RT list: Re: Whartoniana

Some further, pretty summary notes, now taking into account some of the
details of the review kindly shared by LLP editor. This reply I formulate in
terms of an an alphabetic (and thus articulated) vocabulary of sorts. The
idea being multiple. Since the LLP reviewer does not note it, it's a
_philosopher_ here reviewing: the reviewer manages to quote pretty much every
discipline that criss-crosses with Wharton's programme _but_ philosophy, so
slightly redressing that here. Hey, as Wharton would say (if anything,
Wharton's book should be the manual that frees academics to start using
interjections -- cfr. below under ejaculation -- with a straight face!), even Chapman
was reluctant to title her book, Grice: philosopher and linguist -- "the
man was a philosopher", or words to that perlocutionary effect. The second
sub-idea being to "spread the word", as it were. All the entries here are
Griceana (for my internet persona, one of them, has been to officialise the
Grice club) _and_ Whartoniana, for which vide Wharton.

"above-board." M-intentions as not sneaky. See sneaky, and Wharton on
'openness' (vs. covertness). While Wharton cleverly focuses on various types of
'continua', e.g. between 'meaning'''N
 and 'meaning''NN', it's indeed never often enough that we should stress
this importantissimo philosophical point. The "anti-sneak" clause of WoW is
Grice's reply to Strawson, "I smell a rat" alleged counterexample, and best
understood, alla Grandy, as self-reflective: (p) let all m-intentions be
not sneaky, including this (p) one. I owe the term "above-board" to
Blackburn, Spreading the word, which I find appropriate that Grice loved brigde and
competed officially for Oxfordshire.
 
"analog/digital distinction". See "digital." Wharton's critique of previous
 accounts of the phenomena under consideration is that they are "too
digital to be true". The charm of Horn's retronym: "analog watch", lurks in the
background. Symbols as digital, as per Strawson-obit apocryphal claim by
Grice, "If you can't put it in [digital] symbols, it's not worth saying". Cfr.
 Strawson, "If you can put it in symbols, it's not worth saying, and
Grice's comment as he left the scene: @*#%$@!". The distinction strikes back with
a vengeance in any serious account of representations and
meta-representations. Are iconic beliefs, the simplest ones, necessarily 'digital'. Are
communications which we may call cross-specific, as when I have the hand to my
dog and utter a click interjection, 'digitial'. See Grice for 'hand wave'
(abbreviated as HW) in WoW 6.
 
"anti-sneaky clause." Vide "above-board". The clause in Grice's analysis of
 meaning, the third of them, and self-referential in nature, that in a case
of NN-meaning, (p) all m-constitituve intentions be open, including (p).
Wharton's previous discussion of Grice's two other clauses: exhibition vs.
protrepsis, and the Grice Way (thus coined by Bennett, Linguistic behaviour)
is welcome critical. If there's a quote by B. J. Harrison (Intro to Philo
of Language, Macmillan) I love is when he says (words to that
perlocutionary effect) of Grice's views as being "the most beset, if that's the word,
with counterxamples, perhaps after Utilitarianism".
 
"articulation". Vide inarticulation. From verb, "articulate". The fourth
articulations of the linguists, one articulation too many, I've always
found. But Wharton on the pseudo-articulation or 'inarticulated' character of so
me interjections -- and indeed other 'vehicles' of "meaning" 'NN' -- and
their limited productiveness (as per Appendix of Interjections: a Rather Long
List) is right on spot. Etym. vagary: while Wharton focuses on
'interjection' qua and beyond part of speech, why is it that the 'article' gets such a
close connection with this general character of 'language' as such,
'articulatory'? Why is it that 'articulatory' is indeed ambiguous when it comes
to phonetics: articulatory versus acoustic. Read Wharton to find how
Non-Verbal inarticulation can be.
 
"blushing." As natural sign of embarrassing. Exploitation. Can Valley Girls
 blush-NN? One wonders. Cfr. 'ejaculation' and the female faked orgasm. (I
know this does sound pretty rude and there is nothing rude in Wharton's
book, but I _am_ wondering...). Wharton's example of 'shivering' and how it
relates to it. Why it is more difficult to fake a shiver than a smile. The
complex neural physiology of 'shiver' detection on the part of the
'addressee'.
 
"code". Its use and misuse: from Hamurabi to the DNA code. Its etymological
 base in Roman lore. Wharton's important contribution to the study of
procedures involving the 'codification' of essentially uncoded material, and his
bravery in going the whole hog (as I go) in accepting that 'communication'
(his pet word -- too much like "communion" to me, but I am a dissenter)
can be totally code-free. Oddly, one of Grice's executors is called "Code".
 
"concept" -- and Fregean sense. Whaton thoroughly discusses the connection
of 'concept' with pragmatics, allowing for lexically non-realised concepts.
 Grice's idea of a concept as a Fregean sense. In "Prejudices and
predilections", on, e.g. the _concept_ of negation, as internalised by creatures
(his pirots), and as a reply to objections that words like "or" -- or
interjections -- really carry no _sense_ (WoW, iii).The concept/procedure
distinction being Wharton's pet, and cf. Grice on 'basic' versus 'resultant'
procedures. Are they merely 'instructions', as the received opinion is, or rather
free impositions of the free will upon herself?
 
"control". Wharton on 'controlled'. Rational control as control par
excellence. Wharton on 'uncontrolled' displays of 'natural' behaviour. The case
of pre-rational lack of control. Not to be rude, but, e.g. the case of
sphincter, etc. control. His urining means that his bladder is full. His
defecating means that his bowels are full. Pre-rational control in animals (other
than man) and Wharton's discussion of Darwin, The expression of emotion in
man and animals as evolutionary.
 
"Darwinism", with a capital D. Wharton on Darwin, The expression of
emotions in man and animals. Wharton's rediscovery for posterity of this once
influential book, and charmingly illustrated too, and quite a stretch from
Darwin's other boring tracts, like his dull account of that undull voyage of
the Beagle.
 
"digital." vide analogue/digital distinction. Etym. vagary: the digital
richness of chimps. Why is it that chimps best communicate with humans by
hitting keys with their digits (hey, what I'm doing myself right now!)
 
"displaying". Wharton on Goffman on 'displaying'. My early attempt to
introduce the technicism, plying to do general duty for both implying and
explying. Grice of 'displaying' a bandaged leg (WoW, 5) to mean that one will
not play squash, rather than that one's leg is bandaged -- as one of those
genial examples by Grice. Intentional versus non-intentional displays.
Wharton's strict analysis of the cognate, "showing" -- as in the colloquiallism,
"It only goes to show..." (The present rain only goes to show that the
grass is and not just looks greener).
 
"eh." Interjection. It's about time we get a list of them. (cfr. wow and
huh). Indeed, it's our duty for those who practice Whartoniana. I never took
interjections seriously when having to get trained in conversation-analysis
(and corresponding with Jefferson and Schegloff) but Wharton makes it all
conceptually envigorating and a fascinating thing to consider. The 'eh',
Wharton notes, relates to the interrogative meta-operator of the
suprasegment. Oddly it compares to the articulated "no" of my mentor, J. L. Borges: "p,
no?" -- Borges being criticised for this tiring question-tag. The 'eh' as
more 'anglo'. "I met her" "Eh?".
 
"emblem." A special type of sign for Wharton. Cf. the ordinary sense of the
 expression, to mean, inter alia, things like a country's national flag.
Not content with offering for us a most welcome Gricean reading of an author
that Sperber derives little pleasure from (Peirce -- "which reflects on
me", as he writes, or words to that perlocutionary effect), Wharton goes
Peircean and manages to recoin and reconcoct a few new technicisms which even
Grice would license as not krypotechnical. Emblematic of Wharton!
 
"exploiting". Rational exploitation of a phenomenon of natural 'meaning' --
 a spontaneous bodily behaviour that comes to 'mean' (NN) this or that.
Various types of exploitation discussed by Wharton. Wharton's genial simile of
 non-natural meaning 'recruiting' instances of 'natural' "meaning".
Blushing even may be exploited by Various Valley Girls, and we know about porn
where the orgasm is ditto both by females, and in a slightly different way, by
males.
 
"gesture" -- possibly Wharton's most charming Whartoniana -- along with
'emblem'. The case of gesture intromision. An example, "He is caught in the
vice of a grip", as Grice points to his fellow companion, Strawson. The
deictic gesture as indeed providing the only way of reference assignment, seeing
that his other fellow companion was Pears, and he's never caught in no
vice. Margot Asquith on the arbitrariness of "a nice gesture of yours".
 
"Grice", Gricean. Wharton's references to Grice, WoW. Cfr. Grice, "Method
in philosophical psychology" for an account of psychological attitudes as
'threoretical terms', under theory. Wharton as a Gricean. Whartoniana as
Griceana. I bet anyone to find a review of Wharton in the literature that fails
 to quote Grice! (Fortunately, 'bet' is a special speech act that
incorporates essential uptake to count as one). Whartoniana as a progress of
Griceana.
 
"Hart". H. L. A. One of the first to credit Grice in print. Hart, "Words
and signs: critical review of John Holloway, Words and intelligence", 1952.
Hart relying on Grice's discussion of '... is an indication of...' alla
Meaning (1948, but published in 1957). The historical side to Grice's
distinctions, and the importance to deal historically with these issues.
 
"Holloway", John. His "Language and intelligence" reviewed by Hart (1952)
discussing Grice (1948). The importance of considering this author
seriously. His other work including, "Philosophy of language in England"
 
"huh". Interection analyses as pragmatic intrusive by Wharton, where
'pragmatic intrusive' is nicely defined in terms of truth-conditions that Grice
adored. Dubitative interjection. Usually derogatory but which should always
reflect on its utterer, not its addressee.
 
"implicit-expllicit" continuum. R. Carston's ideas in a broader
perspective, as they connect with the "natural/nonnnatural" continuum. Wharton on
'evidence' as a factive, "... an indication of ..." --- types of direct and
less direct evidence.
 
"indicating." What is the connection between Grice's "meaning" and
"indicating". Cfr. Chapman's discussion of Grice's treatment of the Peircean
semi-factive, "... is an indication of ...", and Wharton on index, which is a
cognate. The index as a second type of Peircean sign -- after the icon and
before the symbol. The early and late Peirce on that. Wharton's excellent
account of these minutiae and quoting my friend Seth Sharpless, too.
 
"inferring", "inferential." As synonymous with 'rational'. The tricky case
of a human ''natural' sign -- or spontaneous behaviour, as Wharton less
contrivedly prefers, aimed NOT at other fellow rational critters but to
prerational creatures like dogs, etc. Pre-inferential patterns in pre-rational
pirots. Wharton's excellent idea of summarising his book with Grice's myth of
 how pirots end up karulising elatically (vide Chapman, citing Grice: How
pirots karulise elatically: some simpler ways). Grice's pirots are _us_, and
his myth is a teleological or theological account of meaning. But while
it's the evolutionary reading that Wharton, relying on Sperber, favours, I am
more of an Ariskantian with Grice and less of an Empedoclean. It would
seem that the pirots are from the _start_ endowed with inferential patterns.
"Inferentiality" is thus a given for a specific sort of 'pirot' or pirotic
soul. Grice on Aristotle on the 'gradual series' of pirotic souls that help
define, in extenso, the very idea of a 'soul', with 'rational soul' at its
peak, as it were. Grice as a self-described 'conservative irreverent
rationalist', in "Prejudices and Predilections".
 
"informing", information. "False information is no information" (Grice,
cited by L. Floridi apres yours truly). Cfr prevarication. A bee (to use one
of Wharton's case studies and favourite examples) can be mistaken but not
confused -- as to the position of the polen as she does her little polka.
Cfr. Grice on being perhaps mistaken but not confused (N. Wilson, Grice, the
ultimate counterexample, in Mind). Grice's 'm-intentions' are being
primitively exhibitive, i.e. indicative, or informative, of attitudinal content,
only later attaining protreptic status.
 
"instinct." Discussed by Wharton. Cfr. Darwin, as the realm of the
'natural'. The Grecian if not Gricean account of 'naturalness' as instinctive. The
bite of instinct in purely sophisticated versions of akrasia. The call of
nature in a broader key.
 
"lingua" -- taking etymologically seriously for account of "linguistic"
phenomena. Cfr. "verbal". The linguistic poverty of chimps. Wharton on
'para-linguistic' and suprasegmental, as it connects with Grice's brilliant if
albeit brief account of what he labels "Accent" in WoW iii.
 
"Naturalism," with a capital C, as a philosophical thesis, indeed one of
the 9 betes noires that Pilgrim Grice meets on the road to his Holly of
Hollies (Prejudices and predilections). Wharton's programme as a rehabilitation
of 'nature' in various collocations ranging from the earliest semiotic
elaborations of the Greeks -- Herodotos, as discussed by Mainetti, Theories of
Sign in Antiquity, to Plato's influential Cratylus, on 'thesei', by
convention or position or the earlier, "phusei", by nature, as the way things
become meaningful (semeia).
 
"manifest" To make manifest. Used by Sperber/Wilson. Etymology of interest,
 and placed in its proper conceptual space by Wharton.
 
"spontaneity." The root of spontaneous. Etymology interesting and Wharton's
 ultraclever examinations of type of cases like Grice's frown in "Meaning"
as developed by M. Green, "Grice's Frown". When something apparently
spontaneous gets exploited to intrude in the truth-conditional matter of what we
mean.
 
"Strawson". The "smell a rat" example: direct and indirect evidence that p.
 The counterexample that had Grice device the anti-sneak clause.
Kemmerling, "Don't strawson if you can grice", a manoeuver instantiating the more
general, "don't disgrice if you can grice", Kemmerling in PGRICE,
Grandy/Warner.
 
"Ockham". "Risus significat naturaliter interiorem laetitiam" as it
compares with Wharton's case study of the smile. Cfr. the laughter as an atavism
alla Darwin of a natural sign of aggression in chimps (display of
dentadure). The analog continuum of the smile, the natural history of the smile,
compleat with the Cheshire.
 
"philosophy." The reviewer, to my notice, makes no reference to philosophy.
 The philosophical root of much of Wharton's ideas -- and by definition of
_all_ of Grice's ideas. The importance of Whartoniana for a philosophical
understanding of what lies behind much of the contemporary work in cognitive
 sciences in the areas that concern _us_ as human, indeed, personal beings.
cfr. M. Sbisa for the human/personal distinction as trademark of Grice's
humanistic philosophy, in The legacy of Paul Grice.
 
"pseudo-code," as a term that may relate to some uses of "code". Wharton on
 natural vs. non-natural codes, and the overt inferentialist tenet that
communication Is possible without a code. The one-off cases of Blackburn in
Spreading the word, and Grice on the relativisation of the modes of
correlation as being not just 'conventional' but 'iconical', or other, WoW, v.
 
"theoretical". Relevance-theoretical, as used by Wharton. Meaning of
'theory' among philosophers. Psychological attitudes as theoretical concepts.
Grice's programme as a theory. Grice's caveats of 'analysis' versus 'theory'
in his Valedictory essay, WoW, strand 5.
 
"wow", interjection of delight as we experience Whartoniana shedding so
much beautiful light on Grice's WoW.
 
Cheers,
 
J. L. Speranza
   The Grice Club.
 
Received on Wed Dec 30 02:26:43 2009