Introduction

I did philosophy as an undergraduate in the 70's, and had hoped to do some philosophy after my part-retirement in 1998. I am a poor reader, and nothing was further from my mind than to take on another philosopher whose conception of philosophy was primarily rooted in the study of ordinary language. I might never have looked at Grice were it not for the enthusiasm of J.L.Speranza and others on the analytic discussion list. (For a sample of my antipathy to this kind of philosophy, see my notes on J.L.Austin's "A Plea for Excuses".)

I was delighted therefore, when I actually got my hands on this book, to discover myself agreeing with Grice a great deal more than I usually do with any philosopher (probably because it starts out with a critique of certain kinds of ordinary language philosophising, doubtless if I reach the more constructive parts of the work my capacity for disagreement will revive).

By way of Summary

Prolegomena

Suspect cases he enumerates (at much greater length) include:

• 1. Ryle on "voluntary" and "involuntary".
  2. Malcolm on Moore's alleged misuse of the word "know".
  3. Benjamin on senses of "remember".
  4. Philosophy of perception, e.g. "seeing .. as".
  5. examples related to action
     • Trying
     • Carefully
     • Austin's "no modification without aberration"
• "expressions which are candidates for being natural analogues to logical constants".
• performative utterences

There follows discussion of what these various philosophers (A-philosophers) may have held to be the consequences of the alleged inappropriateness of the usages at issue. Attention is given to what Searle had to say about this matter, culminating in the following concise account of one supposedly tenable version of "Searle's Thesis":

That an utterence or remark to the effect that p, will be inappropriate if it is pointless; that it will be pointless, in many situations, unless there is a real or supposed possibility that it is false that p; and that these facts can be used to account for some of the linguistic phenomena which have stimulated A-philosophers.

Finally Grice gathers together his threads and connects the discussion of inappropriateness by A-philosophers with the philosophical program which he intends to pursue in the remaining lectures. Grice considers that the "suspect conditions" cannot be considered as conditions of applicability of a usage if that is intended to mean that under these conditions the statement would lack a truth value. He considers that the kinds of inappropriateness under consideration are best explained by reference to some very general conditions of discourse or of rational behaviour.

The programme upon which Grice now proposes to set out is the investigation of these general conditions, not with particular reference to the problems of inappropriateness addressed by A-philosophers, but rather "with a focus on their capacity for generating implications and suggestions".

Logic and Conversation

Implicature

1. What is said.
2. What is conventionally implicated.
3. What is conversationally implicated.

"In some cases the conventional meaning of the words will determine what is implicated, besides helping to determine what is said."

Grice gives the example: He is an Englishman; he is, therefore, brave, to illustrate this, indicating that the entailment English => Brave is conventionally implicated but not explicitly "said" (in his "favoured sense").

Conversational implications are a subclass of non-conventional implications (hence the three above are disjoint).

To explain conversational implication Grice introduces his Cooperative Principle, which is:

"Make your conversational contribution such as is required, at the state at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged."

He then lists four categories of "conversational maxims" which spell out in greater detail what this involves:

1. Quantity
   1. Make your contribution as informative as is required.
   2. And no more informative.
2. Quality - try to make your contribution one that is true
   1. Stick to truths
   2. for which you have adequate evidence.
3. Relation
   1. be relevant
4. Manner - be perspicuous
   1. Avoid obscurity of expression.
   2. Avoid ambiguity.
   3. Be brief.
   4. Be orderly.

"anyone who cares about the goals that are central to conversation/communication [...] must be expected to have an interest [...] in participating in talk exchanges that will be profitable only on the assumption that they are conducted in general accordance with the Cooperative Principle and the maxims"

Conversational implicature is then defined, along the following lines.

a speaker, by saying that p, has conversationally implicated that q, provided that:

1. he is presumed to be observing the Cooperative Principle
2. the supposition that he thinks that q is required in order to make his saying p consistent with that presumption
3. the speaker thinks that the hearer is capable of concluding (2)
4. the speaker would expect the hearer to think (3)

Examples of Conversational Implicature

1. Where it is not clear that any maxim is violated.
2. Where a maxim is violated, but this is explained by the supposition of a clash with some other maxim.
3. "exploitation", involving the flouting of a maxim in order to conversationally implicate by means of something like a figure of speech.

Generalized Conversational Implicature

Five features are noted:

1. Even generalized implicature can be explicitly or contextually cancelled.
2. "one may expect a generalized conversational implicature that is carried by a familiar, nonspecial locution, to have a high degree of nondetachability."
3. "initially at least, conversational implicata are not part of the meaning of the expressions to the employment of which they attach."
4. Since there may be more than one possible explanation of an apparent violation of the Cooperative Principle, a conversational implicature may be a disjunction, and hence have a certain "indeterminacy".

Postwar Oxford Philosophy

He begins with the usual disclaimer that Oxford philosophers all practise the same kind of philosophy or adopt the same methods. Unfortunately, Grice is too aware himself of the unity which is captured by the phrase "ordinary language philosophy" and too honest to equivocate behind the pretence that there is none, so he doesn't make a lot of this disclaimer, making of it only an excuse for (the pretence of?) talking specifically of his own philosophy.

Grice subscribes to the following two propositions (as condensed by me):

1. It is an important part of the philosopher's task to analyze, describe or characterize the ordinary uses of certain expressions. Grice particularly mentions that questions of linguisitic propriety may be of philosophical importance.
2. A philosophical thesis which involves the rejection of some class of statements which would ordinarily be made and accepted as true is almost certain to be false.

He next considers three objections to his first credo, that part of the philosopher's task is to characterize the ordinary use of language.

1. Concerning whether philosophy can be distinguised from sociology of language or lexicography.

   Response: Here Grice provides an account of the nature of conceptual analysis as a preliminary to indicating how this differs from sociology and lexicography. According to Grice:

   To be looking for a conceptual analysis of a given expression E is to be in a position to apply or withold E in particular cases, but to be looking for a general characterization of the types of cases in which one would apply E rather than withold it.

   Grice notes that only some concepts are of interest to philosophy, but attempts no characterization of those that are. He also notes that when engaging in conceptual analysis it is his own use which is subject to the analysis, and this is why no taking of polls is called for (taking of polls seems supposed by Grice to be the method of sociology).

   On the comparison with lexicography Grice concludes:

   .. dictionaries are designed for people who want to learn to use an expression correctly, whereas conceptual analyses are not.

2. Ordinary language suffers from defects, namely ambiguity, misleadingness, vagueness, and the incorporation of mistakes or absurd assumptions, which render it unfit for conceptual analysis.

   Response (taking the defects in turn):

   1. ambiguity no bar to analysis
   2. if "misleading" is intended as philosophically misleading, then this is a reason for analysis, not against.
   3. vagueness may prevent a neat and tidy analysis, but does not prevent an analysis.

3. "the sort of thing you say is an important part of philosophy is not worthy of the name `philosophy'. Philosophy is not just a matter of talking about words."

   Response:

   1. Why speak of "words" with such contempt?
   2. There is a "fairly close connection" between modern conceptual analysis and discussions which form a central part of the writings of recognised "great philosopher" (my quotes).
   3. Grice himself does not claim that conceptual analysis is the whole of philosophy.

Retrospective Epilogue

They are (bracketed entries are interests of Grice not covered in this book):

1. Philosophy of Perception
   1. The causal analysis of perception.
   2. The experential quality of different senses.
   3. (The analysis of statements describing objects of perception.)
2. Defence of the Analytic/Synthetic distinction.
3. Defence of the rights of the ordinary man and common sense vis-a-vis the professional philosopher.
4. Meaning:
   1. "necessary to distinguish between a notion of meaning which is relativised to users of words or expressions and one that is not"
   2. un-relativised meaning must be understood in terms of the relativised meaning
5. Further meaning distinctions:
   1. conventional and non-conventional meaning
   2. what is asserted and what is implicated
6. Parallels between language and other rational activities.
7. That phrases like "the King of France" should be considered as genuinely rather than ostensibly referential.
8. That formal logic can be amended to meet the above requirement for phrases to be genuinely referential.

Logic and Conversation

By way of Critique

Prolegomena

I was rather pleased to see Grice's list, for it contains many examples which I have come across and which I have previously myself felt to be unsound. Pleased to see them, I suppose, because my familiarity with the literature has been insufficient for me to have seen these criticised before.

However, after the initial exitement at seeing the list, my eagerness to go on through Grice's further analysis, for example, of exactly what the attitude of these various philosophers is to the usage which they claim to be "inappropriate", soon begins to flag. Grice of course, unlike me, is interested in doing philosophy through the study of ordinary language, so he must carefully sort out this chaff so that he can continue the enterprise.

This I guess is how he gets to things like "conversational implicature", which begins now to seem like prophylactic philosophy applied to Oxonian elaborations of Wittgensteinian eccentricities.

Logic and Conversation

Postwar Oxford Philosophy

Retrospective Epilogue

I'm pleased to see Grice defending causal theories of perception and the Analytic/Synthetic distinction. I appreciate some of the insights he has brought to the study of ordinary language. I don't concur with his attitude either to the value of ordinary language philosophy or to the ordinary man and common sense. I can't get exited about whether "the King of France" is genuinely referential, but if "genuinely referential" has an ordinary sense then I would be inclined to doubt that it is, in that sense.

Conclusions

In summary:

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© created 2003-5-2 modified 2003-5-5