[lit-ideas] Re: Conversation Without Implicature
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2011 18:20:05 EDT
Some running commentary on McEvoy's brilliant reply to McCreery on what I
see as "focal ambiguities":
All quoted material by McEvoy's.
"Perhaps I don't understand the term "ambiguity" but I thought it denoted
statements that had more than one distinct meaning ["He was trapped in a
vice"] whereas this post [by McCreery that McEvoy is pasting -- re 'strategic
ambiguity'] seems to concern something that is definite enough as far as
it goes, but where it is left open-ended beyond that point. Deliberate
"open-endedness" seems more apt here than deliberate ambiguity."
I would think that Grice's choice of "vice" is loaded. It can mean
"carpenter's tool" or "sin", but it's not because "vice" is ambiguous. It is
true
that post-Griceians, wrongly, have focused on that particular example and
speak of 'disambiguation' as being involved, but not Grice. Grice even
defended 'pragmatic ambiguity' which is a different animal (his example, "a
French poem") in his seldom quoted essay on Aristotle on the 'multiplicity'
(ambiguity, even) of 'being' in Aristotle ("Aristotle on the multiplicity of
being", Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 69).
McEvoy continues:
"In legal and political contexts "open-endedness" is often valuable, as is
the "wriggle room" left by it, but ambiguity is rarely valuable, since it
raises the question of one's 'distinct' meaning."
There is the rather fascinating concept of "open texture", too, that
Popper's and Witters's friend, F. Weissmann invented and brought to England,
with his persona. A good metaphor, for once, the 'open-texture' thing. I tend
to associate 'open-endness' proper with Chomsky and Nim. But I agree that
L. Helm also used the idea in his criticism of my dealing with otiosities
(etc.) of 'or other', or now, "if I'm not mistaken".
McEvoy:
"Clearly something like the seven types of ambiguity discussed by Empson
are very different to the meaning given here in relation to "math":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambiguity
But then those seven types are some way off the topic as it is being
discussed."
--- Yes. Empson, while brilliant, was hardly Oxonian! His analytic skills
are VERY Cambridge.
McEvoy:
"According to that "math" meaning, something that is _vague_ and thus
indistinct or obscure, is not therefore ambiguous (because it will be too
vague
or indistinct to be susceptible of alternative interpretations);"
This is rather a good point. There's lots written on 'vague' ('fuzzy' is
another favourite with a branch of philosophers), notably after Williamson's
seminal study (Cambridge Studies in Philosophy), "Vagueness". His
paradigm-case, properly, is 'heap'. (Oddly, the development of this term,
'sorites' in Greek original, in the Romance languages, has a scatological ring
to
it).
An early consideration on vagueness was by Lord Russell proper and Grice
would have been aware of that, when he is considering things like his
conversational maxim, "Avoid ambiguity", which, like L. Helm, I read as
"minimise
ambiguity".
McEvoy:
"and something susceptible of alternative interpretations is therefore not
vague in this sense [the problem with "He was trapped in a vice", when
determining what proposition is meant, is not vagueness but ambiguity in sense
(2) of the dictionary definition given]:."
I think Grice is being very jocular, in particular in having 'vice'
embedded in the 'phrase' as I think he calls it -- my previous quotation --:
'to be caught in the grip of a vice'.
So, it's not the 'alternative readings' of "vice" per se, but the choice,
I think he has it, of someone who has to interpret that particular phrase,
"to be caught in the grip of a" --. I find that phrase to be especially
used in collocations related to 'vice', 'sin', rather than 'carpenter's tool'.
So I think he is forcing the example a bit, as it were. While "catch" can
have a very material, concrete meaning ('cfr. "Catch me if you can"), the x
was not caught by a vice, or in a vice, but in the 'grip' of a vice. And I
think that collocations may show that 'grip of a vice', with 'vice'
meaning 'sin' are more common, Google-wise, say, than 'vice' spelt (or
spelled),
as R. Paul prefers, 'vise'.
----
McEvoy:
""Ambiguity is a term used in writing and math, and under conditions where
information can be understood or interpreted in more than one way and is
distinct from vagueness, which is a statement about the lack of precision
contained or available in the information.""
This is actually a good definition.
---- 'fuzzy' and 'vague' then we agree are things like 'heap'. The point,
by the Greeks, being: how many grains of sand constitute a 'heap', say
('sorites', hence the 'sorites' paradox. Wiki should have an entry on that).
Fuzzy is itself now being formalised by "fuzzy logicians" like Harrah.
The point in the definition of connecting 'avoid ambiguity!', say, with
info, is not that bad. But again, I wouldn't apply it to
"x was caught in the grip of a vice",
even having Grice's two distinct interpretants for the 'phrase', as he has
it,
"to be caught in the grip of a vice".
Why not deposit the 'ambiguity' (which is not) in the lexeme, 'vice',
proper, rather?
----
The type of connection with 'informativeness' (rather than information, as
I seem to prefer) may be subtler. Grice said,
"What the eye no longer sees the heart no longer grieves for."
He was thinking that
"The king of France is not bald"
is _ambiguous_ under a reading that does not specify the underlying
logical form. This is a very clear case of 'scope' ambiguity, I think he
called
it (versus 'pragmatic' or 'focal' ambiguity which is analogical in nature,
as in "French poem" -- written in French? pertaining to France? -- Aristotle
on 'healthy' as cited by Grice). Under one reading
-- a pragmatic reading -- "there is a king of France" is exported out of
the claim to become:
There is a king of France and he is not bald.
Under the logical reading that Grice (and I) prefer, it's
"~(Ex)(Kx & Bx)"
--- That is why Grice and I can say, with a straight face,
"The king of France is not bald; he doesn't exist, and he hasn't been
existing since the latest French revolution". The 'pragmatic' reading then
comes as an odd, weak, implicature of conversational sorts.
----
McEvoy:
"This would suggest that meaning (1) is a loose if prevalent use of the
term but is not strictly accurate - as with many prevalent meanings of terms
that refer to linguistic properties: for not only is meaning (2) more
correct but that meaning is, analytically, distinct _and even opposed_ to the
meaning of (1)."
I will have to reconsider that, since I was focusing on McEvoy's primary
comments, rather than his criticisms for wiki variants -- and that would
mean having to take into proper consideration the reference that McCreery was
bringing.
And then there's aequivocality, which Grice adored. As whe he proposed
himself as the master of the "AEQUI" or 'EQUIvocality' thesis ("may" is not
ambiguous in things like, "He may go to the bathroom", "it may rain"). And so
on.
I will reread Enns's commentary on "the Other Grice". Note that this
relates in that I was proposing in the post Enns was replying to, that for
Grice, it's OTHER-meaning which is basic. It would be odd to think that
language
exists, say, for McEvoy to wonder to himself if he should see Dylan (or
not). Language is created for communication. Grice's reflective, indicative,
intentional, cases are always derivative of his social, informative,
imperative ones. My point still holds, though, that provided there is such a
thing as "talking to oneself", such genuine monologues -- with the caveats
that
McEvoy puts forward" are, as I prefer to say, "implicature-free" ("free
from speaker's implication" in Grice -- he was fascinated by the use of
'free' in such phrases as "alcohol-free" and such -- cfr. 'context-free' in
this
piece written recently by J. Stanley, the enfant terrible of
Contextualism).
McEvoy continues to quote a whole passage by McCreery --:
McCreery:
"I have no trouble believing that lawyers would like to see ambiguity as a
choice between distinct meanings, since it is their job to argue for one
or another. But the the assumption that there must be distinct meanings, as
opposed, for example, to a soup of nuances, seems to me, like the
assumption that there must be a clear answer to every question, disputable."
and commenting:
McEvoy:
"The fact that every p has its negation, and these must be distinct - as
they are logically contradictory, is enough to show there are distinct
meanings and not merely a soup of nuances."
Yes, perhaps McCreery's choice was not a 'happy' one, and one may wonder
about 'happy' (felicitious is meant) here. It is a metaphor, but "nuance" is
itself a nuance, and "sousentendu," as I prefer, if we are going to go
French, is perhaps more happy on occasion. Also 'innuendo', 'double meaning'.
I once actually favoured the expression, perhaps after M. Platts, "shades
of meaning" -- but that is possibly a weak metaphor. Grice liked to say,
"How clever language is!"
-- he found that there is no nuance of language that is gratuitious -- and
he found that the hard way, having analysed some idioms invoking 'see' and
the otiosity of saying things like, "he saw a visum of a cow". "Visum" was
a philosophical jargon he coined (with Warnock) for 'see' to have a
correlate object, as other verbs of perception do. He failed. So, it may be
that
'see' has to live (if I may be metaphorical) with its 'ambiguities'.
Grice also elaborated, wildly, on 'disimplicature'. He found that some
verbs are so 'ambiguous' (e.g. "intend") that it would be futile, as Helm
suggests, to go and try to pin down the meaning. So Grice coined
'disimplicature', for situations where we allow the utterer (or speaker) to use
a word in
ways which we would not use. To 'disimplicate' is to go against logic, in
that what comes out as a logical entailment, in a logical analysis of a
concept, becomes something we can drop. We say, "Hamlet saw his father", or
"Macbeth saw Banquo". We do mean, a hallucination. But it would be otiose to
go into prolixity, when the context makes it clear that 'what is seen
exists' is held as not holding. Or something.
---
Finally, a word, alla Occam, on 'sense'. Grice famously rewrote Occam's
Do not multiply entities beyond necessity
as
"Do not multiply SENSES beyond necessity" (Grice's "Modified Occam's Razor
-- books written on it). So, it would to to pay proper attention to that
Fregean paradigm-case for 'meaning': the 'sense'. Grice objected to the free
use of the idea of 'sense' for things he was caring about, like 'or' in
"He likes it or not" -- the 'sense' of "or"?
It's best to see the razor, as Grice modified it, to involve philosophers.
He is asking philosophers to avoid mutiplying 'senses' beyond pragmatics,
as would a philosopher who would come and claim that 'may' has TWO
different 'senses': one which is 'theoretical' or probabilistic in nature ("it
may
rain") and one which is more legalistic or moral ("he may go to the
bathroom"). That is what Grice's AEQUIvocality thesis prescribes against.
And so on.
McEvoy concludes:
"Wider than that, the assumption that a "soup of nuances" can somehow
exist without there being any "distinct meanings" floating in it, seems even
more questionable than the fairly innocuous assumption that there are
"distinct meanings". That "distinct meanings" are sometimes (or even always)
distinct as a matter of degree would not make them not distinct."
Hear, here. This reminds me of a book by Atlas (he studied at Wolfson,
Oxford, and under Grice at Berkeley). His book is on INDETERMINACY (the right
word) and conversation (Oxford, Clarendon Press). For Grice, it's like
uncertainty and indeterminacy (alla Bohr). He does note that 'implicature' is,
in essence, 'indeterminate'. (Not that the word is, but what is implicated
is). But if you read his account, a brief one, for a change, on
'indeterminacy' of conversational implicature (in his Way of Words, now
paperback) you
see he has in mind 'disjunctional' indeterminacy of the type McEvoy is
referring to: "U (utterer) means that p1 or p2 or p3 or... pn" (as he uttered
x). But there may be complications here. The fact that Grice usually left
'implicatures' in the open (e.g. "He hasn't been to prison yet" -- "whatever
the speaker may have implied by that" ('he is potentially dishonest', 'his
colleagues are treacherous' -- this as a reply: "How is Smith getting on in
his new job at the bank?") does not help.
McEvoy:
"What lawyers may say, as laymen if honest may agree, is that if a
practical decision [such as what obligation exists under a contract] depends
on
resolving an ambiguity in sense (2), then it can be done quite satisfactorily
in most cases. The argument that resolution of "distinct meanings" cannot
be done, because these do not exist and all is but a "soup of nuances",
does not cut much ice."
I would agree, and may need to elaborate on that. In a way, it's like
Grice's campaign, a reactionary one, against Witters ("meaning is use" -- a
soup of nuances, so never bother). Rather Grice strongly objected to that.
Meaning is dictum. The use is the implicature. Meaning is NOT use. The meaning
of, say, 'if' is that given by truth-functional logic (Megarian Grice).
Any further consideration thought of as part of the meaning of 'if' (or its
broader 'use') results from an inattention -- which in his best moments
Grice even ascribed to his once pupil Strawson) to the subleties of the
mechanism of implicature (For Grice, the further implicature, 'the antecedent
YIELDS the consequent by some inferrability condition', is conversationally
implicated, which he saw an improvement over Strawson's idea that it is
CONVENTIONALLY implicated, rather).
McEvoy:
"Ditto in "math", I would guess. Other worlds, like the creative ones of
poetry and advertising, may be able to affect a more dismissive stance re
"distinct meanings", though I would guess even in these worlds this does not
extend to the bottom line."
Well, perhaps what Grice (as creator of "Modified Occam's Razor) says
about other PHILOSOPHERS is another case in point. I am thinking he is having
L. J. Cohen in mind. Cohen, in his "Diversity of meaning" had criticised
Grice/Strawson, "In defense" (or defence if you must) of a dogma. Cohen will
later go on to oppose Grice's "conversationalist hypothesis" to what Cohen
called the semantic hypothesis. E.g. 'and' has two meanings or senses: in
one it means what logicians mean:
"She took off her knickers and went to bed"
equivalent to:
"She went to bed and took off her knickers".
and another sense, Cohen claimed, where it means,
"and THEN". Grice (as Urmson, Strawson, and most Oxford 'ordinary-language
philosophers', except perhaps Cohen -- of Queen's College, Oxford) would
rather than 'and then' anyday as a conversational implicature derived from
the utterer's appealing to the conversational maxim:
'be orderly' (in what you report).
It does not involve a different 'sense' of "and". "And" is NOT ambiguous,
and so on.
The way Grice dealt with these issues, and the time when he did it --
early 1940s onwards -- indicates his reactionary nature and points to his
interests having always been 'metaphilosophical', as involved with some of the
idiocies that other philosophers say, rather than the nature of language per
se -- which he possibly, like I, on a good day -- find pretty obvious for a
serious professional philosopher to concentrate too much on ("He is a
philosopher of language" -- or in general "of X" minimises 'he' to the point
of
absurdity).
And so on.
Cheers,
Speranza
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