Re: RT list: Did Peirce offer an inferential theory of communication (prior t...

In a message dated 12/9/2009 3:35:14 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,
ernst-august_gutt@sil.org writes:

Since I am not very well versed in Peirce's work, I would appreciate any
comments and/or information on how others see his work relate to RT as an
inferential theory of communication. I am especially interested in
discussions of this issue in the RT literature, that I am not aware of.

--- What someone SHOULD do -- seeing that they are so 'reverential' about
the work of Wittgenstein, say, and they edit every single of his
'unpublications' -- is to get Grice's lectures on Peirce at Oxford -- deposited in
the Grice Collection at the Bancroft Library -- seriously and annotatedly
published. Indeed, I had thought of doing it myself! The trigger with me: the
rather clumsy way that S. R. Chapman (in her bio, _Grice_, London: Palgrave)
has of quoting every _single_ unpublication by Grice as referring to these
Grice papers. Surely we need at least a "catalogue raisonee". Where are
the People of the Journal of International Pragmatics when we need them?? :)
 
Grice was extremely reliable (i.e. he would rely) on Peirce. There are
various connections. The Peirce Society -- for they are SO reverential about
Peirce that it's more likely we should get an interest in the Peirce-Grice
interface from _them_ than Griceans (indeed, except _me_ -- and I don't do
'American' philosophers -- I don't know of a serious Gricean -- me serious,
ha? -- into Peirce).
 
Grice took very seriously all of Peirce's terminological considerations,
and a seminal gem here is H. L. A. Hart's early ref. to Grice (1948) in his
(i.e. Hart's) review of Holloway, in Philosophical Quarterly 1952. Indeed, I
was slightly irritated when I read Facione (an American philosopher)
holding that Hart predates Grice as an inferentialist! But you check Hart 1952
and his footnote is all about Grice! ("I owe this to discussion with H. Paul
Grice").
 
Of course, Grice was _not_ a Peircean. He was drawn to the ONLY essay by
Peirce that any serious Gricean -- like myself! :) -- should merely consider:
 his essay in the theory of signs. A short essay, which possibly did make
history.

The chain of historical development of Peirce-Morris-Stevenson-Grice is
also interesting. Recall that Grice 1948 (for that's "Meaning" as it was made
public at the Oxford Philosophical Society -- only later typed by Strawson
and resent to the Philosophical Review) is all about _Stevenson_ 1944
(Ethics and Language). As Levinson (in Pragmatics, Cambridge Textbook) notes,
the 'semeiotic' (for that was the proper spelling, right?) Peircean model is
indeed part and parcel (or is it the other way round?) of his 'pragmatic'.
While Morris is credited with 'pragmatic', his historical antecedent was
indeed Peirce. Grice was adamant to 'publish' his views as 'pragmatic' but
the 'pragmatic inference' vs. 'logical inference' features in his
"Valedictory Essay" in WoW.
 
The examples that fascinated Grice had to do more with what in Oxford
Circles - e.g. Parkinson, Theories of Meaning, Oxford Readings in philosophy,
ed. Warnock -- wasknown as the 'causal' theory of meaning. For indeed, Grice
_is_ a causalist with a vengeance. His cursory remarks on Stevenson in
"Meaning" -- and thus to Peirce, I hold, via Morris -- are meant to provide a
'criticism' to 'causal theories' ("I propose to pass over any other type of
'causal' approach of this ilk", he writes, word to the effect).
 
Recall Stevenson's example:

By handling his umbrella, Mr. Smith _MEANS_ that it's raining outside.
 
--- or example to that effect. Grice only _elaborates_ on this. And indeed
Hart's example refers to the 'mean' in the "causal" 'natural' "use" that
fascinates Grice and Peirce
 
    smoke means smoked salmon
 
-- my variant.
 
Indeed, I studied Stevenson rather carefully, boring as I find his prose --
 he is "mandatory" reading for any serious student of ethical theory, since
 Ayer, of Oxford, is all about Stevenson's emotivism in his Language, Truth
 and Logic -- and had not realised of one important finding that Chapman
makes in passing.
 
For _years_ I had been amused by a Chinese website that read words to the
effect: "Grice's theory of NATURAL meaning is a joke" -- "semioticians well
know that all meaning is 'cultural'". I was trying to reconcile the alleged
 'joke' with some more serious remarks, and came to work on Grice's
comments on Hume on "cause" in WoW -- Grice holds that 'cause' is a "cultural"
term, which may have a 'natural' use -- the sun caused the flowers to grow.
Surely no intention on the sun's part. In brief, Hume's criticism of the
notion of 'cause' as applied in natural contexts is that it is animistic and
anthropomorphic.
 
Anyone familiar with the Romance languages will be amused that Grice's
"mean" is cognate with Latin "mentare" and "mentire", and indeed with "mind"
(e.g. Loar, Meaning and Mind). So, to Romance speakers -- and German too,
Guttman, cfr. 'meinen' meaning glauben) there's an animistic element in talk
of 'mean'. Peirce, and Morris, and Stevenson, and Grice, were all well
aware of that. Especially Stevenson, Chapman freely quotes, notes what I call
the
 
   scare quote
 
use of 'mean'.
 
   The thermostat 'means' that the room is warm
 
Surely this is not something the thermostat can _mean_, hence the scare
quotes. Indeed, much of this polemic has been revised by, of all people,
Searle, when he gets so irritated with people -- philosophers too -- talking of
'computers' meaning this or that. Cfr. Noel Coward
 
     teenagers squeazed into jeans, do it
     probably we'll live to see machines, do it
     (let's do it, let's fall in love).

For Searle, the command 'print', for example, uttered by the computer to
the printer, is of the 'natural' meaning variety. It's a 'causal' process of
the scare-quote variety.
 
The big thing with Grice is Davidson here. Davidson made it all very
plausible for all us philosophers that REASONS _are_ causes. I distinguish
between reasons proper and rationalizations. A rationalization (alla Anna Freud)
is something CLAIMED to have _caused_ an item of behaviour. For Grice,
"mean to", recall, is a 'causal' square quote use of 'mean':
 
    Smith means to leave in the rain
      -- hence his handling the umbrella.
 
But 'means to' is 'intend', and if Grice ultimately has "mean that" -- in
its non-scare quote use -- as 'reducible' to "intends that", the connection
with 'intend to' should not be taken so cursorily. Grice's theory of
intention proper has been expanded in his "Intention and Uncertainty" (Proc.
Brit. Ac.) which some serious Gricean scholar should have it published --
along with "Vacuous Names", "Actions and Events", "Aristotle on the
multiplicity of being", "Metaphysics" (in Pears, The nature of metaphysics), etc, in a
Philosophical Papers volume -- alla Austin, and with Clarendon. There are
loads of secondary bibliography on this. A good one is Lombard/Stine,
"Grice's intentions", and in general, works and compilations on the matter of
'causal' theories of perception, knowledge, and meaning alla Stampe. "Grice's
Frown", by Green, is another charmer.
 
Cheers,
 
J. L. Speranza
The Grice Club
Received on Wed Dec 9 10:58:45 2009