Speranza forgot, as it happens, the funnel.
The logical form cannot be what is written below (to see this, suffices to
observe than not having the identity condition of x and y being the same set,
we can have an arrest (which is the existent x) and an unexpected deat h of
castro (which is the y)
And so on,,,,,,,,,……….,,,,…..
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On ;
Behalf Of dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Sunday, November 27, 2016 6:50 PM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Rival Revivals: Implicatures and Beyond
Geary wrote:
i. There's the arrest of Gordon Golightly for the murder of Maxine and other
unexpected developments.
McEvoy commented:
"I found Gordon's arrest all too predictable. The cops were heavy-handed from
when they first came in, if I recall correctly, on page 34. But now I see
you've out-Griced me - by referring to "other unexpected developments" you
could be implicaturing "other developments that were also unexpected" or "other
developments which were, by contrast, unexpected". Which it is, I know not.
Therefore I cannot be sure that my finding Gordon's arrest all too predictable
is any kind of dissent from your claim that there are "other unexpected
developments". I wish I'd never discovered Grice and implicature. I wish my
life were simpler. I wish the Touro external harddrive 4tb were still available
at a reasonable price. I'm concerned for Gordon too."
We may have at play what Grice would call a 'scope implicature'. In this case,
the scope of 'unexpected' of course. In terms of logical form (or 'algebra,' as
Geary prefers) we might have:
ii. ExEy. Ax & Uy
where "A" stands for 'arrest' and "U" for 'unexpected'. There is an x, such as
that this x is an arrest, and there is an y, such as this y is an unexpected
development.
McEvoy might wonder why we don't formalize the 'other'. In "The Genealogy of
Disjunction," Jennings claims, rightly, that 'other', originally, meant
'second'. But bringing Jennings in here might be an instance of obscurus per
obscurius.
Then consider
iii. My brother likes paintings by Botticelli and other Italian masters.
Or
iv. My brother prefers Chianti or any other Italian wine to any French one!
In (iii) it seems to be a case of 'entailment,' rather than 'implicature', that
the utterer believes Botticelli is an Italian master. In (iv), it seems again
to be an entailment that the utterer believes (and rightly) that Chianti is an
Italian wine.
The case of implicature works on the assumption that Geary is FLOUTING Grice's
maxims. For example, he could have obviated the 'other':
v. Gordon gets arrested for the murder of Maxine. Add to this developments
which turn to be, unlike perhaps the aforementioned one, pretty unexpected.
That sounds clumsy and a flouting of Grice's maxim, "be brief". So if each word
in Geary's prose has its weight, we have to allow that the logical form of the
utterance (i) IMPLICATES that Geary believes that Gordon's arrest was
unexpected. The gloss on the addressee's part would run along the lines:
"Should Geary cared to let us know that he did NOT think Gordon's arrest (for
the murder of Maxine) was unexpected, he should have abbiden by Grice's maxim,
"Be as informative as is required" and EXPLICATE it. Since he didn't, he is
allowing maximal scope for 'U' in (ii), which becomes:
vi. ExEy. UAx & UDy
where I add "D" to stand for 'development' for symmetry purposes. And so on.
Cheers,
Speranza
