[lit-ideas] Re: The Triteness of Dispositional Talk --as Saved Via Implicature
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 30 Apr 2010 06:59:06 +0000 (GMT)
--- On Thu, 29/4/10, Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx <Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx> wrote:
To take stock:
>have dispositional affects.
--- _E_ffects.
You are quite right. I squat corrected.
--- Only 'do' questions are valid.
Eh. No. That's bollix.
>"Can" questions are otiose at the level of what is EXPLICATED. But they are
>>saved at the level of what is implicated.
>As Searle noted,
>"Can you pass me the salt?"
>is meiotic and an understatement. Via metonymy what is meant is "can you pass
>me the salt-CONTAINER?".
But there's salt in the container. So passing the container is also passing its
contents. I mean, take a 'do' question in the past tense: "Did you take Abigail
to school?" "No. I took the car." "Without Abigail?" "She was in it, if that's
what you're getting at". Peculiar exchange, no?
"Can you pass me the salt?" is generally a way of saying "May I, please, have
the salt passed to me by you - you needn't remove it from the container, just
do the normal thing." Of course, if there was a question of whether the person
was able to comply, the "can" would have different meaning.
>Can implies OUGHT, in spite of Kant's repeated claims to the contrary.
More nonsense. I can, that is "am able", to run down a pedestrian in my car. It
does not follow that I ought to (unless, perhaps, JLS was that pedestrian).
At a loss as to how "implicature" saves the day here.
Donal
Other related posts:
