Grice: Logic and Conversation

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  • Created by: A. Person
  • Created on: 21-12-15 17:43

Grice on Logic versus Ordinary Language

Grice's paper published against the backdrop of debate between formalists/informalists.

Informalists objected to the attempt to find an 'ideal language'. First, they noted the divergence between formal devices, and the natural language analogs. (i.e. exclusive versus inclusive disjunction). Additionally, they questioned the assumption that an expresion can be intelligible only if an analysis of meaning is available, and that this meaning take the form of logical equivalence.

Strawson argued that Russell's attempts to formalise the English language were mistaken, due to his confusion betwen sentences, and the uniquely referring use of sentences. Ultimately, meaning is inextricably linked to use. Thus, use, rather than literal meaning, is key to an adequate analysis of language, and this cannot be adequately captured by logic. 

Grice took a slightly different approach. He felt that logic could successfully deal with semantics, but is insensitive to pragmatics (branch of linguistics concerned with language in context in which it is used).

Crucially, Grice distinguishes between what's said, and what's implied. What's said - roughly, conventional meaning encoded into words and the way they're put together. What's implied - information conveyed beyond what is actually said.

Some Implications

You can have soup or salad. (Implied: you can't have both.)

John has two children. (Implied: John has exactly two children.)

Implication vs entailment

Implicature can be cancelled, unlike entailment. For example:

John ate two cookies logically entails that he ate some cookies.

But no contradiction arises when cancelling implication. i.e. 'John ate two…

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