[lit-ideas] Understanding as Factive

From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2009 19:16:41 EDT
I'm not sure, as W. O. seems to be, that  'understanding' is gradual. Many 
of our concepts are, granted: notably 'cabbage'  (see Grice on "Of cabbages 
and kings" in _Aspects of Reason_).

But with  'understand', I take it as synonym with 'know'.

I'm actually not terribly  interested in _all_ types of 'understanding'. 
Only in what Austin called  'uptake'.

A: I bet my grandmother is  dead.
B: ????


Austin notes, "Unless B  _signals_ in some way _something_, we cannot say 
that "A has betted" that A's  grandmother is dead. Betting _requires_ 
'uptake' on the part of the  addressee."

Now, the 'uptake' is a sort of understanding. With Grice is  even simpler:

If 'to mean' is "to intend your addressee to believe that  you hold a 
propositional attitude of force F", then, 'to understand' is to  _believe_ and 
_know_ what your co-conversationalist means.

Now, you  cannot _know_ what your co-conversationalist means (i.e. 
'understand' her)  unless you are _right_ about it.

Ergo, Q. E. D., W. O.'s ramble about the  gradual character of 
understanding is not just misguided but  wrong.

-----

Eco studied this. There's so-called  OVERinterpretation, which is 
NON-INTERPRETATION, i.e. mistake, rather than  uptake.

If I say,

"He was slightly intoxicated" (of a man known to  have destroyed all the 
furniture), to use Grice's example (WOW, iii)

I  will count as having been _understood_ if my co-conversationalist 
uptakes my  innuendo. It's not just sufficient that the co-conversationalist 
uptakes me at  the level of what is EXplicated (that 'he was slightly 
intoxicated') but at the  level of what is IMplicated (that I'm respectful of 
people 
and prefer to let  co-conversationalists read between the lines). Grice was 
concerned that in the  New World, people don't use innuendo a lot ("I love 
it!", "He was dead drunk!",  etc.)

Cheers,

JL Speranza

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[lit-ideas] Understanding as Factive

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