McEvoy is right. Or, as he might prefer, "right mate, yeh."
So let's analyse his account of "if". If I recall correctly, when McEvoy
mentioned the droppings, he did use "or" (which usually, alas, carries
implicatures -- Grice's example, "My wife is either in the kitchen or in the
garden." (implicature: --> 'or both' -- imagine Grice's wife is lying on the
precise border of the kitchen door that leads to their charming cottage garden
on Banbury Road).
But I should have to revise McEvoy's original utterance involving himself (or
'hisself,' as some prefer) or Popper (*)
In his recent, McEvoy notes: "Perhaps it should have been made clearer in my
earlier post:"
This is perferct, right, mate, yeh. One of Grice's conversational maxims is "be
perspicuous", and in his earlier "Logic and Conversation" lectures at Oxford he
even speaks of a grand principle of 'clarity' (perhaps to infuriate Lewis,
"Clarity is not enough").
McEvoy goes on:
"there are two fallacies in the above."
McEvoy numbers them:
The first is that
"this 'proof by implicature' is not proof of truth. At most 'implicature'
proves a meaning meant by someone, it does not prove what they meant is true
(because they meant it)."
Indeed, but another of Grice's conversational maxims is 'try to make a
conversational contribution that is true," and in his earlier "Logic and
Converation" lectures at Oxford he even speaks of a grand desideratum of
candour.
So, except under very SPECIAL CIRCUMSTANCES, what one utterer implicates is
_false_. (This is discussed in "The taming of the true," and relates to what
Davidson calls the principle of charity: "We expect that, even though we don't
know what 'Gavagai' means, it must represent a true _utteratum_." Davidson
borrows 'utteratum' from Austin, who had a penchant for neologisms.
McEvoy goes on to list what he sees as a _second_ fallacy:
"[This proof by implicature] does not prove they even meant it, when the
meaning we (implicaturally?) attribute is one we [the ascribers -- Speranza]
have parenthetically introduced - e.g. fact: Donal is not Popper; and so when
Donal refers to "If I..." it does not follow that the same "if" applies to
Popper; ergo "If Donal.." does not implicaturally necessitate "If Popper.." as
if these are interchangeable for the purposes of the point at issue."
Yet, if I recall correctly, McEvoy was referring to my dropping of the name of
"McEvoy OR Popper" -- and not McEvoy simpliciter or Popper simpliciter. Recall
that for Grice the introduction of "or" is clear:
i. My wife is in the garden.
ii. Therefore, my wife is in the garden or in the kitchen.
McEvoy:
"Yet [Speranza] posts like a free-wheeling-dude implicaturist, with dadaist
pencil moustache and jelly bean ears, who can interchange "If Donal..." with
"If Popper..." at the drop of a homburg. The phrase "implicature run riot" has
been used before against [Speranza]"
who took it metaphorically -- and thus, strictly, false, qua categorical
mistake, since implicatures don't have legs, and thus don't -- kant -- run.
(Never mind riot).
McEvoy:
"and here again is another example - if we can, by implicature, move from "If
Donal..." to "If Popper..." (as [Speranza] suggests), there is, I suggest, no
end of false claims we might attempt to sustain. What I should perhaps avoid -
as should we all, and our children - is trying to claim implicature can NOT be
used the [Speranza] way:"
On the other hand, as S. Yablo (Grice's student at UC/Berkeley) once said --
"Implicature happens."
McEvoy:
"that's one of the problems with it - that it can be let run riot - and that
might be because there is a lack of substantive theory to constrain its
application."
Well, Grice says that one crucial necessary (if not sufficient) condition for
iii. Utterer U implicated that q, by uttering "p."
is that the implicature should be CALCULABLE. It is true that some have seen
his theory as irrefutable. The locus classicus is:
iv. Tom ate an apple.
v. Implicature 1: hard core of the apple included (otherwise, the utterer would
have made the fact explicit).
vi. Implicature 2: the edible parts of the apple, only -- where by 'edible' we
mean 'by humans', assuming Tom is a specimen of Homo sapiens, and say, not my
ostrich pet.
McEvoy:
"None of this contains important philosophy in my view but it does show how
even unimportant stuff can be mishandled to the point of absurdity."
This reminds me of the King in "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland":
vii. King: Important.
Member of the Jury: Unimportant, you mean, your majesty.
King: Unimportant, important, unimportant.
(I'm paraphrasing).
McEvoy:
"What intrigues is that [Speranza] rarely"
Implicature: "Sometimes he does! And THIS is one such occasion!
"puts his hand up to acknowledge when he's gone overboard,"
I thought going overboard is always preferable to going underboard?
"instead as he drowns in his own word-analysis he [provides] more of the same.
I mean, it would seem simple enough to say "Right mate, yeh, when you wrote 'If
I..' it seems you weren't meaning 'If Popper..'" - but instead, with [Speranza]
driving the bus, we go round the houses with some pretend logical analysis that
ducks the basic point."
Having JUST come from seeing "Sully," I'm pleased I didn't drive the bus to the
Hudson!
The original utterance, I have now retrieved it, went:
viii. If I were in the business of seeking free advertising, then the dropping
of my name and Popper's into [Speranza's] posts might be welcome but I often
find the droppings [otiose].
Note that the utterance is crucially NOT:
ix. If McEvoy were in the business...
but McEvoy uses 'I', which sometimes can be used _impersonally_ (As Geary says,
"If 'you' can be used impersonally, I don't have anything personal against you
using 'I' impersonally").
Note, too, that the implicature of (iii) seems to be that if I were to use the
name of Popper that would be free advertising for Popper. By contraposition:
"If Popper...".
But I disgress, or disgrice, when McEvoy has already sent a different post
under a different heading, which I should analyse soon(er or later).
Assuming that McEvoy IMPLICATED some disjunction -- since why would otherwise
dropping the name "Popper" give publicity to McEvoy. It seems more tautological
to assume that dropping the name of Popper gives publicity -- if posthumous --
to Popper -- then one has to be slightly careful.
The implicature of
x. p v q
is different, Grice grants, from the implicature of
xi. (p v q) ⊃ r
Suppose p is
xii. McEvoy is seeking free publicity.
and q is
xiii. Popper is seeking free publicity
and r is
xiv. -- from McEvoy's utterance -- "I often find the droppings [of McEvoy OR
Popper]" --
------ The names of McEvoy OR Popper are dropped.
(Grice saw that the implicatures of formal devices and their vernacular
counterparts -- like 'or' -- in asserted and non-asserted contexts -- or more
generally, without and within embedded contexts -- "or" falling under "if," say
-- was one of the most complex bits of his 'theory' of implicature -- vide his
"Retrospective Epilogue" to "Way of Words". He is thinking of L. J. Cohen (of
Oxford) and his alleged counterexamples, rightly dealt with by Walker, in
"Conversational Implicature" -- but cfr. Cohen's counterattack, "Can the
conversationalist hypothesis be defended?")
It might thus be argued that what was a sophisma (or 'fallacy' as McEvoy
prefers) ain't. It might be two (plural: sophismata!)
Again, in case my point was not perspicuous enough: right mate, yeh. McEvoy is
right and he don't [sic] need free publicity (implicatum). And thanks to him
for his theoretical or methodological (that he humbly calls 'unimportant' when
they aren't) remarks on Griceian implicature.
(For the record, if 'run' is taken to mean as per Plato 'panta rhei', that an
implicature runs may NOT be a categorical mistake -- and I do mind 'riot' :)).
Cheers,
Speranza
