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Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Meaning Postulates for "Refudiate"

Since I discovered the Palindrone [sic], 'refudiate', in yesterday's Newsweek, I've been having a field day at the Grice Club.

I wonder about meaning postulates, an archaism from Carnap (I mean, as Jones will tell us, he disallowed the notion in later writings).

Consider this from an online source for the defense of Palin's neologism, 'refudiate':

"a conjunction of repudiate (i.e., renounce the planned building) and refute (i.e., dispute the notion that it is necessary and appropriate at that exact location)."

Grice is never so strict as Carnap is that for any predicate we should provide, in System C-sub-R, with a 'meaning-postulate'. For Grice, the meaning-intention is constitutive. If Palin meant that the mosque plan should be 'refudiated', she obviously (we hope) meant that that was a negative-attitude that was being promoted, one attitude like repudiation and refutation and refuse. Since there was no covertness in her intention, she MEANT that, or HOPED to mean that.