[lit-ideas] Grice on "worth" and "not worth"
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 23 Jun 2012 21:12:57 -0400 (EDT)
"What you can't put it in symbols, it's not worth saying" -- or _showing_.
------------------------------- Graffito contra Witters.
Worth Showing
From:
_http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2006/feb/15/guardianobituaries.booksobituaries_
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2006/feb/15/guardianobituaries.booksobituaries)
"Paul Grice declared, "If you can't put it in symbols, it's not worth
saying," [...]"
Variations on a dictum by Grice:
If you can't put it in symbols it's not worth saying.
If you can put it in symbols, it's worth saying.
Example ("CONVENTIONAL implicature")
"She was poor, but she was honest"
In symbols:
"p & q"
But surely, "p & q" reads, "p AND q" rather than "p BUT q". No such thing
as a logician's "but". Surely there is something that is IMPLICATED by
"She was poor but she was honest" -- rather than the plainer, "She was poor
and she was honest".
Which is exactly Grice's point. You can't put "but" in symbols. If you
can't put "but" in symbols, "but" is not worth _saying_.Since one IS _saying_
'but', we may need to explore this further.
If you can't put it in symbols, it's not worth saying. Witters thought that
'in symbols' means "logical form".
The logical form incorporates the _sense_ of what you put in symbols. You
"SAY" the logical form; you "IMPLICATE" what is NOT contained in the logical
form.
Example II ("CONVERSATIONAL implicature")
"Some students left early" (in fact _all_ did).
Again, there's no way
"Some, if not all" can be but in symbols when everybody understands that
"some" _says_ "if not all".
Note that Grice is talking about what is "not worth saying". Note that he
is dismissing Witters's notion of "worth showing" -- and rightly so.
Cheers
Speranza
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