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!

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"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!

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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.

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Plus, Grice, unlike Strawson, had a sense of humour!

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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!).

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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.