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Ideas for 'Thinking About Mathematics', 'Some Models for Implicature' and 'Assertion'

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6 ideas

19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 6. Meaning as Use
Grice said patterns of use are often semantically irrelevant, because it is a pragmatic matter [Grice, by Glock]
     Full Idea: The slogan that meaning is use came under scrutiny by Grice's theory of conversational implicature. He said patterns of use shown in analysis were often semantically irrelevant, snce they are due not meanings of expressions but to pragmatic principles.
     From: report of H. Paul Grice (Some Models for Implicature [1967]) by Hans-Johann Glock - What is Analytic Philosophy? 2.8
     A reaction: I think the simplest objection is that words only have use because they have a meaning; The most interesting part of pragmatics is what you DON'T say in conversation.
19. Language / F. Communication / 2. Assertion
An assertion aims to add to the content of a context [Stalnaker, by Magidor]
     Full Idea: Stalnaker starts with the general thesis that the role of a successful assertion of s is to update the context by adding to it the content of s.
     From: report of Robert C. Stalnaker (Assertion [1978]) by Ofra Magidor - Category Mistakes 5.3.2
     A reaction: This is to be compared with criteria of meaningfulness, such as verificationism, and with Grice's rules of conversational implicature. Presumably if you assert what the context presupposes, you fail to assert, without being meaningless.
19. Language / F. Communication / 5. Pragmatics / b. Implicature
Grice's maxim of quality says do not assert what you believe to be false [Grice, by Magidor]
     Full Idea: Grice's maxim of quality says one ought not to assert what one believes to be false.
     From: report of H. Paul Grice (Some Models for Implicature [1967]) by Ofra Magidor - Category Mistakes 5.2
     A reaction: The obvious exception is irony, where are truth is asserted, but the listener is supposed to spot that you are not really asserting it.
Grice's maxim of manner requires one to be as brief as possible [Grice, by Magidor]
     Full Idea: Grice's maxim of manner requires one to be as brief as possible.
     From: report of H. Paul Grice (Some Models for Implicature [1967]) by Ofra Magidor - Category Mistakes 5.2
     A reaction: An alternative maxim of conversation is that there should not be long silences between contributions - which would probably result if the contributions are all curtly abbreviated.
An assertion is an attempt to rule out certain possibilities, narrowing things down for good planning [Stalnaker, by Schroeter]
     Full Idea: Stalnaker's guiding idea is that in making an assertion the speaker is trying to get the audience to rule out certain possibilities. ....If all goes well, further planning will proceed on the basis of a smaller and more accurate range of possibilities.
     From: report of Robert C. Stalnaker (Assertion [1978]) by Laura Schroeter - Two-Dimensional Semantics
     A reaction: This sounds intuitively rather plausible, and is a nice original thought. This is what we pay clever chaps like Stalnaker to come up with. It seems to imply some notion of verisimilitude (qv. under 'truth'), depending on how much narrowing happens.
Grice's maxim of quantity says be sufficiently informative [Grice, by Magidor]
     Full Idea: Grice's maxim of quantity says 'make your contributions as informative as required'.
     From: report of H. Paul Grice (Some Models for Implicature [1967]) by Ofra Magidor - Category Mistakes 5.2
     A reaction: Is the 'requirement' of informative for the speaker or for the listener? It is easy to image situations where, one way or the other, the two people don't agree about informativenss.