In a message dated 1/22/2004 3:28:01 PM Eastern Standard Time,
lucabaptista@sapo.pt quotes from
Erving Goffman's definition[...] of "co-presence":
“Persons must sense that they are close enough to be perceived in whatever
they are doing, including their experiencing of others, and close enough to be
perceived in this sensing of being perceived.” (Behavior in Public Places,
1963, p. 17)
“When in each other’s presence individuals are admirably placed to share a
joint focus of attention, perceive that they do so, and perceive this
perceiving.” (The Interaction Order, 1983, p.3).
As far as I know, this is a kind of "mutual manifestness" _avant la lettre_.
Any thoughts?
------
Well, it would be interesting to see if Goffman relies (as I don't think he
does not) on Schelling (T. Schelling, The strategy of conflict, 1960, Harvard
UP) -- who must have been one of the first -- in the analytic tradition that
Goffman may _not_ represent -- to consider the _logical_ problems involved in
_mutuality_ (or 'commonness') -- and why it is (or it is not) required in an
analysis of the necessary and sufficient conditions for communication -- as
recognized by D. Lewis 1969 (Harvard PhD 1967), Schiffer 1972 (DPhil Oxon 1971),
and the other Griceans -- neo- and post-.
Schelling seems to antedate Grice's (1967) ideas on the 'common ground
status' allowed to certain items of information (as per Studies in the Way of Words,
66ff). Note that while Grice seems to get away with Schiffer's specific idea
that 'mutualness' (of knowledge) [cf. Lewis's 'accomodation'], he appeals,
instead, to a general related "'anti-deception' clause" (WOW, p. 104, cf. "in
communication in a certain sense all must be public", WOW, p. 367). It is worth
noting too that Grice's notion of 'common ground status' is directed, rather,
to solve problems concerning the definition of 'presupposition' as a type of
implicature (e.g. WOW, p.280).
Sociologists like Goffman (and later-day ethnomethodologists like Sacks and
Co. -- including 'conversation analysts') seem to be, on the other hand, more
interested in providing an informal (hence 'ethnomethodological')
_phenomenology_ of social acts (in the tradition of Weber, Parsons, and Schuetz), rather
than the primarily philosophical analyses of the Gricean tradition.
Perhaps Goffman's 'co-presence' is more related to Grice's idea of
'co-operation' (the cooperative principle, that is), at least when we have Goffman
talking of 'a joint focus of attention' -- and how this may or may not generate
expectations of relevancy.
Cheers,
JL
J L Speranza
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