[lit-ideas] Re: The Opposum's Implicature
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 13 Mar 2014 10:10:02 -0400 (EDT)
A rat is not a possum.
And while a possum can play possum, a rat should be able to play rat.
Or not.
I will provide a more detailed commentary to retain the qualifications
made by Geary below.
In a message dated 3/12/2014 5:33:07 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
jejunejesuit.geary2@xxxxxxxxx writes under: "Re: "many of the usual marks..."
"As JL points out, there's the problem of anthropomorphizing emotion in
animals (non-human animals, of course -- since human animals have already been
anthropomorphed)."
Oddly, I'm never sure as to how much the Greeks (for surely 'anthropos' is
a Greek word) anthromorphed things. They were slightly confused as to what
'man' was. On top of that, it may be argued that 'humanus' (as used by the
Romans) and 'anthropos' do not co-refer. But the point is well-made, human
animals are on the whole anthropomorphed.
On a side note, it may be noted that Geary's choice, 'non-human animals',
while Latinate, avoids the implicature of the alternative negative prefix:
inhuman animals.
When Locke wrote his Essay Concerning Human Understanding, if you look for
the first edition, you'll see that he spelt it (or spelled it): "Essaye
concerning Humane Understanding" -- and he possibly pronounced 'humane' to
rhyme with 'mane'. And THIS triggers yet a different implicature.
Geary goes on:
"Humans, in fact are capable of "aping" a very wide range of emotions --
the implicature being that humans are capable of insincere emotional
displays."
Indeed. The keyword here seems to be: PREVARICATION. I think it's J. Lyons
who says that a human semiotic system (as opposed to a non-human one)
allows for prevarication. But as Geary continues, this needs qualification.
"Are any other animals? Is it possible for animals to dissemble? I don't
know. Could be. We tend to believe that animals have no choice but to be
honest in their behaviors, and in the expressions accompanying such behaviors."
As we discuss the opposum and his implicatures, we should be reminded that
Grice was motivated to improve on the 'crypto-technicisms' (Grice's word)
he found in the work of Peirce.
Peirce speaks of 'signs': there's the interpreter, and the interpretant,
and the natural sign, and the index, and the symbol. Grice found all this
otiosely Latinate, and he said that 'mean' should suffice.
He (Grice) never MEANT to publish "Meaning", but Strawson typed it for him
(the Strawsons really) and submitted to "The Philosophical Review". There's
a variation in years. Grice read the paper in 1948. The thing (Grice,
"Meaning", The Philosophical Review, came out only in 1957 -- just one year
after Strawson had co-published with Grice their "Defense of a dogma". Mmmm).
Geary goes on:
"Maybe. I wonder if animals always take our motives at face value as we do
them. One contrary to all this is the fact that opossums can "play" dead
-- the implicature here is that they cannot "play" alive -- I call it an
implicature, don't know what Grice would call it."
Yes, he would call it 'implicature'. He would refine the analysans
slightly:
"By displaying behaviour x, this opposum means that he is dead."
I would conclude that Grice would count this as a case of 'natural'
meaning. In "Meaning" he says he prefers to speak of 'natural' and
'non-natural'
meaning, rather than natural versus conventional signs. First, words are not
signs, he says, and second a lot of meaningful displays made by humans are
not conventional yet not natural.
The rainbow means a past rain.
is a case of what Peirce calls an index and Grice calls 'natural meaning',
as the weathercock means that the wind is blowing from the south. A
barometer means that the pressure is high.
In 1948, Grice quoted from Stevenson, a disciple of Peirce. And Stevenson
is careful in using scare quotes when it comes to 'natural' "meaning": The
barometer 'means' that the pressure is high. Grice minimises this point.
Geary continues:
"Don't care either. How about them apples, JL?"
Well, an apple may mean various things. Or 'mean' various things. The
_colour_ of an apple may mean that an apple is rotten.
http://voices.yahoo.com/popular-phrases-origin-meaning-one-bad-apple-2718025
.html
"The phrase "one bad apple can spoil the whole bunch" as we use it today,
means that one person doing wrong can affect a whole group of people."
The issue is whether a 'bad' apple can mean. It seems to be able to 'mean'
naturally. Grice dismisses the fact that 'mean' is cognate with 'mind', and
that should mean that we ascribe a 'mind' to the apple. Or to the opposum,
as we shall later see.
Geary continues:
"Never has anyone ever seen a dead opossum "play" alive."
In some Museums (or 'musea', as McEvoy may prefer) there are displays of
dead opposums (or 'opposa', as some may prefer) 'playing alive' for the
entertainment of naturalists. They are embalmed dead opposums playfully
displayed in various playful scenarios. But this may not be a counterexample to
Geary's dictum above that can also be seen as 'tautological' or 'analytic'.
---
Geary goes on:
"In fact, never has any animal (including humans) ever fooled anyone by
playing alive."
While Geary plays with the idiom, 'play dead' and 'play alive' (the latter
of which indeed carries some odd implicature) it should be pointed out that
in my previous note on this, the phrase as well is 'play possum', which
seems neutral as to what the possum is playing -- "surely not chess," McEvoy
may refute.
From Wikipedia:
"When threatened or harmed, an opposum will "play possum"."
"It will mimick the appearance and smell of either a sick or dead animal."
"This physiological response is involuntary (like fainting), rather than a
fully [Griceian] conscious act."
Geary reminisces:
"However, I know a guy down the street who once came upon was a huge "dead
rat". "Lord God" he says he said, "I'll be damned if that ain't the biggest
damn rat I ever seen." Being of a Whitmanian religious bent, he naturally
raised his hands and prayed to God to bless the poor, dead, giant rat's
soul. Whereupon the "dead rat" stood up and sauntered off. To this day he
swears he raised that rat from the dead. Most claim it was just an old
opossum. His running rumming buddy Bo dismisses it all. "Naw," he says,
"that
rat was just playing alive."
---- Most's claim seems to be the subject of this thread. But there are, as
Geary notes, variants.
Bo is applying the idiom, 'play dead' in an ironic format, 'play alive',
and applied not to the possum (as in 'play possum') but to a different
species.
One may want to qualify that it was _God_ (via Geary's acquaintance down
the street) who raised the rat from the dead.
It's self-raising from 'death' in the case of the opposum. Or not.
Cheers,
Speranza
Mike Geary
who, playing the Play Maker in Memphis,
is taking time off from human contact to
finish a play.
Later Dudesses and Dudes
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