We are considering the semantics of 'thoughtful as ever' and 'thoughtless as
ever': are the Aristotelian opposites (cfr. his (i.e. Aristotle's 'tertium
exclusum').
McEvoy notes:
"I think "thoughtless as ever" has stranger semantics: the "as ever" can be
appended to 'whatever' but the 'whatever' may change the sense - e.g. from
straighforward to ironical. If PG Wodehouse was falsely accused of being a Nazi
sympathiser and wrote an ironical reply in defence to which he signed off "Nazi
as ever" then we might have a sense where "Nazi as ever" implied "As ever not
at all a Nazi". "Thoughtless as ever" is not quite the same, especially as I am
not claiming my thoughts were especially "thoughtful", but it traverses similar
territory in that I was not perhaps asserting my thoughts in the post were
"thoughtless". To take me to be making such an assertion would be an unsubtle
or crass misreading. In fact, my usage is probably best described as 'playful',
and it alludes back to posts that suggest my contributions are "thoughtless" in
several senses. Remember in a sense "It is as true today as it was yesterday
that '2 + 2 = 7'" (notwithstanding it was false both days), and so (in a sense)
"It is as true as ever that '2 + 2 = 7'". To deny this can be sense of language
is to engage in a kind of stipulation that lacks independent backing and strips
language of the senses it actually has."
Point taken. I guess the strangest semantics is in 'ever'. Indeed, 'whatever as
ever' may be given an ironic interpretant (if that's the word -- I say this
because a Peirceian guessed that Grice had read Peirce when he (this Peirceian)
noted that Grice used 'interpretant' ONCE in "Logic and Conversation," only to
discover, later, a pile of unpublications by Grice on Peirce). Alas, Grice had
a problem with irony. His example in "Logic and Conversation" is:
i. He is a fine friend (+> he is a scoundrel) -- where "+>" stands for
implicature).
This was in the second lecture. Between the second and the third lecture, Grice
was able to discuss irony with Albritton, and he (Albritton) led Grice to
change his view. One of Albritton's examples was:
ii. That car has all its windows intact (+> One of the car's windows is broken).
Albritton claimed that this does not work as 'implicature as irony,' and Grice
agreed. This led Grice to a different account of irony in terms of the word
('irony') and its etymological roots in Greek ('pretense').
McEvoy:
"I think "thoughtless as ever" has stranger semantics:"
i.e. besides a possible interpretation of the phrase as carrying a hyperbole as
implicature, it can carry an ironic interpretation.
McEvoy:
"[t]he "as ever" can be appended to 'whatever' but the 'whatever' may change
the sense - e.g. from straighforward to ironical."
McEvoy would be implicating that the interpretation of the phrase as
'hyperbole' (another figure of speech that Grice renders as implicature in
nature) is more straightforward than its 'ironical' one.
McEvoy provides an example:
"If PG Wodehouse was falsely accused of being a Nazi sympathiser and wrote an
ironical reply in defence to which he signed off "Nazi as ever," we might have
a sense where "Nazi as ever" implied "As ever not at all a Nazi"."
Yes. This seems to work, because unlike the example by Albritton of the car's
broken window, we are dealing with Wodehouse's (not a car's) attitudes -- such
as that of pretense, which makes up for his ironic standpoint.
McEvoy:
""Thoughtless as ever" is not quite the same, especially as I am not claiming
my thoughts were especially "thoughtful","
Hence my reference to Aristotle. There seems to be a continuum here:
TOTALLY THOUGHTLESS -------------- THINKINGING ---------- THOUGHTFUL
------ VERY THOUGHTFUL ---- EXTREMELY THOUGHTFUL ...
-- and so it's difficult to apply 'irony' in terms of 'opposition' ("The ironic
interpretant of "p" is "~p"). Difficult but not impossible.
McEvoy
"but it traverses similar territory in that I was not perhaps asserting my
thoughts in the post were "thoughtless". To take me to be making such an
assertion would be an unsubtle or crass misreading."
Well, hence the idea of a hyperbole. Grice gives only one example of hyperbole
qua conversational implicature:
iii. Every nice girl loves a sailor.
For Grice, a hyperbole "flouts" the conversational maxim of candour,
trustworthiness, and stuff. So that (iii) is rendered as 'sailors are
particularly lovable by nice girls -- to the point that, to tease you, I'll say
"every"". Grice was influenced here by (a) the music-hall ditty, "Every nice
girl loves a sailor" and (b) the fact that he was a retired sailor (RN Capt.)
McEvoy:
"In fact, my usage is probably best described as 'playful', and it alludes back
to posts that suggest my contributions are "thoughtless" in several senses.
Remember in a sense "It is as true today as it was yesterday that '2 + 2 = 7'"
(notwithstanding it was false both days), and so (in a sense) "It is as true as
ever that '2 + 2 = 7'"."
This is a good example. I think it can be simplified by using "p" and "p as
ever" -- adding 'true' and 'false' may be seen by F. P. Ramsey as redundant
(vide Ramsey's redundance theory of truth: "It is true that p" <=> "p".). In
this case "~p" is indeed the negation of "p". But in some cases it is more
controversial, "The king of France is, as ever, bald," as uttered by Strawson.
Strawson rejected Ramsey's theory of truth (although Grice sees Strawson's
'ditto' theory of truth as a descendant of Ramsey's). Seeing that for Strawson
"The king of France is bald" is neither true nor false, "The king of France is,
as ever, bald" may be a good hypothesis for a French historian. (Or not). (For
Grice, "The king of France is bald" is false; and "The king of France is not
bald" is true -- he avoided truth-value gaps like the rats).
McEvoy:
"To deny this can be sense of language is to engage in a kind of stipulation
that lacks independent backing and strips language of the senses it actually
has."
Point taken. Grice deemed that implicatures were by nature 'indeterminate', so
surely 'as ever' can trigger an open-ended sets of implicatures, including the
playful ones McEvoy was referring to.
And stuff.
Cheers,
Speranza
