[lit-ideas] Re: Notting or not
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 4 Dec 2013 18:58:08 +0000 (GMT)
"Pierre doesn't believe it's raining" could be interpreted to mean:
1. P disbelieves that it's raining.
or
2. P has no belief that it's raining.
In sense 1 then if P disbelieves that it's raining then that may be equivalent
to "P believes that it's not raining": for 'P disbelieves p' = 'P believes
non-p'.
My remarks took the claim in sense 2, where lack of belief that p is all that's
implied - and such lack of belief that p does not equate to disbelief that p. P
may simply have no belief either that p or that non-p.
The reference to noting was truncated from my account. Here may I note that I
am noting that Mike actually loves this stuff though I do not believe it: that
is because my notes, perhaps like Pierre's, do not always reflect my beliefs.
D
On Wednesday, 4 December 2013, 18:07, "Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx" <Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx>
wrote:
Phatic's Game
My last post today.
In a message dated 12/4/2013 12:38:17 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,
gearyservice@xxxxxxxxx writes:
I'm with you, Julie. At the risk of being dismissed (and generally, all
around dissed), I have to say, I don't get it. Why are grown men standing
around arguing whether it's raining or not? Stick your damn head out the
door and see for yourself, jesus! Unless, of course, this is just a game
I would call it Phatic's Game.
I think it relates to a recent other post by his to this forum.
Phatic:
>Is there a (relevant) difference between
>Pierre notes that it is raining and Pierre doesn't believe it's raining.
>and
>Pierre notes that it is raining and Pierre believes that it's not raining.
Phatic does not seem to be stressing the fact that he is conjoining a
'note' with a 'believe'.
cfr. the first-person analogues:
I note it is raining and I don't believe it.
I note it is raining and I believe it's not.
In general -- in what is called "neg-raising" (by some -- not Klima: he
preferred 'negative absorption') people do use "don't think", when they mean
"think not". It is accounted in terms of pragmatic 'strengthening' (and
'scalar' implicature) -- or not.
My point about the possible non-existence of the referent of the subject
matter in the external-negation, "it is not the case that Pierre believes
that it is raining" (+> since Pierre does not exist) seems to be weakened by
the preceding clause about Pierre NOTING (or 'notting' as Phatic prefers to
spell this) that it is raining.
Note that by the time Pierre chose to BELIEVE (that it was raining) versus
the time when he merely NOTED it, it may well have stopped (the rain, that
is).
Or not.
But Phatic wants to see if there is a 'relevant' difference, as opposed to
merely Griceian implicaturishly one. Or not.
McEvoy focuses on 'abstain', I would think: Pierre may neither believe that
it is raining nor that it is not raining. And he makes other interestinq
points about the logical non-equivalence of the second two clauses in
Phatic's pair (of examples). Etc.
Cheers
Speranza
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