by J. L. S.
SO, I PROPOSE they are identical. We should find out if Carnap had another name than Rudolf, since I have my System GHP to read, a 'hopefully plausible' or 'highly powerful' version of Myro's System G (based on Grice's System Q, for Quine).
So I propose they are identical.
Once Virgil and Dante speak the same lingo, they can raise to the City!
----
More on this later. My point is really a hint to think of a specific quote by Carnap -- from his book he wrote to 'replace' Principia Mathematica (seeing how inflation was killing Germany) --. Basically System C, like System G, then would contain:
vocabulary
syntax -- inference rules
introduction and elimination of operators. I have of late concentrated on "~", but the points can be made more generally about logical operators in general, notably conectives.
semantics
pragmatics
---
The sketch for Grice's "System Q" in his "Vacuous Names" I have expanded at the Grice Club. I should provide specific quotes from that essay by Grice, I suppose, and I may!
Monday, May 31, 2010
Sunday, May 30, 2010
The conversation and de-construction
By Roger Bishop Jones, for The City of Eternal Truth
In the Grice Club Speranza has been talking about deconstructionism, and the discussion connects with the reasons for a recent pause in my attention to the Carnap/Grice conversation and the road to The City.
"The conversation" is an exercise in comparative analysis, in which we seek an understanding by each philosopher of the view of the other, and hope to discover substantial "sub-theories" of the ideas of each philosophy which are compatible and can provide a basis on which they could have built together.
To move forward in this enterprise I have to have straight in my head a method of comparative analysis which is capable of achieving such a reconciliation.
I had come to believe that such a method might be arrived at by some further development of my earlier conception of "X-Logic", itself a formal method, and of an informal version suitable for earlier stages in an analysis which might ultimately be formalised.
This squares with the idea which I put forward to The Grice Club that certain aspects of deconstructionism should be taken seriously in the articulation of methods for rational re-construction, so that pathologies in the target of analysis are fully explicated rather than glossed over, and can be focussed on in the analysis.
This is all rather ethereal perhaps, and will have to be articulated and illustrated more thoroughly, but perhaps give some idea why I think that progress on the Conversation depends for my part on progressing a new version of X-Logic, and on an account of how one can achieve similar effects in the first place by less formal means.
RBJ
In the Grice Club Speranza has been talking about deconstructionism, and the discussion connects with the reasons for a recent pause in my attention to the Carnap/Grice conversation and the road to The City.
"The conversation" is an exercise in comparative analysis, in which we seek an understanding by each philosopher of the view of the other, and hope to discover substantial "sub-theories" of the ideas of each philosophy which are compatible and can provide a basis on which they could have built together.
To move forward in this enterprise I have to have straight in my head a method of comparative analysis which is capable of achieving such a reconciliation.
I had come to believe that such a method might be arrived at by some further development of my earlier conception of "X-Logic", itself a formal method, and of an informal version suitable for earlier stages in an analysis which might ultimately be formalised.
This squares with the idea which I put forward to The Grice Club that certain aspects of deconstructionism should be taken seriously in the articulation of methods for rational re-construction, so that pathologies in the target of analysis are fully explicated rather than glossed over, and can be focussed on in the analysis.
This is all rather ethereal perhaps, and will have to be articulated and illustrated more thoroughly, but perhaps give some idea why I think that progress on the Conversation depends for my part on progressing a new version of X-Logic, and on an account of how one can achieve similar effects in the first place by less formal means.
RBJ
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Carnap and Grice discussed successively (almost) by Beaney
In his entry on "Analysis" at Stanford, Fregean scholar M. Beaney tells the story with some continuity. His section 7 is Carnap. His section 8 is Grice. Some commentary. From the site at:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/analysis/s6.html#7
Section 7 is thus entitled, "Carnap".
Some fragments with commentary:
"influenced not only by Frege, Russell and Wittgenstein but also by neo-Kantianism (see Friedman 2000, Richardson 1998)."
I was surprised to read in the "Finding Aid to Grice" that he has joint work with this M. Friedman on universalia!
---
"to be ‘constructed’ by quasi-analysis, a method that mimics analysis in yielding ‘quasi-constituents’, but which proceeds ‘synthetically’ rather than ‘analytically’ (1928, §§ 69, 74)."
This seems to trade on "analysis" as a mathematical practice, and Grice would have favoured that. Perhaps Aristotle is given too much credit with the invention of "analysis" -- his "Analytica priora and posteriora", but perhaps, analysis, qua analysis, is after all, a mathematical conception (Descartes).
Beaney quotes from Carnap 1936:143:
“The logical analysis of a particular expression
consists in the setting-up of a linguistic system
and the placing of that expression in this system.”
He also quotes from the later, "Meaning and Necessity" (1947):
"The task of making more exact a vague
or not quite exact concept used in everyday life
or in an earlier stage of scientific or logical
development, or rather of replacing it by a newly
constructed, more exact concept, belongs among the most
important tasks of logical analysis and logical construction.
We call this the task of explicating, or of giving an
explication for, the earlier concept."
(1947, 7-8)
Beaney concludes his discussion of Carnap with quotations from the still later, "Logical Foundations of Probability" and the idea that temperature is an elucidation of warmth. He notes the longitudinal unity of this conception of analysis which Beaney traces to the Greeks and Descartes on geometry.
The next section 8, is "Oxford Linguistic Philosophy"
Alas there is no explicit mention of Grice, but if Beaney is reading all the profusive quotes by Frege that Horn is bringing to the forum in his discussion of F-implicature, he SHOULD start quoting Grice more often!
Beaney dedicates a whole passage to Ryle, which Grice saw as too senior for consideration. Ryle had been born in 1900, and the post-war philosophers of Austin´s group -- to which Grice belonged -- found his figure too "fatherly". THEY were supposed to be doing philosophy, not aplying it.
Beaney discusses Austin, whom Jones-Speranza regard as ´prototype´ for the type of analysis from which Grice departs and refines.
Beaney notes:
"J. L. Austin ... emphasized the need to pay careful attention to our ordinary use of language, although he has been criticized for valuing subtle linguistic distinctions for their own sake."
Whose sake?
"He was influential in the creation of speech-act theory, with such distinctions as that between locutionary, illocutionary and perlocutionary acts (Austin 1962a)."
Grice does use the idea of a "central speech act" (sic, in WoW:vi) but without the dogmas. He was of course more onto the assertion-implication distintion, which he was attracted to, as Austin was with his own theory, for methodological rather than substantive reasons.
Beaney jumps from Austin to Strawson -- who was Grice´s student.
"P.F. Strawson, whose critique of Russell’s theory of descriptions in his own seminal paper of 1950, ‘On Referring’, and his Introduction to Logical Theory of 1952 had also helped establish ordinary language philosophy as a counterweight to the tradition of ... Carnap."
--- with caveats. Grice gets TWO mentions in that book. In the preface, and in a pretty famous (among Griceians) footnote, where Strawson discusses the "pragmatic rules" of ´implicature´. In fact in his earlier "On referring", Strawson HAD used "imply" to mark this important non-logical relation, which he later re-baptised "presupposing". The important difference is of course metaphysical: truth-value gaps are a no-no for Grice.
Beaney notes:
"The appearance of Individuals in 1959 and The Bounds of Sense in 1966 signalled a return to metaphysics, but it was a metaphysics that Strawson called ‘descriptive’ (as opposed to ‘revisionary’) metaphysics, aimed at clarifying our fundamental conceptual frameworks."
Grice suggests that he regrets Strawson never cared to mention him in THAT book. Grice always kept the notes on "Categories" -- some archival material cited by Chapman in her biography of Grice --. So, this is indeed a Griceian-Strawsonian joint thing. Grice became less and less descriptive as time went by an self-confessed revisionary.
Beaney:
"It is here that we can see how ‘connective’ analysis has replaced ‘reductive’ analysis; and this shift was explicitly discussed in the work Strawson published shortly after he retired, Analysis and Metaphysics (1992)."
Strawson perhaps published one book too many!
----
Note that he also reprinted his contribution to the Grice festschrift, "If and -->" in his own "Identity and Entity". What´s the good of a festschrift if you are going to publish the "contribution" elsewhere? At least on principle he never let himself published his joint "Defense of a dogma" with Grice in his own publications!
Beaney:
"Strawson notes that analysis has often been thought of as “a kind of breaking down or decomposing of something” (1992, 2), but points out that it also has a more comprehensive sense (1992, 19), which he draws on in offering a ‘connective model’ of analysis to contrast with the ‘reductive or atomistic model’ (1992, 21). Our most basic concepts, on this view, are ‘irreducible’, but not ‘simple’."
--- This is so complex, and one wonders. Strawson is influential for BEANEY, because Beaney is a Brit and Strawson is a Brit. Grice had become an American by then, but give me Grice anyday!
Beaney continues:
"A concept may be complex, in the sense that its philosophical elucidation requires the establishing of its connections with other concepts, and yet at the same time irreducible, in the sense that it cannot be defined away, without circularity, in terms of those other concepts to which it is necessarily related. (1992, 22-3)
Such a view is not new."
I rather prefer Grice´s clearer reflections on reductive versus reductionist analysis in his WoW: Retrospective Epilogue.
----
Plus, Grice, unlike Strawson, had a sense of humour!
----
Beaney refers, "for further discussion". to Baldwin 2001; Beaney 2007b; Hacker 1996, ch. 6; Lyons 1980; Passmore 1966, ch. 18; Rorty 1967; Stroll 2000, ch. 6; Warnock 1989."
--- of which Warnock, the best. Grice´s English teacher biographer, Siobhan Chapman, keeps quoting Warnock as G. C., which confuses me! He was Sir Geoffrey James, and Vice-Chancelor of the only university that should have one: Oxford.
Hacker succeeded Gordon Baker (festschriftist for Hart and Grice) as tutorial fellow at St. John´s, so the least thing he can do is quote from Grice. But Hacker, like, alas, D. F. Pears, has turned into a Wittersian, leaving all traces of Griceanism implicaturish wit behind! (He has Witt, rather!).
---
Passmore is a good one. A total Colonial. I loved that footnote in "Hundred Years": "There´s this ingenious fellow, Grice, who has written so little it scares". Or words.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/analysis/s6.html#7
Section 7 is thus entitled, "Carnap".
Some fragments with commentary:
"influenced not only by Frege, Russell and Wittgenstein but also by neo-Kantianism (see Friedman 2000, Richardson 1998)."
I was surprised to read in the "Finding Aid to Grice" that he has joint work with this M. Friedman on universalia!
---
"to be ‘constructed’ by quasi-analysis, a method that mimics analysis in yielding ‘quasi-constituents’, but which proceeds ‘synthetically’ rather than ‘analytically’ (1928, §§ 69, 74)."
This seems to trade on "analysis" as a mathematical practice, and Grice would have favoured that. Perhaps Aristotle is given too much credit with the invention of "analysis" -- his "Analytica priora and posteriora", but perhaps, analysis, qua analysis, is after all, a mathematical conception (Descartes).
Beaney quotes from Carnap 1936:143:
“The logical analysis of a particular expression
consists in the setting-up of a linguistic system
and the placing of that expression in this system.”
He also quotes from the later, "Meaning and Necessity" (1947):
"The task of making more exact a vague
or not quite exact concept used in everyday life
or in an earlier stage of scientific or logical
development, or rather of replacing it by a newly
constructed, more exact concept, belongs among the most
important tasks of logical analysis and logical construction.
We call this the task of explicating, or of giving an
explication for, the earlier concept."
(1947, 7-8)
Beaney concludes his discussion of Carnap with quotations from the still later, "Logical Foundations of Probability" and the idea that temperature is an elucidation of warmth. He notes the longitudinal unity of this conception of analysis which Beaney traces to the Greeks and Descartes on geometry.
The next section 8, is "Oxford Linguistic Philosophy"
Alas there is no explicit mention of Grice, but if Beaney is reading all the profusive quotes by Frege that Horn is bringing to the forum in his discussion of F-implicature, he SHOULD start quoting Grice more often!
Beaney dedicates a whole passage to Ryle, which Grice saw as too senior for consideration. Ryle had been born in 1900, and the post-war philosophers of Austin´s group -- to which Grice belonged -- found his figure too "fatherly". THEY were supposed to be doing philosophy, not aplying it.
Beaney discusses Austin, whom Jones-Speranza regard as ´prototype´ for the type of analysis from which Grice departs and refines.
Beaney notes:
"J. L. Austin ... emphasized the need to pay careful attention to our ordinary use of language, although he has been criticized for valuing subtle linguistic distinctions for their own sake."
Whose sake?
"He was influential in the creation of speech-act theory, with such distinctions as that between locutionary, illocutionary and perlocutionary acts (Austin 1962a)."
Grice does use the idea of a "central speech act" (sic, in WoW:vi) but without the dogmas. He was of course more onto the assertion-implication distintion, which he was attracted to, as Austin was with his own theory, for methodological rather than substantive reasons.
Beaney jumps from Austin to Strawson -- who was Grice´s student.
"P.F. Strawson, whose critique of Russell’s theory of descriptions in his own seminal paper of 1950, ‘On Referring’, and his Introduction to Logical Theory of 1952 had also helped establish ordinary language philosophy as a counterweight to the tradition of ... Carnap."
--- with caveats. Grice gets TWO mentions in that book. In the preface, and in a pretty famous (among Griceians) footnote, where Strawson discusses the "pragmatic rules" of ´implicature´. In fact in his earlier "On referring", Strawson HAD used "imply" to mark this important non-logical relation, which he later re-baptised "presupposing". The important difference is of course metaphysical: truth-value gaps are a no-no for Grice.
Beaney notes:
"The appearance of Individuals in 1959 and The Bounds of Sense in 1966 signalled a return to metaphysics, but it was a metaphysics that Strawson called ‘descriptive’ (as opposed to ‘revisionary’) metaphysics, aimed at clarifying our fundamental conceptual frameworks."
Grice suggests that he regrets Strawson never cared to mention him in THAT book. Grice always kept the notes on "Categories" -- some archival material cited by Chapman in her biography of Grice --. So, this is indeed a Griceian-Strawsonian joint thing. Grice became less and less descriptive as time went by an self-confessed revisionary.
Beaney:
"It is here that we can see how ‘connective’ analysis has replaced ‘reductive’ analysis; and this shift was explicitly discussed in the work Strawson published shortly after he retired, Analysis and Metaphysics (1992)."
Strawson perhaps published one book too many!
----
Note that he also reprinted his contribution to the Grice festschrift, "If and -->" in his own "Identity and Entity". What´s the good of a festschrift if you are going to publish the "contribution" elsewhere? At least on principle he never let himself published his joint "Defense of a dogma" with Grice in his own publications!
Beaney:
"Strawson notes that analysis has often been thought of as “a kind of breaking down or decomposing of something” (1992, 2), but points out that it also has a more comprehensive sense (1992, 19), which he draws on in offering a ‘connective model’ of analysis to contrast with the ‘reductive or atomistic model’ (1992, 21). Our most basic concepts, on this view, are ‘irreducible’, but not ‘simple’."
--- This is so complex, and one wonders. Strawson is influential for BEANEY, because Beaney is a Brit and Strawson is a Brit. Grice had become an American by then, but give me Grice anyday!
Beaney continues:
"A concept may be complex, in the sense that its philosophical elucidation requires the establishing of its connections with other concepts, and yet at the same time irreducible, in the sense that it cannot be defined away, without circularity, in terms of those other concepts to which it is necessarily related. (1992, 22-3)
Such a view is not new."
I rather prefer Grice´s clearer reflections on reductive versus reductionist analysis in his WoW: Retrospective Epilogue.
----
Plus, Grice, unlike Strawson, had a sense of humour!
----
Beaney refers, "for further discussion". to Baldwin 2001; Beaney 2007b; Hacker 1996, ch. 6; Lyons 1980; Passmore 1966, ch. 18; Rorty 1967; Stroll 2000, ch. 6; Warnock 1989."
--- of which Warnock, the best. Grice´s English teacher biographer, Siobhan Chapman, keeps quoting Warnock as G. C., which confuses me! He was Sir Geoffrey James, and Vice-Chancelor of the only university that should have one: Oxford.
Hacker succeeded Gordon Baker (festschriftist for Hart and Grice) as tutorial fellow at St. John´s, so the least thing he can do is quote from Grice. But Hacker, like, alas, D. F. Pears, has turned into a Wittersian, leaving all traces of Griceanism implicaturish wit behind! (He has Witt, rather!).
---
Passmore is a good one. A total Colonial. I loved that footnote in "Hundred Years": "There´s this ingenious fellow, Grice, who has written so little it scares". Or words.
Carno-Griceana
In private conversation, R. B. Jones has used "Carno-Gricean" which I think is very good. So I´ll start using. You know, Google.com never knows!
Rehashed Diagram
The diagram has been under discussion at The Grice Club, but on reflection I reworked it a bit, and post the latest version here again.
In theory the Speranza - Jones Carnap/Grice conversation project is spread across the three blogs (Carnap Corner, Grice Club and here), and the bit of the conversation which belongs here is the bit in which we extrapolate from the developments in the philosophies of Carnap and Grice which actually happened, via further evolution of a similar kind, to the realisation of a common conception of The City of Eternal Truth (or at least to mutually compatible conceptions).
So here is the latest diagram:
In theory the Speranza - Jones Carnap/Grice conversation project is spread across the three blogs (Carnap Corner, Grice Club and here), and the bit of the conversation which belongs here is the bit in which we extrapolate from the developments in the philosophies of Carnap and Grice which actually happened, via further evolution of a similar kind, to the realisation of a common conception of The City of Eternal Truth (or at least to mutually compatible conceptions).
So here is the latest diagram:
Sunday, May 2, 2010
I thought I would try a picture for discussion:
RBJ
Change of Meaning, Change of Belief
This below is meant as comment to Jones's point in "I propose this as interesting stuff for Carnap-Grice interface", THIS BLOG.
---
Good.
So, indeed, if we change our minds about meaning we change our linguistic frameworks. Even that bit may need some elucidation.
Let me rephrase the abstract bit by bit. Actually, I'm a bit familiar with H. Arlo Costa's theory on this. It seems quite a problem for formalists of the logic of belief. So I supposed that for Carno-Griceian studies it may do, too.
The authors of the essay cited above write in the abstract:
"One of the standard principles of rationality guiding traditional accounts of belief change is the principle of minimal change: a reasoner's belief corpus should be modified in a minimal fashion when assimilating new information."
I was thinking of Carno-Griceian ways out to Quine. Recall Grice's and Strawson's TWO examples. One as a reply to a synthetically false sentence, another to an analytically false sentence:
A: My neighbour's three-year old child understands Russell's theory of types.
B: That's almost unbelievable!
----
versus:
A: My neighbour's three-year-old child is an adult.
B: I won't BELIEVE THAT.
----
For Grice and Strawson, the second scenario is BEYOND belief, as it were. But of course, one may adopt the linguistic framework of one's interlocutor and DO COME to 'understand', and then perhaps 'believe'.
The authors continue:
"This rationality principle has stood belief change in good stead. However, it does not deal properly with all belief change scenarios."
Another case that I have considered in extenso elsewhere is what I called "Speranza": a machine unable to understand novel metaphors. Like, "Meaning is a dinosaur", or "My brother had an abortion". Or things like that. I should revise the cases. But the point is that there seems to be a LEAP at some point and that it's very bold of an interpreter to deal with a metaphor, because, when taken literally, metaphors are obviously FALSE.
The authors go on:
"We introduce a novel account of belief change motivated by one of Grice's maxims of conversational implicature: the reasoner's belief corpus is modified in a minimal fashion to assimilate exactly the new information."
-----
So, here we do need to formalise, to see what's going on if the 'change of 'our minds'' is about meaning or what.
First we should consider just synthetic change of belief.
"Is it raining?"
"No. It's not."
"Oh. I thought it was. Thanks for informing."
So here we have a change from
B(A, -p)
to
B(A, p)
Not tragic.
"Is it raining?"
"No. It's pouring!"
--- Here the case is impicatural. I take the answer as being FALSE. Pouring IS a kind of rain!
----
"Is it raining?"
"Yes. Cats and dogs".
"Whoa?"
"It's raining cats and dogs".
"I hope you are being figurative".
---- This may be one silly case, but suppose that the utterer A refuses to use "to rain cats and dogs" even figuratively. So he may need to translate that silly idiom into something he will understand, "very hard".
----
Finally we get to the cases of meaning postulates:
First the synthetic scenario:
B (A, - 'Tim understands Russell's theory of Types')
to
B (A, 'Tim understands Russell's theory of types')
In this, I'm not sure there is a change of belief involved, since U never actually DISBELIEVED that the 3-year-old child understood it.
So, we get to the 'trick' case:
B(A, -'A 3-year-old child is an adult')
to
B(A, 'A 3-year-old child is an adult')
Since one's interlocutor is actually saying that a 3-year-old child is an adult, and possibly believing it, how do we change our belief about meaning?
There must be more obvious cases. Another one would be the taste of twater for Putnan. I see that Barbara Abbott wrote about this for the Aristotelian Society.
Or consider Copernicus:
"I used to believe that the sun went around the earth, but I changed my mind."
---- No change of meaning involved. But surely there are such changes of meaning in the history of science. Indeed, that was Quine's point about Duhem, etc.
I can't think of one! Perhaps Einstein's ideas as 'changing the meaning' of 'time' and 'space' (notably space) as the idea was understood in Newtonian physics? Etc.
---
Good.
So, indeed, if we change our minds about meaning we change our linguistic frameworks. Even that bit may need some elucidation.
Let me rephrase the abstract bit by bit. Actually, I'm a bit familiar with H. Arlo Costa's theory on this. It seems quite a problem for formalists of the logic of belief. So I supposed that for Carno-Griceian studies it may do, too.
The authors of the essay cited above write in the abstract:
"One of the standard principles of rationality guiding traditional accounts of belief change is the principle of minimal change: a reasoner's belief corpus should be modified in a minimal fashion when assimilating new information."
I was thinking of Carno-Griceian ways out to Quine. Recall Grice's and Strawson's TWO examples. One as a reply to a synthetically false sentence, another to an analytically false sentence:
A: My neighbour's three-year old child understands Russell's theory of types.
B: That's almost unbelievable!
----
versus:
A: My neighbour's three-year-old child is an adult.
B: I won't BELIEVE THAT.
----
For Grice and Strawson, the second scenario is BEYOND belief, as it were. But of course, one may adopt the linguistic framework of one's interlocutor and DO COME to 'understand', and then perhaps 'believe'.
The authors continue:
"This rationality principle has stood belief change in good stead. However, it does not deal properly with all belief change scenarios."
Another case that I have considered in extenso elsewhere is what I called "Speranza": a machine unable to understand novel metaphors. Like, "Meaning is a dinosaur", or "My brother had an abortion". Or things like that. I should revise the cases. But the point is that there seems to be a LEAP at some point and that it's very bold of an interpreter to deal with a metaphor, because, when taken literally, metaphors are obviously FALSE.
The authors go on:
"We introduce a novel account of belief change motivated by one of Grice's maxims of conversational implicature: the reasoner's belief corpus is modified in a minimal fashion to assimilate exactly the new information."
-----
So, here we do need to formalise, to see what's going on if the 'change of 'our minds'' is about meaning or what.
First we should consider just synthetic change of belief.
"Is it raining?"
"No. It's not."
"Oh. I thought it was. Thanks for informing."
So here we have a change from
B(A, -p)
to
B(A, p)
Not tragic.
"Is it raining?"
"No. It's pouring!"
--- Here the case is impicatural. I take the answer as being FALSE. Pouring IS a kind of rain!
----
"Is it raining?"
"Yes. Cats and dogs".
"Whoa?"
"It's raining cats and dogs".
"I hope you are being figurative".
---- This may be one silly case, but suppose that the utterer A refuses to use "to rain cats and dogs" even figuratively. So he may need to translate that silly idiom into something he will understand, "very hard".
----
Finally we get to the cases of meaning postulates:
First the synthetic scenario:
B (A, - 'Tim understands Russell's theory of Types')
to
B (A, 'Tim understands Russell's theory of types')
In this, I'm not sure there is a change of belief involved, since U never actually DISBELIEVED that the 3-year-old child understood it.
So, we get to the 'trick' case:
B(A, -'A 3-year-old child is an adult')
to
B(A, 'A 3-year-old child is an adult')
Since one's interlocutor is actually saying that a 3-year-old child is an adult, and possibly believing it, how do we change our belief about meaning?
There must be more obvious cases. Another one would be the taste of twater for Putnan. I see that Barbara Abbott wrote about this for the Aristotelian Society.
Or consider Copernicus:
"I used to believe that the sun went around the earth, but I changed my mind."
---- No change of meaning involved. But surely there are such changes of meaning in the history of science. Indeed, that was Quine's point about Duhem, etc.
I can't think of one! Perhaps Einstein's ideas as 'changing the meaning' of 'time' and 'space' (notably space) as the idea was understood in Newtonian physics? Etc.
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Stekeler cites Grice and Carnap in abstract to his essay
"The project of developing a pragmatic theory of meaning aims at an antimetaphysical, therefore antirepresentationalist and antisubjectivist, analysis of truth and reference. In order to understand this project we have to remember the turns of twists given to Frege's and Wittgenstein's original idea of inferential semantics (with Kant and Hegel as predecessors) in later developments like formal axiomatic theories (Hilbert, Tarski, Carnap), regularist behaviorism (Quine), mental regulism and interpretationism (Chomsky, Davidson), social behaviorism (Sellars, Millikan), intentionalism (Grice), conventionalism (D. Lewis), justificational theories (Dummett, Lorenzen) and, finally, Brandom's normative pragmatics."
I propose this as interesting stuff for Grice/Carnap interface
Gricean Belief Change
Authors:Delgrande, James P
Nayak, Abhaya C
Pagnucco, Maurice
Source:Studia Logica: An International Journal for Symbolic Logic, 79(1), 97-113. 17 p. February 2005.
Document Type:Journal Article
Subjects:BELIEF
CONVERSATIONAL IMPLICATURE
LOGIC
REVISION
SEMANTICS
Persons as Subjects:GRICE, H PAUL
Abstract:One of the standard principles of rationality guiding traditional accounts of belief change is the principle of minimal change: a reasoner's belief corpus should be modified in a minimal fashion when assimilating new information. This rationality principle has stood belief change in good stead. However, it does not deal properly with all belief change scenarios. We introduce a novel account of belief change motivated by one of Grice's maxims of conversational implicature: the reasoner's belief corpus is modified in a minimal fashion to assimilate exactly the new information.
----
The idea:
Carnap seems to suggest that if we change our 'minds', we change the linguistic framework.
Grice seems more consistent with 'ordinary usage' here?
Authors:Delgrande, James P
Nayak, Abhaya C
Pagnucco, Maurice
Source:Studia Logica: An International Journal for Symbolic Logic, 79(1), 97-113. 17 p. February 2005.
Document Type:Journal Article
Subjects:BELIEF
CONVERSATIONAL IMPLICATURE
LOGIC
REVISION
SEMANTICS
Persons as Subjects:GRICE, H PAUL
Abstract:One of the standard principles of rationality guiding traditional accounts of belief change is the principle of minimal change: a reasoner's belief corpus should be modified in a minimal fashion when assimilating new information. This rationality principle has stood belief change in good stead. However, it does not deal properly with all belief change scenarios. We introduce a novel account of belief change motivated by one of Grice's maxims of conversational implicature: the reasoner's belief corpus is modified in a minimal fashion to assimilate exactly the new information.
----
The idea:
Carnap seems to suggest that if we change our 'minds', we change the linguistic framework.
Grice seems more consistent with 'ordinary usage' here?
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