referenced in linguistic knowledge and representations?
Grice aims to make progress on these questions by exploring presupposition projection across conjunction, which has typically been taken as a central piece of evidence that presupposition projection is asymmetric.
As a number of authors have recently pointed out, however, whether or not this conclusion is warranted is not clear once we take into account independent issues of redundancy. Building on previous work by Chemla & Schlenker and Schwarz, Grice approaches this question experimentally by using an inference task which controls for redundancy and presupposition suspension. We find strong evidence for left-to-right filtering across conjunctions, but no evidence for right-to-left filtering, suggesting that, at least as a default, presupposition projection across conjunction is indeed asymmetric.
Disimplicature
Speranza
Building on previous works which argued that scalar implicatures can be computed in embedded positions, Grice proposes a constraint on exhaustification which restricts the conditions under which an exhaustivity operator can be licensed.
We show that this economy condition allows us to derive a number of generalizations, such as, in particular, the ‘Implicature Focus Generalization’: scalar implicatures can be embedded under a downward-entailing operator only if the scalar term bears pitch accent.
Our economy condition also derives specific predictions regarding the licensing of so-called Hurford disjunctions
Building on previous works which argued that scalar implicatures can be computed in embedded positions, Grice proposes a constraint on exhaustification which restricts the conditions under which an exhaustivity operator can be licensed.
We show that this economy condition allows us to derive a number of generalizations, such as, in particular, the ‘Implicature Focus Generalization’: scalar implicatures can be embedded under a downward-entailing operator only if the scalar term bears pitch accent.
Our economy condition also derives specific predictions regarding the licensing of so-called Hurford disjunctions
Disimplicature
Speranza
Grice examines the relation of language use to a person’s ability to perform categorization tasks and to assess their own abilities in those categorization tasks.
A silent rhyming task was used to confirm that a group of people with post-stroke aphasia (PWA) had corresponding covert language production (or “inner speech”) impairments.
The performance of the PWA was then compared to that of age- and education-matched healthy controls on three kinds of categorization tasks and on metacognitive self-assessments of their performance on those tasks. The PWA showed no deficits in their ability to categorize objects for any of the three trial types (visual, thematic, and categorial). However, on the categorial trials, their metacognitive assessments of whether they had categorized correctly were less reliable than those of the control group.
The categorial trials were distinguished from the others by the fact that the categorization could not be based on some immediately perceptible feature or on the objects’ being found together in a type of scenario or setting.
This result offers preliminary evidence for a link between covert language use and a specific form of metacognition.
Grice examines the relation of language use to a person’s ability to perform categorization tasks and to assess their own abilities in those categorization tasks.
A silent rhyming task was used to confirm that a group of people with post-stroke aphasia (PWA) had corresponding covert language production (or “inner speech”) impairments.
The performance of the PWA was then compared to that of age- and education-matched healthy controls on three kinds of categorization tasks and on metacognitive self-assessments of their performance on those tasks. The PWA showed no deficits in their ability to categorize objects for any of the three trial types (visual, thematic, and categorial). However, on the categorial trials, their metacognitive assessments of whether they had categorized correctly were less reliable than those of the control group.
The categorial trials were distinguished from the others by the fact that the categorization could not be based on some immediately perceptible feature or on the objects’ being found together in a type of scenario or setting.
This result offers preliminary evidence for a link between covert language use and a specific form of metacognition.
Disimplicature
Speranza
In Truth and Truthfulness, the Oxonian philosopher B. A. O. Williams sought to defend the value of truth by giving a vindicatory genealogy revealing its instrumental value.
But what separates Williams’s instrumental vindication from the indirect utilitarianism of which he was a critic?
And how can genealogy vindicate anything, let alone something which, as Williams says of the concept of truth, does not have a history?
By reading Williams’s genealogy as a pragmatic genealogy and clarifying the relation between truth and truthfulness, a Griceian should resolve these puzzles and offers a novel reading of Williams’s project.
It shows how Williams’s genealogy forms a direct answer to the question of why we should cultivate our sense of the value of truth.
Using various criticisms of this genealogical method as a foil, a Griceian should develop an understanding of pragmatic genealogy which shows it to be uniquely suited to dealing with practices exhibiting self-effacing functionality—practices that are functional only insofar as and because we do not engage in them for their functionality.
A Griceian should concludes with an assessment of the wider significance of Williams’s genealogy for his own oeuvre and for further genealogical inquiry.
In Truth and Truthfulness, the Oxonian philosopher B. A. O. Williams sought to defend the value of truth by giving a vindicatory genealogy revealing its instrumental value.
But what separates Williams’s instrumental vindication from the indirect utilitarianism of which he was a critic?
And how can genealogy vindicate anything, let alone something which, as Williams says of the concept of truth, does not have a history?
By reading Williams’s genealogy as a pragmatic genealogy and clarifying the relation between truth and truthfulness, a Griceian should resolve these puzzles and offers a novel reading of Williams’s project.
It shows how Williams’s genealogy forms a direct answer to the question of why we should cultivate our sense of the value of truth.
Using various criticisms of this genealogical method as a foil, a Griceian should develop an understanding of pragmatic genealogy which shows it to be uniquely suited to dealing with practices exhibiting self-effacing functionality—practices that are functional only insofar as and because we do not engage in them for their functionality.
A Griceian should concludes with an assessment of the wider significance of Williams’s genealogy for his own oeuvre and for further genealogical inquiry.
Grice and the Play Group
Speranza
Grice loved his play group.
It was actually Austin's playgroup; but when Austin died (of cancer) Grice succeeded him as the leader.
This was until he saw that beautiful villa in Berkeley (of all places) and decided to move!
Still, as many may testify, he organised his little playgroup up in the Berkeley hills, compleat with local wine!
Grice loved his play group.
It was actually Austin's playgroup; but when Austin died (of cancer) Grice succeeded him as the leader.
This was until he saw that beautiful villa in Berkeley (of all places) and decided to move!
Still, as many may testify, he organised his little playgroup up in the Berkeley hills, compleat with local wine!
Grice's Oxford lectures on implicature
Speranza
While Sidonius had spoken of 'inplicatura' [sic] in one letter to a friend (vide my "Loeb is all you need"), Grice made the anglican expression 'implicature,' pretty common.
In "Causal Theory of Perception," he notes that examples like
A: Where is your wife?
B: Either in the garden or the kitchen.
and
A: Is he doing well at Collections?
B: He has beautiful handwriting.
should count as 'conversational implicatures' (Note in Grice, "Way of Words"). But he did not use the word THEN.
By 1965 he WAS using 'conversational implicature'.
Oddly, and fortunately, he wasn't yet wedded to a Kantian square of categories: 'quantitas,' 'qualitas,' 'relatio,' and 'modus'. Rather, he spoke of two desiderata and two principles.
Mainly they are
The desideratum of conversational clarity.
The desideratum of conversational candour.
The principle of conversational self-love
The principle of conversational benevolence.
Genius!
While Sidonius had spoken of 'inplicatura' [sic] in one letter to a friend (vide my "Loeb is all you need"), Grice made the anglican expression 'implicature,' pretty common.
In "Causal Theory of Perception," he notes that examples like
A: Where is your wife?
B: Either in the garden or the kitchen.
and
A: Is he doing well at Collections?
B: He has beautiful handwriting.
should count as 'conversational implicatures' (Note in Grice, "Way of Words"). But he did not use the word THEN.
By 1965 he WAS using 'conversational implicature'.
Oddly, and fortunately, he wasn't yet wedded to a Kantian square of categories: 'quantitas,' 'qualitas,' 'relatio,' and 'modus'. Rather, he spoke of two desiderata and two principles.
Mainly they are
The desideratum of conversational clarity.
The desideratum of conversational candour.
The principle of conversational self-love
The principle of conversational benevolence.
Genius!
Disimplicature
Speranza
On the standard view for something to exist is for one thing to exist: in slogan form, to be is to be countable.
E.J. Lowe argues something can exist without being countable as one, however.
His primary example is homogenous “stuff,” i.e., qualitatively uniform and infinitely divisible matter.
Lacking nonarbitrary boundaries and being everywhere the same, homogenous stuff lacks a principle of individuation that would yield countably distinct constituents.
So, for Lowe, homogenous stuff is strongly uncountable.
Olson rejects Lowe’s view and defends the orthodox connection between existence and number.
He argues that if there is any stuff, there is a number of portions of stuff.
Sider also rejects a stuff ontology, claiming it is incompatible with his preferred view that the familiar quantifiers of predicate logic carve at nature’s joints.
Against these arguments, a Griceian should defend the uncountability of stuff and the possibility of existence without countability.
If to be is to be countable, more is needed than the arguments that Olson and Sider provide.
On the standard view for something to exist is for one thing to exist: in slogan form, to be is to be countable.
E.J. Lowe argues something can exist without being countable as one, however.
His primary example is homogenous “stuff,” i.e., qualitatively uniform and infinitely divisible matter.
Lacking nonarbitrary boundaries and being everywhere the same, homogenous stuff lacks a principle of individuation that would yield countably distinct constituents.
So, for Lowe, homogenous stuff is strongly uncountable.
Olson rejects Lowe’s view and defends the orthodox connection between existence and number.
He argues that if there is any stuff, there is a number of portions of stuff.
Sider also rejects a stuff ontology, claiming it is incompatible with his preferred view that the familiar quantifiers of predicate logic carve at nature’s joints.
Against these arguments, a Griceian should defend the uncountability of stuff and the possibility of existence without countability.
If to be is to be countable, more is needed than the arguments that Olson and Sider provide.
Disimplicature
Speranza
Mandarin focus particles systematically have heterogeneous uses, and Grice knew it!
By examining details of two focus particles jiu ‘only’ and dou ‘even’, Grice, with the help of Staal, tried to explore the hypothesis that varieties of alternatives give rise to systematic ‘ambiguities’.
Specifically, by positing sum-based alternative sets and atom-based ones, it maintains unambiguous semantics of jiu as onlyweak and dou as even, while deriving their variability through interaction with alternatives.
Independently motivated analyses of distributive/collective readings and contrastive topics, combined with varieties of alternatives, deliver the full range of facts concerning jiu and dou.
Theoretically, the paper illustrates an integration of Link, Landman’s theory of pluralites into Rooth’s alternative semantics.
Mandarin focus particles systematically have heterogeneous uses, and Grice knew it!
By examining details of two focus particles jiu ‘only’ and dou ‘even’, Grice, with the help of Staal, tried to explore the hypothesis that varieties of alternatives give rise to systematic ‘ambiguities’.
Specifically, by positing sum-based alternative sets and atom-based ones, it maintains unambiguous semantics of jiu as onlyweak and dou as even, while deriving their variability through interaction with alternatives.
Independently motivated analyses of distributive/collective readings and contrastive topics, combined with varieties of alternatives, deliver the full range of facts concerning jiu and dou.
Theoretically, the paper illustrates an integration of Link, Landman’s theory of pluralites into Rooth’s alternative semantics.
Disimplicature
Speranza
The challenge for alethic pluralists to maintain a standard, truth-functional account of the logical operators has received some attention.
Grice considers a related but more fundamental challenge, to maintain a compositional account of the logical operators, which has received much less attention.
Grice argues that, given natural assumptions, pluralists cannot answer this challenge.
The challenge for alethic pluralists to maintain a standard, truth-functional account of the logical operators has received some attention.
Grice considers a related but more fundamental challenge, to maintain a compositional account of the logical operators, which has received much less attention.
Grice argues that, given natural assumptions, pluralists cannot answer this challenge.
Disimplicature
Speranza
Recent work in the philosophy of mind and cognitive science (e.g., Clark and Chalmers, Clark, Palermos) can help to explain why certain kinds of assertions—made on the basis of information stored in our gadgets rather than in biological memory—are properly criticisable in light of misleading implicatures, while others are not.
Is Grice the one to blame for 'misleading' us! We don't think so!
Recent work in the philosophy of mind and cognitive science (e.g., Clark and Chalmers, Clark, Palermos) can help to explain why certain kinds of assertions—made on the basis of information stored in our gadgets rather than in biological memory—are properly criticisable in light of misleading implicatures, while others are not.
Is Grice the one to blame for 'misleading' us! We don't think so!
Disimplicature
Speranza
Grice clarifies quantifier variance and uses it to provide a theory of indefinite extensibility that Grice calls the variance theory of indefinite extensibility.
The indefinite extensibility response to the set-theoretic paradoxes sees each argument for paradox as a demonstration that we have come to a different and more expansive understanding of ‘all sets’.
But indefinite extensibility is philosophically puzzling: extant accounts are either metasemantically suspect in requiring mysterious mechanisms of domain expansion, or metaphysically suspect in requiring nonstandard assumptions about mathematical objects.
Happily, the view of quantifier meanings that underwrites quantifier variance can be used to provide an account of indefinite extensibility that is both metasemantically and metaphysically satisfying.
Drawing on Grice's unpublications, his Section 1 introduces the puzzle of indefinite extensibility; section 2 develops and clarifies the metasemantics of quantifier variance; section 3 solves section 1's puzzle of indefinite extensibility by applying section 2's account of quantifier meanings; and section 4 compares the theory developed in section 3 to several other theories in the literature.
Grice clarifies quantifier variance and uses it to provide a theory of indefinite extensibility that Grice calls the variance theory of indefinite extensibility.
The indefinite extensibility response to the set-theoretic paradoxes sees each argument for paradox as a demonstration that we have come to a different and more expansive understanding of ‘all sets’.
But indefinite extensibility is philosophically puzzling: extant accounts are either metasemantically suspect in requiring mysterious mechanisms of domain expansion, or metaphysically suspect in requiring nonstandard assumptions about mathematical objects.
Happily, the view of quantifier meanings that underwrites quantifier variance can be used to provide an account of indefinite extensibility that is both metasemantically and metaphysically satisfying.
Drawing on Grice's unpublications, his Section 1 introduces the puzzle of indefinite extensibility; section 2 develops and clarifies the metasemantics of quantifier variance; section 3 solves section 1's puzzle of indefinite extensibility by applying section 2's account of quantifier meanings; and section 4 compares the theory developed in section 3 to several other theories in the literature.
Disimplicature
Speranza
The meaning that expressions take on particular occasions often depends on the context in ways which seem to transcend its direct effect on context-sensitive parameters.
‘Truth-conditional pragmatics’ is the project of trying to model such semantic flexibility within a compositional truth-conditional framework.
Most proposals proceed by radically ‘freeing up’ the compositional operations of language.
Grice argues, however, that the resulting theories are too unconstrained, and predict flexibility in cases where it is not observed.
These accounts fall into this position because they rarely, if ever, take advantage of the rich information made available by lexical items.
Grice holds, instead, that lexical items encode both extension and non-extension determining information.
Under certain conditions, the non-extension determining information of an expression e can enter into the compositional processes that determine the meaning of more complex expressions which contain e.
Grice presents and motivates a set of type-driven compositional operations that can access non-extension determining information and introduce bits of it into the meaning of complex expressions.
The resulting multidimensional semantics has the tools to deal with key cases of semantic flexibility in appropriately constrained ways, making it a promising framework to pursue the project of truth-conditional pragmatics.
The meaning that expressions take on particular occasions often depends on the context in ways which seem to transcend its direct effect on context-sensitive parameters.
‘Truth-conditional pragmatics’ is the project of trying to model such semantic flexibility within a compositional truth-conditional framework.
Most proposals proceed by radically ‘freeing up’ the compositional operations of language.
Grice argues, however, that the resulting theories are too unconstrained, and predict flexibility in cases where it is not observed.
These accounts fall into this position because they rarely, if ever, take advantage of the rich information made available by lexical items.
Grice holds, instead, that lexical items encode both extension and non-extension determining information.
Under certain conditions, the non-extension determining information of an expression e can enter into the compositional processes that determine the meaning of more complex expressions which contain e.
Grice presents and motivates a set of type-driven compositional operations that can access non-extension determining information and introduce bits of it into the meaning of complex expressions.
The resulting multidimensional semantics has the tools to deal with key cases of semantic flexibility in appropriately constrained ways, making it a promising framework to pursue the project of truth-conditional pragmatics.
Disimplicature
Speranza
In his lectures, Grice provides an overview of the latest research on Kant’s Transcendental Deduction, fincluding an exhaustive bibliography of all his unpublications (Grice's!).
Grice reflects on the question why in that period there has up until now been so little recent book-length work dedicated to the Deduction, on so-called ‘analytical’ approaches to reading Kant and the Deduction in particular, and on the related issue of the relevance of both evaluative and historical/hermeneutical interpretations of the Deduction.
In the latter part of his lectures (for those students who hadn't dropped Grice's class altogether!), Grice considered the most important desiderata for systematic-interpretatively guided research into the Deduction!
In his lectures, Grice provides an overview of the latest research on Kant’s Transcendental Deduction, fincluding an exhaustive bibliography of all his unpublications (Grice's!).
Grice reflects on the question why in that period there has up until now been so little recent book-length work dedicated to the Deduction, on so-called ‘analytical’ approaches to reading Kant and the Deduction in particular, and on the related issue of the relevance of both evaluative and historical/hermeneutical interpretations of the Deduction.
In the latter part of his lectures (for those students who hadn't dropped Grice's class altogether!), Grice considered the most important desiderata for systematic-interpretatively guided research into the Deduction!
Disimplicature
Speranza
Ramseyan humility is the thesis that we cannot know which properties realize the roles specified by the laws of completed physics.
It's a funny label, seeing that Ramsey was anything but humble!
Lewis seems to offer a sceptical argument for this conclusion.
Humean fundamental properties can be permuted as to their causal roles and distribution throughout spacetime, yielding alternative possible worlds with the same fundamental structure as actuality, but at which the totality of available evidence is the same.
On the assumption that empirical knowledge requires evidence, we cannot know which of these worlds is actual.
However, Lewis also appeals to a range of familiar semantic principles when framing his argument, which leads some authors to suppose that he can also plausibly be interpreted as offering a purely semantic argument for humility in addition.
Qua Griceians, we may grant that these arguments are Lewisian (after all, Lewis wrote his DPhil at Harvard on Grice!) but argue that Lewis is also committed to a theory of mind that licenses a purely metaphysical argument for humility based on the idea that mental properties supervene on fundamental structure.
Given that knowing which x is the F requires knowing that a is the F, the supposition that we could come to know which properties actually occupy the fundamental roles entails differences in mental properties between worlds with the same fundamental structure, violating supervenience.
Humility follows right away, without any further epistemic or semantic principles.
This argument is immune to almost every way of rebutting the sceptical and semantic arguments; conversely, almost every way of rebutting the metaphysical argument tells equally against the others.
Ramseyan humility is the thesis that we cannot know which properties realize the roles specified by the laws of completed physics.
It's a funny label, seeing that Ramsey was anything but humble!
Lewis seems to offer a sceptical argument for this conclusion.
Humean fundamental properties can be permuted as to their causal roles and distribution throughout spacetime, yielding alternative possible worlds with the same fundamental structure as actuality, but at which the totality of available evidence is the same.
On the assumption that empirical knowledge requires evidence, we cannot know which of these worlds is actual.
However, Lewis also appeals to a range of familiar semantic principles when framing his argument, which leads some authors to suppose that he can also plausibly be interpreted as offering a purely semantic argument for humility in addition.
Qua Griceians, we may grant that these arguments are Lewisian (after all, Lewis wrote his DPhil at Harvard on Grice!) but argue that Lewis is also committed to a theory of mind that licenses a purely metaphysical argument for humility based on the idea that mental properties supervene on fundamental structure.
Given that knowing which x is the F requires knowing that a is the F, the supposition that we could come to know which properties actually occupy the fundamental roles entails differences in mental properties between worlds with the same fundamental structure, violating supervenience.
Humility follows right away, without any further epistemic or semantic principles.
This argument is immune to almost every way of rebutting the sceptical and semantic arguments; conversely, almost every way of rebutting the metaphysical argument tells equally against the others.
Disimplicature
Speranza
Grice once developed an account of the meaning of `ought', and the distinction between weak necessity modals (`ought', `should') and strong necessity modals (`must', `have to').
He argues that there is nothing specially ``strong'' about strong necessity modals per se: uses of `Must p' predicate the (deontic/epistemic/etc.) necessity of the prejacent p of the actual world (evaluation world).
The apparent ``weakness'' of weak necessity modals derives from their bracketing whether the necessity of the prejacent is verified in the actual world.
`Ought p' can be accepted without needing to settle that the relevant considerations (norms, expectations, etc.) that actually apply verify the necessity of p.
Grice calls the basic account a modal-past approach to the weak/strong necessity modal distinction (for reasons that become evident).
Several ways of implementing the approach in the formal semantics/pragmatics are critically examined.
The account systematizes a wide range of linguistic phenomena: it generalizes across flavours of modality; it elucidates a special role that weak necessity modals play in discourse and planning; it captures contrasting logical, expressive, and illocutionary properties of weak and strong necessity modals; and it sheds light on how a notion of `ought' is often expressed in other languages.
These phenomena have resisted systematic explanation. Grice briefly considers how linguistic inquiry into differences among necessity modals may improve theorizing on broader philosophical issues.
REFERENCES
GRICE, Aspects of reason
--
"Does 'ought' conversationally implicate 'can'?
Grice once developed an account of the meaning of `ought', and the distinction between weak necessity modals (`ought', `should') and strong necessity modals (`must', `have to').
He argues that there is nothing specially ``strong'' about strong necessity modals per se: uses of `Must p' predicate the (deontic/epistemic/etc.) necessity of the prejacent p of the actual world (evaluation world).
The apparent ``weakness'' of weak necessity modals derives from their bracketing whether the necessity of the prejacent is verified in the actual world.
`Ought p' can be accepted without needing to settle that the relevant considerations (norms, expectations, etc.) that actually apply verify the necessity of p.
Grice calls the basic account a modal-past approach to the weak/strong necessity modal distinction (for reasons that become evident).
Several ways of implementing the approach in the formal semantics/pragmatics are critically examined.
The account systematizes a wide range of linguistic phenomena: it generalizes across flavours of modality; it elucidates a special role that weak necessity modals play in discourse and planning; it captures contrasting logical, expressive, and illocutionary properties of weak and strong necessity modals; and it sheds light on how a notion of `ought' is often expressed in other languages.
These phenomena have resisted systematic explanation. Grice briefly considers how linguistic inquiry into differences among necessity modals may improve theorizing on broader philosophical issues.
REFERENCES
GRICE, Aspects of reason
--
"Does 'ought' conversationally implicate 'can'?
Disimplicature
Speranza
Can I be wrong about my own beliefs?
Or more specifically:
Can Grice be wrong about his having a pain in his tail?
More precisely: Can I falsely believe that I believe that p?
Grice might argue that the answer is negative.
This runs against what many philosophers and psychologists have traditionally thought and still think.
Grice might use a rather new kind of argument, – one that is based on considerations about Moore's paradox (one that "does not trigger implicatures!" -- vide Grice on the Moore paradox in the third William James lecture).
It shows that if one believes that one believes that p, one believes that p – even though one can believe that p without believing that one believes that p.
Or not, of course!
Can I be wrong about my own beliefs?
Or more specifically:
Can Grice be wrong about his having a pain in his tail?
More precisely: Can I falsely believe that I believe that p?
Grice might argue that the answer is negative.
This runs against what many philosophers and psychologists have traditionally thought and still think.
Grice might use a rather new kind of argument, – one that is based on considerations about Moore's paradox (one that "does not trigger implicatures!" -- vide Grice on the Moore paradox in the third William James lecture).
It shows that if one believes that one believes that p, one believes that p – even though one can believe that p without believing that one believes that p.
Or not, of course!
Disimplicature
Speranza
Dellsén (of all people) argues, contra Grice, that understanding requires neither justification nor belief.
A Griceian should object that ridding understanding of justification and belief comes with the following costs.
(i) No claim about the world can be inferred from what we understand.
(ii) We run into either Moore’s paradox or certain disconcerting questions.
(iii) Understanding does not represent the world.
(iv) Understanding cannot take the central place in epistemology.
(v) Understanding cannot be invoked to give an account of scientific progress.
(vi) It is not clear how misunderstanding arises.
(vii) Etcetera.
"Etcetera," was, for Grice, "one of the Roman expressions that triggers the most interesting of implicatures! -- as Sidonius knew!" (Sidonius uses 'implicatura' but spells it it 'inplicatura'!)
Dellsén (of all people) argues, contra Grice, that understanding requires neither justification nor belief.
A Griceian should object that ridding understanding of justification and belief comes with the following costs.
(i) No claim about the world can be inferred from what we understand.
(ii) We run into either Moore’s paradox or certain disconcerting questions.
(iii) Understanding does not represent the world.
(iv) Understanding cannot take the central place in epistemology.
(v) Understanding cannot be invoked to give an account of scientific progress.
(vi) It is not clear how misunderstanding arises.
(vii) Etcetera.
"Etcetera," was, for Grice, "one of the Roman expressions that triggers the most interesting of implicatures! -- as Sidonius knew!" (Sidonius uses 'implicatura' but spells it it 'inplicatura'!)
Disimplicature
Speranza
In response to Stephen Neale, one might argue that "aphonic" expressions, such as PRO, are intentionally uttered by normal utterers of a natural language such as Oxonian English, either by acts of omitting to say something explicitly, or by acts of giving phonetic realization to aphonics.
One might argue, also, that Gricean intention-based semantics should seek divorce from Cartesian assumptions of transparent access to propositional attitudes and, consequently, that S. R. Schiffer's so-called meaning-intention problem is not powerful enough to banish alleged cases of over-intellectualization in contemporary philosophy of language and mind.
But then, Grice loved Schiffer!
Vide Russell Dale.
In response to Stephen Neale, one might argue that "aphonic" expressions, such as PRO, are intentionally uttered by normal utterers of a natural language such as Oxonian English, either by acts of omitting to say something explicitly, or by acts of giving phonetic realization to aphonics.
One might argue, also, that Gricean intention-based semantics should seek divorce from Cartesian assumptions of transparent access to propositional attitudes and, consequently, that S. R. Schiffer's so-called meaning-intention problem is not powerful enough to banish alleged cases of over-intellectualization in contemporary philosophy of language and mind.
But then, Grice loved Schiffer!
Vide Russell Dale.
Disimplicature
Speranza
Grice showed that five important elements of the ‘nomological package’— laws, counterfactuals, chances, dispositions, and counterfactuals—needn’t be a problem for the Growing-Block view.
We may begin with the framework given in Briggs and Forbes (in The real truth about the unreal future. Oxford studies in metaphysics. Oxford University Press, Oxford), and, taking laws as primitive, we show that the Growing-Block view has the resources to provide an account of possibility, and a natural semantics for non-backtracking causal counterfactuals.
We may show how objective chances might ground a more fine-grained concept of feasibility, and furnished a places in the structure where causation and dispositions might fit.
The Growing-Block view, thus understood, provides the resources to explain the close link between modality and tense, so that it predicts modal change as time passes.
This account lets us capture not only what the future might hold for us, and also what might have been.
Grice developed this theory with Myro, and he (Grice) was kind enough to re-label it "The Grice-Myro" theory!
Grice showed that five important elements of the ‘nomological package’— laws, counterfactuals, chances, dispositions, and counterfactuals—needn’t be a problem for the Growing-Block view.
We may begin with the framework given in Briggs and Forbes (in The real truth about the unreal future. Oxford studies in metaphysics. Oxford University Press, Oxford), and, taking laws as primitive, we show that the Growing-Block view has the resources to provide an account of possibility, and a natural semantics for non-backtracking causal counterfactuals.
We may show how objective chances might ground a more fine-grained concept of feasibility, and furnished a places in the structure where causation and dispositions might fit.
The Growing-Block view, thus understood, provides the resources to explain the close link between modality and tense, so that it predicts modal change as time passes.
This account lets us capture not only what the future might hold for us, and also what might have been.
Grice developed this theory with Myro, and he (Grice) was kind enough to re-label it "The Grice-Myro" theory!
Disimplicature
Speranza
There is a fundamental disagreement about which norm regulates assertion -- and Grice knew that! That's why he preferred to speak of 'que
Proponents of factive accounts argue that only true propositions are assertable, whereas proponents of non-factive accounts insist that at least some false propositions are. Puzzlingly, both views are supported by equally plausible (but apparently incompatible) linguistic data. This paper delineates an alternative solution: to understand truth as the aim of assertion, and pair this view with a non-factive rule. The resulting account is able to explain all the relevant linguistic data, and finds independent support from general considerations about the differences between rules and aims
There is a fundamental disagreement about which norm regulates assertion -- and Grice knew that! That's why he preferred to speak of 'que
Proponents of factive accounts argue that only true propositions are assertable, whereas proponents of non-factive accounts insist that at least some false propositions are. Puzzlingly, both views are supported by equally plausible (but apparently incompatible) linguistic data. This paper delineates an alternative solution: to understand truth as the aim of assertion, and pair this view with a non-factive rule. The resulting account is able to explain all the relevant linguistic data, and finds independent support from general considerations about the differences between rules and aims
Disimplicature
Speranza
There is a fundamental disagreement about which norm regulates assertion -- and Grice knew that! That's why he preferred to speak of 'quessertions'!
Proponents of factive accounts argue that only true propositions are assertable, whereas proponents of non-factive accounts insist that at least some false propositions are.
Puzzlingly, both views are supported by equally plausible (but apparently incompatible) linguistic data. This paper delineates an alternative solution: to understand truth as the aim of assertion, and pair this view with a non-factive rule. The resulting account is able to explain all the relevant linguistic data, and finds independent support from general considerations about the differences between rules and aims
There is a fundamental disagreement about which norm regulates assertion -- and Grice knew that! That's why he preferred to speak of 'quessertions'!
Proponents of factive accounts argue that only true propositions are assertable, whereas proponents of non-factive accounts insist that at least some false propositions are.
Puzzlingly, both views are supported by equally plausible (but apparently incompatible) linguistic data. This paper delineates an alternative solution: to understand truth as the aim of assertion, and pair this view with a non-factive rule. The resulting account is able to explain all the relevant linguistic data, and finds independent support from general considerations about the differences between rules and aims
Disimplicature
Speranza
There is a fundamental disagreement about which norm regulates assertion -- and Grice knew that! That's why he preferred to speak of 'quessertions'!
Proponents of factive accounts argue that only true propositions are assertable, whereas proponents of non-factive accounts insist that at least some false propositions are.
Puzzlingly, both views are supported by equally plausible (but apparently incompatible) linguistic data.
We may delineate an alternative solution: to understand truth as the aim of assertion, and pair this view with a non-factive rule.
The resulting account is able to explain all the relevant linguistic data, and finds independent support from general considerations about the differences between rules and aims
There is a fundamental disagreement about which norm regulates assertion -- and Grice knew that! That's why he preferred to speak of 'quessertions'!
Proponents of factive accounts argue that only true propositions are assertable, whereas proponents of non-factive accounts insist that at least some false propositions are.
Puzzlingly, both views are supported by equally plausible (but apparently incompatible) linguistic data.
We may delineate an alternative solution: to understand truth as the aim of assertion, and pair this view with a non-factive rule.
The resulting account is able to explain all the relevant linguistic data, and finds independent support from general considerations about the differences between rules and aims
Disimplicature
Speranza
Self-reference has played a prominent role in the development of metamathematics, starting with Goedel’s first incompleteness theorem.
Given the nature of this and other results in the area, the informal understanding of self-reference in arithmetic has sufficed so far.
Recently, however, it has been argued that for other related issues in metamathematics and philosophical logic (Grice's topic -- the Bartlett dictionary has Grice as a "British logician"! -- a precise notion of self-reference and, more generally, reference is actually required.
These notions have been so far elusive and are surrounded by an aura of scepticism that has kept most philosophers away.
As Griceians, we may suggest we shouldn’t give up all hope.
First, we may introduce the anti-Grice to these issues.
Second, we may discuss the conditions a good notion of reference in arithmetic must satisfy.
Accordingly, we may introduce adequate notions of reference for the language of first-order arithmetic, which we may show to be fruitful for addressing the aforementioned issues in metamathematics.
Grice thought that Austin's translation of Frege on arithmetic was, however, 'boring' -- "as is Blackwells!"
Self-reference has played a prominent role in the development of metamathematics, starting with Goedel’s first incompleteness theorem.
Given the nature of this and other results in the area, the informal understanding of self-reference in arithmetic has sufficed so far.
Recently, however, it has been argued that for other related issues in metamathematics and philosophical logic (Grice's topic -- the Bartlett dictionary has Grice as a "British logician"! -- a precise notion of self-reference and, more generally, reference is actually required.
These notions have been so far elusive and are surrounded by an aura of scepticism that has kept most philosophers away.
As Griceians, we may suggest we shouldn’t give up all hope.
First, we may introduce the anti-Grice to these issues.
Second, we may discuss the conditions a good notion of reference in arithmetic must satisfy.
Accordingly, we may introduce adequate notions of reference for the language of first-order arithmetic, which we may show to be fruitful for addressing the aforementioned issues in metamathematics.
Grice thought that Austin's translation of Frege on arithmetic was, however, 'boring' -- "as is Blackwells!"
Disimplicature
Speranza
Sorensen says that Grice's assertion that p is a knowledge-lie if it is meant to undermine your justification for believing truly that ∼p, not to make you believe that p and that, therefore, knowledge-lies are not intended to deceive.
It has been objected that they are meant to deceive because they are intended to make you more confident in a falsehood.
But a Griceian might propose a novel account according to which an assertion that p is a knowledge-lie if it is intended not to provide evidence that p but to make you stop trusting all testimonies concerning whether p, which is how they undermine your testimonial knowledge.
Because they are not intended to provide evidence that bears on the truth of p, they are not intended to make you more confident in a falsehood; therefore, knowledge-lies are not intended to deceive.
This makes them a problem for the traditional account, which takes the intention to deceive as necessary for lying, and an interesting example of Kant's idea that allowing lies whenever one feels like it would bring it about that statements in general are not believed.
But Grice thought, rightly, that Kant was too severe -- he preferred Kantotle!
Sorensen says that Grice's assertion that p is a knowledge-lie if it is meant to undermine your justification for believing truly that ∼p, not to make you believe that p and that, therefore, knowledge-lies are not intended to deceive.
It has been objected that they are meant to deceive because they are intended to make you more confident in a falsehood.
But a Griceian might propose a novel account according to which an assertion that p is a knowledge-lie if it is intended not to provide evidence that p but to make you stop trusting all testimonies concerning whether p, which is how they undermine your testimonial knowledge.
Because they are not intended to provide evidence that bears on the truth of p, they are not intended to make you more confident in a falsehood; therefore, knowledge-lies are not intended to deceive.
This makes them a problem for the traditional account, which takes the intention to deceive as necessary for lying, and an interesting example of Kant's idea that allowing lies whenever one feels like it would bring it about that statements in general are not believed.
But Grice thought, rightly, that Kant was too severe -- he preferred Kantotle!
Disimplicature
Speranza
Buchanan has argued for a Gricean solution to well-known counterexamples to direct reference theories of content.
And Peet develops a way to change the counterexample so that it seems to speak against Buchanan’s own proposal.
We might argue, however, that both theorists fail to notice a significant distinction between the kinds of cases at issue.
Those appearing to count against direct reference theory must be described such that utterers have false beliefs about the identity of the object to which they intend to refer, beliefs that appear relevant to the determination of what constitutes communicative success.
This suggests, further, that cases of this sort do not provide a basis for robust generalizations about singular reference.
Or not, of course!
Buchanan has argued for a Gricean solution to well-known counterexamples to direct reference theories of content.
And Peet develops a way to change the counterexample so that it seems to speak against Buchanan’s own proposal.
We might argue, however, that both theorists fail to notice a significant distinction between the kinds of cases at issue.
Those appearing to count against direct reference theory must be described such that utterers have false beliefs about the identity of the object to which they intend to refer, beliefs that appear relevant to the determination of what constitutes communicative success.
This suggests, further, that cases of this sort do not provide a basis for robust generalizations about singular reference.
Or not, of course!
Disimplicature -- "A garden of Eden just meant for two"
Speranza
A Griceian should argue for a theory of the optimal function of the speech act of referring, and he should go on and call it the edenic theory.
First, the act of singular reference is defined directly in terms of Griceian communicative intentions -- what Grice called G-intentions, after his self!)
Secondly, we may propose a doxastic constraint on the optimal performance of such acts, stating, roughly, that the utterer must not have any relevant false beliefs about the identity or distinctness of the intended object.
Grice elaborates this in "Vacuous Descriptions":
"I thought Smith had a butler, but he was his gardener, rather!"
In uttering a singular term on an occasion, on this theory, one represents oneself as not having any confused beliefs about the object to which one intends to refer.
This paves the way for an intentionalist theory of reference that circumvents well known problems, which have not been adequately addressed before in the literature -- by which I mean Shakespeare, not Grice! (Implicature: EVERYTHING WAS ADEQUATELY ADDRESSED before in the 'Griceian' "literature"!).
A Griceian should argue for a theory of the optimal function of the speech act of referring, and he should go on and call it the edenic theory.
First, the act of singular reference is defined directly in terms of Griceian communicative intentions -- what Grice called G-intentions, after his self!)
Secondly, we may propose a doxastic constraint on the optimal performance of such acts, stating, roughly, that the utterer must not have any relevant false beliefs about the identity or distinctness of the intended object.
Grice elaborates this in "Vacuous Descriptions":
"I thought Smith had a butler, but he was his gardener, rather!"
In uttering a singular term on an occasion, on this theory, one represents oneself as not having any confused beliefs about the object to which one intends to refer.
This paves the way for an intentionalist theory of reference that circumvents well known problems, which have not been adequately addressed before in the literature -- by which I mean Shakespeare, not Grice! (Implicature: EVERYTHING WAS ADEQUATELY ADDRESSED before in the 'Griceian' "literature"!).
Disimplicature
Speranza
We should clarifies the distinction made by Merleau-Ponty (a philosopher Grice adored -- "I adore his hyphenated surname!") between speaking and spoken speech, and the relation between the two, in his Phenomenology of Perception.
Against a common interpretation, one might argue on exegetical and philosophical grounds that the distinction should not be understood as one between two kinds of speech, but rather between two internally related dimensions present in all speech.
"Or implicature," Grice adds.
Ducrot was in the room, and copied him!
This suggests an interdependence between speaking and spoken aspects of speech, and some commentators have critiqued Merleau-Ponty for claiming a priority of speaking over spoken speech.
"Absurd!" Grice said in French.
However, there is a sense in which Merleau-Ponty is right to emphasize the priority, namely, in terms of the ontological priority of the speaking subject with respect to language understood as a constituted cultural ideality.
In this respect, "Merleau-Ponty is like Gardiner, only French," Grice implicates.
The latter only maintains its ontological status insofar as it is taken up by a language community.
We may favorably contrast Merleau-Ponty’s views on this question to those of the late Heidegger and de Saussure, and suggest potential applications of this clarified position for contemporary discussions in philosophy of language.
Grice only read Heidegger via Ryle's reviews, but he would assert that he (Heidegger) "is the greatest living philosopher."
De Saussure Grice loved for his aristocratic French surname!
We should clarifies the distinction made by Merleau-Ponty (a philosopher Grice adored -- "I adore his hyphenated surname!") between speaking and spoken speech, and the relation between the two, in his Phenomenology of Perception.
Against a common interpretation, one might argue on exegetical and philosophical grounds that the distinction should not be understood as one between two kinds of speech, but rather between two internally related dimensions present in all speech.
"Or implicature," Grice adds.
Ducrot was in the room, and copied him!
This suggests an interdependence between speaking and spoken aspects of speech, and some commentators have critiqued Merleau-Ponty for claiming a priority of speaking over spoken speech.
"Absurd!" Grice said in French.
However, there is a sense in which Merleau-Ponty is right to emphasize the priority, namely, in terms of the ontological priority of the speaking subject with respect to language understood as a constituted cultural ideality.
In this respect, "Merleau-Ponty is like Gardiner, only French," Grice implicates.
The latter only maintains its ontological status insofar as it is taken up by a language community.
We may favorably contrast Merleau-Ponty’s views on this question to those of the late Heidegger and de Saussure, and suggest potential applications of this clarified position for contemporary discussions in philosophy of language.
Grice only read Heidegger via Ryle's reviews, but he would assert that he (Heidegger) "is the greatest living philosopher."
De Saussure Grice loved for his aristocratic French surname!
Disimplicature
Speranza
A prevailing thought among Griceians is that "generics," as Griceians call them, have a covert modal operator at logical form.
("Everything has a logical form!" Grice once shouted to Strawson. "By that I implicate that if you cannot PUT what you say in logical form, what you say is not worth saying!")
Grice claims that if this is right, the covert generic modality is a weak necessity modal.
We may provide evidence for this claim as we sketch a theory.
In particular, we may show that there are some important distributional parallels between generics and sentences with overt weak necessity modals:
both sorts of sentences share behaviour in nonmonotonic reasoning environments and also lack genuine epistemic readings.
Grice's favourite example was: "Tweetie ain't no penguin!"
Acknowledging these parallels and the connection here is in the service of both our understanding of genericity and of weak necessity.
Finally, we may propose an understanding of generics as involving a covert weak necessity modal and further argue that this is a promising path to pursue in relation to different issues related to the interpretation of generics.
Or not, of course!
A prevailing thought among Griceians is that "generics," as Griceians call them, have a covert modal operator at logical form.
("Everything has a logical form!" Grice once shouted to Strawson. "By that I implicate that if you cannot PUT what you say in logical form, what you say is not worth saying!")
Grice claims that if this is right, the covert generic modality is a weak necessity modal.
We may provide evidence for this claim as we sketch a theory.
In particular, we may show that there are some important distributional parallels between generics and sentences with overt weak necessity modals:
both sorts of sentences share behaviour in nonmonotonic reasoning environments and also lack genuine epistemic readings.
Grice's favourite example was: "Tweetie ain't no penguin!"
Acknowledging these parallels and the connection here is in the service of both our understanding of genericity and of weak necessity.
Finally, we may propose an understanding of generics as involving a covert weak necessity modal and further argue that this is a promising path to pursue in relation to different issues related to the interpretation of generics.
Or not, of course!
Disimplicature
Speranza
In §93 of "The Principles of Mathematics," Baron B. A. W. Russell (born in England -- now Wales) observes that
"the variable is a very complicated logical entity, by no means easy to analyze correctly."
He is using 'analyse' alla Grice.
(Russell was a Griceian at heart -- and vice versa -- vide "Definite descriptions in Russell and in the vernacular," by Grice).
This assessment is borne out by the fact that even now we have no fully satisfactory understanding of the role of variables in a compositional semantics for first-order logic -- Grice's "System Q" in honour of Quine, later labelled System G, by Myro, and System G-hp (hopefully plausible/highly powerful version of system G).
In a standard Tarskian semantics, variables are treated as meaning-bearing entities.
But Grice read no Polish!
Moreover, they serve as the basic building blocks of all meanings, which are constructed out of variable assignments.
But this has disquieting consequences, including Fine’s antinomy of the variable and an undue dependence of meanings on language.
We may develop an alternative, Fregeian version of predicate logic that uses the traditional quantifier–variable apparatus for the expression of generality, possesses a fully compositional, non-representational semantics, and is not subject to the antinomy of the variable.
The advantages of Fregean over Tarskian predicate logic are due to the former’s treating variables not as meaningful lexical items, but as mere marks of punctuation, similar to parentheses. I submit that this is indeed how the variables of predicate logic should be construed.
And that would be loved by Grice in that it would be expressible within System G-hp.
Or not, of course!
In §93 of "The Principles of Mathematics," Baron B. A. W. Russell (born in England -- now Wales) observes that
"the variable is a very complicated logical entity, by no means easy to analyze correctly."
He is using 'analyse' alla Grice.
(Russell was a Griceian at heart -- and vice versa -- vide "Definite descriptions in Russell and in the vernacular," by Grice).
This assessment is borne out by the fact that even now we have no fully satisfactory understanding of the role of variables in a compositional semantics for first-order logic -- Grice's "System Q" in honour of Quine, later labelled System G, by Myro, and System G-hp (hopefully plausible/highly powerful version of system G).
In a standard Tarskian semantics, variables are treated as meaning-bearing entities.
But Grice read no Polish!
Moreover, they serve as the basic building blocks of all meanings, which are constructed out of variable assignments.
But this has disquieting consequences, including Fine’s antinomy of the variable and an undue dependence of meanings on language.
We may develop an alternative, Fregeian version of predicate logic that uses the traditional quantifier–variable apparatus for the expression of generality, possesses a fully compositional, non-representational semantics, and is not subject to the antinomy of the variable.
The advantages of Fregean over Tarskian predicate logic are due to the former’s treating variables not as meaningful lexical items, but as mere marks of punctuation, similar to parentheses. I submit that this is indeed how the variables of predicate logic should be construed.
And that would be loved by Grice in that it would be expressible within System G-hp.
Or not, of course!
Disimplicature
Speranza
What we may call "asymmetric disagreement" (between A and B, to use Grice's favourite letters) occurs when one agent is in disagreement with another, but not vice-versa.
We can give an example of and develop a framework for understanding this phenomenon.
One pivotal feature of the example is that one of the agents in the scenario has a belief about what might be the case—a might-belief.
We may show, alla Grice, that a traditional account of "might"-beliefs and disagreement cannot explain the initially surprising phenomenon of asymmetric disagreement.
In order to provide an explanation, one may develop a dynamic account of "might-beliefs and a corresponding account of disagreement.
We should explore a choice point for our account—showing that the simple dynamic account has some controversial (though, perhaps, true) consequences.
We may also explore how revisionary notions of validity, inconsistency, and disagreement can allow us to avoid these consequences if we wish.
And even if we don't! (Grice loved an Austin biscuit conditional!)
What we may call "asymmetric disagreement" (between A and B, to use Grice's favourite letters) occurs when one agent is in disagreement with another, but not vice-versa.
We can give an example of and develop a framework for understanding this phenomenon.
One pivotal feature of the example is that one of the agents in the scenario has a belief about what might be the case—a might-belief.
We may show, alla Grice, that a traditional account of "might"-beliefs and disagreement cannot explain the initially surprising phenomenon of asymmetric disagreement.
In order to provide an explanation, one may develop a dynamic account of "might-beliefs and a corresponding account of disagreement.
We should explore a choice point for our account—showing that the simple dynamic account has some controversial (though, perhaps, true) consequences.
We may also explore how revisionary notions of validity, inconsistency, and disagreement can allow us to avoid these consequences if we wish.
And even if we don't! (Grice loved an Austin biscuit conditional!)
Why Grice Loved Skinner
Speranza
Because Chomsky hated him!
In "Reflections on language," Chomsky mistreats Grice as a common-or-garden behaviourist alla Skinner -- and as Paul Suppes noted, this is offensive!
Philosophers like Grice often purport to ‘borrow’ or ‘refute’ claims made by past philosophers.
Especially great ones -- Grice classified philosophers into 'great' (like Locke) and 'minor' (like Witters, Bosanquet, and Wollaston). Platts found this 'provocative,' but Platts's provocation did not provoke Grice!
In doing so these philosophers contravene a contextualist methodological prohibition once defended by Quentin Skinner (not to be confused with the Skinner that Grice loved) in his seminal paper “Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas”.
The phrase "history of ideas," or ideology, Skinner borrowed (but never returned) from the Oxonian colleague of Grice, Isaiah Berlin.
Skinner's methodology has been much debated by theorists of textual meaning and interpretation.
And yet the precise nature of the logical path from Skinner's premises to his prohibitory conclusion remains elusive.
We should seek to refute two of the most promising variants of an argument for his methodological prohibition on ‘refutation’, one of which draws on his appeal to Witters's conception of ‘meaning as use’, and the other of which draws on his appeal to speech act theory, alla Searle.
Grice would be delighted to refute both!
Because Chomsky hated him!
In "Reflections on language," Chomsky mistreats Grice as a common-or-garden behaviourist alla Skinner -- and as Paul Suppes noted, this is offensive!
Philosophers like Grice often purport to ‘borrow’ or ‘refute’ claims made by past philosophers.
Especially great ones -- Grice classified philosophers into 'great' (like Locke) and 'minor' (like Witters, Bosanquet, and Wollaston). Platts found this 'provocative,' but Platts's provocation did not provoke Grice!
In doing so these philosophers contravene a contextualist methodological prohibition once defended by Quentin Skinner (not to be confused with the Skinner that Grice loved) in his seminal paper “Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas”.
The phrase "history of ideas," or ideology, Skinner borrowed (but never returned) from the Oxonian colleague of Grice, Isaiah Berlin.
Skinner's methodology has been much debated by theorists of textual meaning and interpretation.
And yet the precise nature of the logical path from Skinner's premises to his prohibitory conclusion remains elusive.
We should seek to refute two of the most promising variants of an argument for his methodological prohibition on ‘refutation’, one of which draws on his appeal to Witters's conception of ‘meaning as use’, and the other of which draws on his appeal to speech act theory, alla Searle.
Grice would be delighted to refute both!
Disimplicature
Speranza
The implicatures of majoratives.
The purpose of this note is to argue that not all instances of expressive language suffer alike from the problem of descriptive ineffability.
If you haven't heard of emotive or expressive language, ask C. L. Stevenson, one of Grice's favourite Yale philosophers (well, not really a Yale philosopher but his essay was published by Yale, of all publishing houses!).
If you haven't heard of descriptive ineffability, re-read T. S. Eliot's "The naming of cats."!
Descriptive ineffability refers, Grice -- who loved cats and to name them: Sausalito, Moraga, Oakland -- acccording to the place where he found them -- to the problem that utterers are never fully satisfied when they are asked to paraphrase utterances containing expressive terms such as ‘damn’ using only descriptive terms.
Grice's favourite disimplicature is
"Goddam sinners reconciled!"
-- "Who could possible disimplicate THAT?"
It is commonly assumed ("all too commonly," Grice adds) that descriptive ineffability is an important feature of all kinds of expressive language – derogatory language just as commendatory or valorizing language.
Grice knew about this when he was appointed the Carus lecturer. For the Carus lectures he chose the topic of the conception (never 'concept'!) of 'value'.
However, Grice finds that "majoratives," i.e. the positive counterpart to negative expressives ("pejoratives") -- as in "Amazing Grice!" -- do NOT exhibit the characteristic of descriptive ineffability.
This finding is important both to clarify what kind of data competing theories of expressives have to explain and to shed further light on the wider phenomenon of ineffability.
The implicatures of majoratives.
The purpose of this note is to argue that not all instances of expressive language suffer alike from the problem of descriptive ineffability.
If you haven't heard of emotive or expressive language, ask C. L. Stevenson, one of Grice's favourite Yale philosophers (well, not really a Yale philosopher but his essay was published by Yale, of all publishing houses!).
If you haven't heard of descriptive ineffability, re-read T. S. Eliot's "The naming of cats."!
Descriptive ineffability refers, Grice -- who loved cats and to name them: Sausalito, Moraga, Oakland -- acccording to the place where he found them -- to the problem that utterers are never fully satisfied when they are asked to paraphrase utterances containing expressive terms such as ‘damn’ using only descriptive terms.
Grice's favourite disimplicature is
"Goddam sinners reconciled!"
-- "Who could possible disimplicate THAT?"
It is commonly assumed ("all too commonly," Grice adds) that descriptive ineffability is an important feature of all kinds of expressive language – derogatory language just as commendatory or valorizing language.
Grice knew about this when he was appointed the Carus lecturer. For the Carus lectures he chose the topic of the conception (never 'concept'!) of 'value'.
However, Grice finds that "majoratives," i.e. the positive counterpart to negative expressives ("pejoratives") -- as in "Amazing Grice!" -- do NOT exhibit the characteristic of descriptive ineffability.
This finding is important both to clarify what kind of data competing theories of expressives have to explain and to shed further light on the wider phenomenon of ineffability.
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