[lit-ideas] Re: Or not

  • From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2011 22:59:49 EDT

I will consider this example -- a good one -- by L. J. Helm:

In a  message dated 6/22/2011 1:07:18 P.M., lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx  
writes:
Ginger goes to the glass door opening out onto the patio and sits  there 
staring at something in the yard.  I walk over and open the door  thinking she 
wants out.  She doesn't move.  I start to close it and  she moves slightly 
so I open it again.  She sits back; so with the door  open I say (or ask) in 
exasperation, "Well, are you going out or not?"   When she still doesn't 
move I close the door and walk away.  In this case  "or not" is not redundant.
 
----
 
OK. Let's see if we can get to the symbols. 

Recall 'v' (the wedge, short for Latin 'vel') is the INCLUSIVE  disjunction
 
p   v    q
 
1   1    1
1   1    0
0   1    1
0    0   0
 
We shouldn't be too concerned with that, in that 'or not' seems to  indicate
 
p  v  ~ p
 
which is a tautology.
 
But one should get a caveat here. It has been argued that "whether", for  
example, may be followed by things like:
 
"She'll come whether it's hot or it's cold".
 
So, here it's not "whether it's cold -- or not" -- or 'whether it's hot --  
or not". So, in "or not" one has to proceed step by step:
 
--- with 'or' proper (as in "come shine or rain")
 
--- with 'or' followed by 'not' -- the tautology expressed above.
 
>Well, are you going out?
 
We are wondering if this is equivalent, at the level of the CONTENT of the  
message, to:
 
"Are you going out -- or not?"
 
It is worth pointing out that while Grice considers quantity of info to  
relate to the content of what is said, he sees maxims pertaining to "manner" 
(as  'avoid unnecessary prolixity', under which I submit 'whether or not' 
falls) not  as relating to the content of what is said but to the WAY what has 
been said has  been said. Manner pertains to rhetoric and style.
 
Helm himself considered that when in the previous example we were  
considering whether the utterer that was being quoted ("guys, they are going in 
 the 
right direction, or not?") was just indulging in a rethorical  flourish.
 
So I would count,
 
"Are you going out or not?"

as rhetoric. Not in the sense that
 
"Is the Pope Catholic?" 
 
is rhetoric, but in the sense that since it involves a maxim of style or  
manner, it does not add to what-is-said (the dictive content or  component).
 
It is a flourish out of 
 
"Are you going out?"
 
----- Note that the "Well," that Helm uses to preface the 'rhetorical' (or  
loaded if you prefer) question, indicates that it is the concusion of some  
argument. More on this below.
 
When Grice considered examples like:
 
"That pillar box seems to me to be red; in fact, is IS red."
 
he noted ("The causal theory of perception") that Witters is wrong. For  
Witters, the use of 'seems' is non-justificatory almost. "It seems to me as  
though I've had a headache"). Grice sees this as an implicature. But he is  
specific and general at the same time.
 
Grice calls this the
 
D-or-D implicature
 
where "D" (the first one) stands for "Doubt", and "D" (the second one)  
stands for "Denial".

There is a doubt-or-denial implicature involved in things  like"

a seems phi.
 
"a" is a logical symbol for an individual, and phi is a predicate for a  
phenomenal property.
 
So Grice wants to say, philosophically, that the philosophical (but also  
ordinary) jargon,
 
"a seems phi"
 
carries a totally detachable, cancellable, and nonlogical (i.e. not part of 
 the entailment of what one says) 'implication', which he calls 
'implicature'  (Not yet in "Causal theory of perception", 1961. He used 
'implicature' 
in 1964  only).
 
----
 
Similarly, for loaded (as I prefer to call those 'rhetorical' "or not"  
tagged) questions.
 
"Are you going out?"
 
is a simple enough question. What IS to question?
 
To question is to ask the answerer to mark 
 
(1) p
(0) p
 
'1' for true, '0' for false. "Tell me if the following proposition is true: 
 "You are going out"".
 
There's nothing more to it. 
 
It is obvious that if Ginger provides
 
(1) Ginger is going out.
 
one can yield, as per entailment, 
 
(0) Ginger is not going out.
 
-----
 
The doubt-or-denial implicature relates to the use of "So..." (or "Well,  
..."). In symbols then, the logical form of the question (Grice calls this  
'erotetic', the logic of questions and answers)
 
?p
 
equivalent to
 
?(p v ~p)
 
By flouting the maxim, "Avoid avoidable unnecessitated prolixity items" (be 
 brief), the utterer then attaches the implicature D-or-D.
 
Someone is doubting whether Ginger will go out (hence the 'or not', with  
emphasis on _or_).
Someone is DENYING that Ginger will go out (the 'not', proper)
 
----
 
And so on. 
 
It seems that in all cases so far offered a defense of the redundancy can  
be argued for -- at the level of the message communicated.  There was a  
forum discussing this. And someone was saying:
 
"Well, 'whether or not' is such a common Americanism, that what can you do  
about it? It communicates what it communicates."
 
But someone was responding to the effect that the maximally efficient  
exchange of info is what should be valued, rather than redundancies like "rules 
 
and regulations" which do not depend on the logic of discourse.
 
-----
 
Note that the oratio obliqua rendition helps.
 
Helm wonders if Ginger will go out.
 
Since it seems otiose -- 'otiose' is possibly the key word here,  
unsurprisingly -- to add 'or not' in that report, one wonders.
 
Helm says,
 
"Are you going out -- or not?"

How are we to report that? 

Strictly, in oratio recta, there's no  problem. "He asked, 'Are you going 
out, or not?". But in oratio obliqua, one may  argue that the elongated,
 
"Helm asked Ginger whether Ginger would go out or not".
 
Note that the past tense is not necessary:
 
"What is Helm doing?"

"He is asking Ginger whether Ginger will go out or not"
 
"He is asking Ginger whether (or not) Ginger will go out."
 
----
 
One however should allow that when repoorting speech like that, the  
reporter is free NOT to indulge in the same sort of otiosities that he finds 
the  
original utterer indulging in. Or not.
 
Cheers,
 
Speranza
 
 



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