Re: Grice's indicative conditionals -- an interesting theory

"Davis Howard" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> I'm doing a report on Grice for an undergraduate philosophy class I'm
> taking, and I came across this post:
>
> http://philosophy.wisc.edu/920/_disc2/00000015.htm
>
> which suggests that Grice's theory might fall apart because it forces
> an infinite regress, the only way out of which is to say Grice's
> theory is wrong. I've heard a few arguments against Grice's theory,
> but never one like this...has anyone written on this infinite regress
> in Grice's work? If someone could provide any other references to
> explore Grice from this point of view, I would very much appreciate
> it...

9 Speaker Meaning

Grice's (1956) initial account of speaker meaning appealed to a
self-referential intention.

Speaker Meaning:

"A meantNN something by x" is roughly equivalent to "A uttered x with the
intention of inducing a belief by means of the recognition of this
 intention" (384).

Grice added, "This seems to involve a reflexive paradox, but it does not
really do so." Later, as various complications were noted, Grice (1969) and
Schiffer (1972) replaced the self-referential analysis with ones involving a
series of intentions, with later intentions about the earlier intentions.
This let to issues about the existence of the potentially infinite regress
of intentions required, issues that could have been avoided by staying with
self-referential formulations.

http://www.princeton.edu/~harman/Papers/Adler.html

[the reason there are so many ways to say the same thing is that "meaning"
is simply a (convergence) upon similar effects of particular perceptions,
irrelevent of truth or falsehood being relayed between people?] [he should
have also noted "ealier intentions about a range of future intentions to go
along with the future intentions about past intensions] [it appears to be an
extension in space AND time, though a series, there be no need to discard
the self-reference or iterations since the series makes the iteration float]

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Grice's concept of speaker's meaning was an ingenious refinement of the
crude idea that communication is a matter of intentionally affecting another
person's psychological states. He discovered that there is a distinctive,
rational means by which the effect is achieved: by way of getting one's
audience to recognize one's intention to achieve it. The intention includes,
as part of its content, that the audience recognize this very intention by
taking into account the fact that they are intended to recognize it. A
communicative intention is thus a self-referential, or reflexive, intention.
It does not involve a series of nested intentions --the speaker does not
have an intention to convey something and a further intention that the first
be recognized, for then this further intention would require a still further
intention that it be recognized, and so on ad infinitum. Confusing reflexive
with iterated intentions, to which even Grice himself was prone, led to an
extensive literature replete with counterexamples to ever more elaborate
characterizations of the intentions required for genuine communication (see,
e.g., Strawson 1964 and Schiffer 1972), and to the spurious objection that
it involves an infinite regress (see Sperber and Wilson 1986, whose own
"RELEVANCE" theory neglects the reflexivity of communicative intentions).
Although the idea of reflexive intentions raises subtle issues (see the
exchange between Recanati 1986 and Bach 1987), it clearly accounts for the
essentially overt character of communicative intentions, namely, that their
fulfillment consists their recognition (by the intended audience). This idea
forms the core of a Gricean approach to the theory of speech acts, including
nonliteral and indirect speech acts (Bach and Harnish 1979). Different types
of speech acts (statements, requests, apologies, etc.) may be distinguished
by the type of propositional attitude (belief, desire, regret etc.) being
expressed by the speaker.

http://libra.sfsu.edu/~kbach/grice.htm

[Iterative and recursive events are circular not straight lines of proofs
each depending upon the other before it. Iteration that feedback onto itself
what went before can alter its course by internal reference to points along
the circular chain.]

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A theory of meaning within a linguistic system is another goal of the New
Humanism, because, in pragmatic everyday practice and in literature, we do
mean things by making utterances in a language. Thus, in the spirit of the
above proof of the existential significance of Self, meaning exists, as
well. Structuralist and post-structuralist criticism seems to forget the
true purpose of language: to communicate. The importance of meaning as a
function of communication brings us to the need for a theory of
communication, if the meaning of meaning (or structurality of structure?) is
to be made explicit. What is it then for an utterer to mean something in a
language? Our model for determining this will be a Grice-Schiffer hybrid
(see Paul Grice's Studies in the Way of Words and Stephen Schiffer's
Meaning). This is an intentionalist approach in that it focuses on the
subject (also, the "self") as the source of the utterance and meaning as an
emergent property that occurs between the utter u and audience A. In the
modified, logical Gricean terms, the conception can be formed simplistically
as such:

an utterance p means x if utterer u intended to produce some effect E, in
audience A, and the E is produced by A's recognition of u's intention to
utter p to mean x (Grice 88).

The Schiffer side of the hybrid incorporates the notion of mutual knowledge*
in order to avoid the possibility of an infinite regress of intentions and
recognitions (e.g. u intends that A recognize that u intends that A
recognize that u intends that A recognizes that. . .). Mutual knowledge* is
the knowledge that A knows that p, and B knows that p, and A knows that B
knows that p, and B knows that A knows that p. In language and a definition
of meaning, it is the recognition on behalf of both the speaker, S, and the
audience, A, that there has been a precedence set in which x has taken on a
property in relation to a circumstance or fact that is the object of
expression p, such that when S wishes to express or mean p, S will utter x
(Schiffer 30-31). The * following knowledge is to make clear that the
mutuality of the knowledge is dependent upon the context of the environment
in which meaning is engendered. Thus, we have provisional account of what it
is to mean something pragmatically in a semiotic system.

http://www.janushead.org/JHSpg99/orr.cfm

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inary' language. Grice is also subject to criticism from the two
psychologists - for example, his idea of mutual knowledge is implausible in
psychological terms - for to be manifest is weaker than to know or assume
something, so is less implausible. Instead Sperber and Wilson posit a theory
of mutual manifestness, which does indeed sidestep the infinite regress of
Grice, and appeal to ostensive acts which alter the cognitive environment of
both speaker and audience.

Grice's notion of mutually accepted assumptions can also be criticised - in
order for both agents in a discourse to know they share mutual knowledge,
these assumptions need to be drawn by them both, and they both need to know
this fact as well, and so on ad infinitum. Since a cognitive environment
does not get caught in an infinite number of assumptions, Sperber and Wilson
state that it can explain situations where information is exploited in a
theory, unlike the Gricean perspective.

They also claim that communication in general has the aim of increasing "the
mutuality of the cognitive environment...rather than guarantee...strict
duplication of thoughts...", which of course is Grice's assertion of what
implicatures achieve. By claiming that the speaker only wants to alter his
own cognitive environment, not the thoughts of the hearer, Sperber and
Wilson escape this.

Sperber and Wilson, remember, posit two models - code and inferential, both
of which are essential to explain human discourse. Grice's maxims seem to
use just the inferential model, by inferring a set of conclusions from a set
of premises. Moreover, their principle of Relevance suggest the existence of
heuristics, some innate, some acquired via experience, and it implies that
there is a degree of relevance in all communication. This can be worked out
from contextual effect and processing effort. Grice merely appeals to us to
'be relevant' in his maxim of relation; further, that norms are acquired and
need to be known for proper communication. In contrast, Sperber and Wilson
argue that communicators do not follow their principle of relevance: indeed,
they could not violate it even if they so desired. The principle of
relevance is always commun ...

http://tinyurl.com/x8uj

[The assumption above, "Since a cognitive environment does not get caught in
an infinite number of assumptions" is very problematical and stands as no
condemnation of relationships in series be they circular or recursive]

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Good luck gotta go..here's the page I left off on:
http://tinyurl.com/x8v0