[lit-ideas] Marmaduke Bloggs

From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Sun, 10 Jun 2012 09:32:50 -0400 (EDT)
Or the man who climbed Mt. Everest, on hands and knees. 
 
Grice, The Unpublications
 
In a message dated 6/10/2012 6:07:18 A.M. UTC-02, donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx 
 writes:
>>"speranza does not exists [sic], extemporary notes on the  relevance of 
non implicated facts"
>If JLS hasn't read it, it doesn't exist. Must be fake.*
*Experts can  deduce this from the title, for Grice was fluent in English 
whereas the title  would appear to [be] badly translated from [the] Chinese. 
 
When Horn was writing (as opposed to speaking) on negation, he mentioned  
"unpublication" by Grice. So we did a little research. 

Grandy/Warner  were compiling a list of "The Publications of H. P. Grice", 
for the PGRICE  festschrifft ("Philosophical Grounds of Rationality: 
Intentions, Categories,  Ends" -- note the acronym PGRICE -- Clarendon Press 
had 
said: "No way Grice can  feature in the title of the book: nobody buys 
festschrifts"). It came out as  "The Publications of H. P. Grice". On the 
opposite 
page, Grandy/Warner have what  they call:
 
"The 'Unpublications' of H. P. Grice" _sic_ in scare quotes. In "Reply to  
Richards", Grice writes that the number of his unpublications by far exceeds 
 that of his publications.
 
We discussed, briefly, with Horn, the meaning of 'unpublication'. As Horn  
interprets the term, it means a paper by Grice which has not been published. 
 Note that 'un-' can have broader meaning, as in unGod. And so on.
 
Grice has a paper on "Vacuous Names" -- a publication rather. He was  
careful about questions about alleged non-existentials. "Pegasus does not  
exist", for example, is treated implicaturally as meaning: "Pegasus is no  
spatio-temporal continuant". Grice's example is "Marmaduke Bloggs", the  
Merseyside 
geographer who climbed up Mt Everest on hands and knees". The  Merseyside 
Geographical Society is having a meeting in his honour. At the  meeting, the 
following conversation takes place:
 
"But you know Marmaduke Bloggs doesn't exist."

 
"What do you mean?"
 
"He doesn't. He was invented by the journalists."
 
"So someone will not be attending this party."
 
"I don't think you've heard what I've just said: Marmaduke Bloggs does not  
exist."
 
"I did hear you distinctly."
 
Grice is arguing that, even in the scenario where Marmaduke Bloggs does not 
 exist (-Vx.Ax), one is allowed, by account of the inference rule, to 
proceed to  substitute quantificationally: "Someone won't be attending this 
party". This for  Grice stems from the fact that, explicaturally, "-" 
(negation) 
always has  maximal scope ("It is not the case that someone will be 
attending the party").  Grice notes that his account of 'vacuous names' (and 
'descriptions') in no way  creates a Meinongian jungle. 
 
And so on.
 
Cheers,

Speranza
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