The notion of 'implicature', according to Popper, WOULD fall within what he
calls 'the three realms' or worlds -- w1, w2, and w3.
I was quoting (vi) implicatures by Zsa Zsa Gabor (not an Oxonian philosopher,
but then neither was Popper).
We may add (vii) as another illustration:
(vii) How many husbands have I had? You mean apart from my own?
And yet another:
(viii) I'm a great housekeeper. I get divorced. I keep the house.
For Popper, each utterance involves a physical aspect (his w1), a psychological
framework (Gabor's intentions at the time of uttering -- or her ghost-writers'
intentions at the time of 'ghost-writing' -- Popper's w2) and the propositional
content or logical form (Popper's w3).
The implicature usually depends on some 'informality' in w3, i.e. its logical
form.
But since it is transmitted through the "vehicle" of a psychological notion
which is sometimes 'counterfactual' in nature (Gabor's or her writers's
intentions -- for which the evidence is indirect), as recognised by the
addressee of the utterance (in yet another psychological construct, a belief in
this case) this may pose a problem to a Popperian. Or not, of course. It may
depend what Popper we are referring to.
In (vii), the impicature trades on the Hungarian 'husband' and 'have'.
Gabor implicates that to have been asked, "How many husbands have you MARRIED?"
would be too prolixic (cfr. Grice, "Avoid prolixity of expression [sic] -- be
brief]).
She further implicates that the informal use of 'have' invites the implicature
she exploits in her repartee.
By displaying a faked 'misunderstanding' of the the point of the original
question, she is further implicating that it's none of the questioner's
business.
In (vii), Gabor implicates that Hungarian lacks the typical Americanism
"house-keeper", and thus trades on the LITERALNESS of 'keep a house' which is
never lost in Hungarian translation (since it's the mere mereological sum of
'keep' + 'house').
But perhaps bringing in Popper here (he not being an Oxonian philosopher, but
then again neither was Zsa Zsa Gabor) may miss the point, if Gabor had one.
As McEvoy rightly points out,
"[...] Popper avoided the swamps of meaning-analysis like they were
plague-ridden."
This is not a metaphor. Not a metaphor would be to state that Popper avoided,
say, implicatural analysis, because he thought implicatural analysis was
plague-ridden." To avoid something "like [it is] plague-ridden," which has the
logical form of a simile, may invite the repartee: "While 'like'?" Admittedly,
on the other hand, a non-metaphorical variant invites the implicatue that Grice
may be literally a plague. This was indeed the point of the continental
philosopher Gustav Bergmann when he called Grice, and in his face, too, as
cited by Gellner, "Words and Things", 'you futilitarian, you!' (Grice was
inviting Bergmann to attend a session of linguistic botanising on a Saturday
morning).
Therefore, both
vii) How many husbands have I had? You mean apart from my own?
(viii) I'm a great housekeeper. I get divorced. I keep the house.
seem transparent enough, for a Popperian, from a w1 point of view. They are
just utterances, perhaps uttered with a slight accented pattern (the NYT
transcribes Gabor's 'dahling' as "dahlink," and her description of her
"Minerva" (in the Batman series) as "a real vicked voman").
From the w3 point of view they may be transparent, too, in that the logical
forms can be given for each part of the utterances (e.g. "How many husbands
have you had" becoming "have you married", etc.).
It is at the level of the w2, the psychological intention, that Grice calls the
m-intention, that Popper (or Eccles, depending on what chapter of their joint
essay you're reading -- it's an essay on dualism) is that you may encounter a
problem or two from the point of view of a philosophy of science.
Granted, Popper the philosopher might not have had qualms about implicature,
but perhaps Popper _the philosopher of science_ would.
Grice didn't because, well, he wasn't a philosopher of science (even if he had
qualms with approaches to 'intention' other than his own: notably Ryle's
behaviouristic one, and Hampshire's vacuous one).
And so on.
So the issue is _very_ complex.
The issue of the falsifiability of implicature has been expanded by authors
like Kroch ("Lexical and inferred meanings for some time adverbs") and Sadock
("On testing for conversational implicature") who may have drawn some
inspiration from Popper -- and some from someplace else (Popper is a place,
metaphorically).
Cheers,
Speranza
i. I call everyone 'darling' because I can't remember their names.
ii. I never hated a man enough to give him diamonds back.
iii. I don't take gifts from perfect strangers -- but then, nobody is perfect.
iv. I don't remember anyone's name. How do you think the 'dahling' thing got
started?
v. I like a mannish man: a man who knows how to talk to and treat a woman --
not just a man with muscles.
vi. I want a man that's kind and understanding. Is that too much to ask of a
millionaire?
