[lit-ideas] Reeve's Implicature (to Winfrey)
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 14:12:57 EDT
I know it's or may be in bad taste to echo the jokes of a dead person, but
this I read in today's NYT -- it would be good to collect implicatures by
Derrida, too.
"Last month, Mr. Reeve said on the Oprah Winfrey show that he thought it
'very possible' he would walk again. He was asked [by Oprah] what would happen
if he did not. 'Then I won't walk again,' he said."
----
In logical terms,
<>p
-- where "<>" is the symbol representing metaphysical possibility.
Oprah's question:
?~p
Reeve's answer
~p
---
Complete Utterance (for Logical Form)
(<>p & ~p) -> ~p
Note that, eliminating the modal operator ("very possible"), it becomes a
tautology:
~p -> ~p
There may be subtler ways of formalising the memorable exchange.
And we still have not covered Reeve's implicature which was: ...
Cheers,
JL
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