[lit-ideas] Re: Does the sign say its own sense? An Austrian example
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2012 10:09:10 -0400 (EDT)
In a message dated 4/24/2012 9:27:09 A.M. UTC-02, donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx
writes:
5. A statement does not state its own sense.
6. The sense of a statement is not stated by the statement.
It may do to play a little with 'state' here, since it was Strawson's
favourite.
Strawson's claim to fame, Grice knew it, was to argue against Russell (Lord
Russell as he then was). Russell replied, wittily by writing on "Mister
Strawson on referring" -- note the derogatory use of "mister" (Strawson was
still not a knight).
Grice quotes from Strawson's "On referring". Grice also quotes (he seldom
quotes specific essays) from Strawon's "Truth". In "Truth" (the Bristol
symposium) Strawson argued for the primacy of 'statement'.
Grice knew better.
To 'state' is what Grice calls a primary speech act. (He does acknowledge
Austin there). There are other speech acts which are less primary:
"he added"
"he suggested"
"he clarified"
"he contrasted"
-- Etc. These are secondary speech acts. Primary speech acts come in two
types only since they resolve around the TWO capacities of reason:
the will ---------- speech act of ORDERING
the belief-system ---- speech act of STATING.
So, there's no way we can analyse 'state' unless we analyse 'belief', or
better, 'believe'.
By stating "the cat is on the mat", the utterer STATED that the cat was on
the mat. There's no way a statement STATES. Utterers STATE.
Hence, the above is best reworded as:
"By uttering, "the cat is on the mat", the utterer STATED that the cat is
on the mat.
Note that as Grice notes, 'state' is best used in the past tense. Surely
it would be otiose to keep on asking, 'what is HE stating?'. We may only
care to look in retrospect as to whether someone did was an act of statement or
not (Grice was similarly concerned with reports in past tense of what an
utterer MEANT as opposed to "IMPLIED", and so on).
----
He was even involved with 'say', which some have rephrased as EXplicature.
Surely if we can IMply things, we can also EXply then. (Explicate).
None of this is clear in Witters.
The German language does not help. The lack of Graeco-Roman equivalents
makes it difficult for philosophers imbued in Graeco-Roman (classical)
philosophy to try and see what Witters meant by 'statement', which he never
used.
----
In any case, for Grice, the thing is easy enough. There is no need to
postulate a priority of 'state'. Surely 'state' is just a 'neustic', as he
said.
There is
.p
and
!p
The sense is the same:
"The cat is on the mat".
In the case of the statement, the direction of fit (Grice uses this alla
Grice/Anscombe) is to represent a 'state of affairs'. It's the belief on the
part of the utterer that the cat IS on the mat.
For an other
"Let the cat be on the mat"
the 'sense', as it were, is the same. It's the direction of fit that
changes. The utterer expresses its rational will (surely we don't follow orders
from automata) that the cat be on the mat (for whatever reason the utterer
may not care to display -- but we may care to have it 'explicited' if we are
going to care to follow the order).
And so on.
So, while McEvoy thinks he is being generous by providing paraphrases for
Witters' obscure claim (and the corollaries which McEvoy thinks deep that he
draws from it) it may not just do to drop 'statement' when you won't drop
its implicatures of the best Griceian sort.
Just to note the Graeco-Roman history behind this.
We say:
"Is the cat on the mat?"
The MODE (never mood) is still INDICATIVE. But surely a question does not
'indicate' that the cat is on the mat. This does not mean that there is an
'interrogative' mode.
But some philosophers who have not weighed questions of usage sometimes use
'indicative' to mean 'declarative' to cover 'statements'. "Statement" is
an Anglophone coinage. Cicero and Quintilian do not speak about
'statements'.
Medieval philosophers who were into 'modism' (the modistae) did consider
the philosophy of moods, or modes, and aimed at clarifying what we mean by
'modus indicativus' and why 'declarativus' may be a good thing to have.
Grice invented the conversational implicature (almost) which is a bit of an
understatement. There are also overstatements. McEvoy's claim about the
statement, since it would not cover that realm of communication which an
overstatement or an understatement (an implicature, miscalled) provide lacks
the analytic generality that philosophical claims should be looking at. And
so on. Or not.
Cheers,
Speranza
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