In a Berkeleyian mood, Geary utters words to the effect that 'esse est
percipi', or rather than Geary does not care for 'esse' being other than
'percipi', "as far as I'm concerned anyway..." The situation is different with
McEvoy's "afaik".
In a message dated 9/26/2015 1:22:36 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx writes: Geary seemed in a triumphalist mood when he
wrote "Without me
perceiving nothing would exist, not as far as I'm concerned anyway."
O. T. O. H., note the otiosity of the usage of the phrase discussed by
McEvoy when in the negative:
i. Not as far as I know, it is raining.
Grice says (when he was in the mood of playing the Kantian game, during the
deliverance of the William James Lectures at Havard -- he knew a
Harvardian loves a Kantian) that there are two conversational maxims operative
in
colloquial exchanges:
ii. Do not say what you believe to be false.
iii. Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.
In terms of the Gettier analysis, this yields that you only utter what you
know. This seems to make McEvoy's "afaik" an otiose thing to say.
Grice discussed this with Austin. In "Other Minds", Austin gives the
example:
iv. That's a chaffinch.
For Austin, (iv) IMPLIES
v. AFAIK, that'a chaffinch.
And ultimately,
vi. I know that's a chaffinch.
Grice on the other hand, considers that
vii. I BELIEVE that's a chaffinch.
is entailed by the mere fact that (iv) is the indicative mode: notably
(vii) is NOT, in spite of apperances, a conversational implicature of (iv).
This has an interesting consequence, Grice thinks, for Moore's paradox.
viii. As far as I know, it is raining -- but I don't believe it.
Scenarios like that delighted Grice and Austin to the point that Austin
would tell Grice: "You know, some like Witters, but Moore's MY man."
implicating that, well, they share an approach to stuff.
Cheers,
Speranza
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