more from this thinker | more from this text
Full Idea
Only what I may call the primary intention of an utterer is relevant to the (non-natural) meaning of an utterance.
Gist of Idea
Only the utterer's primary intention is relevant to the meaning
Source
H. Paul Grice (Meaning [1957], p.47)
Book Ref
'Philosophical Logic', ed/tr. Strawson,P.F. [OUP 1973], p.47
A Reaction
This sounds okay for simple statements, but gets really tricky with complex statements, such as very ironic remarks delivered to an audience of diverse people.
| 5280 | Language co-exists with consciousness, and makes it social [Marx/Engels] |
| 13977 | When I utter a sentence, listeners grasp both my meaning and my state of mind [Ryle] |
| 7751 | Meaning needs an intention to induce a belief, and a recognition that this is the speaker's intention [Grice] |
| 7752 | Only the utterer's primary intention is relevant to the meaning [Grice] |
| 7753 | We judge linguistic intentions rather as we judge non-linguistic intentions, so they are alike [Grice] |
| 15668 | Meaning is not fixed by a relation to the external world, but a relation to other speakers [Habermas, by Finlayson] |
| 2482 | It seems unlikely that meaning can be reduced to communicative intentions, or any mental states [Fodor] |
| 2998 | Grice thinks meaning is inherited from the propositional attitudes which sentences express [Fodor] |
| 4690 | If meaning is speaker's intentions, it can be reduced to propositional attitudes, and philosophy of mind [McGinn] |