[lit-ideas] Shall But Won't
- From: "" <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> (Redacted sender "Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx" for DMARC)
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2014 21:04:49 -0400
In a message dated 10/29/2014 9:52:39 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx writes:
I wouldn't think that it is 'conversational implicature' since the
ambiguity is semantic, i.e. future tense is often ambiguous that way. For
example,
a Serbian nationalist politician Vojislav Šešelj predicted in the
beginning of the 1990s a civil war in which "rivers of blood, will flow." He
now
claims (on trial in the Hague) that it was a factual use of 'will'
(prediction), while the prosecution argues that it was an intentional use
(announcing plans or threatening). Okay, I'll not go on about this, the point
is that
the future tense is inherently ambiguous.
This in connection with Brecht (check the original German in
"Flüchtlingsgespräche"):
"If you inspect my books,
I shall not continue to be your finance minister." -- Finance Minister of
Denmark.
D. McEvoy quotes:
>>Finance Minister is involved with, the 'future' that
>>Grice calls 'intentional'.>
and writes
>Come now, everyone.
The opposition can be between the future indicated or factual and the
future intentional, or between 'shall' and 'will'.
It strikes me that since we have two lexemes here ('shall' and 'will'),
the point raised by Omar K. about 'will' being ambiguous is subtle and nice.
It seems there may be a difference in three examples:
i.
If you inspect my books, I shall not continue to be your finance minister.
--- vs. If you inspect my books, I will not continue to be your finance
minister.
Omar's example, citing from Vojislav Šešelj (check with original Serbian):
ii.
Rivers of blood will flow.
---- vs. Rivers of blood shall flow.
and Grice's example, citing from God:
iii.
There will be light.
------ vs. There shall be light.
"God might have uttered [There shall be light] while engaged in the
Creation."
Only (i) -- Brecht's example -- is in the _first person_ :
"I will/shall not continue to be your finance minister".
God's and Šešelj's examples are _not_ in the first person.
The grammatical subject of Šešelj's utterance is 'rivers of flood'
['will' [to] flow']. The grammatical subject of God's utterance is 'Light'
(Literally:
Light will be _there_.
In the three cases, we may, after R. M. Hare, refer to a 'phrastic', or
dictum:
-- The Finance Minister ceases his job.
-- Light is there (or there is light).
-- Rivers of flood flow.
And in the three cases (although Šešelj may claim otherwise) the 'modal'
element applies to the _utterer_.
That is: either
(a) FUTURE INDICATED or factual:
the utterer merely (merely?) predicts that p (and is not committal as to
desire but merely expresses the belief that 'p' will come to pass)
or
(b) FUTURE intentional:
the utterer adds a conative (or desiderative) element to the effect that
the utterer wishes p to be the case in the future -- hence the
'intentional'. It is the _utterer_'s intention that p.
Part of the problem is indeed, as Omar K. notes, semantic.
In "Meaning", Grice quotes only one author: C. L. Stevenson. Stevenson (in
his then new book with Yale U. P., "Language and ethics") was concerned,
as Grice was, reading Peirce, by this animistic or anthropomorphic use of
'mean' as in
The barometer means that the humidity in the room is high.
Surely the barometer doesn't have a 'mind', so the barometer cannot mean
unless in scare quotes. Grice's example is similar:
Those spots 'mean' measles (Actually, they don't mean anything to me, but
they mean measles to the doctor).
Grice encounters that one uses 'mean' followed by 'to', as in "He meant to
have rivers of blood flowing"). This use is analogous to 'intends to'.
In old Latin, the future tense was part of the declension. In Italian, as
in the modern Languages (including modern English) the use of an auxiliary
seems mandatory:
'will rise'.
The sun will rise.
But the sun does not have a will, so it cannot be the case that the sun
will rise.
Similarly, the sun will not set at 8 pm, since the sun, not having a soul,
cannot 'will'.
It is due to this confusion that the Serbian Šešelj's can say that
there WILL be rivers of flood -- even when rivers seldom have a soul.
Similarly, too, with God and his authoritative utterance, "Light will be
there" (It's possibly different in Hebrew). Light has no will. It is _God_'s
will, the will of the utterer of the claim that is thus transferred to the
'phrastic'.
The point is discussed by Grice in connection with Hume's scepticism about
'cause'.
As Hume noted, 'to cause' may well derive its meaning from 'to will' but it
would be otiose, says Grice, to think that Charles I's decapitation willed
his own death.
Grice writes:
"Alternatively, the paradox-propounder might agree that an ordinary
expression, of the kind which he is assailing (e.g. "Decapitation was the cause
of Charles I's death" would be used to describe such a situation as that
actually obtaining at Charles I's death (i.e. it would be used to describe an
ACTUAL situation and not merely an _impossible_ situation); but then he
might add that the user of such an expression ['cause'] would not MERELY be
describing the situation but also committing himself to an ABSURD GLOSS
on the situation (e.g. that Charles's decapitation willed his death)"
[since
'to cause' is to 'will' in animistic parlance]..."
And so on.
Cheers,
Speranza
-----
Grice: "Sensitive Englsh speakers (which most of us are not) may be able
to mark this distinction by discriminating between 'shall' and 'will', Grice
regrets. "'I shall-I go to London' stands to 'I intend to go to London'
analogously to the way in which 'Oh for rain tomorrow!' stands to 'I wish for
rain tomorrow'."
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