[lit-ideas] Grice's Shaggy Dog Story
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 23 Jun 2012 21:01:50 -0400 (EDT)
I am expanding on McEvoy's claim that it's _sense_ that cannot be said for
Witters, but only _shown_. I concentrate on the meaning of 'shaggy'.
"What is "shaggy""? "Hairy-coated".
So, the _sense_ of "shaggy" is 'hairy-coated'.
This enough should be a refutation for McEvoy and Witters.
In my previous post, "A Shaggy Dog" I quoted from Grice. Here some
expansion.
Grice focuses on the adjective ''shaggy'.
In his 1948 "Meaning" he had said that a meaning of a word reduces to what
people mean by that. This includes the _sense_ of a word, obviously. A
word such as 'shaggy'.
The word "shaggy", unless perhaps "brillig", has _sense_. Witters wants to
say that senses cannot be included in things we say, only in things we
show.
Grice expands on the "D-correlate", as he calls it, of "shaggy" (the
word), i.e. 'hairy-coated' (the concept). We say:
"shaggy" means 'hairy-coated'.
"Suppose that for U (utterer), the following two correlations hold:
i. Smith's dog is an R-correlate of "Fido" (where "Fido" is a proper name).
ii. Any hairy-coated thing is a D-correlate of "shaggy".
"Given that U has the initial procedures that he has, we can infer that U
has the following resultant procedure (which can be formulated, i.e. made
explicit in something we _say__), to wit:
RP1:
U is to utter (never blindly) the indicative version of a predication of
'shaggy' on "Fido" if U wants A (U's addressee) to think that U thinks that
Smith's dog is to be one of a particular set of D-correlates of "shaggy".
Given this resultant procedure and (ii) Above we can infer that U has a
second resultant procedure:
RP2:
U is to to utter the indicative version of a predication of "shaggy" on
"Fido" -- or the descriptor, "Smith's dog" -- if U wants A to think that U
thinks that Smith's dog is one of the set of hairy-coated things (i.e. is
hairy-coated).
And given the information that "Fido is shaggy" is the indicative version
of a predication of "shaggy" on "Fido" (assumed), we can infer U to be
provided with a THIRD resultant procedure:
RP3:
U is to utter "Fido is shaggy" if U wants A to think that U thinks that
Smith's dog is hairy coated.
Further, U is provided with a fourth resultant procedure:
RP4:
"For U, "Fido is shaggy" _means_ 'Grice's dog is hairy-coated'".
Grice then goes provide the definiens for "shaggy" (or any adjective, for
that case)
For U,
"X" (adjectival) *means* '...'
iff
U has this procedure:
to utter a psi-correlated predication of X on ALPHA
if (for some addressee A)
U wants A to believe a particular referentially-correlate of alpha
to be ..."
-- where the two lacunae represented by dots are identically completed.
Any specific procedure of the form mentioned in the defininens can be
shown to be a
resultant procedure:
if U has this resultant procedure, it is inferable that U has the
procedure of uttering a psi-correlated
predication of "shaggy" on alpha if for some A U wants A to believe a
particular
referential-correlate of alpha to be one of the set of hairy-coated
things.
That is, for U, "shaggy" means "hairy-coated"".
More formally:
By uttering V ("Fido is shaggy"), U has correlated
"shaggy" with (and only with) each hairy-coated
thing iff
there is a reference such that U effected by V that there is an x
such that
R(shaggy, x)
iff
x belongs to y (y is a hairy-coated thing) and
U uttered V in order that U effect by V that there is an x..."
This is insufficient as it stands", Grice notes (p.133).
To sum up, Grice is applying basic procedures to create a 'resultant' one:
"to utter "p" ("Smith's dog is shaggy") a PREDICATION of beta on alpha
...
if U intends to express a particular R-correlate of alpha to be one of a
particular set
of D-correlates of beta".
More expansively:
"to utter ... a predication of 'shaggy' on 'Fido'" if U intends to express
the belief that Smith's dog is "ONE OF THE SET OF" hairy-coated things
(i.e. is hairy-coated)".
"U has the procedure of uttering a
psi-cross-corelated predication of 'shaggy' on alpha if ... [he is
expressing the belief re
the psi-cross "a particular R-correlate of alpha to be one of the set of
hairy-coated things."
At this point, Grice displays an interest in something like an intensional
isomorphism.
Noting that as it stands, the definiens is inadequate, Grice adds:
"To the definiens we add, within the scope of the initial quantifier,
the following clause:
'& U's purpose in effecting that
(Ax) (......) is that
(ER') (Az) (R' shaggy' x iff x ∈ y".
Note that here Grice is using the extensional set-theoretical sign (x ∈f
y) or 'x belongs to y' (to elucidate the logic of sense that Witters,
without much thought, thought was ineffable.
In an intent to provoke the Wittgensteinians who worship 'showing'
(ostension) over 'saying', Grice goes on to refer to 'ostending' here (p. 134),
as
he relates to the idea of an explicit or explicit definition -- of, say,
the sense of "shaggy".
An act of ostension simply makes explicit what is implicit.
Grice is providing a definition of what a correlation is.
So Grice is making explicit the circumstances by we hold something like a
definition which, using Whitehead's and Russell's nomenclature in
"Principia Mathematica" we represent as per below.
'shaggy' = df. 'hairy-coated'
Grice has to avoid a certain subjectivist line, by which, rather, what we
get is:
"shaggy" _means_ (in U's view, unmistakably) 'hairy-coated'.
"The definiens suggested for an explicit correlation is," Grice writes, "I
think, insufficient as it
stands."
Gricde goes on to say:
"I would NOT wish to say that if A deliberately detaches B from a party,
he has thereby correlated
himself with B, nor that a lecturer who ensures that just ONE blackboard
is visible to EACH member of his audience (and to no one else) has thereby
explicitly correlated the blackboard with EACH member of the audience,
even
though in each case the analogue of the suggested definiens is satisfied."
Rather:
"To have explicitly correlated X with EACH MEMBER [i.e. each ITEM that is
a member. Speranza]
of a set K, not only must I have intentionally effected that a particular
relation R holds
between X and all those (and only those) items which belong to
K [feature. Speranza], but also my purpose or end in setting up this
relationship must have been to perform
an act."
Witters could never understand this, because he thinks (wrongly, of
course) that we follow "procedures" (as Grice calls Witters's dull rules)
_blindly_.
Grice goes on to expand what kind of an act the Utterer is engaged when he
wants to say that for his idiolet, "shaggy" means 'hairy-coated':
"to perform an act as a result of which there will be some relation (or
other) which holds between X and
all those (and only those) things [or items. Speranza] which belong to K."
And here is the important bit: Grice plays Zermelo-Fraenkel and defines,
in an extensional idiom that 'logic of sense' that Witters never understood
and deemed, for that reason, ineffable.
"To the definiens, then, we ADD, within the scope of the initial
quantifier, the
following clause."
"& U's purpose in effecting that (x) (......) is that
(ER') (z)(R' 'shaggy'z <-> z ∈ y (sc. y is hairy-coated)).
And so on.
Cheers,
Speranza
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