[lit-ideas] Re: Read Grice ASAP
- From: "" <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> (Redacted sender "Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx" for DMARC)
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 27 Sep 2014 09:09:04 -0400
In a message dated 9/26/2014 10:48:56 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx cites Popper and Witters and adds, about
expressions like "ASAP", "with initially a 'literal' meaning (though where
"possible" in 'ASAP' may be understood usually to mean "practicable" rather
than
"possible" in a way that does not preclude the 'impracticable') to
something much more idiomatic".
Thanks. Indeed, Grice uses 'idiom' and is confused (as we ALL are) by
them. He contrasts,
"He is pushing up the daisies"
(which he takes as an 'idiom' for 'he is dead') with:
"He is fertilising the daffodils"
which perhaps isn't. But then he notes that "idiom", comes from the Greek
that also gives 'individual', and so he has to allow for an individual
meaning what he wants by what he chooses to utter -- he calls this
'idiosyncratic' or 'idiolectal' meaning (both words retaining the 'id-' root
of the
Greeks).
I should explore more the "Got you". Good example.
It seems that an alternate would be to try and (or to) focus on the
logical form of things.
It seems, indeed, and I forgot to make the point in my previous note, that
'really' (as used rather uncomfortably to some by the author on what "ASAP"
'really means') is a trouser-word (an
expression you-know-who H. Paul G. borrows from Austin), and means little
(Austin's example, "a real duck", not a decoy -- he spends some time on
this in his "Sense and Sensibilia", which were notes for Oxford seminars
posthumously edited by his colleague G. J. Warnock).
The author of the original essay seems to be suggesting that the
expression does NOT literally mean *much* (or anything) and that therefore, it
is a
misuse of English (as it were), and that it should be avoided.
In Griceian parlance, the utterer has ceased to mean what an original
utterer MAY have meant when he 'coined' "ASAP", and the addressee has ceased
to
_understand_ what that original utterer _MIGHT_ have meant.
But then, it may help to consider the logical form, which the author does
not. I suggested the use of a modal operator,
◊
to represent 'possibility' -- as in "as soon as POSSIBLE", short for 'as
soon as IT IS possible", short for "p! as soon as it is possible to do p".
◊ contrasts with □, which reads, "it is necessary". I mention this because
they are interrelated, and so, 'as soon as possible', by necessity, makes
a claim as it being necessary that there is no lapse of time allowed
between the ordering of 'p!' and its compliance. In this respect, we may take
as
tautological, or analytic a priori the adage:
ASAP IS NOW.
A: What do you mean, ASAP.
B: I mean NOW. There's nothing which can be sooner than NOW.
--which go back to the inevitable contradiction involved in such an
authoritarian claim. If there is a contradiction, then the utterer is being
either ironic, or more, in the so-called "Valley" dialect, 'hyperbolic'. "ASAP"
turns out to be a figure of speech, catalogued under 'hyperbole' and thus,
triggering a conversational implicature (Grice's example, "Every nice girl
loves a sailor").
It is "◊" and how we deal with it that seems relevant here. Kripke
suggests to treat it as 'metaphysical possibility' and thus making an implicit
reference to 'possible worlds'. A 'possible-world semantics' for "◊" thus has
the addressee wondering about what possible world the utterer may be
meaning. In a world where 'now' does not pre-date tomorrow, and 'yesterday' is
in
the future, the meaning of "ASAP" may differ.
McEvoy suggests, in a more practical vein (perhaps inspired by the
practicality of Witters, and perhaps Popper) that the 'possible' in ASAP be
read
as 'practicable' or feasible to be done. It still seems that the
negation-paradox applies.
As the ne negation-paradox has it: why state that you should do something
"as" soon "as possible" rather than "soon". Surely we cannot be wanting the
addressee to do p as soon as it is NOT possible. Since the negation yields
a contradiction, the affirmation becomes otiose, and understood as 'by
default', via implicature, without the need to express it in so many words.
Perhaps we may consider variants, as per subject line:
i. Read Grice ASAP!
ii. Read Grice soon.
The author of the essay has a joke when he considers 'a decade'. Addressee
gets e-mail from boss, "ASAP". Addressee, who now becomes utterer, utters:
"Sure, no problem. I’m finishing some other deadline work at the moment,
but I can have that for you by the end of Friday."
The author adds in a jocular vein:
"Obviously, you shouldn’t get greedy. Saying you can do it by the end of
the decade is a nonstarter."
Why? The writer is writing in 2014. Note that if the e-mail is received in
2019, Dec. 30, the utterance may very well get an apparently non-starter
start:
"Sure, no problem. I'm finishing some other deadline work at the moment,
but I can have that for you by the end of the decade."
On top of that, when Nerone commissioned the construction of a colossus,
that was later demolished, 'the end of a decade' could BE a good expectation,
as when we hear plans of building this or that bridge, or the expansion of
this or that official building. "ASAP" may WELL involve 'the end of a
decade'.
It may be argued that (ii), "Read Grice soon", does not convey the meaning
of (i), "Read Grice ASAP". By the same token, "LOL" does not convey the
meaning of "LOLOTF". "ASAP" seems to SAY MORE. But now cfr.
iii. Read Grice sooner (implicature: than later).
(iii) seems to be inviting the response, "No, I'll read Grice later",
which seems ironic, and thus a figure of speech (inviting "better never than
later").
The author of the essay is writing a column in the 'job' section (I
think), and I suppose "ASAP" is then some sort of jargon that should not be
used
in (to use a Wittgensteinism) "forms-of-life" other than, say, email
communication in the office (Witters considers, "Brick!" and "Slab!" which
belong
to the forms of life of building constructors, not, say, philosophers,
like he was).
It may be different from "Got you".
If we formalise the thing. Suppose the thing is "buy apples", or "buy
tomatos" (before they get rotten). We represent the action as "p". Since it's
an imperative, we add the proper exclamation:
p!
The addition of ASAP should include "◊"
i.e., in terms of necessity, the utterer is ordering the addressee to be
NO lapse of time that is, as things are, necessary between the 'now' of the
utterance and the compliance of the command. It does differ from:
iv. Read Grice NOW!
But -- in what ways? (for recall that "ASAP is NOW" is a tautology and as
such can be used as an assumption at any step in a chain of reasoning).
Surely 'now' is the soonest possible (and the utterer knows that the addressee
can figure THAT out). But then it _takes_ *time* to read (or finish
reading) Grice (or buying apples, or tomatoes before they get rotten on the
stall). As a consequence, to assume "simultaneously as I utter this order"
(i.e.
'now') seems to be out of place.
I suppose, "ASAP" is discussed in so-called "Usage" manuals, and, looked
down, for that matter. In other words, while usage is important, and Witters
used to say,
meaning = use
Grice started his "Prolegomena to Logic and Conversation" by noting how
otiose Witters was getting (don't know about Popper) and proposing itself:
meaning ≠ use.
To sum up. There's the expression
"ASAP"
which must mean something (as an expression). And there's what utterers may
MEAN by that. There is a divergence between what the expression e means
and what the utterer U means by that. On top of that, some utterers, by
relying on some usage that does not exist (but is merely postulated by
Witters,
if not Popper) may think they are meaning something they are not! As usual,
as Grice said, "Clarity is not enough".
Cheers,
Speranza
REFERENCES:
Lewis, H. D. (ed). Clarity is Not Enough: Essays in Criticism of Linguistic
Philosophy. London: George Allen & Unwin.
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