[lit-ideas] Re: Between the Esophagus and the Duodenum
- From: "" <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> (Redacted sender "Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx" for DMARC)
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 6 Jun 2014 07:10:51 -0400 (EDT)
Grice once complained that Austin would often mistake
expression-implication from utterer's implication -- but then, he felt, that
was better than
Witters "who ALWAYS ignored the distinction".
In a message dated 6/6/2014 2:21:47 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:
The information G gives takes the question in a different "sense" to that
intended, and this is where the humour lies: in the move between different
senses and the fact the "senses" are underdetermined by the words used so
that language leaves open this shift in senses: Where is my fish?" can have
many "senses" in this sense. It could have the sense of asking 'Could you
inform me of the present location of my fish'? It could have the sense of
being a contraction of "Where the heck has my fish gone?" where its sense is
as an expression of alarm or shock about something missing (rather than a
request for information) i.e. it has a "sense" equivalent to "My fish has
gone!!"
G isn't being informative at all because he does not speak his answer, and
his excessive medical detail in language is a further joke about this -
that he uses excessively informative language in his head when he is not
informing on himself at all but staying silent and covering up.
I could go on but it will get steadily unfunnier.
There is nothing specifically Griceian about this humour afaicansee and
the idea that it trades on giving 'too much information' in Grice's terms is
a mistake borne of seeking to shoehorn the example into those terms.
In the above, McEvoy makes a reference to 'sense'. "Sense" of course is
ambiguous. I once played with Grice's
Senses should not be multiplied beyond necessity.
Senses-1 should not be multiplied-2 beyond necessity-3.
vs
Senses-2 should not be multiplied-1 beyond necessity-4.
There is an idea that 'senses' are FOUR:
up
down
to the right
and to the left.
A sense is more like a direction -- as in 'he lacks a sense of direction'
(strictly: he lacks a sense of sense). Compasses help us find the right
'sense'.
Now, I would argue that
Where is my fish?
EXPLICATES something and IMPLICATES another. I wouldn't say it STATES
something because questions don't state. It is an x-question (rather than a
yes/no question), and the straight answers to it are along Garfield's lines:
"Right now?" (he prefaces the answer, emphasising the present-tense, versus
"where will my fish be?") "SOMEwhere between the esophagus and the
duodenum", which McEvoy refers to as 'medical talk' -- but I rather have it as
'anatomical talk', unless there's something medical in the condition of
Garfield's parts of the body.
Now, McEvoy argues that the 'main' sense of the question is not a request
for location, but "is equivalent to" an exclamation of surprise, "My fish
has gone!". I would argue this is an IMPLICATURE. The whole point of Grice's
idea of implicature (wedded to his "Senses should not be multiplied beyond
necessity") is aimed at dealing with cases like these. Notably Strawson's
idea that 'if' STATES inferrability, where for Grice is merely
'truth-functional' (p ) q; if p, q). To think that it is part of the _sense_
of 'if' to
express 'inferrability' is mistaken, and due to an implicature: it is part
of the 'use', if you will, of 'if', that you expect your
co-conversationalist to use 'if' if he has non-truth-functional grounds to
utter 'if p, q'.
Grice noted that philosophers are all too ready to postulate different
senses -- some more important than others -- and obliterate (if that's the
word)
the one and only sense that expressions have -- their LITERAL sense.
The logical form
Where is my fish?
[?](Ex)fx
-- where 'f' stands for 'fish'.
Garfield is being a _literalist_ and thus 'sticking' with the one-and-only
sense of the question.
McEvoy is right that we are stretching the issue in that Garfield is only
THINKING and would never CARE to provide an answer to his owner's stupid
question anyways [sic] -- But we can interpret his thought as a 'hypothetical'
answer ("If I were to answer your question, I'd say, "Right now? Somewhere
between the esophagus and the duodenum").
The fact that "Where is my fish?" does not seem to have the _sense_ of "My
fish has gone!" seems to be confirmed by the fact that "My fish has gone!"
does not require an answer, and so there must be something (the 'sense',
actually) behind the owner's way of putting things "in those words" or terms.
Cheers,
Speranza
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