[lit-ideas] Re: Grice on the alethic
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2012 07:56:58 +0100 (BST)
________________________________
From: "Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx" <Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx>
>McEvoy is right that Aristotle held a correspondence-theory of truth, and
that a theory of knowledge is not a theory of truth (although McEvoy does
not use the Greek word for 'knowledge'). >
Afair I did not mention Aristotle, but yes he - and almost everyone - holds to
a correspondence theory of truth. So do courts of law - you cannot defend
against perjury by arguing that your lies were not lies because they were
coherent etc.
To say "a theory of knowledge is not a theory of truth" is not my claim, for a
theory of knowledge may include a theory of truth. But, as with Tarski, we can
have a theory of truth without any theory of knowledge - without any account of
how we know or decide whether a proposition is true.
D
Similarly, Palma notes that a
theorem is not perhaps the right word.
Grice supersedes Tarski.
In WoW, "Logic and Conversation", II, section, "Truth", Grice supersedes
Tarski via Strawson. Note that Tarski was insensitive to English (or Polish,
for that matter) use, and speaks of 'sentences' (or Polish equivalents).
Whereas, for Grice, Strawson, Speranza, etc., is it UTTERANCES which are
true.
Grice notes that Ramsey is right in thinking 'true' as redundant:
"He believed that it was raining"
is certainly equivalent to
"He believed that it was true that it was raining". Therefore, we don't
need a 'truth' predicate. Instead, Grice proposes to replace, 'true', by
"factually satisfactory" ("The point of the manoeuvre is to apply
'satisfactoriness' to other utterances like "Close the door!").
Grice writes:
"There is a class of utterances, call it K -- utterances of affirmative
subject-predicate sentences -- such that every member of K (1) DESIGNATES
(*this verb to be explained within the theory) some item and INDICATES (*
again, this verb to be explained within the theory) some class."
"Now, any member of K will be FACTUALLY SATISFACTORY iff the item BELONGS
to the class."
In this respect, Grice goes on:
"To say that it is TRUE that Smith is happy is equivalent to saying that
any UTTERANCE of class K which designates Smith and indicates the class of
happy people is FACTUALLY SATISFACTORY (that is, any utterance which assigns
Smith to the class of happy people is factually satisfactory).
Grice's scheme, which is superior to Tarski's, allows to deal with
Strawson's counterexample (unlike Tarski's).
"In my account," Grice goes on, "it is very easy to deal with the
linguistic facts noted by Strawson [but ignored by Tarski -- the
perfomative/concessive nature of 'it is true that' --]. To say that Smith is
happy is NOT to
make a concealed reference to utterances of a certain sort, whereas to say
that it is TRUE that Smith is happy is to do just that (though of course if
Smith is happy, it is true that Smith is happy)."
The reason is obvious and explained via disimplicature:
"If I choose the form which DOES make a concealed reference to utterances,
and which is also the MORE COMPLEX form, in preference to the simpler form
[_sans_ 'true'] it is NATURAL to suppose that I do so because an utterance
to the effect that Smith is happy has been made (by myself or someone else
-- it wouldn't matter), or _might_ be so made."
"Such speech acts as endorsing, agreeing, confirming, and conceding, which
Strawson notes are conventionally signalled by the use of the predicate
'true' are just those which, in saying in response to some remark, "That's
true", one would be performing (without any special signal)."
"And supposing no one actually to have said that Smith is happy, if I
say, "It is true that Smith is happy" (e.g. concessively) I shall IMPLICATE
[or disimplicate, as the occasion may be] that SOMEONE might say so; and I do
NOT select this obtuse form of words as, for example, a response to an
inquiry whether Smith is happy when I do NOT wish this implicature to be
present."
Re-reading Tarski's Polish essay (provided you read Polish) in the light
of Grice's clarifications helps, because Tarski never makes a point about
the convoluted form:
"It is true that snow is white".
---
--- But then perhaps Polish is not what Grice calls an "alethic" language
-- i.e. truth may be less otiose in Polish than in, say, English -- or
Latin.
Cheers,
Speranza
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