[lit-ideas] Re: It's A Griceian World
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2012 10:04:32 -0400 (EDT)
In a message dated 6/13/2012 11:29:15 A.M. UTC-02, phil.enns@xxxxxxxxx
writes:
I am not sure how to understand trust without some reference to truth,
but my comments were directed at the relationship between meaning and
truth. That is, to understand what a sentence means, one has to
understand the conditions under which it would satisfy the relevant
truth conditions. For the request, 'Pick up the red apple', to be
meaningful to me, I need to understand the conditions under which the
sentence, 'This is a red apple', is true. Conversely, I know what a
red apple is when I use sentences about red apples in meaningful ways,
for example, when I say, 'I brought you a red apple', and I show you a
red apple.
Meaning and truth are not identical but it seems to me that it is not
possible to have one without the other. One cannot have meaningful
language use without an awareness of what is true of the world, and
one cannot have knowledge of the world without meaningful language
use.
---
It may do to explore onto Tarski's deep reflections further. As McEvoy
notes, he (Tarski) just provided formal dress to a time-honoured
correspondence theory of truth, which seems too boring to be true (even if law
courts
can't think of an alternative). But Tarski (or Tajtelbaum, if you mustn't --
unlike Tarski, "Tajtelbaum" means something: a date palm tree -- in Yddish)
did more than that. He defines 'true' in terms of 'satisfaction'.
Grice starts with that, and uses 'satisfactoriness', rather -- for
'satisfaction' is too blunt a concept. Grice analyses moves (conversational
moves)
in two bits:
the root and the neustic
which he analyses as
√p
where "p" is the root, and "√" the neustic. He goes on to analyse Hare's
dissertation at Oxford:
Close the door, yes.
Close the door, please.
Enns is right that there is a correlate between them: they share the same
root, as it were. Only at the neustic level do they differ.
To accomodate for the fact that some moves (like "Close the door, please!")
have satisfactoriness conditions which are not then really 'factual' (or
'alethic', if you mustn't), Grice speaks of a neutral, more general, idea of
satisfactoriness that should apply to ANY type of conversational move.
Note that 'trust', on the other hand, does not need this manoeuvre. A
trustful utterance of "Close the door, please" indicates the boulemic attitude,
on the part of the utterer, that he DESIRES the door closed. It's this
basic level of satisfactoriness (which Grice draws lightly from A. J. P.
Kenny,
"Practical Inferences", in Analysis) that allows for a generalisation as
the one Tarski never cared to propose.
Cheers,
Speranza
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