RT list: Grice, H. P. -- cited by White, H. D.

First, welcome Prof. White.
Call me rude (to the list as a whole, just joking!) but I think this is
a first! A welcome post from one list member to another!

Anyway, I am delighted that indeed, you abide by "do not say what you
lack adequate evidence for". I had just checked the first link N. E.
Allott gave and no ¨Grice¨ hit, but the second one gives "Gricean"
alright!

I am delighted that you were the tutee (as they would say in Oxford) of
Prof Wilson. On third reading of your post I see you do say he is a PhD
in philosophy. Which _does_ mean ´philosophy´! I should search for his
books online, as you said he is steeped in "Anglo-American analytic
philosophy". I hope he has more to say about Grice that he found one of
his seminars Byzantine.

There´s much to say about this, and I do wonder about P. Wilson´s year,
etc. Grice compromised with UC/Berkeley: ¨no undergraduate teaching",
so indeed his seminars which he usually gave jointly with G. Myro, now
also deceased, on "Metaphysics" or "Problems of Philosophy" -- as old
UC/B catalogues testify -- tended towards the Byzantine front. And
indeed, possibly Grice did feel Byzantine in parts.

In "Reply to Richards" he pours scorn on himself and the other English
"Futilitarians", as a continental called them, for distinguishing
nicely on how many angels can dance on a pin. And note that one of his
"unpublications" -- more on this later, I hope -- is titled, "Can you
have a pain in your tail?".

You write in your Introductory Note that you yourself do quote Grice to
the effect of the shallowness of the analysis by CI of Grice´s
"programme" -- as he dubs it in WoW. I quote from your pdf -- and from
my Swimming-Pool Library, hence forgive the eventual typo:

On p. 601 of your ASIS, vol. 58, you write of the

"Gricean pragmatics, from which RT descends",

which I enjoyed. Cfr. Darwin, The descent of man? It amused me.

--- You refer to his "famous" (or as I prefer, quoting Hegel,
"infamous") "maxims" and not only quote from Grice 1975, appropriately,
but also care to mention, which is relevant to this forum! -- Wilson
1973, p. 462, which relies on Grice´s "unpublication" -- as he would
call them, when cajoled! (*).

Your immediate reference to ´citationists´ as wrong-headed, when over
my (wrong) head, but I think I get your point. Indeed, G. N. Leech
considers what you call "errors", unintentional or other, and "lying"
("Where is the Statue of Garibaldi?" "Five blocks to your right and two
to your left" -- as heard in Trastevere, Roma, where people, myth goes,
rather lie than lose face).

The RT "bug" (is that amusing? I use it friendly!) caught you when you
go on to discuss the problem of Grice´s Maxim of Quantity in conexion
with his Maxim of Relation. There´s much that Grice hisself (as I like
to say) wrote on this. Not just his WoW, but his two other books,
Conception of Value (1991) and Aspects of Reason (2001). But the
Valedictory Essay in WoW -- where he refers to "writers like Wilson and
Sperber" and levels of chicanery expected in the most apparently
cooperative of conversations, are amusing too. I prefer to think that
Grice, like Davidson, enjoyed a transcendental argument towards the
Maxim of Quality: representations which do not represent reality would
be less valued by "pirots" -- vide Grice 1991 -- than representations
which do.

Your example of pseudo-Mary who by the Polyanna Hypothesis cannot
"deliberately lie" is charming. I call her pseudo-Jill, rather (after
Grice, Jack and Jill, 2001). Indeed, in a recent post of mine to
Relevance I mentioned, in joke, the computer model of a Gricean
counterexample: a computer who teaches with the provision of all the
wrong answers. Some misuse of "teach" there!

Your example on your "case study" with citations for "Patrick Wilson"
is a good one, and I would suspect that you can thus perhaps provide a
more clear example of Grice´s influence on him!?

You end up, very much like Grice, valuing good things over ´chicanery´
(Grice´s word in WoW) in ´interpersonal communication´. I could go back
to that. but allow me to expand your context. I would call it.

The "Logical Conversation" scenario. If we consider Grice´s "case
study" of "if" in WoW, or, as I prefer, his "and" (as in "p&q") I
wouldn´t think he was into chicanery in natural conversation, where
conversers can flout, "be orderly" (Maxim of Manner). Rather, he is, as
your tutor P. Wilson should perhaps agree -- vide Travis, review of
Grice, WoW in Journal of Philosophy, attacking his own tutee, P. F.
Strawson who would rather have "be orderly" "incorporated" into the
_content_ of "and", and, worse, its logical counterpart: Boolean AND.
Surely no logician conversing with another logician will commit the
gaffe of believing, as Strawson´s strawman perhaps did, that every time
we say "and" we mean "and then". (Urmson´s example, taken up by Grice
in 1981, Radical Pragmatics, not in the WoW reprint: "He went to bed
and took off his trousers").

You magisterially end your essay, "we want replies" -- from the
reference desk -- alas I lack one at the Swimming-Pool Library -- "that
conform to Grice´s conversational maxims" -- and no "human" -- vide my
PhD thesis -- flouts _at all_. You quote on that front Blair, and Chen
and Xu. The maximation of what you call "wiggle room" is not at stake
 from your average librarian, or its "artificial mouthpieces", as you
amusingly put it. Before providing your brilliant seven desiderata, you
bring your ideal of being what you call, in librarianship terms, the
"cross between a highly responsive press secreatry and a
super-knowledgeable librarian". For this _contrast_ Borges, author of
the Library of Babel, whose librarian is ever-omniscient God!

I´ll end this note with a query, if you don´t mind, on my point about
the title of the essay referenced by Sperber, "New tests of RT from
IS". As you note in your post, you mean "new" as opposed to your
earlier essays, including this under review write now, where you do
call Grice explicitly. You mentioned things like the dichotomy between
"artificial" versus, I assume, relevance. And I don´t think I am too
wrong-headed then that your essay would rather read as, if you excuse
me the taking of this liberty, "New tests for RT from IS"?

And it´s here _against_ much shallowness in, as you say, and not
hyperbolically, I hope, "thousands" of essays dealing with what you
deal in that masterful essay, with a wink to Grice!

All best wishes,

Cheers,

J. L. Speranza
   for the Grice Circle
        bloggers.griceclub

                  not a "newbie" but forever young at heart!

(*) Recently, L. Horn wrote a paper on negation, squatitive and other,
and he let me have the mimeo. I said, "But surely you are forgetting
Grice´s "unpublications"". Horn was dealing with the reanalysis of
things like "unpublication" from "unpublished". He eventually got that
rightly quoted and we discussed (and he with Warner) the distinction of
scare-quoted uses of the term from natural ones. All very fun.

(**) A machine which could not _lie_ would be for Grice, possibly just
as ´dangerous´, to use your word (?) than one which questioned -- as
his did -- "sticky wicket"! And cfr. "we are not computers" as cited by
Chapman, in _Grice_, Macmillan, Palgrave).
Received on Sat Jan 16 19:53:40 2010