In a message dated 3/12/2015 7:45:20 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx writes: About Banquo's ghost... since it comes up every now and then I will say a few other words about the matter. There are other ghosts and supernatural beings in Shakespeare's plays whom we are supposed to accept as having been there, at least in the world of the play. The ghost of Hamlet's father is seen not only by himself but also by the guards, so presumably it is not just Hamlet's hallucination. The Witches in Macbeth are seen both by Macbeth and by Banquo (who is still alive at this point) so presumably they are real as well. In the case of Banquo, the conclusion that it is just an apparition is reached on the grounds that he is seen by Macbeth only, and not by the other characters present. The reason Shakespeare here assures the audience that the apparition of is not real - to disimplicate, if you must - is probably that the historical Banquo was thought to be the ancestor of King James (for whom the play was originally performed) and so there might have been an impropriety in presenting him as a ghost. I am not sure that Grice knew that, but 'Thus men learn til' they are alive'. Indeed. Yes, it would have been improper to have Banquo as a ghost rather than a mere hallucination, seeing that "Macbeth" was originally performed (and well, too) to King James. Of course, 'see' can be a trick. Since Grice wrote "The Causal Theory of Perception", and 'see' is like 'perceive', we can assume that Grice would have no problem with adding a causal element to 'see', too: alla A sees that p. iff i. A perceives (visually) that p. ii. p iii. (ii) --> (i) Now, Macbeth's hallucination obviously had other causes. And it's here that 'cause' applies best. For, as Grice says, "For an occurrence to be properly said to have a cause, [the usual implicature is that it] must be something abnormal or unusual." The cause in this case is psychological, surely -- and I'm sure King James enjoyed the occurrence, however, abnormal, unusual, or, if you must, fictional! It should be pointed out that the causal theory of perception is studied by psychologists. Grice was no psychologist, so he knew that he could just leave as a _blank_ the specification of the actual causal chain. It is not expected of a philosopher to provide the details for causal chains when they use 'perceive', 'see', or 'know'. Recall that "Causal Theory of Perception" was Grice's attack on Witters, who said that a red pillar box cannot SEEM red (only blue or some colour OTHER than red -- I'm not sure what colour pillar boxes that Witters might have seen in Vienna were, if existant at all!). (Grice's point is that surely a red pillar box can seem red; but to say that it SEEMS red when it IS red is to flout a conversational maxim for a very otiose purpose). My favourite causal account proposed by Grice is that of intention. For A to intend that p, a causal element is involved: A intends that p iff i. A wills that p ii. A believes that the probability of p is > 0.5 iii. (ii) --> (i) There is an element of uncertainty there (whenever probability is introduced) and Grice just introduced it to refute Hart and Hampshire who were arguing that decision and intention were conceptually linked with CERTAINTY, rather -- which surely is a no no. In "Meaning" Grice refers to Stevenson's "Ethics and Language" and Stevenson's account of meaning as embedded in a 'causal theory', which he finds insufficient -- and he spent years trying to tweak the causal element so that it would fit nicely into his grander scheme of things. Stevenson's examples involved things like Smoke means fire. I.e. fire causes smoke. Grice prefers Smoke 'means' fire. He uses square quotes for 'natural' uses of 'meaning', since surely smoke cannot mean. In these causal uses -- that Stevenson borrowed from Peirce's idea of 'index', some factivity is entailed: The fact that the weathercock points to the NE 'means' that the wind comes from the SW. Grice's example: Those spots 'mean' measles. I.e. measles causes those spots. We can use 'mean' loosely here: "To me, those spots didn't mean anything, when I saw them on Timothy, but to the doctor the spots 'meant' measles, and he knows." Hart was fascinated by this observation by Grice and kept quoting it when Hart had occasion to destroy (in a review, and metaphorically) Holloway's pretentious book on "Language and Intelligence". Hart shows that Holloway just ignores this important Griceian point. Cheers, Speranza References: Grice, Causal Theory, repr. in Swartz, "Perceiving and Sensing". Roxbee-Cox, On seeing -- causal approach. Warnock, On what is seen, in Sibley. ------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html