M. J. Murphy writes:
>What are the main points of distinction
>between RT and the Gricean paradigm?
>[RT] assumes that it is
>the *enriched proposition* [emphasis mine. JLS]
>(logical kernel + pragmatics)
>that should be judged for truth value.
>Can a non-arbitrary pragmatics/semantics
>boundary be maintained? I doubt that it can,
>and have been arguing as much with
>Speranza for years.
Murphy doubts that it can, I doubt that it can't. Etc. And the debate
ensues...
Anyway, I would like to share a point or two about Murphy's reference above
to 'the enriched proposition'.
Indeed, _semantic_ enrichment (for this is what it is, is it) is one of the
three elements (at least in Wilson/Sperber, 'On Grice's Theory of
Conversation') that make up, for RT -- _contra_ 'the Gricean programme (or,
as I prefer, channel) -- for the content of the "explicature" (the other
two are reference-assignment and disambiguation).
One way to characterise the idea of 'enrichment' (thus listed in index to
Sperber/Wilson's _Relevance_) is perhaps to contrast is with what I call
"impoverishment"
which is what some logicians have been doing since at least _Principia_
(cf. Grice's remarks on Quine in 'Reply to Richards', PGRICE, -- R.
Grandy/R. Warner, Philosophical Grounds of Rationality: Intentions,
Categories, Ends, p.68) and Strawson's review of Quine, 'A Logician's
Landscape' in _Philosophy_).
Consider the grammatical category of _number_. I suggest that the way the
category of number is encoded in a natural language such as English
illustrates this idea of impoverishment.
Let me explain. It is a commonplace in logic (see Grice, WOW -- Studies in
the Way of Words -- p. 22) that the existential quantifier "(Ex)" is
_number_indifferent. Grice provides 'some' as its natural-language
counterpart, and even neo-Traditionalists (as Grice calls them) like
Warnock and Strawson have conceded that the 'singular-plural' distinction
is perhaps merely "implicatural" ("implicaturish"):
"If there is, say, a green book on my table,
then it is at any rate _true_, for what it
is worth, even, perhaps, by stretching matters
a little, that some books are green."
G. J. Warnock, 'Metaphysics in Logic'
in A. Flew, _Essays in Conceptual Analysis_, p. 91.
"To say that some tigers are [not] fierce
would normally be taken to imply that there
was more than one tiger which was [not]
fierce."
P. F. Strawson, _Introduction to Logical
Theory_, p. 166.
So, the question is -- should the 'singular-plural' distinction pertain to
the 'implicature' or it is part of the 'explicature' (of "(Ex)"? And so on.
One guesses that, for any argument on the part of the 'enricher', there
will be a counter-argument on the part of the 'impoverisher' to keep the
_modernist_ apparatus (as Grice calls it) as it stands...
(I am speaking vaguely but I hope not wholly unintelligibly).
Cheers,
JL
==
J L Speranza, Esq
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St Michael's Hall Suite 5/8
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La Plata CP 1900 Recoleta CP 1124
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BUENOS AIRES, Argentina
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http://www.netverk.com.ar/~jls/
jls@netverk.com.ar
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