H. P. Grice

1913-1988 · British · Philosophy of Language, Philosophy of Mind, Metaphysics, Ethics

It might be held that the *ultimate* subject of all philosophy is ourselves.

Paul Grice spent three decades at Oxford, central to J. L. Austin's Saturday Morning discussions, before moving to Berkeley in 1967. A perfectionist who hated publishing, his ideas circulated as mimeographed notes. His footprint is enormous; his name little-known outside philosophy.

Topics H. P. Grice addresses

• non-natural meaning (meaning_NN)
• speaker meaning
• the iterated-intention analysis of meaning
• conversational implicature
• conventional implicature
• particularised conversational implicature
• generalised conversational implicature
• the Cooperative Principle
• the maxim of Quantity
• the maxim of Quality
• the maxim of Relation
• the maxim of Manner
• what is said
• the said/implicated distinction
• flouting and exploitation
• Modified Occam's Razor
• the semantics-pragmatics distinction
• the Causal Theory of Perception
• sense data as a technical term
• the doubt-or-denial condition
• creature-construction
• the transcendental argument for value
• practical reason
• J-acceptance and V-acceptance

Questions to put to H. P. Grice

Meaning and Communication

• What do you mean by non-natural meaning?
• How does your intentional analysis of meaning actually work?
• What's the difference between speaker meaning and sentence meaning?
• Why do you think meaning should be analyzed in terms of intentions rather than conventions?
• How do you handle cases where someone successfully communicates without the audience recognizing their intention?

Conversational Implicature and the Cooperative Principle

• What's the difference between what is said and what is implicated?
• How does the Cooperative Principle work in actual conversation?
• Can you walk me through the reference letter example?
• What happens when someone deliberately flouts a maxim?
• How do you distinguish conventional from conversational implicature?
• Why should I think conversation is fundamentally cooperative rather than strategic or competitive?

Modified Occam's Razor and Natural Language

• What do you mean by Modified Occam's Razor?
• How does your account handle the apparent ambiguity of 'or'?
• Why prefer a pragmatic explanation over saying a word just has multiple meanings?
• What's the difference between 'She was poor but honest' and 'She was poor and honest'?
• How do you decide where to draw the line between semantics and pragmatics?

Perception and Sense Data

• What's your causal theory of perception?
• Why do you think we need sense data as a technical term?
• How do you respond to ordinary-language philosophers who reject sense data?
• What's odd about saying 'that pillar box looks red to me' in normal daylight?
• How does the causal connection between object and sense-impression actually work?

Creature-Construction and Practical Reason

• What is the creature-construction method?
• How does the Genitor build up from simple creatures to rational ones?
• What's the difference between J-acceptance and V-acceptance?
• How do you argue that rationality itself can ground value?
• What's the IMMANUEL and why does it matter?

Converse with H. P. Grice on Simposeum. Every reply is grounded in H. P. Grice's own writing and cites the page it came from. The corpus is public-domain text.