And then she possibly has.
But then she probably hasn't.
(I'm relying on Sir John Lyons's observations here re the contrastive
implicatures of "possibly" (p < 0.5) and "probably (p > 0.5).
In a number of influential papers (they influenced _me_ all right) -- viz
'Critical Study of Davis' (in _Nous_) (I), 'Utterer's Meaning' (_Nous_)
(II), and 'Grice and RT' (_Ling/Phil_) (III) she has proposed a rather good
exegesis of the master, sic Grice.
In what follows may I comment on each of those items, focusing, vis-a-vis
this FORUM maintained by Carston at UCL, on what Saul has to say about
Carston (and RT in general) in the Ling/Phil essay.
Re: I.
Saul is an interesting _philosopheress_. A feminist also, hence my using
_philosopheress_ just to friendily tease her. She's written on very many
issues, including Bezuidenhout and vibrators. Most recently, she's been
obsessed with Letters of Reference -- so, if you have one that may appeal a
Gricean's inclinations, write to me and I'll forward). It was very handy
(for Saul) that Davis got this book published on _Implicature_, since it
gave Saul (understandably, since it's such a good book) lots of food for
thought of the type she enjoys most (i.e. Gricean food). In his book with
the Cambridge Studies in Philosophy Series Davis deals with Grice,
misinterprets him one time too many, says a few things about the failures
of RT into the bargain, and comments on a forthcoming book, where he hopes
to provide the _definite_ view on these things, "all errors remain mine".
The _typical_ Cambridge Study in Philosophy Series specimen then. Saul
takes the role of the exegetical Gricean in her critical study for _Nous_
pointing out the very many misunderstandings of Grice that Davis
purposefully or not (I'm no longer sure having read Saul's elaborations on
what takes to _misunderstand_ someone), and more. More of this in Appendix
I below.
Re: II:
It was high time for Saul (Saul thought, too) to let us know what _her_
views on these Gricean matters were, and thus she tries to do so in her
substantive essay with _Nous_. Tho' I find Saul's style ever engaging, I
find that essay one step too many on the exegetical side (and it's the
Chair to the Grice Club speaking here). It's basically a rationale which
one can't perceive very well if it's of her own or _Grice's_ views on
things. She dwels extensively on S. Neale (the Gricean guy at Berkeley --
Levinson finds Neale's exegesis of Grice _inapt_ (Levinson, p.380), who she
purposefully misquotes as "Neville". It's predictable that Saul will change
her mind on these issues, but, if anything, her _Nous_ study will remain a
cornerstone in Gricean exegesis about what Grice thought of that _tricky_
word, "say" (If only our lovers and companions knew how we've been spend
the Thanksgiving holiday...). More in Appendix II below.
III. In _Linguistics and Philosophy_, Saul turns her wits to RT, which she
describes as "very influential" (& all). -- She writes from Sheffield, so
she _knows_ what she's talking about. I.e. RT is probably _not_ very
influential in, say, Patagonia. She discusses Wilson and Sperber all right,
and turns her attention, though, to Carston (the owner of this file). It's
this section which I'll expand right here, or actually, it's that section
which I _should_ expand on here, but I won't. Instead, I'll expand on the
section immediately following that. Reason: Saul may be all right about how
Carston misinterprets Grice, but then the answer (by Carston) might always
be, "So what?". I mean, _myself_ I find myself misinterpreting Grice,
_quite often_ (Notably about what Grice thinks -- acc. to Davis and Saul --
about _particularised conversational implicature_ being such big deal).
However, other than leaving things _at that_ (exegetical level), Saul goes
on to criticise RT regardless. I.e. _not_ as a misinterpretation of Grice
(which we all must undergo from time to time if we're bound to be
_original_) but as a misinterpretation of things _in general_ . This is,
indeed, the same argumentative strategy that Saul used with Davis. I mean,
it's very nice to offer historical arguments (e.g. "Grice thought A, and
not B, as Davis (Wilson/Sperber, Carston) proposes") but it's mighty more
interesting (and journal-editor-impressive) if you can _also_ provide a
_non_-historical argument. As it happens I tend to agree with what Saul
says (non-historically) about RT (I also agree with what she says
_historically_) but hey I thought this would be the right forum for me to
test _her_ views. All expletives directed to Her, please (Don't shoot the
messenger).
In _Ling/Phil_ she writes (in section III -- our relevant section on RT
here: "The RT alternative"):
RT has offered a positive alternative to Grice's
theory, which seems at first glance to be able
to accommodate some of the concerns I have been
raising.
Note her hedge: "seems". When you grasp a "seems" from Saul you can bet
your money on where she is heading for.
We'll see, however, that the same sort of confusion
found in RT's interpretations of Grice colours
RT's positive contributions as well.
Note now her factive, "see". It's a good thing she uses the future, though.
"We _will see". When or how she doesn't tell, does she.
The result of this confusion for the positive
theory is inconsistency.
Which if you ax [sic] me, is not that bad. First, as Walt Whitman said (of
Grice?), "I contain multitudes". RT may be more concerned with Saul's
_other_ epithet, later one, "incoherence" (in the Concluding Remarks to her
essay) but hey, I've been called _incoherent_, from time to time, and by RT
theorists, too!
According to RT, "what-is-said" (what-is-explicated)
and "what-is-implicated" will both be parts of
(what RT calls) the _correct_ interpretation of an
utterance.
Correct or "right". They call it correct -- or "right". Saul is concerned
with "correct". Levinson with "right", as when he writes: "In their reply
to me in Journal of Brain/Behavioural Sciences, Wilson and Sperber content
that RT does _not_ make the predictions I've been arguing RT would, and
specifically, it
"does not predict that the most relevant interpretation conceivable is the
_right_ one"" (Levinson, p.59). But then wait till Saul gets her hand on
Levinson (if she does) (For some reason, I'm inclined to thinkt though
that, for a change, she may come to _like_ an author and therefore fail to
get her hands on him. Critics! Saul goes on:
the notion of correct interpretation is logically prior,
for RT, to the notions of "what is said" and "what
is implicated.
Note her hedge, "for RT". Honest, I don't know where Saul gets this
exegesis from. I mean, it's true that she's talking of "Relevance
Theorists" rather than RT (I edit her "relevance theorists" as "RT" since
I'm such a systematic philosopher). Therefore, as she's like _generalising_
over a _number_ (I won't say how many. After reading Kempson, I'm no longer
sure what _numbers_ mean) of practitioners of RT, she may well be relying
on, say, a work like Blakemore's book with Blackwell, _Interpreting
Utterances_.
I.e, RT seems to have _moved_, as from Grice.
Grice was, qua philosopher (and since his 'Meaning' essay of 1948),
concerned with _utterers_ (not utterances) and what _utterers_ mean-nn. RT
(or at least Blakemore, but cfr. also forthcoming book with Carston,
"Utterance and Thought") seems more concerned with "utterance", and, at
least Blakemore, with _interpreting_ them. However, focus does not _entail_
logical priority, as Saul seems to think, does it. I add this because it
doesn't seem very fair to RT to say that it holds that "right
interpretation" is _prior to "what is explicated" or "implicated".
The correct [or right, or even _true_, more on
this below. JLS] interpretation of an utterance,
according to RT is the
first one
that the Addressee
[henceforward "A" -- Saul, like some RT -- speaks of "audience", but
_auditory_ channel is only partially involved: deafs can _understand_.
Similarly she speaks of "speaker" where I'd speak of utterer. Surely a mute
can mean-nn. JLS]
arrives at which is consistent with the principle of
relevance"
[Henceforward PR. JLS] which she states as from Sperber/Wilson, Relevance:
(PR) Every act of ostensive communication communicates
the presumption of its own optimal relevance.
_Relevance_ i 158
(Using OED conventions, I use "i" to mean "first edition". It's perhaps
rather sad that Saul who's writing a few years _after_ Relevance _ii_ still
only quotes Relevance i] Saul writes:
Relevance is understood as a ratio of cognitive
effects to processing effort.
I guess we can accept that? _I_ would. One can thus _undertand_ her idea
that "processing" is logically connected to "interpreting". I.e. she's not
talking of the _processing_ involved in the _production_ of the utterance
that she views RT is concerned with here, but the _processing_ involved in
the utterance's _recovery_, or as Grice would call it, _its_ working-out.
Saul writes:
the obvious question now is what is required
for consistency with (PR). We will see that
Sperber and Wilson offer conflicting answers
to this question. However, these answers can
only be seen to conflict with one another
when we look closely at some cases of _imperfect_
communication.
Must say I _love_ Saul's argumentative strategy here, since I'm such an
imperfectionist communicator myself, they say. More generally, her
devastating criticism of Davis's book relies on this very same thing
(Davis's inability to see that Grice's programme relies on utterers and
addressess being, from time to time, _wrong_), and so does her own positive
approach to pragmatics (Her essay II for Nous concludes: "The notion of
information which the speaker makes available to the audience is an
important and useful one, and one which all too easily goes unnoticed in
discussions of implicature." Of course, to be consistent, she should
substitute "information" there by "doxastic thingies" since most of her
examples concern mis-information that utterers are bound to express). In
fairness to Saul, must say that it was via her that I was pleased to
_discovered_ the diversions of mis-meaning. Until then, guided by a hateful
Strawsonian constraint (in _Logico-Linguistics Papers_) that "to
understand" is "to _know_ what the utterer means", I longed to know (even
"grasp intuitively" as Grice has it) what the utterer meant. Now I see
Grice probably did not care for this. His scheme (unlike Davis, and perhaps
RT) notably allows for utterers mis-meaning things, and more importantly,
their addressee mis-understanding them (time and again), even
systematically. Saul goes on:
Once we do this, we will see that Sperber and
Wilson are trying to accomplish too many
disparate goals with one notion. In what follows,
I will be focussing exclusively on the notion of
consistency with (PR), without attention to
which bits of the correct interpretation are
"said" (or "explicated" as RT has it) and
which bits "implicated". These issues [which form
the gist of her Nous II bit. JLS] do not even
_begin_ to arise until the _correct_ interpretation
is even arrived at.
Saul provides THREE versions here: an addressee-oriented version (i), an
utterer-oriented version (ii) and a qualified "rational" utterer version
(iii).
I must say I did like her No. iii which relates to say, a game-theoretical
redefinition of Grice as attempted by one of the essays in the fifth volume
of Kasher's Pragmatics (as circulated in a review with THIS FORUM), but
first & second things first & second.
Re: (i): Addresee-Oriented Version:
Sperber and Wilson are very much concerned
with A's interpretation process.
They make it quite clear that they
take consistency with (PR) to play an
important role in this process.
Her quote to illustrate this is:
the [A] should choose the solution involving
the least effort, and should abandon that solution
only if it fails to yield an interpretation consistent
with [(PR)]. (_Relevance_ i p.185)
Saul comments:
the process described in this quotation is one
which only makes sense if A is able to discern
whether or not an interpretation is consistent
with (PR). We will see that this requirement
conflicts with Sperber and Wilson's other claims
about consistency with (PR).
Re: (ii) Utterer's-Oriented Version
One counterintuitive consequence of focussing
only on interpretation is that interpretation
may bear little relationship to what the utterer
[U] takes herself [she writes "herself" and I'm
about to change that into "himself" but then on
second thoughts I think I'll leave it at that. JLS]
to be communicating.
"(Think, for example, of The Guardian's reporting of Boulaye's comment.)".
This is an interesting reference to an interesting case. Boulaye had
actually said,
(1) A party is so unfashionable that it's about time
to defend it!
(or words to that effect). However, this is reported in _The Guardian_ of
all papers, as,
(2) Apartheid is so unfashionable that it's about time
to defend it!
We here an innocuous case of a Malaprop, and Saul discusses these as length
fascinated as she is with getting things wrong. Another of her examples is
her brother going
(3) Estoy embarazado.
(meaning "I'm pregnant" in Spanish) to mean
(4) I'm embarrassed.
And failing (in a way). Saul goes on:
Sperber and Wilson (1986) seem to some
extent to share this concern, as they
offer an understanding of consistency with
(PR) which takes the utterer's perspective
into account.
Here she then offers a second quote (SW's _first redefinition" as it were):
To be consistent with [(PR)], an interpretation does not
have to be optimally relevant to [A]; it must
merely have seemed so to [U].
(_Relevance_ i, p. 169)
(This relates to S-W's reply to Levinson. Odd that _he_ didn't find that
out]. Saul writes:
The problem with this move [though. I hate to add this but
what, with T Fretheim's analysis of concessivity
I'm no longer sure what concessives what! JLS] is that
whether or not U takes an interpretation to be optimally
relevant is not something to which A has access.
Here the mentalist in Saul arises. She thinks we don't have access to other
people's (or automata's) minds, which is fine with her. However, with B F
Loar (a Gricean of a previous generation) of course we _do_ have access to
our people's minds! Surely, if a belief is realised as a psycho-physical
brain process then it's theoretically possible that we can individuate the
neuronal state of activity on which the act of meaning supervenes. I add
this just for the record, hey! Saul ignores this and goes on (and she'll
probably think she was having _another_ sense (or _use_, even) of
"accessibility" in mind):
Take, for example, the case of Jocasta, who is
obsessed with the Kennedy assassination, and
takes every conversation she wanders into to be
concerned with it. She utters (5), having given
no indication to A that she is thinking about
the Kennedy assassination. She obviously doesn't think
she _needs_ to indicate this, as she falsely believes
that everyone is talking about it all the time, anyway.
(5) The grassy knoll is the answer.
She thinks the most relevant interpretation of
her utterance will be something like:
(6) The grassy knoll provides the key
to the truth about the Kennedy assassination.
Note to JLS (in-a-previous-state-of-development): This refers to the hill
in Dallas where one man was allegedly shooting and hitting Kennedy (or
hitting and shooting). In my previous state of development, not only was I
ignorant of this, but was furious that Saul had not grown for this
"Strawsonian capitals", and write that as "The Grassy Knoll". As an
American friend of mine told me,
(7) Everyone here knows the referent of
the grassy knoll, JL! How can you be so
blooming provincial!
I said, "parochial". Never provincial. Anyway, I guess I won't expand on
what the U of (7) meant by"everyone" and "here" as it's so Montaguean (and
as Saul writes in a different context, "enough to give you a migraine").
But I'd love to know if Fantin, who subscribes in here, and is in
Sheffield, _knew_ about it! I mean, _some_ interpretation! Saul, who knows
all about grassy knolls and Yorkhire moors, writes:
Unfortunately, Jocasta's addressee has been
discussing where to have their picnic lunch,
and he [Saul uses the plural here, "they", but I'm
such a conservative romantic. JLS] takes her to
be proposing that they dine on the nearby grassy knoll.
The interpretation that Jocasta takes to be maximally
relevant is not one to which A has any kind of access.
Provided she (Jocasta) is the addressee's _one-night stand_ or something. I
mean, as per Saul's definition of the situation re Jocasta's monomentalism,
it seems Jocasta won't utter even "pass me the salt" without a ref. to
Kennedy, so I (for one) would have _access_ to her monothematicity after
her _thrid_ [sic. my Yorkshire metathesis for "third". JLS] conversational
move. But let _that_ pass.
A has no way to know that this is the
interpretation Jocasta takes to be maximally
relevant, and so no way to know that this
is the interpretation consistent with (PR).
A cannot, then, use consistency with (PR)
as a guide in his interpretation process.
Re: (iii). Rational Utterer-Oriented Version.
Cases like Jocasta's make it somewhat appealing
to suppose that what really matters is not what
a strange utterer like Jocasta think, but what
a _rational_ utterer, rather, _would_ think.
Sperber and Wilson also offer an understanding
of consistency with (PR) which reflects this concern.
Whatever they say, this is v. much Grice's line. Witness his _obsession_
with _reasoning and rationality_ as apparent in: (i) the title
Grandy/Warner thought of for Grice's festscrhfit, _Philosophical Grounds of
Rationality: intentions, categories, ends_ (abbreviated, by random, as
PGRICE), and (ii) his _Aspects of Reason_ as edited by Warner for OUP [You
can also see JL's contributions to "The Grice Symposium" which I'm having
tomorrow at home. JLS]. The quote from Sperber/Wilson by Saul is:
Let us say that an interpretation is consistent with
(PR) [iff] a rational [U] might have expected
it to be optimally relevant to [A].
(_Relevance_ i, p.166)
She comments:
On this definition, an irrational U
could well be _wrong_ about whether or not
an interpretation is consistent with (PR).
Jocasta, in the example above, is just such
an U. The interpretation she takes to be
optimally relevant is not the interpretation
that a rational U would have taken to be
optimally relevant.
So far so good, but then Saul goes and writes down the rather hateful remark:
This definition, then, is in conflict with the
previous one.
Mind, if you were to go like that criticising your beloved Grice (e.g. his
Lecture 'Logic and Conversation', repr in Studies in the Way of Words, what
you might well end up saying something like this:
"Grice's definition of utterer's meaning, on p.92 -- what Grice calls "a
proposed definition" -- is in blatant conflict with the one on p.94 --
which Grice calls "the first _re_-definition". But don't rush to memorise
this, since this is, in turn, in blatant conflict with the one on p.96 --
which Grice calls "the _second_ redefinition, version A". Now, "version A"
sounds like a trick, right. And you're right. So don't memorise _that_
either as it is in blatant conflict with the one on p.99 which Grice calls
"the second redefinition, version _B_". And this is, alas, in blatant
conflict with the one on p.103, which he calls the "thrid redefinition
version A", which, as it happens, is in rather blatant conflict with the
one on p.104, which he calls "the third redefinition, version B". Now,
_this_, as any attentive reader will notice, is in rather blatant conflict
with the one on p.111, which Grice calls "the fourth redefinition, version
A", which, in turn, is in blatant conflict with what on p.112 he calls "the
fourth redefinition, version _B_", and if you thought that was final,
_that_ is _obviously_ in blatant conflict with what he calls, on p.114, the
"fifth redefinition" of utterer's meaning".
So much for Grice being intuitive!
SW-related Implicature: what's good for the goose is good for the gander.
For an exegesis of Grice's way of teasing an 'Arvard audience, see
Avramides (who was herself teasing the Oxford Philosophy as she got her
DPhil discussing the vagaries of Grice's meanings). Saul, unable to get
Gricean delightful ironies which you derive from correcting yourself, finds
a little _Relevance_ inconsistency like that (which is the rule with
_serious_ researchers ala Grice, as we've seen) a fatal flaw, and writes,
as if thinking she has refuted RT:
In addition, that quote conflicts with what Sperber and
Wilson say about the interpretation process. Whether
or not a rational U would take an interpretation
to be optimally relevant may also be something to which
A lack access. This can happen in at least two ways.
Must say I _love_ Saul's ways of qualifying things! If anything else, she's
the first Gricean female philosopher I've met who likes this as much as I do!
First, A may fail to be rational and thus be
wrong about what a rational U would do. To
see this, imagine that Jocasta is now the
_A_ for an utterance of (4) made by one
of the picnickers. Jocasta will take
the utterance to concern the Kennedy
assassination even though a rational U
would not take this to be the optimally
relevant interpretation.
Fair enough! You now get a grasp, I hope as to how she (Saul, not Jocasta)
is so much into _mis-interpreting_ things, and making the most of it.
Second, A may be wrong about
U's epistemic situation."
She probably means "doxaxtic/boulomaic" but I'll let _that_ pass, too. And
that's my second letting pass things with her. For Hintikka (great Gricean
he, see PGRICE), _epistemic_ relates to "knowing" (and he probably coined
the word) and you can't be wrong about what you _know_, Saul! (On the other
hand, "doxastic" refers to "belef" and "boulomaic" -- which I take from
Allwood -- to mean "desire").
To prove this she uses the expansion which she used in connection with her
devastating (I've used that word twice already) criticism of Gricean
exegesis in 'On Grice's theory of conversation' by W&S in Werth (now
Kasher) re: reference assignment, disambiguation, and semantic enrichment
(She has her say about that, too, and thinks RT's notions misguided vis a
vis their being exegesis of Grice's thought):
Suppose that I have just left a concert hall in
which I heard Kevin Smith give a brilliant
performance on the triangle. I run into some acquaintances
whom I take to be emerging from the same concert and
I utter
(8) Kevin plays well.
The interpretation that I, quite rationally, think
A will arrive at is
(9) Kevin plays the triangle well.
However, unbeknownst to me
I've only read three bits by Saul, but, _trust me_, when you hear this
archaic word from Saul's lips ("unbeknownst" [to her]) expect some (yet
another) Saulian scenario. Her different contexts for different "reference
letters" in her study of Davis and her own account of what is implicated in
_Nous_ are just too good to be missed, and bristling with mis-conceptions!
my acquaintances are on their way to a meeting
(which they falsely take me to be attending as well)
to decide who should play on the local water polo
team. So for them, quite rationally, the most
relevant interpretation will be
(10) Kevin plays water polo well.
The interpretation that I, a rational utterer,
[and modest, too. JL. Tsk.]
took to be consistent with (PR), is not one
to which A has access - through no fault of
theirs.
This is crucial for Saul's criticism: that nice little phrase, "thru no
fault of theirs". Although for a Very Gricean (Veritable Gricean?), it's
_always_ your fault, you know. Thus he has as one of the conversational
maxims,
(11) Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.
(as a joke on Gettier who was analysing "knowing" in terms of (11)). Surely
a Very Rational Mean-er (and Understand-er) would _not_ indulge in Polite
Conversation like that without Full Access to Everything. I defended such a
Gricean defence of Scepticism once, _Journal of Grice Circle_, etc -- and
failed). Saul, not being a _sceptical_ herself, goes on:
If this version of consistency with (PR) is assumed,
the notion cannot play the role it is meant to in the
interpretation process. It is perhaps worth noting in
addition that adopting the 'rational U'-oriented version
of consistency with (PR) means accepting that the
_correct_ [right, true. JLS] interpretation may in fact
have no psychological reality, at all!
Two points here: My, this qualifying of "interpretation" as having to be
_true_ is sounding to me like Grice's idea that not all _information_ is
true and so that you have to make that _explicit_, too. Aren't Griceans the
ultimate nit-pickers!] may in fact have no psychological reality at all".
Second: note that "psychological reality" (which also features in the title
of Saul's essay, implicating that she finds the phrase _interesting_) thing
that she relies on, which I think is wrong. I mean, no pragmaticist that I
_know_ is anymore concerned with _psychological reality_ matters, are they!
It was Chomskyans who so were, way back in the hayday of, er, Chomsky (see
e.g Wilson/Smith, for _Penguin_). Since the advent of Levinson and
Hirschberg (Hirschberg, with Garland) and Davis, you can leave
_psychological reality_ to rest. Cfr on this respect our Master hisself
[sic. Yorkshire dialectal reflexive being defended here]:
"There is a fourth objection, not mentioned by Richards, which seems to me
to be one which I must respond."
This Grice _was_ great. There he is saying that he cannot answer each
contribution in the festchrift (which included Wilson & Sperber's)
individually, and yet engaging in replies to criticisms that nobody (other
than Mrs Jack) made! (But then Grice was probably obsessed with Mrs Jack.
See _Studies_, p.350) (Interstingly, D. S. M. Wilson, J. M. Jack, and A.
Avramides are all Somerville-connected).
"It may be stated thus: one of the leading ideas in my treatment of meaning
and implicature is that meaning and implicature are _not_ to be regarded
exclusively, or even primarily, as a feature of language, or of linguistic
utterances."
Why all that fuss then about "saying"? Surely RT has it right when they
emphasise that the issue is with "explicating", rather than "saying". Thus,
you _can_ "say it with flowers", no doubt, but it's softer to _explicate_
it thus, and without having to go metaphorical, into the bargain. Grice
goes on:
"There are many instances of non-linguistic vehicles of communication,
mostly unstructured but sometimes exhibiting at least rudimentary
structure. And my account of meaning and implicature was designed to allow
for the possibility that _non-linguistic_ (and indeed non conventional)
utterances might be within the power of a creature who lacks any
_linguistic_ (or conventional) apparatus, but who is not thereby deprived
of the capacity to _mean_ and implicate this and that by things she does.
On such an account I think I would have gotten good prospects of winning
the day. However, in a succession of hatefully increasingly elaborate
moves, the Oxford philosoher SR Schiffer thought he would prove me wrong.
As a result, I was led to restrict the utterer's _meaning_-constitutive
intention to something which is _plainly too sophisticated_ a neuronal
state to be found in an English-destitute critter. A brief answer to that
will have to suffice".
And which I must save for a longer day! Saul concludes:
There is no guarantee that either U or A
will arrive at the interpretation which
a rational U would take to be maximally relevant.
So this version of consistency with the (PR)
is one that conflicts not only with Sperber
and Wilson's other claims specifically
about consistency with (PR), but also
with RT's overarching concern with the
psychological reality of what is said
and what is implicated.
I wish I had something witty to conclude _my_ witty notes with but I guess
I ain't.
Later,
JL
Grice Chair.
Grice Club.
===
Appendix I. For a criticism of Saul's criticism of Davis, see my notes for
Analytic. Some short appendix this, eh. For the record, here are the
sections to Davis's book -- note his explicit references to RT whose
clarification I must leave for the morrow.
O. Introduction
1. Concept & theory
1. The concept of "implicature"
2. Its theoretical importance
3. Grice's theory
4. Grice's Razor
5. Sufficiency
2. Differentiation
1. Quantity implicatures
2. Tautology implicatures
3. Conjunction implicatures
4. Idioms
5. Non-Gricean speech
3. Determinacy & calculability
1. Background constraints
2. The meaning-constraint problem
3. The rhetorical figure problem
4. Indeterminate implicatures
5. Relevance implicatures
6. Close-but implicatures
7. Quantity implicatures: the possibility of ignorance
8. Quantity implicatures: other possibilities
9. Tautology implicatures
10. Conjunction implicatures
11. Conflicting principles
12. Relevance theory
13. Modal implicatures
4. Presumption & mutual knowledge
1. The cooperative presumption condition
2. The presumption of relevance
3. Mutual knowledge
4. Meaning vs. communication
5. Implicature & inference
6. The recognition of implicature
5. The existence of implicature conventions
1. Conventions
2. Quantity implicatures
3. Tautology implicatures
4. Conjunction implicatures
5. Disjunction implicatures
6. Modal implicatures
7. Figures of speech
8. Relevance implicatures
9. Close-But implicatures
10. Manner implicatures
11. Interrogative & imperative implicatures
6. The nature of implicature conventions
1. First- vs. second-order semantic conventions
2. Idioms
3. Indirect speech act conventions
4. The role of conversational principles
5. The principle of antecedent relation
6. The universality of implicature conventions
7. Conclusion
Notes & References
==
Appendix II. For a criticism of Saul's criticism of Neale, see my notes for
Analytic. And also my "MS", UCL.
===
References:
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language. MIT.
(Her DPhil with PF Strawson, when at Somerville).
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Hall.
CARSTON R. Implicature, Explicature, & Truth-Theoretic Semantics. In S
Davis, Pragmatics. Oxford. (the only essay by Carston cited by Saul in the
Ling/Phil piece. Originally in the Kempson collection.
DAVIS WA. Implicature. Cambridge Studies in Philosophy.
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A better example here would be the French-speaking Belgian king
who said, "I'm your Rabbit" to his subjects thinking he was
meaning "I'm your King" (It works in bad Dutch).
. Substitution, simple sentences & sex scandals. Analysis 59
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Mind/Lang 14.
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CanJPhilosophy 29
. The pragmatics of attitude ascription. Philosophical Studies 92
. Reply to Forbes. Analysis 57
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. On treating things as people:
pornography, objectification, and the history of the vibrator.
SCHIFFER SR. In Grandy.
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SPERANZA JL. Join the Grice Circle.
. Everything you always wanted to know about
[insert your pet topic here] but was [sic] afaird [sic]
to ax. Available from the Grice Circle.
SPERBER D & D WILSON. Relevance: communication & cognition. ii. Blackwell
STRAWSON PF. Intention & convention. In Logico-Linguistic Papers. Methuen.
WALKER R. Conversational implicature. In S Blackburn, Meaning, Reference &
Necessity. CUP.
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_Implicature_, RKP.
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JL
Grice Circle
==
J L Speranza, Esq
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